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Improve your English , VOA learning English, VOA special English, report compilation #8
From VOA Learning English,this is Economics Report.
Recent discoveries of mineral wealth in Kenya could help add to East Africa’s biggest economy.
The government also is taking steps to improve the openness of the mining industry.
But some citizens are concerned that at least one newly announced mining project will damage local communities.
The government has warned companies about making announcements about new resources before they are confirmed.
Kenya’s Secretary of Mining,Najib Balala,says the government will ask mining companies for details abot their findings 21 days before making them public.
The discoveries also could upset some communities where big mining projects are planned.
One example is the recent discovery of rare minerals in the Mirima Hills,in the coastal area of Kwale.
The mining company Cortec reported finding a deposit of more than 600 kilograms of niobium.
The element is used in making steel and metal mixtures called superconducting allow electic currents to travel very easily.
Cortec says the discovery could be worth $50 billion.
But a dispute has begun between the company,the government and the local community.
Leaders of the Mijikenda ethnic ethnic group,which lives near Kenya’s coast, say they practice their reliaion in the Mirima Hills.
The Kenyan government has not announced how payments it receives from minina companies,called royalties,wold be used.
The Mining Secretary is expected to present legislation proposing that the central government take 70 percent of mining royalties.
Local governments would receive 25 percent and local communities would receive five percent.
For VOA Learning English,I’m Carolyn Presuutti.
This is the VOA Special English Economics Report.
The United States,the Eropean Union and Japan have called for talk with China under the dispute settlement system of the World Trade Organization.
They want to discss China’s export limits on rare earth metals and two other minerais.
WTO rles give talks sixty days to work.
If they do not settle the dispte,a WTO panel can then be requested to help reach a settlement.
Rare earth metals are used in the manufacture of almost every high-technology device- from mobile and computers to batteries for electric cars.
And demand is only growing.
China says it follows WTO rules in exporting the minerals.
In twenty ten,China mined about one hundred thirty thousand metric tons of rare earth metals.
That was about ninety-seven percent of world production.
But information from China’s government and the United States Geological Survey shows that China has reduced its export limits sharpls in the past two years.
Critics say this unfairly helps Chinese companies in the production of high-technology products.
And,they say,it is a violation of World Trade Organization rules.
President Obama explained why the United States was involved in the case.
He said American manufactrers use rare earth materials to make high-tech products like advanced batteries.
‘’We want our companies building those products right here in America,’’he said.
To do that China supplies.
In the president’s words, ‘’If China would simply let the market work on its own,we’d have no objections.’’
But he said Chinese policies ‘’go against the very rules that China agreed to follow.
‘’China says it has restricted rare earth exports to meet needs at home.
And it says its policy helps limit the environmental damage caused by over-mining.
China now faces a slowing economy.
In February,the nation had its biggest trade deficit in ten years.
Experts expect China’s central bank to increase the money supply to aid economic growth.
At the same time,inflation remains a threat.
On March fourteenth,Premier Wen Jiabao discussed the need for reform.
China,in his words, ‘’mst continue to strike a balance between maintaining steady and robust economic development,making economic structural adjustments and managing inflationary expectations.
‘’For voa Special English,I’m Alex Villarreal.
Get more bsiness news and learn English at voaspecialenglish.com.
I’m Mario Ritter with the VOA Special English Economics Report.
Food prices are at their highest level since the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization began keeping records in nineteen ninety.
The causes include bad weather and growing demand.
Some exports also blame the use of food crops to make fel.
But higher food prices are not always the result of limited supplies.
Coffee prices have jumped almost fifty percent in six months.
Prices have reached a thirteen-year high.
Yet growers expect their current crop to be almost ten percent bigger than the last one.
JM Smucker is an American company known for its jellies and fruit spreads.
But Smucker also owns Folgers,America’s top-selling packaged coffee.
And it owns Dnkin’Donuts,which sells coffee to wash down the doughnuts at its stores.
In February