Реферат: UK in the world trade

--PAGE_BREAK--1.2.         Manufacturing
The history of manufacturing in Britain is unique because of Britain's role as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. During the Middle Ages the production of woolen textiles was a key industry in Britain. In the 16th and 17th centuries, new industries developed. These included silk weaving, garment making, and the manufacturing of hats, pottery, and cutlery.[4] All of these operations were generally conducted in small craft shops and were labor-intensive.

In the 18th century a number of changes in British society prepared the way for the Industrial Revolution. Colonial and commercial expansion created markets in North America, Africa, and parts of Asia. Coal and iron mining developed as Britain's dwindling forests created the need for another energy source, and new smelting techniques made iron implements cheaper to produce. An agricultural revolution in the 18th century introduced new crops and crop rotation techniques, better breeding methods, and mechanical devices for cultivation. This coincided with a rapid increase in population, in part due to better hygiene and diets, providing both consumers and workers for the new manufacturing operations.

During the Industrial Revolution new methods of manufacturing products were developed. Instead of being made by hand, many products were made by machine. Production moved from small craft shops to factories, and population shifted to urban areas where these factories were located. Cotton textile factories using newly developed steam-powered machines produced more goods at a lower cost per item. Textiles, shipbuilding, iron, and steel emerged as important industries, and coal remained the most important industrial fuel. The Industrial Revolution dramatically raised the overall standard of living.

The structure of British industry changed substantially in the last half of the 20th century. The coal mining and cotton textile industries declined sharply. As coal production declined, oil production replaced it as a major industry. Motor vehicle production became a significant part of the industrial base but was subject to severe foreign competition. As incomes increased, consumer demand rose for durable goods such as cars and kitchen appliances. British industrial production also expanded into communications equipment, including fiber optics, computers, computer-controlled machine tools, and robots. Growing industries in recent decades include paper products and publishing; chemicals, such as pharmaceuticals; rubber and plastics; and electronic and optical equipment.

Scotland is also a major producer of computers. The so-called Silicon Glen between Glasgow and Edinburgh employs thousands of people in the electronics industry and is the site of many overseas computer firms. Scotland and Northern Ireland are still noted for their production of whiskey and textiles, especially linen from Northern Ireland and tweed from Scotland.

About 12 percent of the workforce was engaged in manufacturing in the early 2000s, and manufacturing accounted for about 16 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP).[5]
1.3.         The service sector
One sign of a highly developed nation is a large and sophisticated service sector. When a nation's economy matures, its service sector grows rapidly while its manufacturing sector stabilizes or diminishes. This was the case with Britain. In the early 2000s Britain's service sector accounted for nearly three-fourths of the GDP and employed almost fourth-fifths of the workforce. The service industries include finance, retailing, wholesaling, tourism, business services, transport, insurance, investment, advertising, public relations, market research, education, administration, and government and professional services.

Britain developed sophisticated banking, financial, insurance, and shipping operations as early as the 17th century to support its expanding international ocean trade. Lloyd's of London, an early insurance house, began when a number of people willing to underwrite, or insure, the success of voyages gathered regularly at Lloyd's Coffee House in London to share shipping news. Lloyd's now insures approximately half of the world's shipping and cargoes as well as much of the aircraft industry.

Banking and financial services have always played an important part in London's economy, and levels of specialization and expertise have been high. This has attracted ever-larger amounts of business from an increasingly global economy. Today, London has the largest concentration of international banks in the world and is the world's leading center for currency trading. Leeds, Manchester, Cardiff, Liverpool, Edinburgh, and Glasgow have developed as financial centers in recent decades. London is also the world's leading center for insurance and handles 20 percent of the world's insurance business. The financial services sector expanded especially rapidly after the deregulation of the stock exchange in 1986. By the early 2000s financial and other business services, including real estate, accounted for more than one-quarter of Britain's GDP and employed nearly one-fifth of the workforce.[6]

Several significant developments in the service sector took place toward the end of the 20th century. Telecommunications became a dynamic growth industry, and independent retailing declined sharply.

The leisure industry grew dynamically, commanding an increasing proportion of consumer spending. Organizations catering to international conferences and exhibitions also have been a growth area. These organizations have been particularly successful because Britain is one of the world's top locations for business meetings and trade shows.

Tourism has become an increasingly important economic sector in Britain, employing at least 7 percent of the workforce. Britain is one of the world's top tourist destinations, annually attracting about 25 million overseas visitors in the early 2000s—more than a 50 percent increase over the early 1980s. Under the Development of Tourism Act of 1969, a government organization, the British Tourist Authority, was set up to attract overseas visitors and to improve tourist accommodation and travel conditions.[7]
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--PAGE_BREAK--1.4.         Transportation
Britain has historically been an innovator and world leader in many forms of transportation, from shipping to rail systems to aviation. Transport services make near 8% GDP of the United Kingdom. In their grant, including contiguous industries, about 1.4 million persons are busy.[8]

Because Britain is an island, shipping has been important for centuries. The irregular coastlines of the British Isles provide many natural harbors, and Britain's gentle, navigable rivers have always been conducive to shipping. Seafaring skills were directly connected to Britain's growth as a naval power. As early as the 16th century Britain defeated Spain, its greatest rival at sea. In the 17th and 18th centuries France was defeated, then Germany in the early 20th century. Prior to World War II, Britain had the largest merchant fleet in the world, a fleet that sailed throughout the vast British Empire and was protected by the Royal Navy. Britain continued to be the world leader in shipping until World War II, when submarine attacks by Germany sank many British vessels and the tremendous output of the American shipbuilding industry made the United States the world leader.

Today many British shipping firms operate under foreign flags to avoid the more stringent British shipping regulations, including higher wages for crews. Most British passenger shipping involves ferry trips to the continent of Europe or to Ireland. Tankers carrying oil and dry bulk cargo make up the majority of oceanic shipping. British ports were nationalized in the late 1940s, and in recent years most have moved into the private sector or are governed by independent trusts. The most important port in the United Kingdom is London; other important commercial ports are at Forth in Scotland, Grimsby and Birmingham in eastern England, Liverpool in western England, and Southampton and Dover in southern England.

Canals were built in Britain to link rivers, and most of Britain's canals were built as part of the transportation revolution that took place between 1750 and 1840. Canals were built by gangs of laborers known as navigators, a name that came from their task of creating channels of inland navigation. This term was soon shortened to «navvies.» The canals were important during the Industrial Revolution for transporting goods, but by the 1830s they had to compete with the new railways, which quickly surpassed them. Thereafter, canals were used to carry extremely bulky materials.[9]

Today Britain has about 3,200 km (about 2,000 mi) of canals and navigable rivers, of which about 620 km (about 390 mi) are commercial waterways. The most important of these are the Manchester Ship Canal, which is the largest canal in Britain; the Thames; and the Caledonian Canal across northern Scotland, which provides a navigable waterway linking the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The rest of the rivers and canals are used for recreation and form part of Britain's historical heritage.[10]

The Victorian era was also known as the Railway Age. The railroad can be considered the child of the British coal mines because carts on tracks were used to haul coal. These precursors of the railroad were then combined with steam engines, which led to further technological innovations. An added advantage in the development of railroads in Britain was that the most populated parts of the country, where this mode of transportation was needed, were relatively flat.

The world's first public railway was the Stockton and Darlington, which opened in 1825. A period of hectic railway building followed for the next quarter century as different companies competed to lay track. It was a massive undertaking that employed vast armies of laborers and altered the British landscape by digging through hills and constructing bridges and tunnels. In a short time the basic grid of Britain's railways was in place.[11]

Over the ensuing century smaller railway companies were absorbed or merged into a few large companies. In 1948 the government nationalized the four remaining companies, and in the 1960s they became the British Railways Board. In 1955 a modernization program began to replace steam trains with diesel and electric ones. The last steam locomotive was withdrawn in 1968. Around this time intense competition from road transport made it necessary to cut costs, and many unprofitable branch railway lines closed.[12]

Railroads were part of the wave of privatization that took place in the early 1990s. The complicated procedure was based on the Railway Act of 1993. The infrastructure, including tracks and train operations, was put into the hands of Rail track, a government-owned company that was privatized by selling stock to private investors. Passenger operations were split into 25 operating units, each franchised to a private firm given the right to provide passenger service to a particular region of Britain.[13] In 1995 freight operations in Britain were divided among private companies based in different parts of the country. The government appoints a rail regulator and a franchising director to ensure that rail arrangements are fair to companies and passengers. The moves to fully privatize BR were highly contentious and generated considerable criticism within Britain.

The fractured nature of rail organization was forcefully brought home in the late 1990s and early 2000s with a series of high-profile rail accidents. The accidents were blamed in part on the separation of ownership of rail and rolling stock and on the needs of privatized companies to provide shareholder income at the perceived expense of passenger safety. After a crash in 2000 in Hertfordshire caused by faulty rails, the entire railway network was examined and track replaced, leading to severe delays to rail journeys for months. Rail track was replaced in 2003 by Network Rail, a not-for-profit company.[14]

A railway tunnel beneath the English Channel was completed in 1993, connecting England and the European continent. The main Channel Tunnel, which is 50.4 km (32 mi) long, runs from Folkston, England, to Calais, France. Trains carry both passengers and freight through the tunnel. Motorists can drive their cars on and off the train. The trip through the tunnel takes about 35 minutes.[15]

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