At Oppy's Bistro in this industrial heartland, bartender Gael Fedley is thousands of miles─both literally and figuratively─from a resources boom that's led Australia to grow faster than any major developed economy in recent years.

在澳大利亚工业重镇吉朗(Geelong)的Oppy's Bistro酒吧，调酒师费德里(Gael Fedley)觉得自己同近几年引领澳大利亚经济的资源热潮相隔千里，不管是从字面意义上讲，还是比喻的意义上讲。这些年来，这股热潮曾引领澳大利亚的经济快速增长，快过任何一个主要发达经济体。

A string of factory closures in the town, around an hour's drive from the country's second-biggest city, Melbourne, is having an impact on a once-thriving business. Fewer customers stop by Oppy's now, while regulars have less money to spend on booze and little cause to celebrate.

吉朗距离澳大利亚第二大城市墨尔本约一个小时车程。这里的工厂接二连三地倒闭，给一度不错的生意带来不利影响。如今，光顾Oppy's Bistro酒吧的客人少了，而那些常客不仅用来豪饮的钱少了，而且几乎没有来这里庆祝的理由。

Towering over the town is a refinery that Royal Dutch Shell RDSB.LN -0.96% PLC wants to sell, while further down the road is a support center for retail chain Target where up to 260 jobs are set to go. For Ms. Fedley, things are likely to get even worse as Ford Motor Co. F -1.35% ─the dominant employer in Geelong--plans to stop producing cars in Australia from October 2016 with the loss of up to 1,200 jobs.

荷兰皇家壳牌有限公司(Royal Dutch Shell PLC)希望卖掉的一个炼油厂就耸立于这个城镇，再远是零售连锁商塔吉特(Target)的一个支持中心，该中心计划最多裁掉260个工作岗位。对费德里来说，情况可能会变得更糟，因为当地的大雇主福特汽车公司(Ford Motor Co.)打算从2016年10月起停止在澳大利亚生产汽车，届时流失的工作岗位最多将达到1,200个。

'As Ford has cut shifts, reduced hours, bar staff have left and patrons have gone,' said Ms. Fedley, who has worked behind the bar at Oppy's Bistro for three decades. It would take about three days' nonstop driving from Geelong to reach the iron-rich soils of the Pilbara in Western Australia state that have made many Australians wealthy in recent times: a wealth that hasn't spread evenly across the nation.

在Oppy's Bistro工作了30年的费德里说，随着福特减少轮班和工作时间，酒吧员工纷纷离职，老主顾也不再光临。从吉朗开车到西澳大利亚州铁矿资源丰富的皮尔巴拉(Pilbara)，一路不停的话大概需要三天时间。很多澳大利亚人因为这些铁矿资源富了起来，不过这种财富并没有均匀地散播于澳大利亚这片土地上。

The town, with a population of around 200,000, is just the kind of manufacturing hub the country's central bank has been trying to revive by cutting rates seven times since late 2011. In May, the benchmark cash rate was reduced to a record 2.75%, lower even than in the depths of the financial crisis.

吉朗约有20万人口，是澳大利亚央行自从2011年底以来便试图通过降息来振兴其经济的那种制造中心。今年5月，澳大利亚基准利率降至2.75%的新低，甚至低于经济危机最严重时的水平。

However, economists think the central bank is running out of time to reignite other parts of the economy as resources investment slows more rapidly than expected.

不过经济学家认为，在重振该国其它经济领域方面，澳大利亚央行所剩时间无多，因为资源投资放慢的速度高于预期。

Goldman Sachs GS -1.75% said last week there was a one-in-five chance that Australia could tip into recession in the coming year─the first time it has flagged a risk of a contraction since the global financial crisis intensified in 2007. While a 20% risk may not sound too alarming, Goldman Sachs said that only once in the postwar period had a probability higher than this not resulted in a recession in Australia.

高盛(Goldman Sachs)上周说，澳大利亚明年陷入衰退的几率为20%。这是2007年全球金融危机加剧以来，澳大利亚首次面临经济收缩的风险。高盛说，虽然20%的衰退风险也许听起来不那么吓人，但在澳大利亚，战后风险系数高于这一指标却没有酿成衰退的只有一次。

Saul Eslake, Australia chief economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, also recently warned of the risk of recession, adding that the rise in unemployment in resource-rich Western Australia state over the past year already was 'recession-like.'

美银美林(Bank of America Merrill Lynch)澳大利亚问题首席经济学家埃斯雷克(Saul Eslake)前不久也就澳大利亚经济衰退风险发出警告，还说资源丰富的西澳大利亚州过去一年失业率上升，情形已经跟衰退差不多了。

The most rate-sensitive sectors of the economy, including consumer spending and manufacturing, have been slow to respond to the rate cuts. The chief culprit has been the Australian dollar, which until recently had recorded its longest stretch above parity with the U.S. greenback in three decades, making the nation's exports less competitive.

澳大利亚经济中对利率变化最敏感的行业，包括消费支出和制造业，对这几次降息的反应都比较迟缓。造成这一现象的罪魁祸首便是澳元。前不久，澳元兑美元创下过去30年来连续最长时间保持在平价水平以上的纪录，澳大利亚的出口竞争力因此降低。

Now, Australia's economy no longer has the crutch of a booming mining sector. Iron ore and coal are the country's largest exports, but prices of each commodity have tumbled as China's economy began cooling last year.

现在，澳大利亚经济已不再有兴旺发达的采矿业这根支柱。虽然铁矿石和煤炭是澳大利亚最主要的两项出口商品，但由于中国经济去年开始降温，这两种大宗商品的价格已经大幅下跌。

Resource companies have shed thousands of workers as mining projects were completed and others scrapped.

由于采矿项目或完成或取消，澳大利亚的资源类企业裁减了成千上万名工人。

'The risk of recession is significant,' said Shane Oliver, Sydney-based chief economist at AMP Capital Investors, one of Australia's biggest fund managers. 'We're now at the point where the mining investment boom is sliding away and unfortunately the other parts of the economy have not picked up enough to fill the gap.'

澳大利亚最大基金管理公司之一安保资本投资有限公司(AMP Capital Investors)驻悉尼的首席经济学家奥利弗(Shane Oliver)说，经济衰退的风险是巨大的；我们目前的处境是，采矿业的投资繁荣正在消逝，而不幸的是澳大利亚经济其他部分的增长还不足以填补这一缺口。

A generation of Australians has grown up not knowing the pain of rising unemployment and widespread business failures. The last time the country underwent a recession─commonly defined as two straight quarters of contraction--was in the early 1990s when interest rates were raised to 18% to head off a credit boom. The country's jobless rate peaked at 11.2%, more than double the current level.

有整整一代澳大利亚人是在未经历过失业率不断上升和企业普遍倒闭的环境中成长起来的。该国上一次出现经济衰退还是上世纪90年代初的事，当时政府为阻止信贷泡沫而将利率上调到18%。那时澳大利亚的失业率最高曾达到11.2%，是目前水平的两倍多。国际上通常将经济衰退定义为经济连续两个季度出现萎缩。

Australia was among the few countries that managed to avoid a sharp downturn even after the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers in 2008, due in part to hefty government stimulus, deep interest-rate cuts and a sharp depreciation in the nation's currency that made exports more competitive. Heavy spending on infrastructure in China, Australia's biggest trading partner, also helped.

在美国投资银行雷曼兄弟公司(Lehman Brothers)于2008年倒闭后，世界上只有包括澳大利亚在内为数不多的几个国家避免了经济急剧陷入低迷。澳大利亚能做到这一点，一定程度上要归功于政府的巨额经济刺激支出、利率下调以及澳元汇率的大幅贬值（货币贬值使得澳大利亚出口更具竞争力）。澳大利亚最大贸易伙伴中国在基础设施建设方面的大量支出，也对澳大利亚经济起了提振作用。

To be sure, economists think Australia has headroom to avoid a recession, but worry this may be narrowing. Goldman Sachs says a combination of better global growth, lower interest rates and a declining local currency could be enough to keep the economy growing. But it lowered its forecast for economic growth to 1.9% in 2014, from a previous projection of 2.7%.

诚然，经济学家们认为澳大利亚依然有避免经济陷入衰退的余地，但他们担心这种余地可能正在缩小。高盛(Goldman Sachs)说，全球经济增长情况的改善、利率的下调以及澳元汇率的不断贬值这三种因素的合力可能足以使澳大利亚经济保持继续增长。但该公司也将它对澳大利亚2014年经济增长率的预测从此前的2.7%下调到1.9%。

'I think warning of recession is too much, but there is clearly going to be a pretty significant slowing,' said Alan Oster, Melbourne-based chief economist at National Australia Bank NAB.AU +1.57% .

澳大利亚国民银行(National Australia Bank)驻墨尔本的首席经济学家奥斯特(Alan Oster)说，我认为有关澳大利亚经济将陷入衰退的预警太多了，不过该国的经济增速显然将大幅放缓。

First-quarter gross domestic product was up 0.6% from the preceding three months and 2.5% from a year earlier as exports of raw materials such as coal and iron ore climbed, government figures showed. But the growth was slightly below economists' estimates and lower than in recent quarters--sparking warnings that long-term growth was decelerating and boosting bets the central bank would cut rates further to give the economy an added kick.

政府数据显示，今年第一季度澳大利亚的国内生产总值较前一季度增长0.6%，较去年同期增长2.5%，因为煤炭和铁矿石等原材料的出口出现了增长。但这一增长略低于经济学家们的预期，也低于最近几个季度的增速，这导致有关人士纷纷警告说，澳大利亚的长期经济增长率正在不断下降，也导致投资者将更多赌注押在澳大利亚央行将进一步降息上，降息可为经济增长提供新的动力。

Recently, contractors servicing the mining industry such as Transfield Services and Boart Longyear have issued profit warnings and announced layoffs as customers like BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto reduce their spending, adding to a string of job cuts by big iron-ore and coal mining companies last year.

近段时间以来，为采矿业提供服务的合同承包商Transfield Services和Boart Longyear等纷纷发布利润预警，并宣布了裁员措施，因为它们的客户必和必拓(BHP Billiton)及力拓(Rio Tinto)等将减少支出，而澳大利亚的几家大型铁矿石和煤炭开采企业去年已经宣布了一系列裁员措施。

'I don't see the economy as strong at all,' said Tony Lopes, a taxi driver in Australia's biggest city, Sydney. Demand has cooled noticeably in the past three months with fewer customers and shorter fares as firms trim spending amid an uncertain economic climate, said Mr. Lopes, who has been driving cabs for more than two decades.

澳大利亚最大城市悉尼的出租车司机洛佩斯(Tony Lopes)说，我认为经济增长一点也不强劲。他说，市场需求在过去三个月里已明显冷却下来，由于企业因经济环境不明朗而削减支出，打车的人减少了，他们的打车花费也出现下降。

Still, he's confident the country can weather any slowdown. 'This is a rich country and as long as the miners don't pack up and go, we'll be okay.'

不过洛佩斯相信澳大利亚能挺过经济增速放缓的困难时期。他说，这是个富裕的国家，只要矿工不收拾起行李走人，我们的处境就坏不到哪里去。