新西兰英语 743 Zespri in trouble

 　　Zespri is the New Zealand company which markets New Zealand kiwifruit here and overseas. Zespri owned a branch company in China to manage importing kiwifruit between 2008 and 2010. Now a Shanghai court has found one employee of that company guilty of smuggling¹ kiwifruit into China without paying import duties. He was sentenced to 5 years in jail. Zespri has to pay a fine of nearly $1m and repay about $10m in import duties.

　　Kiwfruit growers are worried that they will have to pay this money which would be about $5000 each. This summer has been difficult for kiwifruit growers with the drought and with fewer fruit because of PSA disease.

　　Zespri now has a new importing company in China.

　　Listen to July 5th 2012 and follow the links to hear more about PSA disease.

　　Vocabulary

　　?to market (v) – advertise and sell

　　?smuggling – illegal importing

　　?import duties – a tax on imports

　　?drought – no rain

1 smuggling   

n.走私

参考例句：

• Some claimed that the docker's union fronted for the smuggling ring.某些人声称码头工人工会是走私集团的掩护所。
• The evidence pointed to the existence of an international smuggling network.证据表明很可能有一个国际走私网络存在。