評論
打印
Finance and Economics
財經
The Ethiopia’s Commodity Exchange: High-tech, low impact
埃塞俄比亞的商品交易所：高科技，低影響
A state-of-the-art commodity exchange struggles with the basics.
該國最先進的商品交易所仍在基礎層面掙扎前行。
ON THE walls of the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange (ECX) in Addis Ababa, the capital, hang glossy black-and-white photographs of provincial market towns and rustic life.
在亞的斯亞貝巴（埃塞俄比亞首都）埃塞俄比亞商品交易所的墻上，懸掛著平滑的地方城鎮集市和鄉村生活的黑白相片。
For the merchants and brokers striding across its high-tech trading floor they serve as a reminder that the ECX, sub-Saharan Africa’s most modern commodity exchange outside Johannesburg, exists for a simple, practical purpose: to transform Ethiopian agriculture.
商人和經紀人快步走過高科技的交易大廳，他們令人意識到商品交易所（亞撒哈拉地區除約翰內斯堡外現代化程度最高的商品交易市場）的存在是為了一個簡單而實際的目的，即讓埃塞俄比亞的農業轉型。
It has some way to go.
它仍有一些路要走。
By connecting smallholder farmers to global markets, the exchange, launched with a fanfare in 2008, was supposed to help reduce hunger.
在2008年，交易所高調宣告將小農與全球市場連接起來，期望可以幫助減少饑荒。
The hope was it would reduce price volatility and incentivise farmers to plant crops.
也希望可以幫助減少價格波動和鼓勵農民種莊稼。
But staple foods such as haricot beans today account for less than 10% of its trade.
但主要農產品比如扁豆如今卻占了不到10%的貿易。
Its annual turnover—worth about $1bn—is dominated instead by two export crops, coffee and sesame seeds.
它的年營業額—大約價值10億美元—是由占主導地位的咖啡豆和芝麻帶來的。
In 2015, despite a dire drought, Ethiopia did avoid famine, but the ECX played little role: its maize and wheat contracts had lapsed by then because of concerns that exports would jeopardise domestic food supplies.
2015年，盡管出現了干旱，埃塞俄比亞也避免了饑荒，但交易所幾乎沒有起到作用：由于擔心糧食出口會危及國內糧食供應使得玉米和小麥的合約在那時已經失效。
Cutting out middlemen seems not to have done much for smallholders: studies suggest that the share of international prices received by coffee farmers has barely budged over the past decade.
減少中間商似乎并沒有給小農帶來太多（幫助）：研究表明，國際咖啡價格中咖啡農的分成在過去十年幾乎沒有變動。
Exporters complain about government price-meddling.
出口商抱怨政府干預價格。
The ECX’s founder, Eleni Gabre-Madhin, who left the exchange in 2012, worries that momentum has been lost.
這個交易所的創始人，Eleni Gabre-Madhin，在2012年離開了交易所，她擔心勢頭已經過了。
The exchange remains restricted to simple spot-trading.
交易所仍局限于簡單的現貨交易。
Futures contracts, which help traders manage price fluctuations, were supposed to be introduced within five years, but are still some way off.
可以幫助交易商避免價格波動的期貨合約，應該會在五年內引入，但仍有一定的距離。
考研英語時事閱讀
