New figures from France, Germany and Italy -- the three biggest economies in the 12-country Eurozone- suggest the continent’s ec

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问题       New figures from France, Germany and Italy -- the three biggest economies in the 12-country Eurozone- suggest the continent’s economic woes may have been exaggerated.  In France, evidence emerged that consumer spending remained solid in July and August, rising 1.4% and 0.6% respectively. Forecasters had generally expected the July figure to show a 0.1% slippage, with August unchanged. But the figures were flattered slightly by a down grade to the June figure, to 0.7% from 1.5%.
     With manufacturing in the doldrums across Europe and the U. S. , consumer spending has been increasingly seen as the best hope of stopping the global economic slowdown from turning into a recession. The French government said the news proved that the economy was holding up to the strain of the slowdown.
     Meanwhile in Germany, new regional price figures went someway towards calming fears about inflation in Europe’s largest economy -- a key reason for the European Central Bank’s reluctance to cut interest rates 15 states said consumer prices were broadly stable, with inflation falling year on year. The information backed economists’ expectations that inflation for the country as a whole is set to fall back to a yearly rate of 2.1%, compared to a yearly rate of 2.6% in August, closing in on the Euro-wide target of 2%. The drop is partly due to last year’s spike in oil prices dropping out of the year-on-year calculation.
     The icing on the cake was news that Italy’s job market has remained buoyant. The country’s July unemployment rate dropped to 9.4% from 9.6% the month before, its lowest level in more than eight years. And a business confidence survey from quasi-governmental research group ISAE told of a general pick-up in demand in the six weeks to early September.  But the news was tempered by an announcement by Alitalia, the country’s biggest airline, that it will have to get rid of 2,500 staff to cope with the expected contraction as well as selling 12 aeroplanes. And industrial group Confindustria warned that the attacks on U. S. targets meant growth will be about 1.9% this year, well short of the government’s 2.4% target. And it said the budget deficit will probably be about 1.5%, nearly twice the 0.8% Italy’s government has promised its European Union partners.
Industrial group Confindustria warned that ______.

选项 A、the attacks on U. S. targets lead to the comparatively lower growth
B、the growth had been well short of the government’s target
C、the budget deficit must be about 1.5%
D、the budget deficit will probably be greatly different from the country’s promise

答案D

解析 在最后一段中,工业集团C。Confindustria发出警告:对美国的袭击意味着今年的经济增长将为1.9%,远远低于政府2.4%的目标,而预算赤字可能为 1.5%,几乎比意大利政府向欧共体伙伴所保证的0.8%高出一倍。因此,D项“预算赤字可能与这个国家的承诺大不相同”最符合题意。
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