经济学人下载:延迟支付是意大利的特色

[00:01.46]Business.
商业。
[00:02.47]Italian payment practices.
意大利的支付习惯。
[00:04.52]Unhealthy delays.
有害的延误。
[00:08.30]Late payments are an Italian speciality-particularly in health care.
延迟支付是意大利的特色——尤其在医药保健领域。
[00:13.20]IN MEDICINE speed is of the essence. If the ambulance arrives a minute late, the patient may be dead.
在医药领域，速度就是核心。如果救护车晚到一分钟，病人就可能死亡了。
[00:21.37]Italian paramedics are no doubt as swift as those in other countries.
意大利的护理人员无疑同其他国家一样行动迅速。
[00:25.40]But Italy's health-care authorities are shamefully slow when it comes to paying suppliers-making it difficult for them to survive.
但谈到向供应商支付时，意大利的医疗机构就慢的令人羞耻了——简直让供应商们难以生存。
[00:33.41]"We're still waiting to be paid for goods sold in 2009," says Stefano Rimondi, the managing director of Bellco, a maker of equipment for dialysis with revenues of more than 100m ($126m) and a workforce of 360 people.
"我们还在等2009年出售的货物的付款，"Bellco公司的常务董事Stefano Rimondi说道。Bellco是一家渗透设备制造商，拥有360名员工，每年收入超过1亿欧元（1.26美元）。
[00:51.28]"We have one employee working full-time chasing up late payers," he adds.
他补充道，"我们有一个员工全职专司向延迟付款人追讨款项"。
[00:56.06]Bellco is not the only company to suffer.
Bellco不是唯一一家深受其害的公司。
[00:59.08]The 250 other members of Assobiomedica, a trade group for firms that supply medical equipment, are owed 5.6 billion; those of Farmindustria, which represents 200 pharmaceutical firms, are waiting for 4 billion.
提供医疗设备的贸易组织，意大利生物医药联合会下属的250家公司有未付款56亿欧元；意大利制药工业协会下属的200家制药公司则有未付款40亿欧元。
[01:16.00]The farther south you look, the longer the delays in payment.
你往南看的越远，支付的延迟时间就越长。
[01:20.13]The Friuli and Trentino-Alto Adige regions in north-eastern Italy and Valle d'Aosta in the north-west settle bills after about three months.
在意大利东北部的Friuli 和Trentino-Alto Adige区域，以及在西北部的Valle d'Aosta都在三个月后支付账单。
[01:29.38]The regions of Calabria and Molise pay on average after two years.
Calabria 和 Molise区的人平均两年后才付账。
[01:34.52]The record is held by one Neapolitan health authority: some of its suppliers have been waiting for more than four-and-a-half years.
那不勒斯省中某市的卫生部门保持着相关记录：他的一些供应商已经等了至少四年半了。
[01:42.04]Small Italian firms that rely on the home market are hit particularly hard.
一些依赖家庭市场的意大利企业尤其损失严重。
[01:47.51]Often they cannot get bank financing at reasonable interest rates.
他们通常不能以合理的利率从银行贷款。
[01:52.02]And long delays in payment create all kinds of tax and accounting headaches.
而长时间延误付款将导致税收和会计方面的一系列问题。
[01:57.12]Suing late-payers doesn't help much.
起诉延迟付款者也没有太大作用。
[01:59.26]Courts are at least as slow as health-care authorities.
法院的速度至少和医疗机构一样慢。
[02:02.41]In five regions a law even blocks the use of courts to compel authorities to cough up.
甚至有一项法律在五个地区中禁止法院强制官员吐出资金。
[02:08.13]"Once we were able to recover about 5m of interest a year, but now we've had to give up," says the executive of a large American drugmaker, which had started to take legal action in 2007.
一家大型美国制药公司在2007年采取法律行动以后说道："曾经我们可以收到一年大约500万欧元的利息，但现在我们放弃了"。
[02:20.57]Pharmaceutical firms cannot simply stay clear of the worst offenders: they are legally required to supply drugs even to notoriously slow authorities.
制药公司不能简单的远离最极端的冒犯者们：法律甚至要求这些为慢的臭名昭著的官员提供药品。
[02:29.24]Desperate measures are also unlikely to help.
令人绝望的法规同样很难起到作用。
[02:33.23]Starting a boycott of late-paying authorities could trigger an antitrust investigation.
启动对延迟付款官员的联合抵制将触发反垄断调查。
[02:38.49]And paying sweeteners to move invoices to the top of the list can land you behind bars.
而通过贿赂使账单排到列表最顶端的举动将使你锒铛入狱。
[02:44.32]Some suppliers are pinning their hopes on new European Union legislation which requires health-care authorities to settle bills within 60 days; it takes effect in March next year. Yet Mr Rimondi would be shocked if things improved: "Some clause will be dreamed up so that the directive can be dodged in Italy."
一些供应商寄希望于要求医疗机构在60天内付款的欧盟监管新条例；此条例将于明年三月份生效。但如果情况真的有所改进的话，Rimondi先生会感到震惊，"将有一些条款被设计出来，让意大利逃过监管。"