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Nokia Launches Phones For Emerging Market Growth, By Magnus Hansson
Nokia Corp. (NOK) Thursday unveiled two new low-priced mobile phones to help it bolster its position in emerging markets, which are fueling growth in the global handset industry. The two new phones will be very high volume, vice president Juha Pinomaa, who is responsible for so-called entry-level phones, said in a telephone interview with Dow Jones Newswires. The likes of Nokia are trying to exploit strong growth in developing regions like Africa, China and In...
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- Dow Jones Newswires
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Argentina: First-Ever Permit for Indigenous Community Radio, by Marcela Valente
The first operating licence ever granted by the Argentine government to an indigenous community radio station is being hailed as a major step forward in giving a voice to this sector of the population, while posing formidable challenges. The FM radio station, which has been operating without a licence for six years and has yet to be given a name, is run by the Mapuche Indian community of Linares, made up of around 700 members and located in the municipality of Aucap?n, in the southern...
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- IPS
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Microfinance gets the ’big’ idea, by Saswati Chakravarty and J Padmapriya
The movement may well have started two decades ago as a small measure to help the poor. But Indian microfinance institutions (MFIs) have today outgrown their shoes. They are looking at new structures and fresh funds to scale up in a market where demand outpaces supply by miles. Leading MFIs will tell you that there is a full-blown business opportunity waiting to be tapped. Don’t be surprised if many of these organisations, working at grass-root levels, have drawn up blueprints th...
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- The Economic Times
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MFIs turn ’profitable’ for capital market access, by Saswati Chakravarty and J Padmapriya
Ramesh Ramanathan, vicechairman of Sanghamitra, says: ?There is no conflict between the objective of reaching the poor and the institutional structure you adopt.? Vijay Mahajan, MD of Basix India, a bellwether MFI, says there are about 3,000 micro-finance bodies in India, of which seven have become NBFCs structured with investors, around 20 have registered as not-for-profit organisations while 980 are still societies and 2,000 are mutually-aided societies. Though there are 3,000 playe...
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- The Economic Times
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Micro finance is good business for ABN AMRO, by L.N. Revathy
For ABN Amro, micro-finance has proved to be a viable and sustainable business opportunity. The bank has, within a year of launching micro-finance operations in India, managed to break even. The finance support to needy groups is routed through micro-finance institutions (MFIs). The bank has identified 12 MFIs in the last year-and-a-half. Six more are in the pipeline, its Vice-President and Head (Micro-Finance), India, Ms Moumita Sen Sharma, told Business Line.
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- The Hindu Business Line
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Optimism brewing in Africa, Graham Mackay
The Africa World Economic Forum starts today amid high hopes for the continent. This year is being hailed as a significant one for Africa with the New Partnership for Africa?s Development (Nepad) and the Commission for Africa having succeeded in making Africa a central item on the Group of Eight (G-8) agenda. It is easy to be cynical about the prospect of another confe...
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- Business Day
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Economic growth alone will not solve Africa’s woes, By Ed Stoddard
Countries like Angola and Equatorial Guinea should be in a headlong rush to affluence -- at least that’s how it’s supposed to look on paper. Sub-Saharan Africa’s second and third biggest oil producers have seen the kind of huge growth and investment that ought to translate into rising living standards for people in both countries, according to conventional wisdom. Try telling that to the Angolan slum-dweller or the shoeless peasant in Equatorial Guinea,...
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- Reuters
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Designing a better world, by Richard Goering
Engineering at its best is about solving problems, not just cramming more megabytes onto a bus. And one place that’s crying out for solutions is the Third World. Can the problems there be met by interesting engineering solutions that lead to sustainable businesses? Increasingly, corporations and academics are saying yes. February brought news of ultralow-cost PCs in the works from the likes of AMD, HP and Via Technologies. The idea is to wire up the developing world with l...
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- Electronic Engineering Times
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