Can Education make a difference in the country? Just giving it free would help to develop the country? or just making sure all the people do get educated? or just literacy is enough to develop the country? The answer is NO. Just the education would not contribute in developing the country. It will be yet another factor if it is not properly designed. The purpose of this article is to discuss how the Effective education is tied with the national development.
What is Education?
Education in its broadest sense is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character
or physical ability of an individual. In its technical sense education
is the process by which society deliberately transmits its accumulated knowledge, skills and values from one generation to another.
He went to Prime Minister Narasimha Rao and told him that India needed a strong
vision to take it forward!
"I said to him it is possible that we will still collapse, but there is a chance
that if we take bold measures we may turn around, and that, I said, is an
opportunity. We must convert this crisis into an opportunity to build a new
India, to do things which many people before us have thought and said should be
done, but somehow were never done," said Singh in an interview to PBS in
2001.
India, a country with hundreds of ethnics, thousands of different people contexts and over one billion of population, has now become e one of the strongest economies in the modern world. It is a fact that you find the most richest and the poorest people segments in India. Click on the title to view the full article
Sri Lank's foreign reserves hits a record figure!! Wow great!! this is a very good indication of re gaining the county's economic stability after the costly war with rebels. The defense budget was sucking the the national resources and it hit the national development over past three decades. Now the war has ended and looks like economy of the country is becoming stronger.
What does Foreign exchange reserves means? Wiki says:
Foreign exchange reserves (also called Forex reserves) in a strict sense are only the foreign currency deposits and bonds held by central banks and monetary authorities. However, the term in popular usage commonly includes foreign exchange and gold, SDRsIMF reserve positions. This broader figure is more readily available, but it is more accurately termed official international reserves or international reserves. These are assets of the central bank held in different reserve currencies, mostly the US dollar, and to a lesser extent the euro, the UK pound, and the Japanese yen, and used to back its liabilities, e.g. the local currency issued, and the various bank reservesdeposited with the central bank, by the government or financial institutions.
The stock market is the center of the economy, but it's a wild roller coaster. Someone who invests in the right company at the right time can look at an early retirement, but the wrong investment can cause you to lose everything. Trying to earn money in the stock market is not for the cowardly or weak of heart.
Please click on the Topic to view the full article
The time of wielding wealth is over,' remarked the U.S historian Steph Friesier on the unprecedented financial turmoil. It is much like the scene, he said, in which a grand feast broke up all of a sudden, leaving everybody running wild. The Wall Street bubble suddenly burst, with the disillusionment of extravagant consumption puffed up by the fanciful splendor.
Please click on the TOPIC to view the full article
There are number of arguments about the best organizational models. There is no perfect business model in the world. All the models have advantages as well as disadvantages. The right business model depends on the form of your businesses. The purpose of this article is to discuss the most suitable business model with more realistic examples
Many of you know that all of these economic problems started in US economy. Therefore it is worth to find out how it has happened. This article discusses the reasons for this global financial crisis. Today almost everybody experiences the warm of this financial crisis. It is really important to
There are thousands of articles which are discussing the same topic. Here what I am trying to emphasize is just the high level picture of the whole scenario.
For a moment just forget everything and just think about America. What do you recall? Excellent foods, car racing, shopping molls, huge vehicles, clubbing, full of fun activities, families going on journeys etc.
If you look at it closely it is really a collection of costs. How do they spend such an amount of money on these things?
As you know US has a very strong economy and it has gained that stability over number of decades. Lots of manufacturing happened and as a result it has become the giant of the world economy. As a results of the stability of the financial institutions US has very low interest rates. For an example, a person would lease a house rather than spending money on it because the interest rate is very much low.
Furthermore, if you have your own house then the best option would be mortgage the property and invest the money in somewhere else. This is because the interest rate is very low and it is quite manageable if you have a reasonable job.
What people do is, they take the maximum advantage out of the law interest rates and spend money on non profit activities. It would never be a problem if you mortgage your house and put the money on the share market. What happens is, people spend money on other activities like those given above. Most of these are non profit activities and totally a waste in terms of economic perspective.
It was like a bubbling balloon and when it exposes then it is really hard to get it back. This is exactly what happened. Interest rates were low just because of the economy is stable. Ideally what should happen was people should enjoy the low interest rates and should invest the excess money either in a self business or in the shares market. What they have done was just spending money on wastes.
This is really impacted the American financial companies which re giants in the global. Once the giant collapsed no need to discuss about the rest. We all are experiencing that problem.
This is just the overview of what happened and please note that this is not the only reason for the problem. The investment approach of the people also has led to make this problem worst. We can discuss that later.
The latest news in the Sri Lankan apparel market is that it is going to lose the GSP+ tax concession for 2010. What it really does is, it increases the competitiveness of our apparel products.
As you know the cost of production is very much low in countries like China. If the whole market only concerns about the final price, yes China should rule the 90% of the total apparel market. Since this GSP concession is acting as a shield to countries like us, our competitiveness has increased.
For an example if you consider a garment company below is a summarized list of obligations it has. 1. Salaries and wages – we should not forget that labors are entitled for Over Time by law 2. Transportation of employees 3. Health insurance package 4. Should accommodate public and weekend holidays 5. Meals and other benefits 6. Security and safety
The above benefits are enforced by the law in order to make sure the security and the safety of the employees.
If you take a Chinese garment what are the costs they have other than the production cost. Its just the salary of the employees. The availability of the labor is just like nothing in China and more importantly we should not forget that they never satisfy the above measures. Human labor is extensively used at a very less price in China and therefore it has created unbeatable market price for their garments. However in the employee’s perspective it is like burning the life to survive. In order to prevent these kinds of actions EU and other developed countries who are mainly the buyers have introduced a tax concession to protect countries who are making sure the safety and the extra benefits.
It is a clear fact that these tax concessions help to develop the industry. But in the meantime the dependency also gets increased. For an example a country like Sri Lanka is highly depend on the apparel industry which is fully depend on the tax concessions. Basically what has happened is the whole economy is ruled by the tax concessions. This is not good in the long run. Yes this helps to keep the business going but the people who are in the industry should be looking forward to reduce the dependency.
What we can do to reduce the dependency with tax concessions?
Most of the apparel makers are sub contractors for popular brands like NIKE,ADDIDAS etc. Local companies also should try to establish a brand. This is not an easy task and it may require bulk of strategies. But it is worth to trying this while enjoying the tax concessions. Targeting the niche market would be really challenging but can result in enormous return. Reducing additional costs may not be that practical as certain benefits are enforced by the law. This is a good side of the industry because in any circumstances it ensures the safety and benefits of the labor.
Technology reinvestment and expansion also reflect the size of the firm
Categories of Economic and business activities
Above mentioned are the basic economic activities in the economy. Mainly the primary activities are more common in the developing countries. This does not mean that developed countries do not have these activities but the dependency is very much lower. If you consider a developing country, most of the times it should be more relying\depending on the Primary activities. This is not the case when it comes to developed countries where they mainly depend on the secondary and tertiary activities, which generate more revenue and income to the country.
Recession Vs Developed countries
As mentioned above most of the developed countries depend on secondary and tertiary activities which are mainly focusing on adding values to the customers. If a financial company was bankrupted that will create a huge impact on the total economy as the dependency is high. This is exactly what happened to America where all these problems started. There were severe issues related to banks and that led to collapse some financial companies. It created a huge impact not only on the US economy but also in the world economy.
Recession Vs Developing Countries
I would say the immediate impact of the recession is lower in developing countries. Developing world mainly depends on primary economic activities and therefore it mainly deals with the producer and the nature. If you take a traditional farmer, this recession did not make any problem for him. The fact is that people do these primary economic activities not just to sell but to consume as well. Therefore the impact is very much less compared to the developed country. In addition their life styles are not directly aligned with financial aspects as banking, insurance. Basically what they do it produce, consume and just selling the excess.
How does recession impact on developing counties then?
As I mentioned above the immediate affect is very much less. Lets say a bank is collapsed, most of the producers will not experience the immediate effect as the dependency is less.
However there is another fact in the developing world countries. All most all the essential goods and services are subsidized by the government. It is a fact that the traditional farmer does not experience the immediate effect of this global economic crisis because there is no direct dependency. Its just a relationship between the effort put in the land. However we should not forget that the fertilizers that are bought by the famer, the fuel that is pumped to transport their excess, are highly subsidized by the government. Usually fertilizer, fuel and other essential food items are imported and coming from the global market where we have this entire economic crisis. Therefore price fluctuations and all other problems are associated. The reason why the farmer does not experience that is because the government absorbs that and maintains the stability of the price. This strategy burns the economy of the country and therefore the government might have to go for additional funding which are mainly the loans or simply printing money. This works only in the short run and as you can notice developing countries are experiencing just the gloom of the storm.
What should developing countries do?
Its time for you to comment on this. What do you really think about this?
The pupose of this article is to go through an overview of the Sri Lanka economy with the current recession factor. I have refered the www.wsws.org to get more infomration and following article was extracted.
Latest reports on the Sri Lankan economy for 1998 and forecasts for 1999 indicate the impact of world recessionary tendencies on the country's economy. Economic analysts and some businessmen predict low economic growth, a further decline in exports and shutdown of some manufacturing sectors.
In a review of the economy published in early March by a leading brokerage firm in Sri Lanka, John Keels, it is reported that though there was 13 percent export growth in 1997, this dropped to 2.1 percent in 1998. The same review predicts: "The global slowdown, following the Asian and Russian crises, will continue to affect Sri Lanka's exports in 1999." The firm's estimate is that the growth of exports in 1999 will amount to an insignificant 0.5 percent.
Tea--which is Sri Lanka's main agricultural export, accounting for 70 percent--has taken a severe beating as a result of the Russian economic collapse and the continued crisis in the Persian Gulf. US-imposed sanctions against Iraq have resulted in a total loss of that market for tea since 1991. The People's Alliance government's attempt to work out a deal on the issue under the United Nation's "oil for food" program also failed due to continuing tensions in the region. Iraq had been one of the largest importers of tea from Sri Lanka.
Previously, more than 20 percent of Sri Lanka's tea exports went to Russia. The share of tea exports to Russia fell from 23 percent in 1997 to 18.6 percent in 1998, due to the collapse of the rouble. Tea prices on the world market dropped by 30 percent in 1998, and total tea export revenue growth declined to 7.8 percent from the 1997 level of 16.73 percent. The John Keels review predicts that these revenues will decline an additional 5 percent in 1999. Last month, the private tea factory owners association announced that they will be compelled to close down factories because of the loss of revenue due to low prices.
Sri Lanka faces sharp competition from Malaysian and Indonesian rubber and rubber products as their prices have dropped sharply due to currency devaluation since mid-1997. According to the Export Development Board, Sri Lankan revenue from rubber declined by 24.08 percent in 1997 and 45.33 percent in 1998, creating a grave crisis in the rubber plantation industry. Coconut export revenue also dropped by 20.98 percent in 1998.
A major crisis has developed in the textile industry as well. "Cheap fabrics from South East Asian countries have flooded the local market, aggravating the debt crisis in the textile industry, and have started to wipe out the industry," lamented Y.A. Gnanam, chairman of the Textile Manufacturers Association. Total duty waivers for the import of fabrics, adopted in the 1999 budget, have added to this crisis. The government had taken this step in the name of market "liberalisation". Now the Textile Manufacturers Association has demanded that the government take over the industry's debts and pay three months salary compensation to the retrenched workers. "If not," the association says, "the government must give full protection and concessions to the industry." The government--pressured by the IMF's liberalisation policies--is not prepared to protect the ailing industry. The jobs of 30,000 textile workers are endangered by this crisis. Last year 5,000 jobs were wiped out in two mills privatised by the former UNP regime.
The garment industry has expanded since the opening of the economy to foreign capital in 1977. This was touted as a success story by the UNP and PA regimes over the past two decades. The industry became the main source of foreign exchange, accounting for nearly 50 percent of industrial exports. In 1997 garment exports declined to 21 percent, in dollar terms. By 1998 they fell to 7 percent, resulting in the closure of several factories. Sri Lanka's main market for garment exports is the United States. However, according to the Minister of Industries of the PA government, Mexico and Caribbean countries are now making inroads into the US market.
The fall-off of external trade has begun to affect the banking system as well. Last year Sri Lanka's export and import trade growths were a meagre 2.1 percent and 2 percent respectively. Banking interests have expressed concern over the effect of the Russian crisis on tea plantations. Russian tea importers are taking discounts according to rouble devaluation, and "payment of bills already held is likely to prove difficult," according to the research unit of the Sri Lanka branch of the Indo-Suez Bank. The Central Bank estimates that US$19 million is tied up in the local banking system as a result of Russian crisis. Meanwhile, the World Bank is pressing for privatisation of the state-owned banks and insurance corporations.
The Sri Lankan ruling class is making a desperate attempt to develop the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) as a platform to attract foreign investment. But the Southeast Asian crisis, sanctions imposed on India and Pakistan following the nuclear tests and other convulsions in financial markets throughout the world have badly affected the CSE. The all-share price index of the CSE was 702.2 at the end of 1997, and it had slipped to 575.64 by the end of 1998. According to estimates, the foreign component of CSE transactions fell from 60 percent to 40 percent in 1998.
In the wake of this developing crisis, economic growth slowed to 4.7 percent in 1998 and is expected to decline to 4 percent this year. These recessionary tendencies are now being translated into attacks on jobs, working conditions and living standards.
In response to the developing economic crisis in Southeast Asia, developing since mid-1997, Chandrika Kumaratunga's People's Alliance government said that her regime could avert its impact by following "prudent economic policies". But developments have shown that it is impossible for any country to insulate itself from the effects of economic globalisation. The competition amongst transnational corporations for markets and profits has produced an over-capacity of production and deflationary tendencies. The rapid movement of productive capital and speculative capital seeking profitable markets is creating an even more volatile economic situation.
NOTE: the article was sourced from here. Many Thanks for the information.
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