马里：新政府必须迅速启动经济

搜索关注在线英语听力室公众号：tingroom，领取免费英语资料大礼包。

　　Business owners in capital city Bamako say the new government can not get to work fast enough.

　　It's a family business: father and son, husband and wife. The son, Souleymane Kone, said the March 2012 military coup cut business in half almost immediately.

　　"The investors⁴ pulled out. So all the big construction jobs were halted," he said. "And on the local level, those with money are not spending it.

　　His father, Abdoul Kader, said things are looking up.

　　"Work is going to start again and things will get better," he said. "I am so happy that despite the crisis, the election went well and the candidates kept the tension down.

　　Mali's economy had been on a slow but steady ascent⁵ since the 1990s. It declined for the first time in 2012 - a contraction⁶ of 1.2 percent.

　　That wasn't as bad as it could have been. The gold and cotton sectors⁷ in the south were relatively⁸ untouched, but tourism took a major hit. And the occupation of the north hurt trade and agriculture, heightening chronic⁹ food shortages. Farming, fishing and forestry¹⁰ are nearly half of Mali's gross domestic product.

　　Economist¹¹ Younoussa Maiga said an influx¹² of foreign aid will help, but this new government also must attract investors. And to do that, it must tackle pervasive¹³ corruption¹⁴.

　　"This corruption, it's government agents embezzling¹⁵ state resources. It's small-time - you've got traffic police taking a few dollars from drivers all day long. It's people being forced to pay for free public services. There's large-scale organized corruption when it comes to awarding government contracts and the whole process of spending state funds," Maiga said. "All of this forces business owners to pay when they shouldn't have to.

　　For now, shopowners around Bamako, like Adama Mariko, say they are just trying to hang on.

　　"I'm here the whole day and I sell nothing," Mariko said.

　　Still, the shelves of the electronics shop are mostly empty.

　　"No one outside the country would give credit to Malian merchants because with the war and the rebellion, nobody knew we'd be there to repay. And you can't do business without credit," said Mariko.

　　Job creation is a major priority. Work is scarce for the 300,000 young people who hit the job market every year. Economists¹⁶ say presidents don't create jobs, though, investment and economic growth do.

分享到：