- •Часть I. "Современные тенденции в мировой экономике.
- •Предисловие
- •1.2. Read the following article and then
- •Who are the champions?
- •Europe's pride
- •2.4. Explain the meanings of the following notions, draw examples to illustrate their usage.
- •2.7. A) Say how you understand the following sentences from the text, pay special attention to the words and expressions in bold type. Reproduce the context each of the sentences is used in.
- •2.8. Translate into English, using the key vocabulary of the text.
- •III. Back to the text.
- •3.1. Answer these questions using the active vocabulary of the Unit.
- •1.2. Read the following article and then
- •1. European companies face competition from new directions;
- •Tomorrow the world
- •Necessarily global
- •When dancing elephants trip up
- •2.4. Explain the meanings of the following notions, draw examples to illustrate their usage.
- •2.7. A) Say how you understand the following sentences from the text, pay special attention to the words and expressions in bold type. Reproduce the context each of the sentences is used in.
- •2.9. Translate into English, using the key vocabulary of the text.
- •III. Back to the text.
- •3.1. Answer these questions using the active vocabulary of the Unit.
- •4.5. Analyse:
- •V. Writing.
- •5.2. Write your comments on the following passage from the text:
- •1.2. Read the following article and then
- •Home and abroad
- •What's new?
- •Beautifully simple
- •2.4. Explain the meanings of the following notions, draw examples to illustrate their usage.
- •2.7. A) Say how you understand the following sentences from the text, pay special attention to the words and expressions in bold type.
- •2.8. Translate into English, using the key vocabulary of the text.
- •III. Back to the text.
- •3.1. Answer these questions using the active vocabulary of the Unit.
- •V. Writing.
- •1.2. Read the following article and then
- •The gain in Spain
- •II. Vocabulary.
- •2.1. Give Russian equivalents for the following terms and expressions all found in the article above.
- •2.2. Give English equivalents (all found in the text above) for the following Russian terms.
- •2.3. In the text, find terms corresponding to the following definitions.
- •2.4. Explain the meanings of the following notions, draw examples to illustrate their usage.
- •2.7. A) Say how you understand the following sentences from the text, pay special attention to the words and expressions in bold type. Reproduce the context each of the sentences is used in.
- •2.8. Translate into English, using the key vocabulary of the text.
- •III. Back to the text.
- •3.1. Answer these questions using the active vocabulary of the Unit.
- •V. Writing.
- •5.2. Write your comments on the following:
- •1.2. Read the following article and then
- •In the steps of Adidas
- •A model to aspire to
- •Agony in Italy
- •II. Vocabulary
- •2.1. Give Russian equivalents for the following terms and expressions all found in the article above.
- •2.2. Give English equivalents (all found in the text above) for the following Russian words and expressions.
- •2.3. In the text, find terms corresponding to the following definitions.
- •2.4. Explain the meanings of the following notions, draw examples to illustrate their usage.
- •2.7. A) Say how you understand the following sentences from the text, pay special attention to the words and expressions in bold type. Reproduce the context each of the sentences is used in.
- •2.8. Translate into English.
- •III. Back to the text.
- •3.1. Answer these questions using the active vocabulary of the Unit.
- •4.4. Consider
- •V. Writing.
- •5.2. Write your comments on the following:
- •1.2. Read the following article and then
- •The chic and the cheerless
- •Trumped by foreigners
- •Soft underbelly
- •2.4. Explain the meanings of the following notions, draw examples to illustrate their usage.
- •2.7. A) Say how you understand the following sentences from the text, pay special attention to the words and expressions in bold type. Reproduce the context each of the sentences is used in.
- •2.8. Translate into English, using the key vocabulary of the text.
- •III. Back to the text.
- •3.1. Answer these questions using the active vocabulary of the Unit.
- •Not what it was
- •It's all coming together
- •A new way of doing business
- •II. Vocabulary.
- •2.1. Give Russian equivalents for the following terms and expressions all found in the article above.
- •2.2. Give English equivalents (all found in the text above) for the following Russian words and expressions.
- •2.3. In the text, find terms corresponding to the following definitions.
- •2.4. Explain the meanings of the following notions, draw examples to illustrate their usage.
- •2.8. Translate into English.
- •III. Back to the text.
- •3.1. Answer these questions using the active vocabulary of the Unit.
- •1. Read the text below to prove the following: "The car may be German, but its innards are nearly all from eastern Europe". Driving east
- •Case Study 2
- •1. Read the following article and then explain its title. The tortuous tale of Telecom Italia
- •Revolution, of sorts
- •1. Read the following article and then say what Mediterranean countries the article focuses on.
- •Investment in the Mediterranean The Med’s moment comes
- •Follow the money
- •Med revival
- •1. Read the following article and then prove that France’s negative attitude to older workers creates a business opportunity.
- •Jobs for the old
- •1. Read the following article and then provide details to explain its title.
- •Breaking up is hard to do But there are big rewards for firms that get it right
- •Timing is everything
- •1. Read the following article and then explain its title. Crisis? What crisis?
- •1. European business:
- •2. European small and medium-sized business:
- •3. Europe vs America:
- •4. Germany as a core European economy:
- •5. Models and strategies
- •Appendix
- •1. Templates for Introducing What "They Say"
- •2. Templates for Introducing "Standard Views"
- •7. Templates for Explaining Quotations
- •8. Templates for Disagreeing, with Reasons
- •9. Templates for Agreeing
- •10. Templates for Agreeing and Disagreeing Simultaneously
- •11. Templates for Signaling Who is Saying What in Your Own Writing
- •12. Templates for Embedding Voice Markers.
- •13. Templates for Making Concessions while Still Standing Your Ground
- •14. Templates for Indicating Who Cares
- •15. Templates for Establishing Why Your Claims Matter
- •16. Templates for Introducing Metacommentary
When dancing elephants trip up
When stodgy European firms decide they, too, can become agile, they sometimes come to grief. ICI and GEC—at the time the twin pillars of Britain's manufacturing industry—both tried it in the mid-1990s. ICI spun off its profitable pharmaceutical business (now part of AstraZeneca) rather than build it up by acquisition. It then decided to get out of bulk chemicals and borrowed and paid too much to buy the specialty chemicals bit of Unilever. Its shares collapsed, and the company that for 70 years had been the bellwether of British industry dropped out of the index of leading companies.
John Mayo, the dealmaker who advised ICI on the Zeneca deal, also helped wreck GEC. Its defensive strategy had been to ally its power engineering and telecoms businesses with France's Alsthom and with Siemens. Guided by Mr Mayo, GEC sold its defence arm to British Aerospace and bought internet-equipment firms in America at the height of the telecoms bubble. When that burst, this supposedly agile strategy turned out to be nothing more than a flawed financial deal. BAE Systems has proved nimbler on its feet: it is reinventing itself as an American defence contractor, selling its minority stake in Airbus Industrie so it can add to its transatlantic portfolio of businesses. The attraction is that America is by far the biggest defence market, whereas the European defence business is fragmented and nationalistic.
Mr Sull observes that many European businesses are able to soldier on thanks to their bulk and solidity rather than their capacity for innovation. Many European telecoms companies are part-owned by governments to protect them. Under a special law, voting shares in Volkswagen have long been limited to 20% and a regional government has held a stake to keep the company safe (though that is set to change this year). Banks such as HSBC and ABN Amro are diversified as well as too big to fail. Europe's pharma giants—GSK, Novartis and AstraZeneca—survive as much because of their past patent rights than by virtue of their current research producing big new earners. Increasingly, however, they are moving research to America because the rewards there are greater and the environment is more stimulating.
The absorption approach works well in mature industries, but emerging economies are producing nimble companies that may prove capable of shaking up slow-moving sectors. As well as Arcelor, consider Cemex, a Mexican company that took over RMC, a British-based building-materials company; or the folding of Belgium's Interbrew into Brazil's Ambev in 2004 to form InBev. In aviation the market for regional passenger aircraft (up to 100 seats) has been taken over by two companies, Bombardier Aerospace of Canada and Embraer of Brazil. They have seen off Fairchild Dornier, Fokker and Saab from Europe because they have been prepared to introduce more innovative aircraft using modern jet technology.
Only a few years ago the railway-locomotive industry in Europe was spread among a handful of regional companies. Today, after several rounds of consolidation, it is dominated by Bombardier Transportation, another part of the Canadian group. It has based its worldwide train business in Berlin, becoming, in effect, a European global company—another example of the tide of globalisation lapping on Europe' s shores.
Forty years ago the late Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, in an influential book, “Le Défi Américain”, warned Europeans that the American multinationals such as IBM, Ford and General Motors would confront them in Europe. Today it is not just American firms that are moving into Europe but companies from all over the world. And yet Europe's big companies seem to be rising to the challenge.
Howard Read
Feb 8th 2007 From The Economist print edition
Read again to do the assignments that follow.
II. Vocabulary.
2.1. Give Russian equivalents for the following terms and expressions all found in the article above.
Europe's biggest steelmaker; a Dutch-registered company run from London; to scrap a bid for the London Stock Exchange; to win with a bid of ... billion to become the world's fifth-largest steel producer; a shareholding; high-value-added industries; to diversify out of the core business; mature industries; slow-moving sectors.
2.2. Give English equivalents (all found in the text above) for the following Russian terms.
Совместное предприятие; активные действия акционеров; рыночная ниша; предприятия малого и среднего бизнеса; конкурент; основной бизнес; ассортимент продукции; ходовые товары повседневного спроса; неудачная финансовая сделка; права на владение патентом; источник дохода; акции с правом на большее число голосов при голосовании.
2.3. In the text, find terms corresponding to the following definitions.
a) an increase in the nominal price of a company's shares, by combining a specified number of lower-price shares into one higher-priced share;
b) a combination of two or more businesses on an equal footing that results in the creation of a new reporting entity formed from the combining businesses;
c) an owner of shares in a limited company or limited partnership;
d) an approach by one company to buy the share capital of another; an attempted takeover;
e)a corporation that has production operations in more than one country for various reasons, including securing supplies of raw materials, utilizing cheap labour sources, servicing local markets, and bypassing protectionist barriers.