Word Study

Ex. 1. Look at the following pairs of words and try to find similar ones among your new active vocabulary. Pay attention to the stress.

Verb----------noun

to im`port ----`import

to ex`port ---- `export

Ex. 2. Form all possible word-combinations using the words of both columns. Translate them into Russian.

crops

property

to raise prosperity

to account for trade

to process wealth

to conduct cattle

to possess data

to ensure a policy

a profit

raw materials

Ex. 3. Match the words listed below with their definitions.

1. inflation a) land used or suitable for farming.

2. engine b) something that belongs to someone.

3. enterprise c) material for burning.

4. expenditure d) the act of production or manufacture

5. property d) domestic animals esp. horses, cattle, hogs.

6. output e) the `produce of cultivated plants, esp. cereals, vegetables and fruit.

7. crop f) a progressive increase in the general level of prices.

8. farmland g) a business unit; a company or a firm.

9. livestock h) complex mechanical invention or machine.

10. fuel i) something expended, such as money or time.

Ex. 4. Which of the following adjectives can define (be used with) the nouns given below?

Agricultural, chief, foreign, industrial, liquid, mixed, principal.

Crops, engines, farming, fuel, goods, livestock, machinery, production, sector, trade.

Ex. 5. Study the different meanings of the following words and use them to translate the sentences.

a) maintain - v 1. поддерживать, сохранять

2. содержать

3. утверждать

maintenance – n 1. поддержание, сохранение

2. содержание

3. эксплуатационные расходы, стоимость содержания

4. техническое обслуживание и ремонт

1. The state is pledged (связывать обещанием) to maintain full employment.

2. A man may buy a car or some service which helps him maintain his car.

3. Equilibrium will be maintained as long as the spending is exactly matched by an equal volume of injections – investments, government spending and export sales.

4. More and better machines, buildings, tools and equipment are necessary to maintain economic growth.

b) term n 1. срок

2. четверть, семестр

3. термин

terms n 1. условия

2. отношения

in terms of - на языке; с точки зрения

to come to terms - придти к соглашению с кем-л.

1. The president spoke about things he was going to realize during his term of office.

2. It is essential for the future of the country that two opposing sides should come to terms.

3. The academic year consists of two terms.

4. He sees everything in terms of money.

5. What are your terms of delivery?

6. We are on easy terms with them.

7. The activities of people are measurable in terms of payment received

Text The Belarusian Economy

Belarus has a well-developed economy. Industry, including mining and manufacturing, accounts for 46 percent of GDP; trade and other services - 41 percent; and agriculture and forestry - 13 percent. Approximately 5.3 million people contribute to the economy of Belarus.

Natural resources. Belarus is relatively poor in terms of natural resources. It does not have vast amounts of most of the minerals used in modern industrial production. The country has small reserves of petroleum and natural gas but remains dependent on Russia for most of its oil, gas, energy and fossil-fuel requirements.

The country has large forest reserves. About one-third of the republic is covered in forest.

Belarus possesses, however, one of the world’s largest reserves of potassium salts. The country also is a world leader in the production of peat, which is used in agriculture and in briquette form as fuel.

Among the other minerals recovered are salt, building materials, chiefly limestone, quartz sands for glassmaking and small deposits of gold and diamonds.

Agriculture. Agriculture accounts for about a seventh of Belarus’ economic output. Belarus has a large amount of farmland. But a short growing season and a lack of fertile soil make farming difficult. Most of the country has mixed crop and livestock farming, with a strong emphasis on flax growing. The country’s principal crops are potatoes, grains (especially wheat, barley, oats and rye), flax, sunflowers, vegetables and sugar beets. Nearly 60 percent of the country’s land area is cultivated. Arable land accounts for about 30 percent of the country’s land use. The 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl’s nuclear power station in Ukraine contaminated much of the soil in southern Belarus, reducing the country’s total area of arable land by more than 10 percent.

Livestock breeding is another main component of agriculture. Cattle, hogs and sheep are the most important livestock raised in the country.

The agricultural sector in Belarus is dominated by large state and collective farms. In 1993 private farms began to appear. But the transition to private farms is slow and difficult.

Industry. Traditionally an agricultural land, Belarus experienced major industrialization only after World War II. The country long specialized in such light industries as food processing, timber processing and textiles.

Now Belarus is a highly developed industrial country. The main industries include machine building, instrument making, chemicals, oil refining, electronics, transport vehicles and tractors. Belarus manufactures computers, engineering equipment, metal-cutting tools, and such consumer goods as clocks and watches, motorcycles, bicycles, refrigerators, radios, television sets and others.

Heavy industry is the most highly developed sector of the economy. Machine-building industry is mostly concentrated in Minsk. It makes various types of tractors, heavy-duty trucks, other heavy machinery and electrical equipment. Large-capacity dump trucks are produced in Zhodino.

Chemical industry produces chemical fibers, mineral fertilizes, petrochemicals, plastics, soda ash and synthetic resins. The chief chemical product is potassium fertilizer.

The Minsk area is Belarus’ leading manufacturing centre. Its factories produce chemicals, electrical equipment, electronics, motor vehicles, processed foods and textiles. Metal processing and machinery production are important in Moghilyov and Gomel. Most of refining takes place in the Novopolotsk and Mozyr regions. Light industry, particularly textile production, is centred in Brest and Vitebsk.

Services. Service industries are industries that produce services not goods. In the recent past these industries were undeveloped in Belarus. Most service-industry workers were poorly trained and underpaid. Today private economic activity is flourishing. Many individuals and families are starting small businesses such as restaurants, barber-shops, dry cleaners and taxi services. Nevertheless, this sector of the economy remains largely underdeveloped.

Foreign Trade. Belarus consumes only 13 percent of the goods produced. A great amount of goods produced by Belarusian industries and agriculture is oriented towards Russia, Poland and Ukraine which remain the republic’s main trading partners. Belarus also conducts trade with Austria, China, Germany, Great Britain, Switzerland, the United States and other countries.

Belarus exports tractors and trucks, machinery, refrigerators, television sets, chemicals, potassium fertilizers, wood and paper products, and meat and dairy products. About 60 percent of Belarus’ exports go to former Soviet republics.

The nation’s major imports include petroleum, natural gas, industrial raw materials, textiles, rolled metal, rubber and some consumer goods. Fuel is Belarus’ largest import expenditure. Russia, which supplies most of the country’s fuel imports is the most important trading partner.

Economic System. Until independence Belarus was fully integrated into the centrally planned Soviet economy. The economic difficulties that beset the USSR in the 1980s were reflected in Belarus and intensified after independence. Movement toward a free-market system has been slow and largely limited to the service sector. Most industry continues to be under state management, and agriculture remains collectivized.

A long-term development goal for Belarus is to build an open market-type economy – an economy that interacts freely with other economies around the world. Such a system should ensure the prosperity of all parts of the population and create equal opportunities for every individual and enterprise.

At the same time Belarusian government is sure that market economy cannot solve all the economic problems. In Belarus government controls sale and purchase of land. The market is not left to work chaotically but is controlled by various levers. State regulation controls inflation, conducts stable policies to stimulate the economy, encourages domestic manufactures, plans all national policies in the sphere of resources and technologies and maintains active environmental protection.

In Belarus the major systems of energy, transport and communications and the branches consuming the national natural resources are under state control. The government stimulates the development of private enterprise. Nevertheless, it objects to its forceful introduction by means of hasty privatization.

Special attention is drawn to agriculture. The government tries to create truly equal conditions for co-operative and farming forms of ownership.

The economic course of Belarus is toward a socially oriented market economy which combines private enterprise and initiative and the modern level of social guarantees (living, health care, education, access to cultural and intellectual values) by means of state regulation.