Chapter -5 .The Economy and Industries of United Kingdom.ppt

The Economy and Industries of United Kingdom The General Remark The oldest industrial country Use to be “the factory of the world”. Its currency , Pound (￡) is the exchange currency for about 1/3 of the world’s foreign trade. UK economy was overtaken by USA in 1900s Experienced the “relative decline” after WWⅡ The relative decline means that Britain is not poorer or producing less than it was in 1945. It has improved, but much slower than other capitalistic countries. UK’s economic power fall from the second to the sixth behind USA, Western Germany, France, Japan and Italy. Mrs. Thatcher’s recovering policy Macro-economic measures: brought down the rate of inflation and achieving price stability. The UK government applied a tight control on the exchange rate and regulation of money growth. Micro-economic policies: aimed at working with the gain of market economy by encouraging enterprise efficiency and flexibility: privatization. (40% of the British Sate owned enterprise were privatized and made profits.) The Current UK Economy British national economies can be broken down into three main areas: primary industries, such as agriculture, fishing, and mining; secondary industries, which manufacture complex goods from those primary products; tertiary industries, often described as services, such as banking, insurance, tourism, and the selling of goods. Britain’s agricultural sector is small (producing 1.4% of the national wealth) but efficient, producing 58% of the UK’s food needs with only 2% of its workforce. Three quarters of Britain’s land is used for agriculture, with about a quarter of that under crops --- wheat and barley are the two commonest. The rest is grazing for livestock. The livestock industry has been hit badly by BSE disease and “mouth-and –foot” disease. The fishing industry provides 55% of the UK demand for fish. Scottish ports land the majority of the fish caught. And the most national favorite fish is cod (鳕鱼), which is oft