Unit 5 Trade

listening and viewing

Text A

Fairtrade—let’s be fair about trade

Walmart, America’s — and the world’s — largest retailer promises “Always low prices.” This is what consumers want — a bargain. But how can big retailers afford to make their prices so low, so attractive? What they do not do is cutting their own profits to reduce prices. They pass those “low prices” along the supply chain to the producers. The producers then have to pass on the cost of cheap production to their workers, i.e. they can only pay them minimum wages or less. 

“We used to be well paid for meeting our targets. We were even sometimes rewarded with a bonus,” Chandrila, a Sri Lankan textile worker reports. “But now the targets are so high that we cannot meet them. In fact we have difficulty meeting our daily quota.”

Rasmas, a fruit picker from South Africa, says, “As a casual worker I get paid on a day-to-day basis and it all depends on how much I pick. And with the wages I earn, I can only just feed my family. My wife and I often go to bed hungry.” 

Ann, a Romanian factory worker, has lost hope of any decent future for herself or her husband. “The only thing we want is a decent education for our children.”

5.1

The solution is Fairtrade.

Fairtrade is a simple yet very important idea — it’s about giving the people who produce the things that we buy a fair price for their work. This may seem obvious, but lots of people in poorer countries have to sell their goods at prices so low that they can’t make a decent living. Often, only a tiny bit of the money we pay for something goes to the person who actually made it. This happens a lot when we import things from poorer countries. Did you know that nearly half the people in the world have to live on less than $2 a day? How would you feel if you only received a very small part of the money you deserved for working hard?

This is where the Fairtrade Foundation comes in.

The Fairtrade Foundation was set up to help producers in poorer countries get a fair price for their work. So when you buy something with a Fairtrade logo on it, you know that a fair amount of the money is helping the community and the workers where your purchase came from. This extra money is usually put into things that can help the local community — like bicycles to help workers travel to work or new wells to provide water. As well as making sure that people get the money they deserve for the work they do, the Fairtrade Foundation makes sure that all their products come from farms and factories with fair working conditions. This means that workers are treated well, and children like Ann’s can go to school.

There are many everyday foods and products that you can buy with Fairtrade. The products range from food produce, such as coffee, through craft products, to fashion clothing, and are easily identifiable with a special Fairtrade label. The label is now recognised widely and sales are rising by up to 50% per year. Consumers realise they are buying a quality product at a competitive price while helping the producer. Instead of increasing the profits of the middlemen, their purchases are building a future for some of the world’s poorest people.

“公平贸易”——贸易要公平 

美国乃至全世界最大的零售企业沃尔玛承诺“天天低价”，这自然是消费者想要的——实惠。但是，大型零售商们是如何做到把价格定得如此之低、如此打动人心的呢？他们肯定不会减少自己的利润来降低价格。他们把“平价”的指标转移到了供应链上的生产商身上，生产商则不得不把低价生产的成本转加到工人身上，也就是说工人只能领到最低工资，甚至更少。

“以前，我们只要完成生产指标就能获得不错的报酬，有时甚至还能拿到奖金。”来自斯里兰卡的纺织工人千瑞拉说道，“但现在，生产指标完全不可能达到。事实上，我们完成每天的定额都很困难。”

 来自南非的果农拉斯莫斯说：“我是临时工，做一天领一天的钱，能领到多少要看我摘了多少水果。我拿到的这点钱只够给孩子买吃的。我和妻子经常饿着肚子睡觉。”

来自罗马尼亚的工厂工人安对自己和丈夫的未来根本没有指望：“我们唯一的希望就是孩子能接受良好的教育。”

解决办法就是”公平贸易”运动。

“公平贸易”是一个简单却非常重要的概念——就是让我们购买的物品的生产者获得公平的劳动报酬。这一点似乎理所应当，但很多贫穷国家的人不得不以低价出售自己的产品，因而无法过上像样的生活。通常，我们买东西支付的费用只有极少部分到了实际生产者手中。这种情况在从贫穷国家进口商品时非常普遍。你知道吗，世界上近一半的人每天的收入不足2美元。如果你努力工作，得到的报酬却只是应得份额的极小部分，你会有何感想？“公平贸易基金”就是在这方面进行干预。

公平贸易基金成立的目的是帮助贫穷国家的生产者得到公平的劳动报酬。因此，如果你买的东西上面有“公平贸易”的标志，那么就会有一笔适当数额的款项用来帮助售出产品的工人及其所在的群体。这笔额外的钱通常会换成可以帮助当地群体的实物——例如帮助工人上下班的自行车，或者提供水源的新井。除了让工人获得公平报酬外，公平贸易基金还确保他们的所有产品都来自工作条件尚好的农场和工厂。也就是说，工人的待遇良好，安的孩子这样的员工子女能上学。

你可以通过“公平贸易”购买许多日常食品和产品，包括咖啡等农产品、工艺品以及时装，上面都有专门的“公平贸易”标签，很容易就能认出来。这个标签现在得到广泛的认可，销量以每年50%的幅度增加。消费者知道他们不但以优惠的价格购买了优质的产品，而且还在帮助生产者。他们的购物行为不是在增加中间商的利润，而是在为一些世界上最贫困的人构建未来。

Text B

Trade barriers

The benefits and problems of free trade

     1. Trade barriers mean a country’s firms do not have to compete with firms from other countries. They may become lazy and inefficient and expensive.

     2. Free trade forces a country’s firms to produce quality goods and services as they have to compete with foreign firms.

     3. If one country puts up trade barriers, other countries are likely to do the same and this will affect import and export trade.

     4. Free trade encourages firms to do export and import. This means that there is a greater choice for consumers.

     5. Opponents of free trade complain that it leads to unfair foreign competition and that it destroys jobs, but the truth is that countries with the highest trade barriers have nearly twice the unemployment rate of countries with the most trade freedom. 

Two different stories 

     My name is Phil Gereluk and I live in Edmonton, Canada. I am a small producer of computer flash drives. I started up business in 1999. At first my company did well. Our turnover was good and we made a small annual profit. Then Canada opened its trade barriers and started to buy from and sell to powerful industrial countries, especially China, and my customers started buying cheaper products from abroad. My sales decreased and after six months I had to declare bankruptcy and make all my workers redundant. Since then not only have I been unemployed but I know for a fact that three of my staff still haven’t found another job and another three are now working for a fast-food chain and earning minimum wages.

     I know that free trade allows people to buy goods and services that are not produced in their own countries, and it’s true that free trade can help a country’s development and economic growth, which means new jobs and better living. But my company was only big enough for the domestic market. The unemployment rate here in Canada is already so high and my company going belly up did not help.

     My name is James Nowe and I also live in Canada, not in Edmonton but in Kenora, Ontario. I am really happy that there are no trade barriers with countries like China. I have a software firm where we write programmes for robotic systems. The hardware we needed used to be very expensive, but now we can choose from more bettermade and less expensive products.

     I know that sometimes foreign manufacturers receive subsidies from their government so that they can afford to sell their goods at a much lower price than what those goods are really worth on the market. This might explain the price these foreign companies were asking at the beginning. They were probably trying to gain a foothold in the Canadian market, and they have succeeded. Although the prices have since increased slightly, the range of goods now available in Canada has increased enormously. The fact that the goods we need to purchase have become cheaper has the spin-off effect that we can offer our products cheaper.

     Yes, you could say that I am very pleased that the trade barriers no longer exist.

贸易壁垒

自由贸易的好处与问题

1. 贸易壁垒意味着一个国家的公司不需要和来自其他国家的公司竞争，因而可能变得懒惰、低效、昂贵。

2. 自由贸易迫使国内的公司提供优质的商品和服务，因为他们必须和外国公司竞争。

3. 如果一个国家实行贸易壁垒，其他国家可能也会这么做，从而影响进出口贸易。

4. 自由贸易鼓励公司从事进出口，这就意味着消费者可以有更多选择。

5. 自由贸易的反对者认为其会导致不公平的国际竞争，会摧毁工作岗位，而事实是贸易壁垒最多的国家失业率比贸易自由度最大的国家高近一倍。

两个截然不同的故事

 我叫菲尔·盖瑞卢克，住在加拿大埃德蒙顿。我于1999年创办了一家小型的闪存制造公司。起初我的公司运转良好，营业额也不错，每年都小有盈利。后来加拿大取消了贸易壁垒，开始与工业大国发展贸易，尤其是中国。我的客户开始从国外购买更廉价的商品，公司的销售额下降了。六个月后，我只能宣布破产，解雇了所有的员工。自那时起，不仅我自己一直没工作，据我所知，以前公司里的三个员工到现在也都没找到工作，另外三个员工在快餐连锁店工作，领着最低工资。

我明白自由贸易让人们可以买到国外的商品和服务，能促进国家的发展和经济增长，创造更多的就业岗位，提高生活质量。但我的公司只有那么大，只能经营国内市场。加拿大的失业率已经够高了，我的公司破产无疑是雪上加霜。

我叫詹姆士·诺韦，我也住在加拿大，但不是在埃德蒙顿，而在安大略省的肯诺拉。我很高兴我们和中国等国家之间没有贸易壁垒。我拥有一家软件公司，为机器人系统编写程序。我们需要的硬件过去很贵，但现在我们可以从更多质量更好、价格更低的产品中进行挑选。

我明白有时外国制造商会得到政府的补贴，所以可以以大大低于真实市场价值的价格出售商品。这或许能解释那些国外公司起初的要价。当时他们可能是为了在加拿大市场争得一席之地，他们的确做到了。之后商品的价格虽然略有提升，但加拿大国内可选的商品种类增加了许多。我们需要购买的商品价格降低，其带来的额外效果是我们自己的产品也可以降价了。

对，可以这么说，我很高兴贸易壁垒不复存在了。