2.3. Replace the words in italics by their synonyms.

a deepening of reforms; to be cut off from international financing; to default on a debt

2.4. Explain in English.

advanced economies; to lead the decline; the best economic performer; to invest on a more selective basis; backtracking on reforms; push a bank to the brink of collapse

2.5. Make the following statements more factually correct.

1. All the Eastern European Countries have suffered great losses as a result of Russia’s financial troubles.

2. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development was set up to promote laissez-faire ideas in Communist countiries.

3. The economic crisis has not stopped foreigners investing in the East European region. They take advantage of every opportunity to invest in countries like Russia, Belarus, Turkmenistan.

4. The reason why the reforms in Russia have slowed down was the decision of the international community to cut this country off from large-scale financing.

5. Poland and Hungary referred to as the most advanced economies have benefited from the Russian problems.

2.6. Read the following article and complete the exercises that follow. Canada Forges Trade Pact With Chile

TORONTO — Bypassing a deadlock in Washington over whether to expand the North American Free Trade Agree­ment to include Chile, Canada has signed its own accord to open trade with Chile.

Although Chile, one of South Amer­ica's fastest-growing economies, is not a major Canadian trading partner, com­merce between the two countries has been growing in recent years and now exceeds $500 million a year. Canadian mining companies have made big investments there, and businesses in both countries have formed more than 50 joint ven­tures. The agreement, reached Monday, removes tariffs on three-quarters of all imports and exports between the two countries. Remaining duties arc to be eliminated over the next five years.

But Canada’s most important goal in pursuing a trade agreement was to pave the way for the eventual entry of Chile into the North American Free Trade Agreement..

“We will keep pushing the U.S.,” Prime Minister Jean Chretien said after he signed die agreement in Ottawa with President Eduardo Frei of Chile.

A U.S. trade official said the Canadian agreement appeared to be “a good in­terim step” that would help speed the process of Chile's admission to the North American trade bloc once ne­gotiations with the United States resumed, perhaps early next year.

After NAFTA went into effect in January 1994, the three original mem­bers — the United States, Canada and Mexico — looked forward to expanding it to bring in other countries in the West­ern Hemisphere.

In December of that year, the leaders of the three countries announced their intention to begin the .process of ex­tending membership to Chile.

But that initiative got off track within weeks, after Mexico was forced to de­value the peso, setting off a financial crisis that required a multibillion-dollar rescue effort led by the United States.

Mexico’s problems poured many members of the U.S. Congress against free trade.

Financial Times. 10 June. 1999.