劍橋雅思系列是同學們在備考中最好的教材之一，所以同學們在備考的時候是要準備一些這方面的資料的。今天新航道雅思給大家帶來了劍6雅思閱讀Test1passage2原文+翻譯-貨物運輸,希望對烤鴨們的雅思備考提供幫助。

  劍6雅思閱讀Test1passage2原文+翻譯-貨物運輸

  The vast expansion in international trade owes much to a revolution in the business of moving freight

  國際貿易規模的巨大擴張應當歸功于貨運業的變革

  A International trade is growing at a startling pace. While the global economy has been expanding at a bit over 3% a year, the volume of trade has been rising at a compound annual rate of about twice that. Foreign products, from meat to machinery, play a more important role in almost every economy in the world, and foreign markets now tempt businesses that never much worried about sales beyond their nation’s borders.

  A 國際貿易正以驚人的速度不斷發展。世界經濟的年均增長率略高于3%，而貿易額的年均復合增長率則高達此數字的近兩倍。外國產品幾乎在各國經濟中都扮演著愈加重要的角色，產品范圍廣及肉類制品到機械設備。國外市場也正在吸引著那些從來不曾關心其商品在國外銷路的企業。

  B What lies behind this explosion in international commerce? The general worldwide decline in trade barriers, such as customs duties and import quotas, is surely one explanation. The economic opening of countries that have traditionally been minor players is another. But one force behind the import-export boom has passed all but unnoticed: the rapidly falling cost of getting goods to market. Theoretically, in the world of trade, shipping costs do not matter. Goods, once they have been made, are assumed to move instantly and at no cost from place to place. The real world, however, is full of frictions. Cheap labour may make Chinese clothing competitive in America, but if delays in shipment tie up working capital and cause winter coats to arrive in spring, trade may lose its advantages.

  B 國際貿易飛速發展的原因是什么呢?當然，其原因之一是貿易壁壘在全世界范圍的普遍減少，比如關稅的減免和進口配額的淡出。另一原因是為傳統意義上貿易小國的經濟開放。然而，在進出口貿易興旺繁榮的背后，有一種力量一直被人們所忽視，那就是將貨物運往市場所需費用的迅速下降。從理論上講，運輸費用在貿易往來中并不重要。人們認為，貨物在制成成品之后就可以無需任何花費運往各地。但是，現實世界充滿了矛盾。廉價勞動力可能使中國的紡織品在美國市場上極具競爭力，而一旦貨運的延遲占用了流動資金，并導致冬大衣直至來春天才運達目的地，那么這筆交易將會失去其競爭優勢。

  C At the turn of the 20th century, agriculture and manufacturing were the two most important sectors almost everywhere, accounting for about 70% of total output in Germany, Italy and France, and 40-50% in America, Britain and Japan. International commerce was therefore dominated by raw materials, such as wheat, wood and iron ore, or processed commodities, such as meat and steel. But these sorts of products are heavy and bulky and the cost of transporting them relatively high.

  C 在世紀之交，農業和制造業幾乎曾是世界各地最重要的兩大行業，其比重占德國、意大利和法國總產量的約70%，占美國、英國和日本總產量的40%~50%。因此，國際貿易以小麥、木材和鐵礦石等為代表的原材料或者以肉類和鋼鐵等為代表的加工品為主。但這些商品重、體積大，從而運輸費用也相對較髙。

  D Countries still trade disproportionately with their geographic neighbours. Over time, however, world output has shifted into goods whose worth is unrelated to their size and weight. Today, it is finished manufactured products that dominate the flow of trade, and, thanks to technological advances such as lightweight components, manufactured goods themselves have tended to become lighter and less bulky. As a result, less transportation is required for every dollar’s worth of imports or exports.

  D 至今為止，各國仍然將重點放在與鄰國的貿易往來上。然而隨著時間的推移，全世界范圍的商品生產已經轉向其價值與其尺寸、重量并不相關的商品。現今，制成品已在貿易往來中占據主體地位，而且像輕量級組件等科技進步成果使制成品變得愈加輕便、小巧。因此，進出口商品所需的運費也相應有所降低。

  E To see how this influences trade, consider the business of making disk drives for computers. Most of the world’s disk-drive manufacturing is concentrated in South-east Asia. This is possible only because disk drives, while valuable, are small and light and so cost little to ship. Computer manufacturers in Japan or Texas will not face hugely bigger freight bills if they import drives from Singapore rather than purchasing them on the domestic market. Distance therefore poses no obstacle to the globalisation of the disk-drive industry.

  E為了理解運費降低對于貿易的影響，讓我們看看計算機磁盤驅動器的生產制造業。全世界大多數的磁盤驅動器制造業都集中在東南亞地區。磁盤驅動器價格昂貴(價值高)。但正是由于其重量輕、體積小而運輸花費低，才使得制造業的集中成為可能。即使從新加坡進口磁盤驅動器而不是在國內市場購買，日本或美國得克薩斯州的計算機制造商們也不會面對花費高出很多的運費賬單。因此，距離已不再是磁盤驅動器制造業的全球化進程的障礙。

  F This is even more true of the fast-growing information industries. Films and compact discs cost little to transport, even by aeroplane. Computer software can be ‘exported’ without ever loading it onto a ship, simply by transmitting it over telephone lines from one country to another, so freight rates and cargo-handling schedules become insignificant factors in deciding where to make the product. Businesses can locate based on other considerations, such as the availability of labour, while worrying less about the cost of delivering their output.

  F在飛速發展的信息產業更是如此。即便用飛機運輸，膠片和光盤也只需極低的運費。計算機軟件的“出口”甚至不需要裝運，僅僅通過電話線就可以在各國之間傳輸。因此，在選定制造地點時，貨運費用和貨物裝卸表已成為無關緊要的因素。企業在選址時可以去考慮其他因素，例如勞動力的可獲得性，而不必過分擔心產品的運送費用。

  G In many countries deregulation has helped to drive the process along. But, behind the scenes, a series of technological innovations known broadly as containerisation and inter-modal transportation has led to swift productivity improvements in cargo-handling. Forty years ago, the process of exporting or importing involved a great many stages of handling, which risked portions of the shipment being damaged or stolen along the way. The invention of the container crane made it possible to load and unload containers without capsizing the ship and the adoption of standard container sizes allowed almost any box to be transported on any ship. By 1967, dual-purpose ships, carrying loose cargo in the hold* and containers on the deck, were giving way to all-container vessels that moved thousands of boxes at a time.

  G在許多國家，管制的解除推動了國際貿易的發展。除此之外，一系列科技創新也間接地促進了貨物裝卸作業中生產率的迅速提高，其中包括廣為人知的集裝箱運輸和多式聯運。四十年前，進出口商品程序繁雜，這帶來了部分貨物在運送過程中被損壞或偷竊的危險。集裝箱起重機的發明實現了集裝箱的安全裝卸，又不至于傾覆貨運船只;而采用同一標準規格的集裝箱則使所有船只都能夠運載裝箱運送的不同貨物。到1967年，貨艙中裝運散裝貨物而甲板上裝運集裝箱的兩用貨輪已逐漸被淘汰，取而代之的是可以一次運載幾千個集裝箱的全集裝箱船。

  H The shipping container transformed ocean shipping into a highly efficient, intensely competitive business. But getting the cargo to and from the dock was a different story. National governments, by and large, kept a much firmer hand on truck and railroad tariffs than on charges for ocean freight. This started changing, however, in the mid-1970s, when America began to deregulate its transportation industry. First airlines, then road hauliers and railways, were freed from restrictions on what they could carry, where they could haul it and what price they could charge. Big productivity gains resulted. Between 1985 and 1996, for example, America’s freight railways dramatically reduced their employment, trackage, and their fleets of locomotives — while increasing the amount of cargo they hauled. Europe’s railways have also shown marked, albeit smaller, productivity improvements.

  H集裝箱已將海上運輸轉變為一種效率極髙且競爭力強的行業，但將貨物運往或者運離碼頭卻絕非易 事。總體來說，相對于控制海上運輸的費用，各國政府都更傾向于牢牢控制貨車運輸和鐵路運輸的運價。然而，這種情況從二十世紀七十年代中期，即美國解除對運輸業的管制時便開始發生轉變。繼航運業率先獲得管制解除之后，公路運輸業和鐵路運輸業也相繼擺脫了限制運載貨物種類、裝卸地點和貨運費用規定的束縛。生產率的顯著提高獲得了巨大的成果。例如，1985年至1996年間，美國鐵路運輸業以驚人的方式在提高貨運量的同時，減少了職工人數，縮短了運程，降低了機車隊規模。雖然不及美國成就巨大，歐洲鐵路運輸業同樣取得了成果顯著的生產力的進步和生產率的提高。

  I In America the period of huge productivity gains in transportation may be almost over, but in most countries the process still has far to go. State ownership of railways and airlines, regulation of freight rates and toleration of anti-competitive practices, such as cargo-handling monopolies, all keep the cost of shipping unnecessarily high and deter international trade. Bringing these barriers down would help the world’s economies grow even closer.

  I 在美國，運輸業生產率高速增長的時代或許已近尾聲，但對于大多數國家來說，此過程依然任重而道遠。許多因素導致了運輸費用不必要地持續偏高并阻礙著國際貿易的發展，其中包括國家對于鐵路業和航空業的所有權，限制運輸費用的管理規定，以及對于反競爭行為的寬容。這些障礙的消除將有助于全球經濟一體化的進程與發展。

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