Vocabulary notes

Letter of Credit – аккредитив

collection basis – на основе инкассо

to extend credit terms – продлить сроки кредита

Bill of Exchange – переводной вексель, тратта

to dispatch by airfreight or parcel post – отправить авиагрузом или бандеролью

The International Chamber of Commerce – международная торговая палата

Uniform Rules for Collection – единые правила для оплаты инкассо

proof of ownership – доказательство права на собственность

to incur – навлекать на себя

demurrage – простой

misconception – неправильное понимание

dishonoured bill – фальшивый счёт

Text VI. Open Account

If you know you are dealing with a buyer of impeccable reputation, business can be conducted on an open account basis. In other instances competitive pressures within the market may make this a necessity.

In this case the simplest method of obtaining payment is to send any relevant documents to your customer for immediate payment, or for payment at a specified time. The customer may pay with his own cheque, but remember it is your company that will have to pay bank collection charges and take the risk of delay or even non-payment. For example, the cheque could be returned as a result of some technical irregularity as well as through lack of funds. These risks do need careful consideration. The overseas legal procedures required to enforce payment under an open account arrangement are more complicated than those to enforce payment of a bill for collection.

In order to avoid potential problems you can ask your customer to arrange for payment to be made either by banker's draft, or directly through their bank by means of a mail or cable transfer to the credit of your company's account. It is worth remembering that postal delays can occur and the expense of a cable transfer may well be worthwhile. Early receipt of funds can make a substantial contribution to your cashflow. Payment remitted in this way is by far the quickest and most effective method. To simplify such transfers, you would be well advised to quote the name and address of your bank together with your account number on the invoice.

Vocabulary notes

impeccable – безупречный

obtaining payment – получение оплаты

specified time – конкретно указанное время

to enforce payment – взыскать платёж

a bill for collection - счёт инкассо

postal delays – почтовые задержки

cable transfer – перевод телеграммой

worthwhile – стоящий

substantial contribution – существенный вклад

cashflow – движение наличного капитала

Unit XVI Text I. Education and economics

Educational reform is in the air everywhere, from France to South Korea, from Australia to Germany. The three powerhouses of the world economy – Europe, America, and the Asia tigers – are competing to educate their workforces and to attract and create high-value-adding jobs.

Half a century ago, you knew you were on the road to nowhere if you were made minister of education. Today education ministers are usually on their way up. Margaret Thatcher used the education portfolio as a stepping-stone to the premiership. Bill Clinton first captured national headlines with his reforms of Arkansas schools. George Bush tried to salvage his do-nothing reputation at home by dubbing himself “the education president”.

Such politicians have a shrewd sense of what will go down in the bar rooms and boardrooms. Chief executives of multinational firms hold earnest conferences on skills shortages and training strategies. Serious newspapers and heavyweight magazines devote pages to education and national competitiveness. Throughout the rich world, voters put education near the top of their list of worries.

This concern for change has its origins in the 1960s, when the aim was to turn elite educational debates have shifted. Governments now treat education not as a consumer good but as a productive asset.

They are particularly worried about cost and quality. The West and the East converged on the issue of quality from opposite directions. In Britain and America conservative governments turned against child-centred teaching and called for a return to basics. They wanted more rote learning and less creative writing. In East Asia governments now feel that they have solved the quantity problem. They aim instead to increase the quality of education, particularly the quality of the education of the brightest. Hence a current Asia fashion for such things as creative writing.

Governments have also moved their emphasis from education to training. If education reform in the 1960s took aim at the university, it is now the training college which is in the sights of the reformers. A mixture of technological innovations and demographic trends is persuading governments to improve the vocational qualifications of their workforces.

There is no consensus on how to improve education. Many prominent reformers are pushing in opposite directions. The most comprehensive reform programme has been the one implemented by the British government since 1988. This is mixture of centralization (imposing a national curriculum and reducing the role of local-education authorities) and competition (giving schools an incentive to compete for pupils and encouraging pupils to compete for result). This has attracted many imitators and would-be imitators. Sweden is reorganizing its school system into an internal market. Denmark has introduced per-capita funding for technical colleges. Singapore is going for league tables to stimulate competition between schools. American reformers would like to introduce educational vouchers and national tests.

Other reformers are doing just the opposite. In South Korea and Japan the education ministries want to delegate power to local government. The Japanese authorities strongly disapprove of league tables of schools. Still, even if governments disagree about how exactly to proceed, they agree on the need for reform. Are they right to invest so much time and effort in doing it? Does education pay, or have the politicians merely been seduced by the professor?