The World's Major Financial Centre

The financial heart of England is the City. It is ... square mile in London on the bank of... Thames. In the centre there is the Bank of England, and the head offices and foreign departments of other English banks.

It is ... home of commodity, financial, and insurance markets that are all concentrated in the narrow streets, which form the financial core of... City.

The position that the City holds is due in no small measure to the integrity of its members. The City is jealous of its honour, punctilious in fulfilling its obligations and, where deals of thousands of pounds are made merely by a word, is proud to make its word its bond.

The population of the City is almost entirely ... daytime one. Each morning about half a million people come in from north, south, east and west, and then as evening comes and business finishes they hurry home by ... train, bus, car or ... underground. Prior to 1914 this population was almost completely ... male one, with top hat, black tail coat, black and white striped trousers, stiff-fronted shirt and stiff white collar. Two wars have changed all that. There are probably as many women employed in the City as there are men these days.

From ... earliest times the City has been ruled by its own elected Lord Mayor and Aldermen, and to this day ... king or queen of England may not pass the bounds of the City until he or she has had permission of ... Lord Mayor, and then he or she comes only as ... guest.

Generally speaking, the City performs four financial functions:

a) the City gathers in ... country's savings and provides channels and machinery for their investment;

b) it provides ... safe, speedy and convenient means of payment without the actual use of banknotes or coins;

c) through the medium of ... Foreign Exchange Market it makes it possible to exchange one currency for another;

d) it provides the organization to finance, transport and insure foodstuffs, manufactures and raw materials on their way from producer to consumer.

Words you may need:

square mile квадратная миля

core n сердцевина

jealous of its honour тщательно оберегающий свою честь

punctilious adj пунктуальный

bond n обязательство

stiff adj жесткий, (зд) накрахмаленный

striped adj полосатый

bound n граница

medium n средство

Ex. 9. a) Supply the prepositions where necessary, b) Write down six questions about the text.

Budgetary Policy

The transformation of the economic and political systems in Russia has been accompanied ... substantial reforms in the budget process, including budget preparation and classification, a new treasury system for budget execution and expenditure control, considerable autonomy of subnational governments in the formulation of their budgets.

On the whole, the budgetary policy in Russia is aimed ... attaining the efficient allocation of national resources, the desirable redistribution of income ... the poorer groups in society, and the maintenance of a macroeconomic environment with stable prices, full employment and equilibrium in the balance of payments.

Accurate budget evaluation is more necessary now than ever before. The economic transition has led ... drastic retrenching in public resources so there is a need to increase the efficiency with which public resources are used. Proper budget evaluation will provide critical information and feedback to policy makers ... how well budget objectives are being attained ... the implementation of the budget.

The transition ... the market economy has significantly increased the complexity of interactions of the government with the private sector thus increasing the opportunities ... misuses of funds and ... corruption. For these reasons it is important that an effective and independent ex-post audit be carried ... by the Accounts Chamber at all levels of government.

Words you may need:

accompany v сопровождать

treasury system система казначейства

formulation of the budget подготовка бюджета

attain v достигать, добиваться

equilibrium n равновесие

retrench v сокращать, урезывать (расходы)

feedback n обратная связь

objective n цель

misuses of funds нарушения в использовании средств

ex-post audit аудит (ревизия) использования средств

Ex. 10. Open the brackets putting the verbs in the correct active and passive form: