5月15日午间英语新闻：前4个月我国货物贸易进出口增长5.7%

Gen Z sinking deeper into debt 

生活和教育成本攀升 美国年轻人债务负担日益沉重

Gen Z risk starting further and further behind previous generations building a life for themselves as soaring rents chew into their disposable income, leaving them deeper in a financial hole they are still digging.

随着房租飙升，Z世代的可支配收入越来越少，他们的生活水平可能越来越落后于上一代人，在自己挖掘的财务陷阱中越陷越深。

According to new data from credit reporting agency TransUnion, these higher costs, matched with their entry level salaries, have forced young Americans born between 1997 and 2012 to rely much more often on expensive forms of revolving lines of debt—such as credit cards—to make ends meet.

美国征信机构环联最新数据显示，生活成本不断上涨，却只拿着入门级薪资，Z世代年轻人不得不更频繁地依赖信用卡等昂贵的循环债务方式来维持生计。

“This is a generation that is feeling financial stress in a more acute way than millennials did a decade ago,” Charlie Wise, head of global research at TransUnion, told the Wall Street Journal.

环联全球研究负责人查理·怀斯告诉《华尔街日报》：“这一代美国人比十年前的千禧一代感受到了更为沉重的财务压力。”

The average open balance on US credit cards for Gen Z consumers grew to $2,834 last year, from $2,248 a decade earlier. 

2023年，Z世代消费者的美国信用卡平均未结余额增至2834美元，而十年前为2248美元。

In Bank of America's annual Better Money Habits survey published in October, nearly three out of four said they have changed their spending habits to offset higher living expenses, by doing such things as cooking at home more frequently, limiting groceries to essential purchases, and spending less on clothes.

在美国银行去年10月发布的年度“更好的金钱习惯”调查中，近四分之三的人表示，他们已经改变了消费习惯，通过更频繁地在家做饭、非必要不购买食品杂货以及减少衣服支出等方式来抵消更高的生活开支。

Should this persist, their finances could create a structural impediment to longer-term US economic growth. An inability to build a financially secure foundation is often reason to delay plans for starting a family, inadvertently contributing to a further drop in US fertility rates, now at their lowest since records began a century ago.

如果这种情况持续下去，他们的财务状况可能会对美国长期的经济增长造成结构性障碍。无法建立有保障的经济基础往往是推迟组建家庭计划的原因，这也无意间导致了美国生育率的进一步下降。目前美国生育率处于有记录的一个世纪以来的最低水平。

重点词汇：

1.chew

英/tʃuː/

美/tʃuː/

v.咀嚼，嚼碎；（为了品尝或因紧张而）不停地嚼，咬；（人或动物）咬，啃

n.咀嚼；口香糖；供嚼用的烟草；咀嚼物

2.offset

英/ˈɒfset/

美/ˈɔːfset/

v.补偿，抵销，抵消；衬托出；使偏离直线方向，使与……不在一条直线上；（墨水，刚印好的页面）转印下一页

n.抵消物，补偿；偏离量，偏离距离；（测绘）支距；（电压或电流的）偏离；侧枝，短匐茎；（山的）支脉；（建筑）壁阶；胶印法

adj.胶印的，平版印刷的；偏离中心的，偏置的

3.impediment

英/ɪmˈpedɪmənt/

美/ɪmˈpedɪmənt/

n.妨碍，障碍；口吃，结巴

4.inadvertently

英/ˌɪnədˈvɜːt(ə)ntli/

美/ˌɪnədˈvɜːrt(ə)ntli/

adv.无意地，不经意地

China's foreign trade up 5.7% in first 4 months

海关总署：前4个月我国货物贸易进出口增长5.7%

China's total imports and exports of goods expanded 5.7 percent year-on-year in the first four months of this year, to 13.81 trillion yuan ($1.91 trillion), data from the General Administration of Customs showed on Thursday.

海关总署5月9日发布的数据显示，今年前四个月，中国货物贸易进出口总值13.81万亿元，同比增长5.7%。

From January to April, exports grew 4.9 percent year-on-year to 7.81 trillion yuan, while imports rose 6.8 percent to 6 trillion yuan, the data showed.

今年1月到4月，我国出口7.81万亿元，同比增长4.9%；进口6万亿元，同比增长6.8%。

Private businesses, as evidenced by the data, played a bigger role in fueling the growth of foreign trade in goods. During the period, the trade value of private enterprises took up 54.6 percent of the total, up 2.5 percentage points from the same period last year, while foreign-invested enterprises’ trade constituted 29.1 percent.

数据显示，民营企业在推动外贸增长方面发挥了更大的作用。2024年前4个月，我国民营企业进出口值占我国外贸比重达54.6%，比2023年同期提升2.5个百分点，同期，外商投资企业进出口值占我外贸总值的29.1%。

Thursday's data also pointed to an uptick in China's imports and exports to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the US.

5月9日的数据还显示，中国对东盟和美国的进出口有所增长。

In the first four months, China's trade with its largest trade partner, ASEAN, rose 8.5 percent year-on-year to 2.18 trillion yuan, accounting for 15.8 percent of the country's total trade value.

今年前4个月，我国与最大贸易伙伴东盟的贸易总值为2.18万亿元，同比增长8.5%，占我国外贸总值的15.8%。

The country's trade in goods with its third-largest trade partner, the US, grew 1.1 percent to 1.47 trillion yuan during the period, while trade with the European Union, its second-largest trade partner, edged down 1.8 percent year-on-year.

同期，我国与第三大贸易伙伴美国的贸易总值为1.47万亿元，增长1.1%，与第二大贸易伙伴欧盟的贸易总值同比下降1.8%。

Highlights of China's trade in goods during the January-April period include a robust increase in exports of machinery and electronic products, accounting for nearly 60 percent of the country's total exports.

值得注意的是，1月到4月，我国机电产品出口强劲增长，占出口比重近6成。

In particular, the export value of automatic data processing equipment, integrated circuits and vehicles, surged 9.7 percent, 23.5 percent and 24.9 percent year-on-year, respectively, during the period.

数据显示，其中，自动数据处理设备、集成电路和汽车出口总值同比分别增长9.7%、23.5%和24.9%。

重点词汇：

1.uptick

英/ˈʌptɪk/

美/ˈʌptɪk/

n.小幅增加，微升；报升（股票成交价格比上一个交易的微高）