【专题】慢速英语（英音）2015-12-07

This is NEWS Plus Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing. Here is the news. The International Monetary Fund has announced that the Chinese currency, the Renminbi, is eligible to join its Special Drawing Rights currency basket. With the announcement, the Chinese currency, otherwise known as the yuan, is to become one of the five reserve currencies fully endorsed by the 188-member multilateral organization. The IMF board said in a statement that the RMB "met all existing criteria" which represents the fund's member countries. The statement came after an almost two-hour meeting held on Nov. 26. In accordance with the statement, the RMB will be included in the Special Drawing Rights basket as a fifth currency starting on Oct. 1, 2016 and will have an almost 11-percent weighting in the basket. Since the 1990s, the Special Drawing Rights basket has consisted of four currencies, namely, the U.S. dollar, the euro, the British pound and the Japanese yen. The IMF said the RMB's inclusion into the Special Drawing Rights currency basket is "an important milestone in the integration of the Chinese economy into the global financial system." This is NEWS Plus Special English. China has achieved the pollution reduction targets for major pollutants outlined in its 12th Five-Year Plan, six months ahead of schedule. Environment Minister Chen Ji-ning says that nonetheless, a substantial improvement in the environment will only be possible if pollution is reduced by a further 30 to 50 percent. According to Chen, by 2014, the discharge of sulfur dioxide and Chemical Oxygen Demand, a measure of organic pollutants in water, had dropped by 13 and 10 percent from 2010 levels. Emissions of ammonia nitrogen and nitrogen oxide had also declined by around 10 percent. Discharges of the four major pollutants continued to drop in the first half of this year. The environment minister also noted that the surface area affected by acid rain in China had shrunk to 1990s levels, while water quality had also improved significantly. You are listening to NEWS Plus Special English. I'm Mark Griffiths in Beijing. （全文见周六微信。）