中国取代美国成为欧盟最大贸易伙伴 | 双语快报

一句话导视：

Facebook封杀澳大利亚新闻；法国奢侈品LVMH收购空壳公司以筹资；WTO首位非洲女性总干事；去年中国成为欧盟最大贸易伙伴；英国经济复苏受陷入停滞。

原文来自：

The Economist, FEBRUARY 20TH-26TH 2021

全球抗新冠

In an unexpected move, Facebook blocked news content on its sites in Australia, and also stopped people outside the country from viewing Australian news publications on its platforms. The social-media giant took the action after the lower house of parliament passed a bill that would force it to pay for news content that has been shared by users; it says the law is unclear about what constitutes “news”. 

Facebook出人意料地封锁了其澳大利亚网站上的新闻内容，并禁止境外人士在其平台上浏览澳大利亚新闻出版物。这家社交媒体巨头采取这一行动之前，下议院通过了一项法案，要求它为已经给用户分享过的新闻内容付费。facebook表示法律并未清楚解释什么是“新闻”。

Facebook’s defiant tone was a stark contrast to Google’s global agreement to pay News Corporation for content from its publications, which include the Wall Street Journal and the Sun in Britain. Google was also under threat from the proposed law in Australia and had warned that it would shut its search engine there. 

Facebook的挑衅口吻与谷歌的全球协议形成鲜明对比，即同意向新闻集团(News Corporation)支付其出版物内容的费用。后者包括英国的《华尔街日报》和《太阳报》。谷歌也受到了澳大利亚拟定法律的威胁，并警告称此举将导致其关闭在澳大利亚的搜索引擎。

Bernard Arnault, the chairman of LVMH, a French luxury-goods group, is joining the growing list of business leaders who have set up a special-purpose acquisition company. A SPAC is a shell company that lists on a stock exchange with the intent of merging with an existing company, enabling the firm to raise capital without the slog of an IPO. They became popular in America in 2020, but are now taking off in Europe, too. Mr Arnault’s investment company is launching its SPAC with other investors to look for deals in financial services. 

法国奢侈品集团LVMH集团的主席伯纳德·阿尔诺也加入了已经成立特殊目的收购公司的商界领袖行列。SPAC是一家在证券交易所上市的空壳公司，其目的是与现有公司合并，使得公司无需首次公开募股(IPO)的麻烦就能筹集资金。它们于2020年在美国开始流行，但现在欧洲也紧跟潮流。阿尔诺的投资公司将与其他投资者一起推出SPAC，以寻找金融服务领域的交易机会。

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was appointed as the new director-general of the World Trade Organisation. She is the first African and the first woman to hold the job. The Trump administration had opposed the nomination of Ms Okonjo-Iweala, a former Nigerian finance minister, claiming that she lacks experience. But her only rival, Yoo Myung-hee, South Korea’s trade minister, withdrew her candidacy in early February, soon after Joe Biden took office.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala被任命为WTO的新任总干事。她是第一位担任该职位的非洲女性。过去特朗普政府反对提名曾任尼日利亚前财长的Okonjo-Iweala女士，称她缺乏经验。但她唯一的竞争对手——韩国贸易部长柳明熙在2月初乔•拜登上任后不久就撤回了自己的候选人资格。

China displaced America as the European Union’s biggest trading partner last year, according to official data, with both exports and imports growing. America remains the EU’s biggest export market (followed by Britain), but overall trade slumped between the two after their economies tanked during the pandemic. 

根据官方数据，去年中国出口和进口的增长使得其取代美国成为欧盟最大的贸易伙伴。美国仍然是欧盟最大的出口市场(其次是英国)，但在疫情期间两国经济遭受重创后，两国之间的总体贸易大幅下滑。

Official statistics confirmed that Britain’s GDP contracted by 9.9% in 2020, the worst performance in the G7. The economic recovery that began mid-year stalled when the second wave of the pandemic took hold. The Treasury’s average of forecasts suggests that the economy will grow by 4.4% this year and 5.7% in 2022, depending on what happens with covid-19. 

官方统计证实，英国的GDP在2020年下降了9.9%，是七国集团中表现最差的。年中开始的经济复苏在第二波疫情爆发时陷入停滞。财政部的平均预测显示，其经济今年将增长4.4%，2022年将增长5.7%，而这都取决于新冠疫情的影响。