Archive for April, 2010
In this section, we consider the different possible roles of the banking sector in a developing market economy.
First of all a banking system is a payment and settlement system — it facilities transactions and hence economic activities. Without a reliable banking system, all transactions will have to be conducted in the forms of barter, cash or buyer and seller-specific credits. The volume of economic activities that can be supported will be much smaller in the absence of a functioning banking system.
Second, banks provide a safe depository for the money balances of households and enterprises, which is a convenient and reliable alternative to mattresses and private vaults. Third, banks provide low-risk investment vehicles for the savings of households and enterprises in the form of different types of savings deposits.
Finally, by extending credit to enterprises and households, the banking system also performs financial intermediation, allocating savings to their highest and best use and pooling and hence diversifying the risks across investment projects on behalf of its depositors.
In terms of loans (and investments), the banking sector has many options. The safest loans for the banks are of course those to the central government, and the safest investments are debt securities issued by the central government. Next in the order of higher risking are short-term loans for international trade financing backed by letters of credit, followed by construction loans and short-term working capital loans.
The biggest risk in construction loan and working capital financing is the diversion of the loan proceeds for unauthorised purposes. Construction loan financing, when properly disbursed in accordance with verified progress, is relatively low-risk. However, there may be some repayment risk when the structures constructed cannot be readily sold at completion. Short-term working capital is also relatively low-risk, provided that it is adequately monitored and collateralised (e.g. with warehouse receipts). Banks can also provide loans for investment by government and enterprises.
However, these loans are typically long-germ in nature. While loans to the government are generally quite secure, long-term loans to enterprises should properly be the province of specialised development, industrial and long-term credit banks. Ordinary commercial banks do not normally have the long-term funding base to make these long-term loan commitments because the bulk of their deposits are short-term in nature. Moreover, loans for financing long-term investment by enterprises are also inherently riskier because of both the long gestation period and consequently the long exposure period — the loans become much more like equity investment in terms of their risk characteristics.
Finally, banks can also finance personal or household investment (e.g. residential mortgage loans) and consumption; however, non-collateralised consumption loans are probably quite risky in developing economies, and even collateralised loans such as mortgages may face the problem of potential maturity mismatch with respect to the liabilities (deposits).
It is, of course, not necessary that all financial institutions perform all of the roles discussed above. Division of labour is quite possible. For example, the postal savings system in many countries essentially fulfils only the safe depository role. It does not typically support transactions other than those between the postal savings system and its depositors. It also does not typically make loans, except, possibly, to the central government, and purchases only central government securities.
For another example, it is also possible to conceive of a system of narrow banking institutions that is specialised as payments and transaction settlement system and does not otherwise make loans, except possibly to the central government, either directly or through the purchase of central government securities.
How has the Chinese banking sector fulfilled these roles? The savings deposits in Chinese banks have been growing much faster than Chinese GDP in recent years. The ratio of savings deposits to GDP has been rising rapidly, which demonstrates that the Chinese banking sector has done a great job in mobilising and collecting savings. The rising savings deposits also attest to the confidence of the average Chinese citizen in the ultimate ability of the Chinese banking system to pay its depositors upon demand. However, the Chinese banking sector does not seem to have done a good job in terms of allocating the savings. The stock of non-performing loans is large and increasing.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I'm delighted to meet you on this special occasion. The New Urban Environment Exhibition is one of a number of high profile events put on this year to celebrate the Britain in China campaign; the Britain in China campaign is designed to emphasize and strengthen further the extremely close and friendly links which exist between our two countries in many fields of cooperation.
The exhibition and tomorrow's colloquium form part of a well-established program of professional cooperation between the Cultural and Educational Section of the British Consulate General and our partner, the Guangdong Construction Commission, looking at various aspects of the planning and development process in the Pearl River Delta. Through an on-going program of workshops and visits, Chinese and British planners, architects and urban designers have been exploring a wide range of relevant issues related to development in the Delta.
The exhibition provides a vivid demonstration of how the vitality and energy of contemporary British architecture and urban design are helping to create dynamic cities for the 21st century, in Britain and elsewhere. The work on display is setting exciting new standards for ways of transforming our urban heritage into vibrant, environmentally-friendly cities. It provides a vivid reminder of the relevance of the questions and issues which the exhibition addresses: how can architects, designers and urban planners create contemporary public spaces which are pleasing to look at; pleasant to live, work and play in; and in harmony with the natural and manmade environment?
On behalf of the Cultural and Education Section of the British Consulate General, I would like to express our sincere thanks to our partners in organizing this exhibition: the Guangdong Museum of Art and the Royal Academy of Arts, London. I would also like to express our appreciation for the generous support provided for this event by our sponsor, Royal and Sun Alliance, without whose interest and valuable sponsorship this event would not have been possible.
At this point, I propose a toast:
to our friendly cooperation!
to the good health of the guests present!
The mummy of an Egyptian woman who died in 800 B.C. has just had an operation.
The mummy is that of Shepenmut who was once a singer in the Temple of Thebes. As there were strange marks on the X-ray plates taken of the mummy, doctors have been trying to find out whether the woman died of a rare disease.
The only way to do this was to operate. 10 The operation, which lasted for over four hours, proved H* be very difficult because of the hard resin which covered the skin, ration proved to be ''very difficult
The doctors removed a section of the mummy and sent it to a laboratory. They also found something which the X-ray plates did not show: a small wax figure of the god Duamutef. This god which has the head of a cow was normally placed inside a mummy. The doctors have not yet decided how the woman died. They feared that the mummy would fall to pieces when they cut it open, but fortunately this has not happened. The mummy successfully survived the operation.
I am an art student and I paint a lot of pictures. Many people pretend that they understand modern art. They always tell you what a picture is 'about'. Of course, many pictures are not 'about' anything. They are just pretty patterns. We like them in the same way that we like pretty curtain material. I think that young children often appreciate modern pictures better than anyone else. They notice more. My sister is only seven, but she always tells me whether my pictures are good or not. She came into my room yesterday.
'What are you doing?' she asked.
' I'm hanging this picture on the wall,' I answered. 'It's a new one. Do you like it ?'
She looked at. it critically for a moment. ' It's all right,' she said, ' but isn't it upside-down ?'
I looked at it again. She was right! It was!
There are many different makes and models of tachograph and the layout of the recording style will vary. If the wrong chart is used, the preprinted lines on the chart will not tie up with the recorded trace. This will make it difficult for an enforcement official to ascertain the speed at which the vehicle was traveling. It is therefore essential to ensure that the chart is the correct type for the machine. Every tachograph has a model number, which appears on a sticker inside the opening head. The number consists of a lower case followed by digits.
This chapter has described an approach to the contractor selection process. As discussed through the chapter, it is very important that a carefully structured process is carried out to ensure that all essential considerations are made. The main task is to put together a detailed invitation to tender, which can be used by the contract companies to prepare a suitable proposal for their running of the operation to be outsourced. Tender proposals are then carefully evaluated and compared so that a short list of suitable contract should form the basis for a provider - user relationship that is closely managed by the user, but allows opportunities for continuous improvement.
Order- processing systems that are designed to interact directly with final consumers will be based on elevated levels of customer service. Meeting customer product requests from retail stocks provides almost instantaneous order processing. McDonald's has built a very successful food franchise business on fast order processing. Quick response to customer order requests has often been on the cutting edge of customer service fro many companies that sell to the final consumer, especially when the products involved are highly substitutable. Some firms can provide quick response to customer orders even when their place of business is some distance from the customers who can acquire the same products from local retail outlets.
Electronic commerce, practiced by only a few firms such as Wai Mart, General Motors, and Baxter International, is now becoming a reality for a great many companies. As the security issues are resolved on the Internet, the Internet becomes the driving force to eliminate much of the paperwork in order processing that occurs when one firm sells to another. E - commerce could reduce the cost of processing a purchase order by 80 percent.
Water transportation service limited in scope for several reasons. Domestic water service is confined to the inland waterway system, which requires shippers to be located on the waterway or to use another transportation mode in combination with water. Also, water service on the average is slower than rail. Avail-ability and dependability of water service are the greatly influenced by the weather. Movement on the waterway in the northern part of the country during the winter is impossible, and service is interrupted by floods and droughts.
There is tremendous capacity availability in water carriers with barge tossup to 40,000 tons, and there are individual barges with standardized dimensions 26 by 175 feet and 35 by 195 feet. (Capability and handling are being increased as barge- carrying ships are being developed, and such improvements as satellite navigation with radar, refined depth finders, and auto piloting mean around-the-clock service.
Water services are provided in al! legal forms, and most commodities shipped by water move free of economic regulation. In addition to unregulated private carriage, liquid cargoes in bulk moving in tank vessels and commodities in bulk such as coal, sand, and grain, which make up over 80 percent of the total annual ton — miles by water, are exempt. Outside of the handling of bulk commodities, water carrier, especially those in foreign on containerized ships to reduce handling time, to effect intermodal transfer, and to reduce loss and dam-age.
Loss and damage costs resulting from transporting by water are considered low relative to other modes because damage is not much of a concern with low — valued bulk, products, and losses due to delays arc not serious. Claims involving transport of high-valued goods, as in ocean service, are much higher. Substantial packaging is needed to protect goods, mainly against rough handling during the loading- unloading operation.
The requirements for operating staff are closely linked to the mobile equipment requirements, and in many cases will "fall out" of the equipment calculations. Quite clearly, staffing levels have to be established as part of the design, and to enable a full costing of the warehouse to be made.
Prepare possible building and site layouts
The layout brings together all the components of the warehouse operation inside the building, and also the external site features. Internal layout issues The general principles for internal layout include:
• good access to stock;
• logical flow patterns with minimal cross - flows or backtracking of people or material, based on analysis of material and staff movements, generally in a recliner layout; minimizing the amount of movement required for people and for handling equipment;
• making the best use of building volume;
• safe systems of work including the provision where possible of separate movement aisles and access doors for people and for mobile equipment, elimination of dead areas in which operators could be trapped, e.g. no aisles with closed ends, and provision of fire escapes.
Other layout issues include:
• the use of raised or level docks for vehicle loading/unloading;
• the type of floor flatness tolerances;
• the location of offices for good oversight of operations;
• provision of separate facilities for delivery and collection drivers;
• location of ancillary functions such as packaging store;
• battery- charging facilities.
Finally the likelihood of further expansion should be considered, with an internal layout that minimizes disruption if expansion has to be implemented.
One picker in one circuit or the picking area collects the items required for one order. This is appropriate when one order will typically fill the capacity of the picking trolley or truck. An extension of this when more than one order is picked per circuit, but each of the orders is accumulaled into a separate container so that at the end of the picking circuit each order is discrete.
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