2015考研英语阅读英文原刊《经济学人》：Pensions in Nigeria

　　2015考研英语复习正是强化复习阶段，考研英语阅读在考研英语中占了40分，所以考研英语阅读是英语科目中重要的一项。新东方名师范猛老师曾建议过考研生需要坚持每天泛读10-15分钟的英文原刊。强烈推荐了杂志《经济学人》杂志中的文章也是考研英语的主要材料来源.希望考研考生认真阅读，快速提高考研英语阅读水平。

　　Pensions in Nigeria

　　尼日利亚的退休金计划

　　Fewer ghosts, more savings

　　少消耗 多储蓄

　　After an unpromising start,Nigeria is beginning toencourage local saving and investment

　　在一个不靠谱的开端之后，尼日利亚开始鼓励当地的储蓄和投资。

　　FEW people in Africa are fortunate enough to have savings to fall back on in their old age.Having enrolled in a voluntary state-run pension scheme, Stephen Okikiola was always luckierthan most. But it was not until Nigeria obliged firms with five or more employees to provideworkers with pensions in 2004 that the former pharmaceuticals executive really startedaccumulating cash. “It's good to be able to rely on those monthly payments now that I amretired,” he says.

　　在非洲，很少有人有足够的资金去做养老储蓄。Stephen Okikiola比大多数人幸运，因为他参加了国营的自发退休金计划。但是直到2004年尼日利亚迫使企业的五个或以上的雇员给给工人提供退休金，前制药公司的执行官们才真正地开始进行了存储。他说：“我已经退休了，能依赖于那些每月的支付是很不错的。”

　　Nigeria has spent a decade resurrecting its pension system. Back at the turn of the century,government employees were enrolled in a defined-benefit system (in which eventual paymentsare fixed).It had run up unfunded liabilities of 2 trillion naira (12.9 billion).Governments seldomput aside enough money to pay existing pensioners, let alone to cover future costs. Retireesoften went unpaid. Most private companies, meanwhile, ignored their obligation to providepensions for their workers. At those that did, allegations of mismanagement and fraudabounded.

　　尼日利亚花了十多年去恢复他们的退休金制度。回顾本世纪初，政府雇员参加的是固定退休金制度(即期末薪金是固定的)。这加剧了高达2万亿奈拉养老金缺口(129亿美元)。政府很少给现有的退休人员准备充足的养老资金，更不用说承担未来成本。退休人员通常领不到退休金，而且大多数私人公司也不顾他们给职工提供养老金的责任。所有这些事情中充满了对管理不善的推诿和欺骗。

　　All this changed with the reforms of 2004, which not only instituted mandatory pensions atmost private firms, but also converted the government scheme from defined-benefit todefined-contribution (in which the risk of poor investment returns lies with the participants,not the sponsor). The management of the government scheme was also outsourced, and aregulator created to oversee the industry. Since 2005, pension schemes' assets have grown bymore than 25% a year on average, to about 4.2 trillion naira (26 billion).

　　这些都在2004年的改革中发生了变化。他们给私人企业制定了强制养老保险计划，同时将政府的固定退休金制改为固定缴款制(低投资回报的风险由受益人承担，而不是发起人)。这种政府制度的管理是外包的，是产业监督的一个校准器。自从2005年起，退休金制度一年的资产平均增长率超过了25%，达到了4.2万亿奈拉(260亿美元)。

　　That is still a relatively small amount, especially when judged against the government'smassively expanded estimate of the size of the Nigerian economy. In April it nearly doubled itstally of GDP to 510 billion. That reduced pension-scheme assets to about 5% of GDP,compared to 170% in the Netherlands, 131% in Britain and 113% in America.

　　这仍旧是一笔相当少的数目，尤其是与政府对尼日利亚经济的大量乐观预期相比时。GDP在四月几乎翻番为5100亿美元。这将退休金制度的在GDP中的占比减低至5%，而在荷兰占比170%，英国占比131%，美国为113%。

　　Moreover, the vast majority of Nigerians work in informal jobs, and so do not have a pension:of a working population of perhaps 80m people, only around 6m participate in any sort ofscheme. The government is trying to rectify that, too: a fresh set of reforms, passed in July,extended the obligation to provide a pension to firms employing three or more people. It alsoincreased mandatory contributions from 7.5% of salary for both workers and employers to 8%and 10% respectively.

　　此外，数量庞大的尼日利亚人从事于不能领取退休金的非正式工作：大约8000万的劳动力人口中只有6000万左右的人参加了这个计划。政府正在试图改变这种情况。在7月通过的一系列改革中，扩大了提供退休金的义务为每个公司要雇佣三人及以上。这同样使强制性供款增加，工人从工资的7.5%增加至8%，雇员至10%。

　　As a result, savings are expected to grow further. By law, all the money must be investedinNigeria. The intention is to build a big pool of local cash that will reduce the country'sdependence on foreign aid, loans and investment. That goal has seemed all the more pressingsince the prospect of rising interest rates in America caused an exodus of cash from emergingmarkets last year.

　　因此，可以预计未来储蓄会增长。根据法律，所有的款项将投资于尼日利亚本国，以期建造一个本币现金池以降低国家对外国的援助、贷款及投资的依存度。似乎这个目标自从美国利率的上升预期导致新兴市场中的大量现金外流之后就非常迫切了。

　　Nigeria's overwhelmed infrastructure needs billions of dollars a year in investment. Pensionschemes looking for long-term, local investments to match their liabilities could funddesperately-needed roads, ports, railways and houses. PenCom, the national regulator, is tryingto promote investments in electricity generation, perhaps via the government's hugeprivatisation programme. It also wants more forays into private equity.

　　尼日利亚过多的基础设施需要一年几百万美元的投入。退休金计划寻求长期的、本地的投资去应对他们在公路、港口、铁路和住宅方面的紧迫需求。PenCom是一个本国监管机构试图通过政府的宏大的私有化计划促进发电方面的投资，同时也希望削弱私人股本。

　　As things stand, however, pension funds are shunning alternative assets. Overall,infrastructure accounts for less than 2% of their assets, compared with 68% for governmentbonds and 13% for shares. That is partly because there are only two registered infrastructurefunds inNigeriaand no dedicated infrastructure bonds, according to Stanbic IBTC PensionManagers,Nigeria's biggest pension-fund administrator.These are new and intimidating assetclasses for local fund managers, says Kayode Akindele, of 46 Parallels, an investment manager.

　　然而照目前的情况来看，退休金计划回避了资产的其他选择。总的来说，相比于68%的政府公债和13%的股份，基础设施的占比低于资产的2%。一部分原因是因为根据尼日利亚最大的养老基金管理机构Stanbic IBTC的养老基金管理，尼日利亚只有两个基础设施基金，且并不致力于基础设施融资。投资经理Kayode Akindele以及46个同行称，这是给本土基金经理上的最新令人畏惧的资产课程。

　　Meanwhile, for the lucky few, life has improved. Former civil servants say they no longer have toqueue for hours to collect their payments—the money goes straight to their accounts. Andthings have become more transparent. “Ghost workers” used to account for a hugeproportion of payments disbursed, according to Demola Sogunle, the boss of Stanbic. Thosedays, he says, are now over.

　　同时，对于少数幸运者来说，生活质量提高了。前公务员说工资直接会打到他们的账户中，不再需要排几个小时的长队去领了。同时事情也变得更有效率了，Stanbic的总裁Demola Sogunle称，曾经绝大一部分支付的工资流向了“影子工人”，而现在这种情况已经一去不复返了。译者：李美娜

文章来源：经济学人

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