2013年公共英语四级听力精选voa资料8
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Africa Sees Strong Economic Growth The World Bank says while the global economic recovery remains slow, sub-Saharan African countries continue to grow at a strong pace. The bank has released its latest economic forecast for the region. Four years after the start of the economic crisis, the World Bank describes the global recovery as “tepid,” especially in the euro zone. Sub-Saharan Africa, on the other hand, has some of the fastest growing economies in the world, thanks to domestic demand and commodity prices that remain high. That’s according to the latest edition of the World Bank report called Africa’s Pulse. “The report finds that Africa has been growing at a sustained, robust pace in 2012 and the region grew by 4.7 percent, which is double the rate of growth of the global economy. And this growth is impressive because it is in spite of the tepid and weak recovery that the global economy was experiencing in 2012,” said Punam Chuhan-Pole, lead economist for the Africa region, who is the co-author. She said that if you exclude South Africa, which was hit by the recession, the sub-Saharan economy actually grew by 5.8 percent. Some individual countries had an even higher growth rate. Several countries, such as Ethiopia, Rwanda, Ghana have managed to grow at 7 percent or more in each of the past three years. That means 2010, ’11 and ’12. And several other countries have also been growing at a strong pace, for example, Nigeria, Zambia, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Despite the slow global recovery, Foreign Direct Investment, or FDI, actually increased in sub-Saharan Africa by 5.5 percent to $37.7 billion in 2012. In fact, it continued to grow in Africa while falling elsewhere in the developing world. Chuhan-Pole also said domestic spending rose, as did government spending in infrastructure. “So with government capital spending increasing to meet some of the large gaps in power and transportation, energy, Africa’s investment has been rising. Also, private consumption has been supported by declining inflation as well as lower interest rates and also easier access to credit. In addition, agricultural income in several countries increased. So all of this has helped to keep private consumption rising,” she said. 相关资料 |
