放送今日份的雅思阅读内容，标题为：India’s economy，The missing middle class，There is a hole where India’s middle class should be. That should worry the government and companies.(印度经济，缺失的中产阶级。在印度，该出现中产阶级的地方却是一片空白。政府和企业应对此感到担忧)每天一点雅思阅读训练，提高自己的阅读速度，雅思考试临场不慌。

经济学人原文1

AFTER China, where next? Over the past two decades, the world’s most populous country has become the market qua non of just about every global company seeking growth. As its economy slows, businesses are looking for the next set of consumers to keep the tills ringing.

继中国之后，下一片热土在哪里?过去20年来，几乎对所有寻求增长的全球企业来说，这个全球人口最多的国家都是一个不可或缺的市场。随着中国经济放缓，企业纷纷另觅消费者大军，好让自己继续有钱可赚。

经济学人原文2

To many, India feels like the heir apparent. Its population will soon overtake its Asian rival’s. It occasionally grows at the kind of pace that propelled China to the status of economic superpower.

And its middle class is thought by many to be in the early stages of the journey to prosperity that created hundreds of millions of Chinese consumers. Exuberant management consultants speak of a 300m-400m horde of potential frapuccino-sippers, Fiesta-drivers and globe-trotters.

很多人觉得印度是显而易见的接班人。该国人口很快将超过它在亚洲的对手——中国。中国在高速发展下取得了经济强国的地位，而印度偶尔也能达到类似的增长速度。

中国的繁荣催生出数亿消费者，很多人认为印度的中产阶级也已从通往繁荣的路上起步。欢欣鼓舞的管理顾问认为可能会出现一个喝星冰乐、开福特嘉年华、周游全球的庞大群体，人数足有三到四亿。

经济学人原文3

Rare is the chief executive who, upon visiting India, does not proclaim it as central to his or her plans. Some of that may be a diplomatic dose of flattery; much of it, from firms such as IKEA, SoftBank, Amazon and Starbucks, is sincerely meant.

那些踏足印度的CEO无不宣称这个国家对于自己的计划至关重要。有些也许只是在圆滑地奉承，但包括宜家、软银、亚马逊和星巴克在内的大多数公司却是发自内心地这样认为。

Hold your elephants. The Indian middle class conjured up by the marketers and consultants scarcely exists. Firms peddling anything much beyond soap, matches and phone-credit are targeting a minuscule slice of the population.

The top 1% of Indian adults, a rich enclave of 8m inhabitants making at least $20,000 a year, equates to roughly Hong Kong in terms of population and average income.

且先打住。令生意人和顾问们想入非非的印度中产阶级几乎并不存在。如果企业兜售的产品档次远高于肥皂、火柴、话费之类，面向的就只是全国人口中极小的一部分。

印度成年人中最富有的1%人数有八百万，年收入至少为两万美元，以人口和平均收入来看，大致相当于香港。

经济学人原文4

The next 9% is akin to central Europe, in the middle of the global wealth pack. The next 40% of India’s population neatly mirrors its combined South Asian poor neighbours, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

The remaining half-billion or so are on a par with the most destitute bits of Africa. To be sure, global companies take the markets of central Europe seriously. Plenty of fortunes have been made there. But they are no China.

接下来的9%与欧洲中部接近，在全球财富阶梯中处于中游。再往下，占印度人口40%的群体正好相当于其贫穷的邻国孟加拉和巴基斯坦的组合。

最后剩下的约五亿人处境与非洲部分最贫困的地区接近。当然，那些全球企业还是比较重视欧洲中部市场的，也从那里获得了不少财富。但那里毕竟不是中国。

经济学人原文5

Centre parting

两极分化

Worse, the chances of India developing a middle class to match the Middle Kingdom’s are being throttled by growing inequality. The top 1% of earners pocketed nearly a third of all the extra income generated by economic growth between 1980 and 2014, according to new research from economists including Thomas Piketty.

The well-off are ten times richer now than in 1980; those at the median have not even doubled their income. India has done a good job at getting those earning below $2 a day (at purchasing-power parity) to $3, but it has not matched other countries’ records in getting those on $3 a day to earning $5, those at $5 a day to $10, and so on.

更糟糕的是，由于不平等愈演愈烈，印度若要形成一个可匹敌中国中产阶级的阶层，可能性微乎其微。托马斯·皮凯蒂等经济学家开展的新研究表明，1980年至2014年印度经济增长推高了收入水平，但收入居前1%的人几乎攫取了收入增长部分的三分之一。

富裕阶层如今的富足程度是1980年时的十倍，而中等收入群体的收入甚至都没能翻番。印度成功地令一些人的日薪从不到两美元(按购买力平价计算)升至三美元，表现出色;但还是不能和其他国家的成绩相比：它们令日薪三美元的人一天赚进五美元，日薪五美元的每天赚进十美元，以此类推。

经济学人原文6

Middle earners in countries at India’s stage of development usually take more of the gains from growth. Eight in ten Indians cite inequality as a big problem, on a par with corruption.

当其他国家处于印度今日的发展阶段时，其中等收入人群往往是经济增长的最大受益者。八成印度人认为不平等是个大问题，严峻程度与腐败不相上下。

经济学人原文7

The reasons for this failure are not mysterious. Decades of statist intervention meant that when a measure of liberalisation came in the early 1990s, only a few were able to benefit.

The workforce is woefully unproductive—no surprise given the abysmal state of India’s education system, which churns out millions of adults equipped only for menial work. Its graduates go on to toil in small or micro-enterprises, operating informally; these “employ” 93% of all Indians.

失败的缘由并不难理解。上世纪90年代初印度实施了一定程度的经济自由化，但由于持续数十年的国家干预，只有少数人获益。印度劳动力的生产率极其低下，考虑到该国糟糕透顶的教育体系，也就不意外了。

这一教育体系培养出的数百万成年人只能胜任低技术的枯燥工作。毕业生走出校门后也是在游离于正规经济之外的小微企业里辛苦工作，这样的企业“雇用”了93%的印度人口。

经济学人原文8

The great swell of middle-class jobs that China created as it became the workshop to the world is not to be found in India, because turning small businesses into productive large ones is made nigh-on impossible by bureaucracy. The fact that barely a quarter of women work—a share that has seen a precipitous decline in the past decade—only makes matters worse.

中国成为“世界工厂”后，适合中产阶级的就业机会大增，但在印度却不会出现这种情形，原因是其官僚体制令小企业几乎不可能转变为高效的大型企业。加上只有将近四分之一的女性参与劳动——过去十年来这一比例还急剧下滑——只会使局面恶化。

经济学人原文9

Good policy can do an enormous amount to improve prospects. However, hope should be tempered by realism. India is blessed with a deeply entrenched democratic system, but that is no shield against poor decisions. The sudden and brutal “demonetisation” of the economy in 2016 was meant to target fat cats, but ended up hurting everybody. And the path to prosperity walked by China, where manufacturing produced the jobs that pushed up incomes, is narrowing as automation limits opportunities for factory work.

要改善前景，好的政策可以发挥巨大的作用。不过怀有希望的同时也应面对现实。在印度，民主制度深入人心，但这并不能避免决策失误。2016年突然而猛烈的“纸币废止”行动本意是想打击富人和贪官，结果却伤害了所有人。而且由于自动化限制了人们进工厂做工的机会，曾引领中国走向繁荣的途径——制造业创造就业从而推高收入——也越来越难以走通。

经济学人原文10

All of which means that companies need to deal with the India that exists today rather than the one they wish to emerge. A strategy of waiting for Indians to develop a taste for products that the global middle class indulges in—cars as income per head crosses one threshold, foreign holidays when it crosses the next—may lead to decades of frustration. Only 3% of Indians have ever been on an aeroplane; only one in 45 owns a car or lorry. If nearly 300m Indians count as “middle class”, as HSBC has proclaimed, some of them make around $3 a day.

以上种种表明，企业需要应对的是今时今日的印度，而不是它们希望出现的印度。如果它们的策略是等待印度人喜欢上全球各地中产阶级享受的事物，那它们可能要苦苦等上几十年——等印度人的人均收入跨上一个台阶后喜欢上汽车，再跨上一个台阶后喜欢上出国度假。只有3%的印度人曾经坐过飞机，每45个人中只有一人拥有一辆汽车或卡车。如果真如汇丰银行宣称的那样，将近三亿印度人都算得上是“中产阶级”，那他们当中的某些人一天大概只赚三美元。

经济学人原文11

Big market, smaller opportunities

市场广阔，机会缩小

Companies would do better to “Indianise” their business by, for example, peddling wares using regional languages preferred by hundreds of millions of Indians. Pricing matters. Services proffered at the same price in India as Indiana will appeal to mere millions, not a billion.

Even for someone in the top 10% of Indian earners, an annual Netflix subion can cost over a week’s income; the equivalent in America would be around $3,000. Apple ads may plaster Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore, but for only one in ten Indians would the latest iPhone represent less than half a year’s salary.

The biggest consumer hits in India have been goods and services that offer stonking value: scooters and mobile telephony have grown fast, but only after prices tumbled.

各家公司如果能将自身业务“印度化”，会更有成效，比如在推销商品时使用几亿印度人都乐于接受的地方语言。定价也很重要。一项服务在印度的价格如果和在美国印第安纳州一样，就只能吸引几百万人，而不是十亿人。

就算对一个收入位居本国前10%的印度人来说，Netflix一年的订阅费也比他一周的薪水还要高。而收入水平居本国前10%的美国人的周薪大约是3000美元。虽然孟买、德里和班加罗尔各处都张贴着苹果的广告，但对九成印度人而言，最新款iPhone的售价要超过他们半年的工资。

在印度，最受消费者欢迎的还是物超所值的商品和服务：电瓶车和移动电话服务增长迅速，但都只在大幅降价后才发生。

经济学人原文12

The sharpest businesses work out which “enablers” will allow Indians to gain access to new goods. Electrification drives demand for fridges. Cheap mobile data (India is in the midst of a data-price war that has hugely benefited consumers) are a boon to streaming services. Logistics networks put together by e-commerce giants are for the first time making it possible for a consumer in a third-tier city to buy global fashion brands. A surge in consumer financing has put desirable baubles within reach of more Indians.

那些最敏锐的企业会设法摸清哪些“促成因素”会让印度人去使用新产品。电气化会推高对电冰箱的需求。廉价的移动数据(印度正在开展的数字价格战令消费者大为受益)对流媒体服务来说是一大利好。电商巨头组建起的物流网络也首次让三线城市的消费者买到了国际时尚品牌。消费信贷激增让更多印度人很容易就能买到心仪的小玩意。

经济学人原文13

Insofar as it is the job of politicians to create a consumer class, successive Indian governments have largely failed. Businesses hoping the Indian middle class will provide their next spurt of growth should be under no illusion. Companies will have to work very hard to turn potential into profits.

如果说创造出一个消费者阶层在某种程度上是政客的任务，那么一届又一届的印度政府总体上都很失败。那些希望印度中产阶级能为自己带来下一轮增长的企业应该抛弃幻想。它们需要十分努力才能把潜在可能性转化为利润。

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