2020年经济学人 一周要闻 中国4月汽车销量同比增长4.4% 腾讯疫情中迎机遇 英国工资补贴延长至10月（在线收听）

The British government extended its pay-protection plan until October, through which furloughed workers receive 80% of their wages subject to a salary cap. But the government said that in the summer it would ask companies to start sharing the scheme’s cost in order to ease the strain on public finances.

英国政府将薪资保障计划延长到10月份，通过该计划，休假员工可获得工资的80%，但是有薪资上限。不过政府表示，将在今年夏季要求企业开始分担该计划的成本来缓解公共财政压力。

Kristalina Georgieva, the head of the IMF, warned that the outlook for the global economy had worsened since the fund published a gloomy scenario just last month. PNC Financial, America’s ninth-largest bank, announced the sale of its 22% stake in BlackRock. The stake is worth around $17bn.

国际货币基金组织总裁克里斯塔利娜·格奥尔基耶娃警告称，自该组织上月发布悲观预测以来，全球经济前景已经恶化。全美第九大银行PNC金融集团宣布出售其持有的贝莱德22%的股份。这些股份价值约170亿美元。

PNC was BlackRock’s biggest shareholder, but as a regional bank it is potentially exposed to souring loans in the energy and hospitality industries during the pandemic. Selling its holding bolsters its capital defences.

PNC曾是贝莱德最大的股东，但作为一家地区性银行，它在这次疫情期间可能面临能源和酒店行业的不良贷款。出售所持股份增强了其资本防御能力。

Turkey’s financial regulator lifted a brief ban on BNP Paribas, Citigroup and UBS from trading in its currency market. According to the regulator the banks were barred because they had not settled with their Turkish counterparts. But the ban coincided with the lira falling to another record low, suggesting that the government was trying to prop it up.

土耳其金融监管机构解除了对法国巴黎银行(BNP Paribas)、花旗集团(Citigroup)和瑞银集团(UBS)在其外汇市场交易的短暂禁令。根据监管机构的说法，这些银行之所以被禁，是因为没有与土耳其的同行达成和解。但禁令出台的同时，里拉汇率又跌至创纪录低点，这表明政府正试图提振里拉汇率。

Vehicle sales in China rose by 4.4% last month compared with April 2019, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. It is the first increase since mid-2018 (when a tax break on car purchases ended) and was driven by a surge in sales of commercial vehicles. Sales of passenger cars remain subdued.

根据中国汽车工业协会(CAAM)的数据，上个月中国汽车销量同比增长4.4%。这是自2018年年中(汽车购置税优惠政策结束后)以来的首次增长，主要是受商用汽车销量激增的推动。乘用车的销售依然低迷。

Toyota said it expects operating profit for the current financial year to fall by 80%. The world’s second-biggest carmaker thinks its sales will drop to a nine-year low.

丰田表示，预计本财年的营业利润将下降80%。这家世界第二大汽车制造商认为其销量将跌至9年来的最低点。

While industries in the physical world bear the brunt of locked-down economies, those in the virtual realm continue to thrive. Tencent, one of the world’s biggest tech conglomerates, reported a 26% rise, year on year, in quarterly sales, as the number of subscribers to its video service surged to 112m and that for its music service to 43m. It made a profit of 28.9bn yuan ($4.1bn) in the quarter.

随着实体世界的产业首当其冲地受到封锁经济的冲击时，虚拟世界的产业却继续蓬勃发展。全球最大的科技企业集团之一的腾讯(Tencent)报告季度销售额同比增长26%，其视频服务的用户数量飙升至1.12亿，音乐服务的用户数量飙升至4300万。该公司本季度实现利润289亿元(41亿美元)。

Uber was reportedly in talks to merge Uber Eats, its food delivery service, with Grubhub, a rival in that market. The combined operations would take a 55% slice of the food-delivery industry in America. That might be too much to swallow for trustbusters in Washington.

据报道，优步正在就旗下外卖服务“Uber Eats”与竞争对手Grubhub合并进行谈判。合并后的业务将占据美国食品快递业55%的份额。这对华盛顿的反垄断官员来说可能难以接受。