SHANGHAI — Hoping to shore up a weakening economy, China said on Sunday that it would cut benchmark interest rates for the third time in five months.
上海——中国周日宣布了五个月来的第三次基准利率下调，以提振疲软的经济。
The nation’s central bank said in its announcement that the one-year lending rate would be reduced by 25 basis points, or a quarter percentage point, to 5.1 percent, and that the one-year deposit rate was also being cut 25 basis points, to 2.25 percent.
中国央行宣布，将一年期贷款基准利率下调0.25个百分点至5.1%，同时将一年期存款基准利率下调0.25个百分点至2.25%。

The announcement came after the government announced weaker-than-expected trade figures on Friday, with exports dropping 6.2 percent in April from a year earlier, and with continuing signs of weakness in other parts of the economy. On Saturday, the government reported tepid consumer inflation, which ran at a rate of 1.5 percent in April compared with the same month last year.
这一宣布是在政府上周五公布了弱于预期的贸易数据之后，四月份的出口额与上年同期相比降低了6.2％，其他经济行业也表现出持续的疲软迹象。周六，政府发布了温吞的消费者通货膨胀率，四月份的消费价格指数与去年同期相比增长了1.5％。
By reducing interest rates, the government hopes to spur lending to businesses and create more momentum in the world’s second-largest economy after the United States.
政府希望通过降低利率来刺激向企业发放贷款，为世界上这个仅次于美国的第二大经济体创造更多的增长势头。
Although China is still growing faster than any other major economy, the slowdown has accelerated in recent months.
虽然中国经济增长率仍比任何其他主要经济体的都高，但经济放缓的速度已在近几个月有所加快。
China reported last month, for instance, that its economy grew just 7 percent in the first quarter of this year, one of the lowest rates in a decade and far below the double-digit growth the country had become accustomed to over the past few decades.
比如，中国上月发布的今年第一季度经济增长率只有7％，是十年来最低的季度之一，远低于中国在过去几十年中习惯了的两位数增长率。
This year, the government has targeted growth to come in at about 7 percent, but policy makers are concerned that the pace is trending downward too rapidly and that growth much lower than 7 percent could create huge disruptions in the economy.
今年，政府已把增长率的目标定在7％左右，但政策制定者担心经济放缓的趋势过快，并且担心远低于7％的增长率可能对经济造成巨大的破坏。
While China’s stock market has suddenly come to life, the property market has been weak, exports have fallen and there are worries about the massive debt that has built up over the past decade, particularly from local government borrowings for infrastructure.
虽然中国的股市突然变得生气勃勃，但楼市一直疲软，出口一直在下降，也有人担忧在过去十年中积累起来的大量债务，尤其是地方政府用于基础设施的借款。
The authorities have said they are comfortable with a lower, more sustainable rate of growth and have pushed to restructure the economy in favor of more consumption and away from state-owned companies. And as part of that strategy, some officials have insisted that the government will not fund a stimulus package, the way it did in late 2008 and 2009, after the onset of the global financial crisis.
当局曾表示可以接受更低、更可持续的经济增长速度，并在推动经济结构的调整，使其更有利于消费者，而不是国有企业。一些官员坚持认为，作为这个战略的一部分，政府不会像在2008年年底、2009年的全球金融危机爆发后所做的那样，为一个刺激计划放开金融之水。
Many economists are gloomy about China’s prospects in the coming years, but not all. Nicholas Lardy, a China specialist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, said that while indicators like electricity generation, rail freight car loadings and industrial production had slowed, growth in the service sector had at least partially offset difficulties in manufacturing and in investment-led sectors like construction.
虽然许多经济学家对中国未来几年的前景表示悲观，但并非所有的人都如此。华盛顿彼得森国际经济研究所的中国问题专家尼古拉斯·拉迪(Nicholas Lardy)说，虽然像发电量、铁路货运荷载，以及工业生产值等指标已经放缓，但服务行业的增长部分地抵消了制造业和以投资为主的行业、比如建筑业的困难。
“The traditional relationship between electric power generation and G.D.P. growth has changed,” he said in an interview in Washington in late April, referring to gross domestic product.
他四月底在华盛顿接受采访时说，“发电量与GDP增长之间的传统关系已经有所改变，”他指的是国内生产总值。
Fred Hu, a Hong Kong economist and financier with broad connections in the Chinese government, also contends that the Chinese economy’s weaknesses are sometimes exaggerated, and that growth might not slip much below the government’s target of about 7 percent. “It may fluctuate, but 7 percent is about the right number,” he said.
与中国政府有广泛关系的香港经济学家和金融家胡祖六也声称，中国经济的弱点有时被夸大，其经济增长率可能不会比政府7％左右的目标低太多。“虽然经济增长可能会有所波动，但7％这个数字靠谱，”他说。
But an ever-growing body of downbeat economic statistics has prompted other economists to worry that Chinese policy makers now face an unappetizing choice. They can continue to cut interest rates and bank reserve requirements in a bid to stimulate bank lending and keep the economy growing fairly strongly. But that extra lending would only expand further a debt load, particularly at local governments and state-owned enterprises, that has been surging as a share of economic output ever since the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009.
但是，不断出现的悲观经济数据已促使其他经济学家开始担心，中国的政策制定者们现在面临一个他们不愿做出的选择。他们可以继续降低利率和银行准备金要求，以刺激银行放贷，保持经济有相当强劲的增长。但是，更多的贷款只会进一步扩大债务负担，特别是地方政府和国有企业的债务负担，这两方面的债务在经济产出中所占的份额，自从2008年、2009年的全球金融危机以来，一直在快速增长。