Newsroom

MUMBAI: With an increasing number of Indians living abroad, either for work or having settled there, foreign exchange remittances into the country is likely to increase, market players say.

India receives the largest amount of remittances in the world, “getting over 10% of the $230 billion global market, according to World Bank numbers,” says Manish Misra, ICICI Bank’s head of global remittance. He expects the business to grow 15-20% annually in the next 4-5 years.

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Compliance with government bureaucracy costs Lm1,500 to Lm2,000 a year for the average SME with between five and 10 employees, according to the director general of the Malta Chamber of Commerce and Industry Kevin Borg.

"Obviously the amount goes up with the size and complexity of the company. We had one survey respondent whose compliance fees amounted to Lm300,000!"

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The SEEP Network will host its annual conference this year October 23-27 in Washington D.C. This year’s conference, “Investing in the Majority”, will draw attention to innovative practices and current issues in microfinance...Alongside the conference, SEEP and partner Omidyar Network will host a two-day Microfinance Investor Roundtable. The aim is to determine the future of commercial investment in microfinance.

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Karekezi, S "...surveys (PDF) the dissemination of renewable technologies in Sub-Saharan Africa...and attempts to evaluate the potential for these technologies to meet the energy needs of Africa’s poor..."

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IN 1994 this newspaper launched a new emerging-market indicators page to mark “a fundamental and remarkably rapid change in the balance of the world economy”. Emerging economies were then growing twice as fast as the rich ones, and their stockmarkets were surging. But the timing of the launch was awful. It came at the start of a dismal decade for emerging economies, with crises in Mexico at the end of 1994, Asia in 1997, Russia in 1998, Brazil in 1999, Turkey in 2000, Argentina in 2001 and Venezuela in 2002. By 2002 the MSCI emerging-market share-price index had lost almost 60% of its 1994 value. Last year it regained that peak. But is the current economic boom any more sustainable?

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Fortunately, for the motley gaggle of entrepreneur-wannabes, there's record
venture capital, or early stage money, pouring into the country. According to a
recent Evalueserve report (it's a research and analytics firm), more than 44
us-based vcs are now "seeking to invest heavily in start-ups and early-stage
companies in India". These firms, the report reveals, plan to raise $100 million
(Rs 470 crore) a pop, or a staggering $4.4 billion (Rs 20,680 crore)
collectively. That may be too much money for a market like India, but start-ups
aren't complaining.

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Low literacy levels in Africa are part-and-parcel of everyday life, and seriously reduce the effectiveness of health care literature. In association with the South African Depression and Anxiety Group, Books of Hope has designed and produced interactive, multilingual Speaking Books that can be seen, read, heard and understood regardless of someone's reading ability.

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Beijing --- The number of blogs in China hit a record 34 million in August, 30 times more than just four years ago when the on-line writing phenomena began to sweep the country.

More than 17 million people in China consider themselves blog writers, offering personal insights and opinions on any topic they choose, according to a report on China's blog market, which says 75 million people regularly read blogs.

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Lack of management skills by many of Botswana's Small to Medium Enterprises (SMMEs) could be a thing of the past, as the newly established Business Place (Centre) Gaborone will endeavour to address these shortfalls.

The centre, which was unveiled to stakeholders last week during the donor presentations, is situated at Maraka House at the Gaborone bus station. The donor presentation gave sponsors a chance to present their pledges and funds, which amounted to over P1 million.

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New Delhi: Indian small and medium enterprises (SME) have not kept pace with the country's economic growth because of their inability to access finances, says industry experts.

The reasons for the poor growth of SMEs and strategies to put them on a high-growth curve were discussed Tuesday here during the launch of the first publication in the series of 'Emerging Auto Component SMEs of India.'

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