cars. But if they can‘t get simple wooden toys right, the world may turn its back on anything with the tainted label: ―Made in China.‖
Home Listening ．．．．．．．．．．．．．
Today‘s leading Chinese brands must learn how to create and manage theirbrand value on a global scale. It is time for them to re-think their global brand 1) _ strategy, and follow the best practices of the world‘s most powerful multi-national brands. While we are still several years away from a Chinese brand appearing on Interbrand‘s Best Global Brands, the lessons from the 2) __annual ranking are clear — great brands know their strengths and weaknesses and plot effective strategies to 3)___ sustainand improve their value in the future. With the downturn of the global economy, the transformation of the ―Made in China‖ label and the acceptance of Chinese brands overseas can not be made 4)
_overnight The first challenge is to improve the quality
and safety of all Chinese products. The definition and enforcement of strict 5) standards and the active engagement in environmental protection is a social responsibility for any global player, and a pre-requisite for changing consumer 6) __perceptions overseas.
Home Listening ．．．．．．．．．．．．．
The Chinese government can play a very special role in these difficult times.
Leadership means taking short term actions to spur 7) _domestic demand and enhance the competitiveness of exports. But leadership also means creating a national agenda — like 8)_____ innovation _in Japan, design in Korea or engineering in Germany — that serves as a guiding light for Chinese companies eager to make their brand mark on global markets. Now is the 9) ___critical moment for Chinesegovernment and business_Leaders to consider the next stage of growth.government and business leaders to consider the
next stage of growth. This transformation must not only take place in areas such as technology, quality control and international cooperation, but in brand creation and brand management. Asian companies like Toyota, Sony, Samsung and Hyundai 10) ___which have already traveled the globalization path know that brand value is the key to unlocking shareholder value. UNIT 3Recession and Jobs: Surviving ．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．．the Recession ．．．．．．．．．．．．
Script ．．．．．．It‘s official — the British economy is in recession. Government figures released Friday show the economy contracted by a larger than expected 1.5 percent in the last three months of 2008, after a 0.6% drop in the previous quarter.
Britain‘s finance chief, Chancellor Alistair Darling acknowledged the economy had taken a sharper downturn than anticipated. ―If you look at today‘s figures, what you‘re seeing is a very significant fall in industrial production, and that‘s been caused because world trade has really fallen away very, very rapidly over the past few weeks and months,‖ said Chancellor Darling.
What started as a crisis in the financial sector in Britain continues to infect the wider economy. Unemployment is accelerating sharply, with nearly two million people now out of work, the housing market remains severely depressed and retail sales are weak. For the U.K. Friday‘s figures show the biggest decline in nearly 30 years. But, Chancellor Darling was quick to point out that Britain is certainly not alone.
―We‘re facing this problem everywhere,‖ he said. ―America has been in recession for a year now, even Germany, Italy, Japan. Countries in the Far East are seeing a substantial slowdown in growth.‖ The British government has moved to bail out failing banks and has put in place a multi-billion dollar stimulus package to shore up the ailing economy, including a cut in the national sales tax and help for businesses, homeowners and low-income families.
Script ．．．．．．Reporter: Well, he said we were in a
recession back in March, and the US economy has skidded along for the past two quarters. So where are we now? In the Economic Cycle with me now Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of ECRI, the Economic Cycle Research Institute, thanks for being with us.
Lakshman Achuthan: Well thanks for having me back.
Reporter: This is a call you‘ve made a lot, but what we recently — and it‘s likely right a lot of people are starting to agree with you — but the question is, we have not seen two back-to-back quarters of contracting growth. That is the traditional definition of a recession. Lakshman Achuthan: Yeah, it‘s it — what that is really is, it‘s a rule of thumb that was, and I was researching this ‘coz I‘ve heard so much about it — it came out in an article in 1974 where there was a laundry list of ways of knowing about a recession for the man on the street, and one out of, like, ten things was two negative quarters back-to-back, ‘coz [it] usually happens around a recession. What you find is that, that‘s not the way you define a recession, because a recession is really a sequence of events, and so you need to look at a sequence of indicators. Essentially what you‘re looking for is for sales to fall, so broad sales is a key indicator, which then pulls down production, so industrial production is an indicator they use to define recession, which then hits jobs, because if production falls, then jobs
are gonna fall. You don‘t need to hire that many people and then wages or income comes down, and that‘s the last piece. So it‘s the sequence, and then if wages come down, then it goes to the front of line, and people can‘t buy that much. So sales fall and that‘s how you get a recession, so the two negative quarters, I think, is something you often see there in a recession.`````` Reporter: Not always.
Lakshman Achuthan: But not always. So 2001 for example: definitely a recession; we almost lost 3 million jobs, we lopped off half the value of the NASDAQ, a lot of grief around there. I don‘t think anyone disputes that it was a recession. You never had two negative quarters of back to back GDP.
Reporter: Yeah, and correct me if I‘m wrong. We‘re dealing with inflation at the, you know, fastest rate in 17 years. (That‘s correct.) Wages are not up 5.6% like inflation is, and we‘re dealing with more than 400,000 jobless claims last week, we‘re dealing with all of this …. going on so, who‘s to say right now that we aren‘t in a recession?
Lakshman Achuthan: Well, I think, you know, some, uh, a cheer leader of the economy for one reason or another, some institutions who wanna do that, if you are bullish, and you wanna have a — you might have a certain vested interest in arguing that. What we‘re