中國(guó)離圓珠筆的成功更近了

BBC News – It has sent rockets into space, producedmillions of the world's smartphones and built high-speed trains. But until now, one bit of manufacturinghad perhaps unexpectedly eluded China: theballpoint pen.

BBC新聞 – 它把火箭送入太空，生產(chǎn)出了世界上成千上百萬(wàn)部智能手機(jī)，造出了高鐵。但到目前為止，制造業(yè)一個(gè)不起眼的部分或許出乎意料地難倒了中國(guó)：圓珠筆。

A year ago Premier Li Keqiang went on nationaltelevision and bemoaned the failure of his country toproduce a good quality version of this seemingly-simple implement. Locally-made versions felt "rough" compared to those from Germany,Switzerland and Japan, Mr Li complained.

一年前，李克強(qiáng)總理在國(guó)家電視臺(tái)發(fā)表講話，慨嘆中國(guó)無(wú)法制造出高質(zhì)量的這種看似簡(jiǎn)單的用具。國(guó)產(chǎn)圓珠筆與德國(guó)、瑞士和日本產(chǎn)圓珠筆相比顯得“粗糙”，李克強(qiáng)抱怨說(shuō)。

The problem was not the body of the pen, but the tip - the tiny ball that dispenses ink as youwrite. It might be something we take for granted, but making them requires high-precisionmachinery and very hard, ultra-thin steel plates.

問(wèn)題不在筆身，而在筆尖 – 書(shū)寫(xiě)時(shí)出墨水的細(xì)小圓珠。這可能是我們不當(dāng)回事的東西，但制造圓珠需要高精度機(jī)械設(shè)備和硬度非常高的超薄鋼板。

 

 

Without that ability, China's 3,000 penmakers have had to import this crucial componentfrom abroad, costing the industry a reported 120m yuan ($17.3m) a year.

沒(méi)有那個(gè)能力的話，中國(guó)3千家圓珠筆制造商不得不從國(guó)外進(jìn)口這種關(guān)鍵部件，據(jù)報(bào)道每年耗費(fèi)該行業(yè)1.2億元(合1730萬(wàn)美元)。

But according to People's Daily, the state-owned Taiyuan Iron and Steel Co thinks it hascracked the problem, after five years of research. The first batch of 2.3-millimetre ballpoint pentips has recently rolled off its production lines, the paper says.

但根據(jù)《人民日?qǐng)?bào)》，國(guó)營(yíng)太原鋼鐵公司經(jīng)過(guò)5年研究已經(jīng)攻克了這個(gè)難題。第一批2.3毫米的圓珠筆尖最近已經(jīng)下了生產(chǎn)線，該報(bào)說(shuō)。

And once lab tests are completed, it's expected China could phase out pen tip importscompletely within two years.

而一旦完成實(shí)驗(yàn)室測(cè)試，中國(guó)有望在兩年內(nèi)逐步徹底結(jié)束圓珠筆尖進(jìn)口。