英语听力：澳洲新闻 (ABC新闻快递) 2014-05-14

 The local market has jumped in early trade thanks to a strong lead from Wall Street overnight. The All Ordinaries is up about 0.8 percent or 41 points. The ASX 200 has added 43. U.S. stocks hit record highs overnight. The Dow Jones closed at 16,695, while the S&P 500 added almost one percent.And the Australian dollar is currently buying 93.5 U.S. cents. 

 

And the markets will be keeping a close eye on tonight's budget. Economist¹ Paul Bloxham says while we're not facing a budget emergency, it is important to get back to surplus in the medium term. 

 

“Very small government in the scheme of things. Government's net debt is 12 percent of GDP which is extraordinarily² low when you compare it with the rest of the world. And if you look at one other statistics, it is very useful and that is the proportion of government spending as a share of GDP, we have the third smallest proportion of spending as a share of GDP across the OECD members. So, we actually have a fairly small government to start with. We need to fix it up in the medium term, but it doesn't need to be an aggressive repair job. ”

 

And official figures out today have revealed a rise in the number of loans taken out to build and buy newly-constructed homes in March. Figures from the Bureau of Statistics show a 2.1 percent rise in the number of loans taken out to build a house, while loans to buy a new house rose by 1.6 percent. However, the total value of loans taken out during the month fell by 1.1 percent.

1 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

2 extraordinarily   

adv.格外地；极端地

参考例句：

• She is an extraordinarily beautiful girl.她是个美丽非凡的姑娘。
• The sea was extraordinarily calm that morning.那天清晨，大海出奇地宁静。