Marketing Department Essay

Carphone Warehouse relies on this functional area as it has a big affect on the business. This department involves advertising, designing and researching products in order to identify and meet the needs of the customers; with the use of marketing mix which consist of four Ps. The definition of the four Ps is Price, place, product and promotion. Price means setting the cost of the product to the standard of meeting the needs of the customers. Place means identifying the right/ideal location to promote and sell the product. Product is identifying the types of goods and services to sell. Promotion is how the company will advertise the product. This department also use primary and secondary research to help market Carphone warehouse, primary research known as field research involves getting data directly about the product and market either through questionnaires or interviews. Secondary research known as desk research involves acquiring the summary or collection of existing data from the internet or books. Distribution Department Carphone Warehouse delivers products all across Europe. This department ensures that all goods are delivered to the right place on time in the exact condition directly to the customer who has ordered the parcel; Carphone Warehouse have many ways in ordering products either from telephone, internet or at store. They check that the delivery van load are safe and secure and also plan the roots of the vehicle before sending the parcel. When a product is bought from Carphone Warehouse, this department makes sure that deliveries match orders precisely and is sent to the exact address on time. Oxfam International Oxfam International is known for their outstanding help for the less fortunate, their aim is to help feed the poor, shelter the homeless and find solution to poverty and injustice. Their main purpose is to provide goods and services to the public such as clothes, books, accessories etc at cost price because they are a `not for profit` organisation and sometimes receive their products for free, from members of the public. They also provide free services as in, helping the poor, feeding them, sheltering them and coating them with clothes. This is a charity organisation under the voluntary sector owned and run by trustees. They are a global organisation with over 13 organisations worldwide in almost every continent, their scale of organisation is large with over 3,000 partners (volunteers) in more than 100 countries to help them support the business and fight against poverty. Functional Departments In order for Oxfam to achieve an overall aim, Oxfam International has various types of functional areas that play a key role in the success of the organisation e. g. Research and development, customer services, administration and human resources. Without these departments Oxfam would struggle to achieve their goals. Research and development This department consist in researching and innovating new products. The R&D department helps Oxfam International to achieve their overall aim by researching and developing the goods or materials used to help the poor such as medicine, drugs foods etc to cure the ill/sick people as well as feeding them and finding them shelter. They also research Areas that need help in order to make an accurate visit and research things that could help find cure for cancer and all other diseases. Customer Service This department is important for Oxfam because this department helps them provide service to the public. They are all about bringing customers back and offering excellent service to the customers, helping Oxfam answer customers’ enquiries, solving their customers’ problems and dealing with customers’ complaints. This functional area helps Oxfam deal with customers in the most respectful and polite manner and provide the best of service. Administration The admin department is the most important functional area it is a support function required by the organisation. The Admin department helps Oxfam carry out a wide range of tasks; which includes sending and receiving messages by fax, email or telephone, dealing with paper work, monitoring budgets and interviewing new staff. This department is very helpful to Oxfam as it makes sure that all requirements are fulfilled accurately and correctly. Human Resources This functional department helps Oxfam by advertising job vacancies to recruiting new experienced employees; to help them provide the best services. They maintain staff records and arrange staff training; to make sure they have the best of staff and encourage continuous professional development. Human resources helps the Oxfam have the best of staff in order to help develop and provide the best service to the public.

While There Is Much Hype About International Sporting Events Like the Fifa World Cup, Such Events in Fact Have Limited Value. Do You Agree

Now people are like to do sport. Not matter adult, children, man and woman also likes to do sports. Even if the work is very busy, or a lot of remedial classes also take the free time to do sports. This is our love of sport. Since ancient times, people are like sports. Then people love sport, they gradually formed a large-scale movement. Nowadays, there are two sports competition in the world largest. It is Olympic Games and FIFA World Cup. These international sporting will give many advantages to a country.Hold international sporting events like the FIFA World Cup will become many advantages for a country. It will become improve growth of economy who are hold international sporting, then create more job, increase the relationship of other countries, and increase the image of a country. The first advantage of holding international sporting events is it creates more job opportunities for to the country. International sporting events need many sports centers, athlete hostels, hotels, c ar parks, restaurants, and others. So, human resources are needed to build the building.People are also needed to work in the construction field, restaurant, and service. The country has host the international sporting must invite many workers to complete the competition. For example, hotels need many workers to service the tourist, restaurants need many waiter and chefs to service the tourist and to cook many delicious foods, transportation need many drivers like taxis, bus, private drivers, and others. Furthermore, human resources also need the guide to introduction their country. Hold the international sporting can become increase the relationship of other countries.It can exchange players to show their talent. They promote their countries players and then promote their culture. NBA is the example, it make many teams to invite many country’s players come to their country. So that can increase many people know their country. Then their country will increase the economic and crates more jobs to their commonwealth. Similarly, they can organize a competition about the international sporting. For example, FIFA World Cup, Olympic Games, Formula 1, Europe Cup, and others sports.After the competition, the host country will enjoy many benefits from this competition. It can improve the economy growth of their country. Then it can lead to many business deals from all the world. This is because many other countries get to are know about this their country’s economy. So other countries are confident to do business with the host country. Then they countries can form good relationships in business. Likewise, they also can easily make transactions. For example China is a big developing country. It just hosted the Olympic Games in 2008.Now it is a popular country in the world. At the same time, it is also a big brother in Asia for business. Moreover, the advantage of holding international sporting is improved growth of economy. After which country was hosted t he international sporting. There can improve the currency at the time. For example, many tourists come to your country travel must change the currency. Multi-national currency may come in to your country. After that, the currency in your country will be growth up at the time. IN 2008 China, after it was finished hosted the Olympic Games.After that, it improved growth of economy at the moment. Then, many tourists come to China for tourism. So, many tourists need change the currency after that just can use. In conclusion, the hold international sporting can enjoy many advantages. Otherwise, host international sporting may improve growth of economy and increase the image of a country. In future, many countries must try to host the international sporting. So, many countries just can increase the relationship of others country. Finally, there are many advantages of host international sporting events.

Internet Small Computer System Interface Essay

A heterogeneous network of both IP-based SAN’s and FCP-based SAN’s should be setup based on a standard naming convention in order to facilitate communication between the client applications and the SAN which stores information. The network architecture should ideally be setup using a naming convention which is simple and precise, whilst facilitating communication between all of the network resources. This technique is based on having a convention which links a variety of technologies together as well as other resources seen on a network. A heterogeneous network consists of various network nodes with various protocols and operating systems in operation together. In the case of a Storage Area Network (SAN), the various operating systems in use on the network need to be able to see the remote storage volumes as if they are locally attached, therefore speed is essential to the successful working of a SAN. The use of a descriptive naming convention is also important as it means problem identification can be made easier and helps to minimize operator errors on the network. There are a number of protocols in operation on every network, and the need for an efficient protocol for SAN use is paramount. The current options for running a SAN are to use standard TCP/IP protocols namely the Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) protocol, or to use a specific protocol called FCP which usually operates over bespoke fiber infrastructure. These protocols are different in the way they operate, however can in fact be used together to improve the performance of a SAN. A naming convention suitable for a TCP/IP based network is very different to a naming convention for an FCP based network. TCP/IP is a network protocol which is used for communication between resources on a standard LAN, however FCP is a protocol which sends SCSI commands via a fiber optic cable to remote storage devices. The iSCSI protocol allows various network storage resources to be identified and used over standard network protocols, which requires compliance with the standard network naming policy, yet which enables the specific nature of their operation to be identified. Naming conventions for the LAN and SCSI storage devices should comply with standard network naming conventions. The servers and iSCSI devices which operate on a network should be been named in compliance with a standard policy and should be unique on the switch fabric of the network. Standard SAN naming conventions should be created with a few factors in mind, each component should be named based on its physical location, what it connects to, which database it is used by, and another unique field of identification. Naming conventions are important because they can save administrators time and effort, and must be created whilst considering many factors. Initially there must be a system whereby network names are created centrally and uniquely so that duplicate records are not made. This naming approach must be consistent throughout the network, and it must be applied across the entire organization regardless of location or operation. This element of the naming convention helps to prevent the duplicity or confusion of network names and is required to enable a high performance network to operate. This issue is not so important when dealing with an FCP-based SAN, because the devices are connected by a separate network of fiber which cannot usually be accessed by resources on the standard network which do not use specific applications or databases. In conclusion the operation of a storage area network relies on speed and an efficient and effective naming system which is able to be managed, diagnosed and repaired where necessary in the simplest and most cost effective way possible. This must be done consistently when using the standard TCP/IP protocol, however specific FCP SAN protocol allows for a much simpler convention.

Development of Orchestra Concert Music in the Classical Period Essay

Development of Orchestra Concert Music in the Classical Period - Essay Example This "Development of Orchestra Concert Music in the Classical Period" essay outlines the changes in orchestra concert music and its origin. Music in the classical period derives its name from imitation of Greece and Roman art classical artistic and literary heritage. In periods preceding the classic period, music was played entirely for church functions and for those in power (Van, 2012). Composers would only present their music under the employ of a person in power because it was an expensive undertaking that was not very common. The classical period bore the name of enlightenment period, which made people understand the human reasoning power in overcoming problems. During the enlightenment period, people composers understood that they could use their music to entertain themselves as they gain instead of only performing to those in power. The enlightenment brought conflict between old and new ideas of governance in the society. Consequently, these changes in the society affected the writing of music in those societies. This period contributed much to the development of orchestral music in Northern and Central Europe, since it is during this period that music got performed in public concerts. Several factors led to the development of music in this period. First, economic changes during the period affected the music development, composition, and its dissemination (Van, 2012). Secondly, there were changes in the lives and occupations of the composers, which affected the social structures that provided employment in previous times. Thirdly, there is the traditional or novelty taste of the music that drives the music to its development and expansion .

Behaviour 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Behaviour 2 - Essay Example It was noted that majority of the fuel starved households belong to the lower income group of the society which also signifies the high charged electricity services of UK. In comparison to UK, Qatar is a country providing free electricity to their citizens and is also having sufficient electricity to maintain their national and corporate requirements. On the contrary, UK has maintained the belief that charging electricity and other energy sources will help in realising the value of fuel and also develop optimum usage of the resources (Middlemiss and Gillard, 2015). However, the slow decrease in the rate of fuel poverty does not justify the policy of the UK Energy Sector. It was noted in the Annual Fuel Poverty Statistics Report 2014 that the cumulative gap of fuel poverty is expected to increase to  £1.1 billion in the year 2014 from  £1 billion in 2012 (Department of energy and climate change, 2014a). The average electricity bill being paid by a small flat or house (2000kWH consumption of electricity) in UK is  £67 per month and the yearly bill is  £802 and the average electricity bill for a medium house (3200kWH consumption of electricity) is  £ 1163 (Department of energy and climate change, 2014b). According to the LIHC measure, it has been highlighted that almost foreign students have to pay around 5 to 12% of their total income for electricity income which is quite costly in comparison to the free electricity service provided in Qatar. The cost of living for the immigrant students has increased because of high end electricity charges imposed by Governed and other service providers in order to restrict the use of energy (Lawson, Williams and Wooliscroft, 2015). This section of the assignment highlights the results that are obtained after analysis of SPSS data. The data is obtained from the responses of the questionnaires. The main aim of the survey is to measure the effect of financial cost of energy on the

U.S. influence on the Iraq Oil Economy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

U.S. influence on the Iraq Oil Economy - Essay Example The importance of the Iraqi oil in the context of establishing American stronghold over global economy and its possible implications on the political scenario of the world has been discussed in detail.The paper focuses on the US influence in shaping the oil economy of Iraq. An attempt has been made to analyze the interest of the US in the oil resource of the country.The steps taken by the present US administration to monitor the oil industry has also been discussed in detail. How successful are they in establishing themselves as a global power; the scopes offered by the present political sensitivity in Iraq. The paper also evaluates the importance of the Iraq oil industry as a significant energy resource, benefiting industries worldwide.Oil constitutes one of the major economy sources of Iraq, the amount of oil present in the Persian Gulf region, has lured many world powers to establish their stronghold. Controlling the resources commanded a power (economical and political), which es tablished its identity has a reigning world power.After Saudi Arabia, Iraq has the largest oil reserve in the world. Researchers of the field are of the opinion that there are more potential oil reserves, estimated to be approximately 200 billion barrels of high quality crude oil. Statistics show that the production of oil in Iraq has remained consistent since 1980, with an estimated production of 2.5 million barrels per day. In comparison the consumption carve had hardly risen over the 0.5 million barrels per day estimated in the last two decades.... Experts have estimated that the oil reserves of Iraq will not dry up for at least 5 more centuries, as compared to the oil source of the US (estimated to last for no more than a decade). BACKGROUND The US monopoly on the global oil industry started with the nationalizing of the British Petroleum in 1953, after the dissolve of the Dr. Muhammad Mosaddeq lead government in Iran. Safeguarding the interest of the US multinationals and restrain any imperialism. The US continues to maintain a stronghold on the oil resources of the Gulf region ever since. Oil contributes to 95% of Iraq's economy. At a rate of 2.5 million barrels per day, experts evaluating the economic potential have estimated the figure to rise to 3.5 million barrels per day. (US to Take Bigger Bite of Iraq's Economic Pie, 2004) The Persian Gulf constitutes about 30 percent of the oil produced worldwide but nearly 70 percent of the total oil reserve of the world also constitutes that of the region. So in the event of any global oil crisis this is the only region that will meet the demands for oil. Controlling this highly profitably resource would not only prove to be beneficial for any country, which wishes to establi sh its power on the world. But it would also increase the chances of boosting the economic status of the respective nation. So the US interest in this highly profitable venture is well established (The US invasion of Iraq: Oil, the Mother of all Factors, 2005) Experts analyzing the reasons for the invasion of Iraq by the US have formulated an opinion that it is perhaps the oil resource of the country that propelled the attack from the US forces. The opinions are broadly based on the Project for the New American Century (PNAC)-"Rebuilding America's

Gibraltar Airport Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Gibraltar Airport - Case Study Example This means that the traffic lights guide on the mode of operations between the two systems (Archer, 2006). They decide when the road traffic should go and when it should stop. This is also the case of the air traffic. There is the danger of collision of the two forms of traffic that are hugely dependent on the traffic lights. The airport is surrounded by huge buildings and many highly piled up rocks. There is the silent danger of plunging into the buildings or the rocks nearby. This will be disastrous for the airport, planes, road users and ultimately the passengers. The traffic lights that act as the essential guide for the planes can seriously malfunction. This will cause huge aspects of relying the wrong information and signals. The incoming traffic and outgoing traffic could then crush into each other (Archer, 2006). In many instances there are very many mishaps that have occurred at the airport. Once crew of a Boeing flight lost visual contact of where they were supposed to land. They missed the runway and they crash landed. The intersection between the road and runway has had many mishaps (Archer, 2006). They include the fact that traffic lights have on several occasions misguided the pilot and drivers. This has resulted in the flow of both the users of the road and the landing plane. Once, there was a police chase down the highway. It was difficult and stressful for the planes pilots, the police and the people being chased. This was because of the urgency of their situations and the nature of the flow of traffic (Archer, 2006). The airport should have its own space. This means that the road highway will have to be shut down or underground tunnels built. This is because the co-existence of the traffic flows posses a huge danger. There should be clear well labelled signs that cater for each and every traffic that flows in its created space. This will ensure that all parties understand what is going on, in all avenues and angles of

The importance of bedside report to improve patient satisfaction Annotated Bibliography

The importance of bedside report to improve patient satisfaction scores - Annotated Bibliography Example oncoming nurses aware of the present condition of the patient under care by providing them with all information about the present state of the patient. The nurses leaving the shift provide a handoff to the nurses taking charge at the end of each nursing shift. â€Å"It also allows the oncoming nurse an opportunity to visualize the patient and ask questions† (Maxson, Derby, Wrobleski, & Foss, 2012, p. 140). In the handoff, nurses inform the new in-charge nurses about the changes in patient’s progress level, as well as about the essentials that new nurses need to do for the patient during the shift. Nurses get information for preparing handoffs from the patient’s care plan, patient record, and other medical documents and present it to new nurses either through face-to-face communication or as taped handoffs. All of this relates to the concept of quality care nursing. However, the dilemma is that not every nurse is aware of the importance of bedside nursing; hence they do not participate actively in the preparation of a quality care plan. â€Å"Analysis of quality care literature reveals that practising nurses are rarely involved in developing or defining improvement programs for quality nursing care† (Burhans & Alligood, 2010, p. 1689). Delivery of quality care has always remained an area of debate in the field of nursing (Burhans & Alligood, 2010, p. 1689). Bedside nursing handoff is an essential part of a quality care plan about which every nursing professional should be trained. In some nursing facilities, nurses consult patients during preparation of handoffs in order to provide patient-centered care to patients. â€Å"Bedside handover provides an opportunity for patients to be involved as active participants in their care† (McMurray, Chaboyer, Wallis, Johnson, & Gehrke, 2011, p. 19). It is not the case that every nurse does this but this step is highly appreciated on the end of patients. The reason is that it plays a significant role in promoting safe and

Biometrics use in government and corporations Research Paper

Biometrics use in government and corporations - Research Paper Example There are various biometric technologies available and though this paper will look into each of them, the major focus would be on fingerprint and iris biometrics. Fingerprint biometrics has remained popular not only among governments but also in corporate institutions. There would be various advantages as to support this popularity, but Cole (2005) noted that this technology has a false positive rate of between 0.08% and 4.4%. As compared to its counterpart, Cole (2005) further appreciates the accuracy that organizations could enjoy if the recent iris biometrics technology would be used instead. This system has a false acceptance rate at 1 per 1.2 million of two matching irises. This paper seeks to address security agencies from both the government and corporate organizations on concerns on errors in fingerprint biometrics with illustration using relevant examples. In spite of these drawbacks, application of biometrics by governments and corporations enhance border security and data protection. Introduction Biometrics pertains to unique methods of recognizing human beings on the basis of intrinsic behavioral or physical traits. According to Acharya and Kasprzycki (2010), it is the semi-automated or automated use of behavioral or physiological traits to verify or determine identity. Its application in computer science ensures access control and identity access management. Its application has however been extended to persons under surveillance. Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11/2001, the governments worldwide turned to biometrics capability to increase airport security and border crossings and for production of identity documents that are more secure. Similarly, biometrics has received tremendous demand for employment or testing in commercial applications. Human beings possess various chemical, physiological and behavioral aspects that would be important in biometric authentication. The choice of which aspect to use would be guided by several factors. Liu notes that the chosen aspect sh ould be universal such that all subjects possess it (2011). The trait should be unique for each member of the population for differentiation. Permanence would show how a trait varies with time with a desirable permanence being that with reasonable invariance over time with regard to a specific matching algorithm. The trait should be easy to collect, extract and process. Performance would indicate how robust, fast and accurate a system is while acceptability would indicate how people would accept their biometric trait not only to be captured but also assessed. Finally, the trait should also not be easily circumvented. It is with this in mind that various biometrics have been developed with time in an attempt to have one that would effectively encompass all these traits. Operation of biometrics Any biometric system operates in two modes, namely; verification and identification (Cole, 2005). Verification mode allows for comparison of the captured biometric with a specified pre-existing template saved in a biometric database so as to confirm the person’s claim of identity. It would involve use of ID number, username or smart card to indicate the template to be used in comparison. With identification, the system would be prompted to compare against a whole biometric database

How far is Odysseuss status Essay Example for Free

How far is Odysseuss status Essay Throughout the Odyssey, Odysseus is portrayed as a Greek hero. However this can be contradicted. In many events Odysseus can be perceived as un-heroic at times. Therefore the above statement can be argued. Throughout this piece of work I will be discussing this statement and I will gradually draw closer to a conclusion. Odysseus shows leadership as he produces very clever ideas and performs quick-thinking actions. Throughout the narrative he has planned strategies, for example, every time Odysseus and his men reach an island he always sends his men first to investigate the surroundings. This quality can be seen as cunning and therefore he can be seen as a hero. His personality can be seen as caring and scheming. In many periods of the book this can be proved. He stays calm in situations and when his men die he thinks of them, and when in trouble he does his best to help them says quote, we travelled with heavy hearts, grieving for the loss of our dear friends.. (Book 10 Line 133) Odysseus can be seen as resourceful, for example, he tool the undiluted wine with him when going into the Cyclopss cave, which then later came into use as it saved his men and himself escape to safety. He is seen as shrewd as he uses a false name when speaking with the Cyclops which again later on takes its effect when the men are absconding from the dangers of the Cyclops. Even though Odysseus can be seen as a hero, in some cases he cannot be depicted as cunning. For example, he decided to ignore his crews suggestion to escape with the food in the Cyclopss cave. Even though he was right to do the hospitable and respectable thing to do, by staying in the cave to greet their host, he made the wrong decision as the by staying he risked the lives of his men. Odysseus can be thought of as violent as he blinded Polyphemus with a stake. This could be looked at as un-heroic and wrong, but it can also be seen as him being vengeful for his killed crew. Therefore these different situations can be looked at from two perspectives. He could be seen as hospitable and vengeful, which are true qualities of a hero, or he can be looked at as a violent person who has bad judgement. It all depends on the readers standpoint. Odysseus has a very strong relationship with the Gods, especially with Athenes and Hermes. For example Hermes helped Odysseus by giving him the moly flower. This can be looked at from two angles. Odysseus might seem not so heroic as he needs help from the powers that be, and he might be seen as dependent on the Gods. But this can be argued as only some people would think that only a hero can receive such gifts from the gods and that there has to be something special about him, and also Athene was known for helping heroes which could prove that he was one. Therefore, again, this line of reasoning could be argued. Odysseus and his men have lack trust and confidence in their relationships. This reflects badly upon Odysseus as it shows he is not leadership material. For example When Odysseus and his men sailed away from the Island of Aelia, Odysseus had received the gift of the winds. His crew did not trust Odysseus and opened the bag, thinking it was gold, and released the winds. This shows a lack of trust. Another example that shows a requirement of confidence in their relationship is when one of Odysseuss men, Eurylochus, says You will never come back yourself and wont rescue a single man of your crew. I am certain of it. Let you get away quickly with those that are left here. (Book 10 Line 268). This shows that his men think that their destiny with Odysseus will lead to death. They feel as if his leadership is endangering them which shows that they do not think of him as a hero and influences the reader to think the same, even though Odysseus tries his best and up most to rescue his men In my opinion, I think that Odysseus is a heroic figure. This is because in the book he is proved to be cunning, caring and an important figure. There are many events in the book that contradict this, but they can be argued to whether Odysseus was really in the wrong. For example, he wanted to stay in Polyphemuss cave because he wanted to be hospitable (which is the right thing to do), and he was not aware of the dangers that were at hand. He can be seen as violent, but revenge was his only motivation, when he blinded the Cyclops. Therefore, I think that Odysseus can be categorised under hero, and I think that Odysseuss status throughout the Odyssey all depends on how the reader interprets the events that take place as they always have two aspects to look at.

Impact of the Economic Crisis on Countries in Africa

Impact of the Economic Crisis on Countries in Africa The aim of this dissertation is to analyze the impact of the global economic crisis in Africa and provide suitable suggestions as a consultant of the African Union The African economy was proceeding towards a splendid reasonable growth towards the beginning of the year 2008 even though many countries in the world were caught between the subprime crises. The African continent was one of the worlds best continent with abundant of resources and gradually developing and recording a reasonable growth in their GDP, before the global economic crisis affected the development of this region. Africa was a frontier in the production of resources with recording a above average growth, experts predicted the present growth rate would lead to the development of African economy as a superior power in the future. However the present decline in the prices of export commodities has resulted in the decline in the government revenues which has affected the GDP of Africa. The major contributors to the development of African economy were the need for resource materials, the reasonable development of china and the increase in the inflow of capital and factors of macro economic rectifications. There was an also major contribution from the migrant remittances which contributed to the reasonable earnings in the household and increase the government revenues in terms of tax. There were many speculations expecting the best out of the potential of Africa in order to produce resources for the growth of the continent and reduce poverty. But there was a close indication of the downfall in the economy in the early 2007 which ultimately was encountered by the African economy in the late 2008. In the world economy when many developed countries were facing recession and crisis, there was severe alteration towards the growth scenario in Africa because of the stagnancy. The majority of the growth contributors of Africa were affected by this crisis. The development in chinas economy declined gradually and there was a downfall in the need for resources and their prices were declining to an extent. Because of the reasonable GDP there was no pressure on the concern of inflation. Certain assurance of added aids was not implemented yet and there was a reduction in the capital inflow. Since the effects were taken care of there were no immediate reactions in Africa due to the economic crisis. However the reduction in the external aid which was not implemented as assured by many developed countries in the G20 started affecting the health sector to a greater extent. To have a detail description of African economic crisis we would discuss the major sectors which have been adversely affected due to recession. To start with there would be an impact in the mining sector, impact in banking sector does not have any major adverse effects, consequences faced by the effects of crisis in finance sector including the commodity markets and international exchange rates, adverse effects on remittances and capital inflows in the trade sectors with the addition of FDI. There were other sectors too such as tourism, manufacturing which had experienced an impact due to the global economic crisis. The under development of the banking sector in Africa is another major concern because the banking sector has failed to derive structures that benefits the economy. The increase in the banking policies with external integration could generate the flow of capital which was not implemented in Africa There were certain positive impacts for the countries importing commodities in Africa, they were benefited a lot from reducing the expenditures. On the entire economy of Africa the sub Saharan region was the most to be affected by the crisis. The ultimate effects of the global economic crisis were the increase in the infant mortality rate, increase in poverty, pressure on government to restructure the fiscal budget, and unemployment. However since there was growth in African economy it could face the immense pressure of Economic crisis. The major countries to experience severe effects by the economic crisis are Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Zambia, Egypt which are mostly the sub Saharan Africa regions. The impact of the economic crisis in Africa made many underdeveloped countries to receive international implications on its economy to develop their infrastructure. The international business strategies suitable recovery facts have proved more beneficiaries in the world economies. The suggestion of suitable changes in the physical structure could help in the faster recovery of the economic crisis IMPACTS OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS ON BANKING The global economic crisis effect in the major developed countries was on the banking sector where many banking corporate collapsed during the crisis. But the African economy did not have any adverse effects on the banking sector because of their less extent of bonding with the world economies. The African economy has a comparatively low external financing compared to other continents of the world, the external financing of Africa only accounts to 4% of the overall volume in the emerging economies. To have a statistical overview the African external financing it only issued bonds worth of six million American dollars and received only three million dollars from private reserves. This comparatively low market capitalization of the world economy has protected the African banking system from severe damages. The African economy did not report any bankruptcy during the global economic crisis because the African banks could manage reasonable returns from the mortgages. There were certain e ffects in the African economy due to the presence of foreign banks with assets in some African countries like Swaziland, Madagascar who suffered major losses due to world financial crisis. But the effects of world economic crisis did not affect the banks progress in Africa, the banking systems dominates the finance sector and the role played by the financial markets are not of greater concern. There is a transmission check of funds borrowed from foreign banks by the government and there is less awareness of off balance sheet procedure to African economy which was the major reasons for the stability of African banking sector. The conversion of many capital resources into foreign assets saved the African economy to avoid exchange rate appreciation. To sum up the impact of global economic crisis did not deliver any adverse effect on the banking sector. IMPACTS OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS ON THE FINANCIAL STRUCTURE OF AFRICA INTRODUCTION The African continent was not isolated from the financial crisis, to have a deep overview of the financial crisis there were certain adverse effects on the economy because of the badly constructed financial systems. There was a reduction in the earnings in many sectors such as there was a reduction in the need of commodities and also reduction in the commodity prices, There were reduction in capital inflows, the major affected sector will be the export where it will face a reduction of $578 billion in the recent years out of which the oil sector itself will account to $420 billion reduction in the earnings. This loss in the earnings will account to one fifth of the GDP which is five times the avail given to the region. There was an effect of this financial crisis in the growth of the economy and it also increased poverty. To have a deeper analysis of the impact of the financial crisis in Africa let us look at the causes of transmission of the financial crisis and its effect on the in dividual factors of the financial sector. Causes of financial crisis is Africa The major cause of the financial crisis in Africa was the reduction in the prices and amount of the export commodities because of the global financial crisis. There was a prominent reduction in the prices of commodities in the late 2008 such as oil sector faced a downfall of 69% in their prices, because of the decline in the exports up to 45% there was a huge loss faced by the continent, even the other commodities excluding oil accounted to 38% of downfall in their prices. The other major cause of the African financial crisis is the decline in the capital inflow and remittances. These accounted to decline in the foreign exchange which ultimately guided to poverty in the continent due to the shortage in income. The developing countries have always depended on foreign direct investment (FDI) for developing the countys economy and infrastructure. Because of the delays in the assured FDI many projects have been delayed or halted leading to gradual loses. Finally there was downfall in the stocks of the foreign reserves and the reduction in the span of import cover contributed to a larger pressure in the African economy unable to afford the commodities hence causing more crisis. Let us have a broader view of the effects in the African economy due to the causes of the global economic crisis. EFFECTS OF THE FINANCIAL CRISIS IN AFRICA EFFECT ON THE FINANCIAL MARKETS There was a gradual impact in the financial markets because of the subprime crisis. The banking sector did not face any direct impact of the crisis but there were effects due to transmission and dependence on the external economy. There were slight rise in the prices of the assets and the risk premium was increased indicating there was some damage in the finance structure in the early 2008. Because of the transmission and dependency, the liquid finance markets where affected more in this region more than the developed countries and inclined to the over valuing of stocks. If you have a look at the reports from countries like Nigeria and Egypt, they faced a loss of more than half of their investment towards late 2008. Increase in the value of debts in the international finance markets has caused the rise in debt spreads in the African countries. In order to attract the investors the African countries like Tunisia increased their bias points. The bias points of the developing countries mainly in Africa in the international market reached to 800 points in the late 2008, these indeed inclined the risk premium which forced many countries like Kenya to stop imploring from international financial markets and circulate the long term resources to local markets.There was a decline in the foreign exchange reserves because of the depreciation of currencies, this happened due to the decline in the commodity prices. Variations in the currency exchange rate against American dollars and Euros delivered an effect in the African economy. There was a three fifth of drop in the copper prices due to the global economic crisis. Hence African countries were one of the international reserves of copper and they had faced a chief downfall in their foreign reserves. There was about 50% depreciation of the currency of countries like Zambia against American dollars. Africa is one of the main continents with abundant of resources whose exports were one of the major earnings and helped in increasing the growth of economy. There have been decline in the commodity prices and volume all over the world because of the global economy crisis in the late 2008. This crisis inclined certain effects in the African economy, there was a three fifth decline in the prices of the crude oil which was one of the major reserves of Africa. Some of the other major natural resources of Africa such as diamond, copper, timber etc produced by mining declined by 30%, the development in the African export sector declined by 3% and there was a reduction in the GDP was about 3.5% compared to the fiscal year 2008. There were certain adverse effects because of the reduction in commodity prices which resulted in, reduction in the gain, low profit for high production cost resources, decline in government aids and finally the termination of many projects which were supported by FD I incline a huge loss to the African economy. The decline in the price of food commodities resulted in restructuring the government budget and balance of payments. There are certain regions in Africa such as Burundi where the oil is imported would have an positive impact of the reduced prices there are also certain negative impacts in attracting FDI for these countries which would decrease their development. EFFECT OF LONG TERM AND MEDIUM TERM TRANSACTIONS There are certain effects on the trade of goods and services in the world due to the global economic crisis from which Africa is not isolated. According to the reports there is an decrease in the growth of trade in terms of exports and imports, there is a decrease of 5% in the growth of imports and 7% in the growth of exports. Africa will experience a loss of about 45% of its value of exports. The other important effect is due to the capital flow within Africa and the world, there was a decline in the FDI about 21% in the African region towards the end of 2008. This effect has only been described by certain countries is Africa such as Egypt while other countries have increased the FDI such as South Africa. But there was certain adverse effects of FDI in the production of natural resources which was not availed as assured by international markets due to the economic crisis. The effect of short term capital flows is there was a decline about 50% in the capital flow for emerging counties because of the reduction in the availability of financial resources, but the African economy only suffered upto a lesser extent because of the limited bonding between the external financial markets and the African financial markets. IMPACT OF GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS ON SUB SAHARAN AFRICA The major effects of the global economic crisis in the sub Saharan region were the decline in their trade, decline in the remittances, and reduction in external financing. The major problem in the sub Saharan region was their trade was mostly depended on the countries suffered by economic crisis this reduced the demand in the resources exported. The decline in the prices of the primary commodities in sub Saharan Africa accounted to adverse effects in their economies. The government revenues depend on tourist sector for development infrastructure which suffered a major hit during the crisis. The decline in world trade accounted by one percent accounted to half the percent decline in the growth of the sub Saharan region. The prominent causes for the economic crisis in the sub Saharan region was the trade with United States, there was a fifty seven percent decline in the trade between the two regions. The development of the sub Saharan Africa was majorly because of the trade with china, thirteen percent of this regions exports and a comparative ten percent of imports depended on the trade with China. The investors from china were behind the initiative of many projects in the Africa region funded by them. The integration between both the regions decreased after the effect of global economic crisis leading to further impacton the economy of the sub Saharan Africa countries. There was a dramatic decline in the capital inflows in the sub Saharan region compared to other parts of Africa. There was a 26.7% drop in the external investments which accounted to the financial crisis of the economy of many countries. The sub Saharan Africa earned reasonable government revenue from migrant remittances who suffered adverse effects because of redundancy as an effect of the economic crisis, this reduced the government revenues in terms of tax. There were certain assurance given by the developed countries in the G8 committee meeting regarding the increase in the funding to the Afr ican countries which was not implemented due to the economic crisis. Out of the impact of the financial crisis on the entire African continent, Southern Africa will be affected the most. Countries like Angola will experience a dramatic downfall in their growth about 20.9%, the economy growth of east Africa will be affected by 2%, the Sub Saharan region will have difficulties in fiscal balancing. There will be huge responsibilities for the government to structure their budget to meet the social needs of the people in Africa. These are the financial issues experienced by Africa during the Global Economic Crisis. IMPACT OF GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS ON REMITTANCES IN AFRICA The prominent impact of the global economic crisis in Africa was on remittances which indeed resulted in severe harm to the African Economy. Before the economic crisis remittances was one of the modes of earnings in the African economy. Remittances helped in the developing the infrastructure of African Economy and was one of the major sources of external financing.. The remittances of natural resources exporting countries were affected the most, since Africa is one of the prominent exporters of natural resources they faced badly affected by the economic crisis. Remittances in Africa where expected to decline about six percent which could damage the economy of remittance dependent countries. Certain countries in Africa were expecting external financing aid to overcome the decline in remittances. The major regions having effect on remittances are the North African regions whose economy depends on it. CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF DECLINE IN REMMITANCES The remittances in the African economy is prominently transferred in informal terms such as friends and relatives, the formal mode of transmission of remittances in Africa is through the banking system. The major remittance in Africa is the workers remittance, the remittance –GDP ratio for many countries in the African region was at an average of nine percent . these above calculations explains the contribution of remittances in the growth of African economy. The African economy dependence on remittances was comparatively low to other parts of the world. Another spread of remittances was in terms of migrants, Africa countries face 20% of their migration within their continent. Because of the migrants to other continents such as Europe and America which were the worst affected continents of the global economic crisis there was a decline in the remittances. North Africa region was affected the most because they had many migrants in Europe and Middle East which has faced adverse negative impacts in their economy. The countries like Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria had a decline of about seven to nine percent in their remittances because of the larger proportion of migrants from their country in Europe regions affected by the Global economic crisis. This decline in the remittances has produced an impact on the government revenues in Africa, and also affected fiscal structure of the economy. Because of the global economic crisis which leads to the decline of process in the manufacturing industries accounted to job cuts, this situation lead to the decline in remittances. The decline in remittances damaged the better earnings in the households which caused poverty and increased the infant mortality rate. There were some positive impacts due to the increase in remittances in certain regions of Africa such as Kenya because of the decline in the import commodity prices. The major effects of decline in remittances are it decreases the governments revenue in terms of tax. The decline in the revenue can affect the GDP of the economy, and effects on negative growth of GDP increases the IMR. Many countries in Africa such as Ethiopia are about to lose 0.2 to 0.3 percent of their GDP growth. The African country to be majorly affected by the decline in remittances is Morocco, where it faced two to three percent of decline in their GDP growth. The countries in Africa which had immense migration transfer to Europe faced immense damage in their GDP. The ultimate effect on decline in remittances is, redundancy of migrants which will affect their household incomes resulting in poverty. To sum up the ultimate cause of decline in remittances was redundancy of migrants and nationals, decline in the external financing because of economic crisis. Finally the effects of redundancy are decline in house hold incomes, unemployment, and decline in government revenues. THE IMPACT OF GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS ON THE AFRICAN ECONOMY EFFECTS OF GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS IN ECONOMY FACTORS Africa encountered a drastic change in their economy during the economic crisis in the world. Before the economic crisis the African oil exporting countries gained plenty of foreign exchange which they used for projects to develop the infrastructure and repay their debt. During the global economic crisis there was a 60% downfall in the oil prices which had a bad effect on their GDP. The GDP of African countries exporting oil were facing a decline of 5% which had adverse effects on their economy, even oil importers in Africa will face a decline of 2% of their GDP and all these accounted to the decline in the oil revenue. There were several regions in Africa which recorded a positive growth in their GDP despite the decline in the prices of the commodities such as North Africa, Morocco and certain other countries. There will be a total unbalance in the economy of some countries in Africa because of the decline in the exports sector more than the imports, they will face a couple of downf all in a countrys economic structure. Hence the countries will face difficulties to restructure the economy and there would be a reduction in the consumption because of the downfall in revenue. The other effects on the economy of Africa is inflation, this would be a serious problem encountered by the economy of many African countries. The inflation would raise about three percent in the African region because of the decline in the revenue, but the positive impact of the crisis is that there would be a reduction in the commodity prices which might take the pressure on inflation for some reasonable time. The countries which import oil will have a positive impact of reduction in the inflation rate in their economy, but it is the opposite for the countries exporting oil and will face an increase in the rate of inflation. There is certain decline in growth prospects of Africa as an impact of the global economic crisis, despite of not being directly affected by the World financial crisis because of the low bonding with external economies, there was some decline in the growth prospects in the African region. The oil exporters in Africa faced a decline of three percent in growth while the oil importing countries faced a decline of one percent in growth. Developing countries in Africa will face difficulties due to the reduction in the demand of their goods, these effects could halt the Africas development into a superior power. EFFECTS OF GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS ON INDUSTRIES The other key sectors which had a major impact due to the crisis was the tourism sector, they suffered major damages during the global economic crisis. The revenue in the tourism sector was affected badly in the African region making the functions of the sector miserable. There was a decline in the number of arrivals to the countries like Kenya in Africa. The decline in the arrivals accounted to a decline in the profit for airways. The decline in tourism which is one of the governments revenue from the service sector faced many negative impacts, there was considerable amount of loss due to cancellations. Countries like Egypt and Kenya experienced ten to thirty percent fall in their revenue. There was major losses on the mining sector due to the economic crisis, many projects in the African region were terminated or postponed because of the shortage of investments. For instance the decline in the copper prices had halted many projects in the African region in countries like Zambia, th e leading copper mining industries faced one fourth decline in their supplier contracts. Many mining projects were terminated because of the falling copper prices. Other natural resources such as cobalt also faced reduction in their prices which halted operations in certain projects in countries like The Democratic Republic of Congo. There were many employees been laid off because of the termination of the projects, the Democratic Republic of Congo alone recorded two hundred thousand employees dropped. The decline in the price of other natural resources have caused adverse effects on budget, countries like Gabon in Africa experienced negative impacts. The reduction in the price of iron, uranium and bauxite which are one of the major exports in many countries experienced decline in the revenue. Since Africa has been one of the major continent with an abundant wealth of natural resources and the fall in the price of natural resources has made Africa suffer severely which indeed result ed in economic crisis. The textile industry was also not isolated from this economic crisis. Because of the decrease in the demand of textile goods from the African region several industries had to face immediate closure. The countries in Africa were facing immense pressure because of the unemployment of people. The termination of an industry at an average caused reduction of four thousand jobs. There was huge pressure from the labor unions to the government regarding unemployment. The impact on the African manufacturing industry by the global economic crisis has resulted in restructuring of the economy and experience serious financial crisis. Finally the global economic crisis has affected the African economy in several sectors. According to reports two third countries of the African continent are affected by the downfall in the price of natural resources. The major decline of the African economy has caused by one ultimate factor which is the reduction in the commodities. The other minor factor like the decline in the foreign investment is also the cause of African economy crisis. RECOMMENDATIONS There are certain recommendations suggested as a consultant of the African union in order to increase the growth of the economy. To start with the recommendation process, it would highlight facts on four features which are observation on the financial structure, reduction of crisis impact on health, revival of the policies in the economic structure and derivative such as bail out policies. We shall discuss the impact of these recommendations on the African System. The major recommendation in the health sector is the prevention of the effects of the economic crisis that has not fully affected the house hold regions. Hence necessary conservative methods should be taken to take care of the adverse effects of the crisis. There must be constant check on the negative effects in the health sector and take necessary actions. Mainly the IMR should be taken care of to a greater extent. Monitoring the growth of infants could help the development in the health sector. There should be constant negotiation within the health organizations and the population. There should be a drastic increase in the investments in the health sector. The African governments should restructure their fiscal budgets for more allowances to the health sector. Most of the developed countries spent 0.7% of their GDP in the health sector for a better healthy environment. The African economy should make better use of the funds provided by the World Bank for effective health climate. T here should be a constant check in the available resources in the health sector and efficient usage of the available resources is recommended. There are several measuring concepts in the current world to measure the expenditure, performance and future projects of a health sector. A better organization can result in better performance in the health sector. The current economic crisis has helped Africa have a view on the current health structure and decide suitable remedies to overcome this deficiency. The crisis has helped Africa have a check on the IMR, poverty, healthy environments, and causes of the diseases. These checks have recommended Africa to invest on certain suitable regions such as food, medicines etc in the health sector and decide what are the gradual steps to be taken to fight against deaths. The use of health care vouchers is proved effective in many parts of the world which should be concerned by the African economy. There must be necessary action taken in the organi zing and implementing of health programs to perform against the negative impacts. Taking severe actions in the prevention of environmental harms that creates health hazards could prove profitable. The communities in each society should take care of these remedies. The crisis has urged the recommendation of implementation of external aids as soon as possible, governments should derive suitable policies for attracting external financing in the health sector. There should be a bonding between the donors in the health sector and the health organizations. There are several African developing countries maintaining this bond. However the suitable remedies cannot assure the protection of the health sector in the future because it is difficult to estimate such reactions. To summarize the integration between the government and the beneficiary partners can always develop the growth of health sector in Africa. There are certain suitable recommendations on the financial structure of Africa for suitable developments. The initial recommendation would be that there should be a strong network of communication between the African finance ministry and senior banking officials to have a check at the financial breakdown of banks, these actions can prevent the bankruptcy of banks. This action could promote the operations of the bank and increase the African regional process to emphasize the growth of small countries taking advantage over larger countries. There must be a day to day surveillance of the finance markets and the changes on exchange rates and stock prices. This could increase the growth of African economy by taking suitable necessary actions to prevent the adverse effects. There could be a design such as when the numbers of exchange rates and stock prices are adverse, defensive actions are taken by the necessary authorities. This could increase the awareness of the government to perform recovery operations. Because of the economy crisis the banks might face a structural damage because of the shortage in the liquidity of cash flow. Hence necessary actions by the government on the banks can regain market confidence of the customers. This action could indeed trigger the operations of industries by lending money and operations in household by lending credit, hence a economic balance is created. The African governments can generate these funds with the help of foreign reserves such as bonds in capital markets. The African economy can reconstruct their finance structure with the help of international finance organizations. So in order to balance the African economy, frequent check on banks and surveillance of the market is necessary. There are certain long term operations which helps the Africa governments in maintaining economic balance. To maintain balance in the economy regulatory policies should be issued by the government on the transparency of operations performed by the banks and their finance system should be supervised regularly. In order to increase further liquidity there should be regulatory operations performed by the African regional organizations. The African banking structure must be able to meet the capital demands, hence regulatory policies should be improved. The African economy must increase their growth such as their banks start to perform FDI operations in other regions. The network can be further strengthened with the help of legal operations, the legal binding operations can lead to development and growth of the financial structure of the banking sector. The bonding between the legal system and the banking system can result in the growth of African economies. There can be necessary actions performed to increase the competition between banks for better performance. Hence with the help of these recommendations the African economies can experience development in the banking sectors. An effective incentive scheme should be announced for corporate to decrease the invo Impact of the Economic Crisis on Countries in Africa Impact of the Economic Crisis on Countries in Africa The aim of this dissertation is to analyze the impact of the global economic crisis in Africa and provide suitable suggestions as a consultant of the African Union The African economy was proceeding towards a splendid reasonable growth towards the beginning of the year 2008 even though many countries in the world were caught between the subprime crises. The African continent was one of the worlds best continent with abundant of resources and gradually developing and recording a reasonable growth in their GDP, before the global economic crisis affected the development of this region. Africa was a frontier in the production of resources with recording a above average growth, experts predicted the present growth rate would lead to the development of African economy as a superior power in the future. However the present decline in the prices of export commodities has resulted in the decline in the government revenues which has affected the GDP of Africa. The major contributors to the development of African economy were the need for resource materials, the reasonable development of china and the increase in the inflow of capital and factors of macro economic rectifications. There was an also major contribution from the migrant remittances which contributed to the reasonable earnings in the household and increase the government revenues in terms of tax. There were many speculations expecting the best out of the potential of Africa in order to produce resources for the growth of the continent and reduce poverty. But there was a close indication of the downfall in the economy in the early 2007 which ultimately was encountered by the African economy in the late 2008. In the world economy when many developed countries were facing recession and crisis, there was severe alteration towards the growth scenario in Africa because of the stagnancy. The majority of the growth contributors of Africa were affected by this crisis. The development in chinas economy declined gradually and there was a downfall in the need for resources and their prices were declining to an extent. Because of the reasonable GDP there was no pressure on the concern of inflation. Certain assurance of added aids was not implemented yet and there was a reduction in the capital inflow. Since the effects were taken care of there were no immediate reactions in Africa due to the economic crisis. However the reduction in the external aid which was not implemented as assured by many developed countries in the G20 started affecting the health sector to a greater extent. To have a detail description of African economic crisis we would discuss the major sectors which have been adversely affected due to recession. To start with there would be an impact in the mining sector, impact in banking sector does not have any major adverse effects, consequences faced by the effects of crisis in finance sector including the commodity markets and international exchange rates, adverse effects on remittances and capital inflows in the trade sectors with the addition of FDI. There were other sectors too such as tourism, manufacturing which had experienced an impact due to the global economic crisis. The under development of the banking sector in Africa is another major concern because the banking sector has failed to derive structures that benefits the economy. The increase in the banking policies with external integration could generate the flow of capital which was not implemented in Africa There were certain positive impacts for the countries importing commodities in Africa, they were benefited a lot from reducing the expenditures. On the entire economy of Africa the sub Saharan region was the most to be affected by the crisis. The ultimate effects of the global economic crisis were the increase in the infant mortality rate, increase in poverty, pressure on government to restructure the fiscal budget, and unemployment. However since there was growth in African economy it could face the immense pressure of Economic crisis. The major countries to experience severe effects by the economic crisis are Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Zambia, Egypt which are mostly the sub Saharan Africa regions. The impact of the economic crisis in Africa made many underdeveloped countries to receive international implications on its economy to develop their infrastructure. The international business strategies suitable recovery facts have proved more beneficiaries in the world economies. The suggestion of suitable changes in the physical structure could help in the faster recovery of the economic crisis IMPACTS OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS ON BANKING The global economic crisis effect in the major developed countries was on the banking sector where many banking corporate collapsed during the crisis. But the African economy did not have any adverse effects on the banking sector because of their less extent of bonding with the world economies. The African economy has a comparatively low external financing compared to other continents of the world, the external financing of Africa only accounts to 4% of the overall volume in the emerging economies. To have a statistical overview the African external financing it only issued bonds worth of six million American dollars and received only three million dollars from private reserves. This comparatively low market capitalization of the world economy has protected the African banking system from severe damages. The African economy did not report any bankruptcy during the global economic crisis because the African banks could manage reasonable returns from the mortgages. There were certain e ffects in the African economy due to the presence of foreign banks with assets in some African countries like Swaziland, Madagascar who suffered major losses due to world financial crisis. But the effects of world economic crisis did not affect the banks progress in Africa, the banking systems dominates the finance sector and the role played by the financial markets are not of greater concern. There is a transmission check of funds borrowed from foreign banks by the government and there is less awareness of off balance sheet procedure to African economy which was the major reasons for the stability of African banking sector. The conversion of many capital resources into foreign assets saved the African economy to avoid exchange rate appreciation. To sum up the impact of global economic crisis did not deliver any adverse effect on the banking sector. IMPACTS OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS ON THE FINANCIAL STRUCTURE OF AFRICA INTRODUCTION The African continent was not isolated from the financial crisis, to have a deep overview of the financial crisis there were certain adverse effects on the economy because of the badly constructed financial systems. There was a reduction in the earnings in many sectors such as there was a reduction in the need of commodities and also reduction in the commodity prices, There were reduction in capital inflows, the major affected sector will be the export where it will face a reduction of $578 billion in the recent years out of which the oil sector itself will account to $420 billion reduction in the earnings. This loss in the earnings will account to one fifth of the GDP which is five times the avail given to the region. There was an effect of this financial crisis in the growth of the economy and it also increased poverty. To have a deeper analysis of the impact of the financial crisis in Africa let us look at the causes of transmission of the financial crisis and its effect on the in dividual factors of the financial sector. Causes of financial crisis is Africa The major cause of the financial crisis in Africa was the reduction in the prices and amount of the export commodities because of the global financial crisis. There was a prominent reduction in the prices of commodities in the late 2008 such as oil sector faced a downfall of 69% in their prices, because of the decline in the exports up to 45% there was a huge loss faced by the continent, even the other commodities excluding oil accounted to 38% of downfall in their prices. The other major cause of the African financial crisis is the decline in the capital inflow and remittances. These accounted to decline in the foreign exchange which ultimately guided to poverty in the continent due to the shortage in income. The developing countries have always depended on foreign direct investment (FDI) for developing the countys economy and infrastructure. Because of the delays in the assured FDI many projects have been delayed or halted leading to gradual loses. Finally there was downfall in the stocks of the foreign reserves and the reduction in the span of import cover contributed to a larger pressure in the African economy unable to afford the commodities hence causing more crisis. Let us have a broader view of the effects in the African economy due to the causes of the global economic crisis. EFFECTS OF THE FINANCIAL CRISIS IN AFRICA EFFECT ON THE FINANCIAL MARKETS There was a gradual impact in the financial markets because of the subprime crisis. The banking sector did not face any direct impact of the crisis but there were effects due to transmission and dependence on the external economy. There were slight rise in the prices of the assets and the risk premium was increased indicating there was some damage in the finance structure in the early 2008. Because of the transmission and dependency, the liquid finance markets where affected more in this region more than the developed countries and inclined to the over valuing of stocks. If you have a look at the reports from countries like Nigeria and Egypt, they faced a loss of more than half of their investment towards late 2008. Increase in the value of debts in the international finance markets has caused the rise in debt spreads in the African countries. In order to attract the investors the African countries like Tunisia increased their bias points. The bias points of the developing countries mainly in Africa in the international market reached to 800 points in the late 2008, these indeed inclined the risk premium which forced many countries like Kenya to stop imploring from international financial markets and circulate the long term resources to local markets.There was a decline in the foreign exchange reserves because of the depreciation of currencies, this happened due to the decline in the commodity prices. Variations in the currency exchange rate against American dollars and Euros delivered an effect in the African economy. There was a three fifth of drop in the copper prices due to the global economic crisis. Hence African countries were one of the international reserves of copper and they had faced a chief downfall in their foreign reserves. There was about 50% depreciation of the currency of countries like Zambia against American dollars. Africa is one of the main continents with abundant of resources whose exports were one of the major earnings and helped in increasing the growth of economy. There have been decline in the commodity prices and volume all over the world because of the global economy crisis in the late 2008. This crisis inclined certain effects in the African economy, there was a three fifth decline in the prices of the crude oil which was one of the major reserves of Africa. Some of the other major natural resources of Africa such as diamond, copper, timber etc produced by mining declined by 30%, the development in the African export sector declined by 3% and there was a reduction in the GDP was about 3.5% compared to the fiscal year 2008. There were certain adverse effects because of the reduction in commodity prices which resulted in, reduction in the gain, low profit for high production cost resources, decline in government aids and finally the termination of many projects which were supported by FD I incline a huge loss to the African economy. The decline in the price of food commodities resulted in restructuring the government budget and balance of payments. There are certain regions in Africa such as Burundi where the oil is imported would have an positive impact of the reduced prices there are also certain negative impacts in attracting FDI for these countries which would decrease their development. EFFECT OF LONG TERM AND MEDIUM TERM TRANSACTIONS There are certain effects on the trade of goods and services in the world due to the global economic crisis from which Africa is not isolated. According to the reports there is an decrease in the growth of trade in terms of exports and imports, there is a decrease of 5% in the growth of imports and 7% in the growth of exports. Africa will experience a loss of about 45% of its value of exports. The other important effect is due to the capital flow within Africa and the world, there was a decline in the FDI about 21% in the African region towards the end of 2008. This effect has only been described by certain countries is Africa such as Egypt while other countries have increased the FDI such as South Africa. But there was certain adverse effects of FDI in the production of natural resources which was not availed as assured by international markets due to the economic crisis. The effect of short term capital flows is there was a decline about 50% in the capital flow for emerging counties because of the reduction in the availability of financial resources, but the African economy only suffered upto a lesser extent because of the limited bonding between the external financial markets and the African financial markets. IMPACT OF GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS ON SUB SAHARAN AFRICA The major effects of the global economic crisis in the sub Saharan region were the decline in their trade, decline in the remittances, and reduction in external financing. The major problem in the sub Saharan region was their trade was mostly depended on the countries suffered by economic crisis this reduced the demand in the resources exported. The decline in the prices of the primary commodities in sub Saharan Africa accounted to adverse effects in their economies. The government revenues depend on tourist sector for development infrastructure which suffered a major hit during the crisis. The decline in world trade accounted by one percent accounted to half the percent decline in the growth of the sub Saharan region. The prominent causes for the economic crisis in the sub Saharan region was the trade with United States, there was a fifty seven percent decline in the trade between the two regions. The development of the sub Saharan Africa was majorly because of the trade with china, thirteen percent of this regions exports and a comparative ten percent of imports depended on the trade with China. The investors from china were behind the initiative of many projects in the Africa region funded by them. The integration between both the regions decreased after the effect of global economic crisis leading to further impacton the economy of the sub Saharan Africa countries. There was a dramatic decline in the capital inflows in the sub Saharan region compared to other parts of Africa. There was a 26.7% drop in the external investments which accounted to the financial crisis of the economy of many countries. The sub Saharan Africa earned reasonable government revenue from migrant remittances who suffered adverse effects because of redundancy as an effect of the economic crisis, this reduced the government revenues in terms of tax. There were certain assurance given by the developed countries in the G8 committee meeting regarding the increase in the funding to the Afr ican countries which was not implemented due to the economic crisis. Out of the impact of the financial crisis on the entire African continent, Southern Africa will be affected the most. Countries like Angola will experience a dramatic downfall in their growth about 20.9%, the economy growth of east Africa will be affected by 2%, the Sub Saharan region will have difficulties in fiscal balancing. There will be huge responsibilities for the government to structure their budget to meet the social needs of the people in Africa. These are the financial issues experienced by Africa during the Global Economic Crisis. IMPACT OF GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS ON REMITTANCES IN AFRICA The prominent impact of the global economic crisis in Africa was on remittances which indeed resulted in severe harm to the African Economy. Before the economic crisis remittances was one of the modes of earnings in the African economy. Remittances helped in the developing the infrastructure of African Economy and was one of the major sources of external financing.. The remittances of natural resources exporting countries were affected the most, since Africa is one of the prominent exporters of natural resources they faced badly affected by the economic crisis. Remittances in Africa where expected to decline about six percent which could damage the economy of remittance dependent countries. Certain countries in Africa were expecting external financing aid to overcome the decline in remittances. The major regions having effect on remittances are the North African regions whose economy depends on it. CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF DECLINE IN REMMITANCES The remittances in the African economy is prominently transferred in informal terms such as friends and relatives, the formal mode of transmission of remittances in Africa is through the banking system. The major remittance in Africa is the workers remittance, the remittance –GDP ratio for many countries in the African region was at an average of nine percent . these above calculations explains the contribution of remittances in the growth of African economy. The African economy dependence on remittances was comparatively low to other parts of the world. Another spread of remittances was in terms of migrants, Africa countries face 20% of their migration within their continent. Because of the migrants to other continents such as Europe and America which were the worst affected continents of the global economic crisis there was a decline in the remittances. North Africa region was affected the most because they had many migrants in Europe and Middle East which has faced adverse negative impacts in their economy. The countries like Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria had a decline of about seven to nine percent in their remittances because of the larger proportion of migrants from their country in Europe regions affected by the Global economic crisis. This decline in the remittances has produced an impact on the government revenues in Africa, and also affected fiscal structure of the economy. Because of the global economic crisis which leads to the decline of process in the manufacturing industries accounted to job cuts, this situation lead to the decline in remittances. The decline in remittances damaged the better earnings in the households which caused poverty and increased the infant mortality rate. There were some positive impacts due to the increase in remittances in certain regions of Africa such as Kenya because of the decline in the import commodity prices. The major effects of decline in remittances are it decreases the governments revenue in terms of tax. The decline in the revenue can affect the GDP of the economy, and effects on negative growth of GDP increases the IMR. Many countries in Africa such as Ethiopia are about to lose 0.2 to 0.3 percent of their GDP growth. The African country to be majorly affected by the decline in remittances is Morocco, where it faced two to three percent of decline in their GDP growth. The countries in Africa which had immense migration transfer to Europe faced immense damage in their GDP. The ultimate effect on decline in remittances is, redundancy of migrants which will affect their household incomes resulting in poverty. To sum up the ultimate cause of decline in remittances was redundancy of migrants and nationals, decline in the external financing because of economic crisis. Finally the effects of redundancy are decline in house hold incomes, unemployment, and decline in government revenues. THE IMPACT OF GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS ON THE AFRICAN ECONOMY EFFECTS OF GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS IN ECONOMY FACTORS Africa encountered a drastic change in their economy during the economic crisis in the world. Before the economic crisis the African oil exporting countries gained plenty of foreign exchange which they used for projects to develop the infrastructure and repay their debt. During the global economic crisis there was a 60% downfall in the oil prices which had a bad effect on their GDP. The GDP of African countries exporting oil were facing a decline of 5% which had adverse effects on their economy, even oil importers in Africa will face a decline of 2% of their GDP and all these accounted to the decline in the oil revenue. There were several regions in Africa which recorded a positive growth in their GDP despite the decline in the prices of the commodities such as North Africa, Morocco and certain other countries. There will be a total unbalance in the economy of some countries in Africa because of the decline in the exports sector more than the imports, they will face a couple of downf all in a countrys economic structure. Hence the countries will face difficulties to restructure the economy and there would be a reduction in the consumption because of the downfall in revenue. The other effects on the economy of Africa is inflation, this would be a serious problem encountered by the economy of many African countries. The inflation would raise about three percent in the African region because of the decline in the revenue, but the positive impact of the crisis is that there would be a reduction in the commodity prices which might take the pressure on inflation for some reasonable time. The countries which import oil will have a positive impact of reduction in the inflation rate in their economy, but it is the opposite for the countries exporting oil and will face an increase in the rate of inflation. There is certain decline in growth prospects of Africa as an impact of the global economic crisis, despite of not being directly affected by the World financial crisis because of the low bonding with external economies, there was some decline in the growth prospects in the African region. The oil exporters in Africa faced a decline of three percent in growth while the oil importing countries faced a decline of one percent in growth. Developing countries in Africa will face difficulties due to the reduction in the demand of their goods, these effects could halt the Africas development into a superior power. EFFECTS OF GLOBAL ECONOMIC CRISIS ON INDUSTRIES The other key sectors which had a major impact due to the crisis was the tourism sector, they suffered major damages during the global economic crisis. The revenue in the tourism sector was affected badly in the African region making the functions of the sector miserable. There was a decline in the number of arrivals to the countries like Kenya in Africa. The decline in the arrivals accounted to a decline in the profit for airways. The decline in tourism which is one of the governments revenue from the service sector faced many negative impacts, there was considerable amount of loss due to cancellations. Countries like Egypt and Kenya experienced ten to thirty percent fall in their revenue. There was major losses on the mining sector due to the economic crisis, many projects in the African region were terminated or postponed because of the shortage of investments. For instance the decline in the copper prices had halted many projects in the African region in countries like Zambia, th e leading copper mining industries faced one fourth decline in their supplier contracts. Many mining projects were terminated because of the falling copper prices. Other natural resources such as cobalt also faced reduction in their prices which halted operations in certain projects in countries like The Democratic Republic of Congo. There were many employees been laid off because of the termination of the projects, the Democratic Republic of Congo alone recorded two hundred thousand employees dropped. The decline in the price of other natural resources have caused adverse effects on budget, countries like Gabon in Africa experienced negative impacts. The reduction in the price of iron, uranium and bauxite which are one of the major exports in many countries experienced decline in the revenue. Since Africa has been one of the major continent with an abundant wealth of natural resources and the fall in the price of natural resources has made Africa suffer severely which indeed result ed in economic crisis. The textile industry was also not isolated from this economic crisis. Because of the decrease in the demand of textile goods from the African region several industries had to face immediate closure. The countries in Africa were facing immense pressure because of the unemployment of people. The termination of an industry at an average caused reduction of four thousand jobs. There was huge pressure from the labor unions to the government regarding unemployment. The impact on the African manufacturing industry by the global economic crisis has resulted in restructuring of the economy and experience serious financial crisis. Finally the global economic crisis has affected the African economy in several sectors. According to reports two third countries of the African continent are affected by the downfall in the price of natural resources. The major decline of the African economy has caused by one ultimate factor which is the reduction in the commodities. The other minor factor like the decline in the foreign investment is also the cause of African economy crisis. RECOMMENDATIONS There are certain recommendations suggested as a consultant of the African union in order to increase the growth of the economy. To start with the recommendation process, it would highlight facts on four features which are observation on the financial structure, reduction of crisis impact on health, revival of the policies in the economic structure and derivative such as bail out policies. We shall discuss the impact of these recommendations on the African System. The major recommendation in the health sector is the prevention of the effects of the economic crisis that has not fully affected the house hold regions. Hence necessary conservative methods should be taken to take care of the adverse effects of the crisis. There must be constant check on the negative effects in the health sector and take necessary actions. Mainly the IMR should be taken care of to a greater extent. Monitoring the growth of infants could help the development in the health sector. There should be constant negotiation within the health organizations and the population. There should be a drastic increase in the investments in the health sector. The African governments should restructure their fiscal budgets for more allowances to the health sector. Most of the developed countries spent 0.7% of their GDP in the health sector for a better healthy environment. The African economy should make better use of the funds provided by the World Bank for effective health climate. T here should be a constant check in the available resources in the health sector and efficient usage of the available resources is recommended. There are several measuring concepts in the current world to measure the expenditure, performance and future projects of a health sector. A better organization can result in better performance in the health sector. The current economic crisis has helped Africa have a view on the current health structure and decide suitable remedies to overcome this deficiency. The crisis has helped Africa have a check on the IMR, poverty, healthy environments, and causes of the diseases. These checks have recommended Africa to invest on certain suitable regions such as food, medicines etc in the health sector and decide what are the gradual steps to be taken to fight against deaths. The use of health care vouchers is proved effective in many parts of the world which should be concerned by the African economy. There must be necessary action taken in the organi zing and implementing of health programs to perform against the negative impacts. Taking severe actions in the prevention of environmental harms that creates health hazards could prove profitable. The communities in each society should take care of these remedies. The crisis has urged the recommendation of implementation of external aids as soon as possible, governments should derive suitable policies for attracting external financing in the health sector. There should be a bonding between the donors in the health sector and the health organizations. There are several African developing countries maintaining this bond. However the suitable remedies cannot assure the protection of the health sector in the future because it is difficult to estimate such reactions. To summarize the integration between the government and the beneficiary partners can always develop the growth of health sector in Africa. There are certain suitable recommendations on the financial structure of Africa for suitable developments. The initial recommendation would be that there should be a strong network of communication between the African finance ministry and senior banking officials to have a check at the financial breakdown of banks, these actions can prevent the bankruptcy of banks. This action could promote the operations of the bank and increase the African regional process to emphasize the growth of small countries taking advantage over larger countries. There must be a day to day surveillance of the finance markets and the changes on exchange rates and stock prices. This could increase the growth of African economy by taking suitable necessary actions to prevent the adverse effects. There could be a design such as when the numbers of exchange rates and stock prices are adverse, defensive actions are taken by the necessary authorities. This could increase the awareness of the government to perform recovery operations. Because of the economy crisis the banks might face a structural damage because of the shortage in the liquidity of cash flow. Hence necessary actions by the government on the banks can regain market confidence of the customers. This action could indeed trigger the operations of industries by lending money and operations in household by lending credit, hence a economic balance is created. The African governments can generate these funds with the help of foreign reserves such as bonds in capital markets. The African economy can reconstruct their finance structure with the help of international finance organizations. So in order to balance the African economy, frequent check on banks and surveillance of the market is necessary. There are certain long term operations which helps the Africa governments in maintaining economic balance. To maintain balance in the economy regulatory policies should be issued by the government on the transparency of operations performed by the banks and their finance system should be supervised regularly. In order to increase further liquidity there should be regulatory operations performed by the African regional organizations. The African banking structure must be able to meet the capital demands, hence regulatory policies should be improved. The African economy must increase their growth such as their banks start to perform FDI operations in other regions. The network can be further strengthened with the help of legal operations, the legal binding operations can lead to development and growth of the financial structure of the banking sector. The bonding between the legal system and the banking system can result in the growth of African economies. There can be necessary actions performed to increase the competition between banks for better performance. Hence with the help of these recommendations the African economies can experience development in the banking sectors. An effective incentive scheme should be announced for corporate to decrease the invo

An Examination Of Bioplastics Technology Environmental Sciences Essay

An Examination Of Bioplastics Technology Environmental Sciences Essay Bioplastics also called organic plastics are a form of plastics produced from renewable biomass sources, such as vegetable oil, corn starch, pea starch or microbiota rather than fossil-fuel plastics which are derived from petroleum. They are polymers which are also obtained from plants genetically engineered to produce them. [1] Some, but not all, bioplastics are designed to biodegrade. Bioplastics are made in order to solve the problems caused by plastics which are non-biodegardable. Bioplastics are not new, it is been there from around 1850.There are different types of bioplastics like the starch based bioplastic, the polylactic acid, PHB, bio-derived polyethylene and the genetically modified bioplastics. Bioplastics are biodegradable that is they can be broken down into simpler compounds by the microbes and thus do not remain for years in the environment. Bioplastics are used in making many items like the disposable cutlery, and for biomedical uses,etc. Its market value is a littl e less as of now but will increase in the near future. Global plastics problem Plastics are carbon-based polymers which are made mostly from petroleum.The word plastic means flexible.Plastics are used to make mostly disposable, low-value items such as food-wrap and product packaging, but theres nothing particularly disposable about most plastics. On an average, we use plastic bags for 12 minutes before getting rid of them-yet they can take fully 500 years to break down in the environment. [2] Compounds like polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene are largely used in the manufacture of plastics. [1] Excessive molecular size is the reason for the resistance of these compounds to biodegradation. Plastics are xenobiotic compounds which are recalcitrant (completely resistant) to biodegradation. [3] Getting rid of plastics is extremely difficult. Burning them can give off toxic chemicals such as dioxins, while collecting and recycling them responsibly is also difficult.With societys ever-increasing focus on protecting the environment, theres a new emphasis on des igning plastics that will disappear much more quickly. Broadly speaking, so-called environmentally friendly plastics fall into three types: bioplastics made from natural materials such as corn starch or generally plants; biodegradable plastics made from traditional petrochemicals, which are engineered to break down more quickly; and eco/recycled plastics, which are simply plastics made from recycled plastic materials rather than raw petrochemicals. History Bioplastics are not new. In the 1850s, a British chemist made plastics from cellulose, a derivative of wood pulp. Later, in the early 20th century, Henry Ford experimented soy based plastics in his automobiles, even going to the extent of unveiling a complete prototype plastic car in 1941.But by then petroleum had emerged as a source of synthetic polymers, which possesed more favourable properties than that of plant based plastics. World War II cemented the dominance of synthetic plastics. Only in the last ten years, in response to the rising cost and less supply of oil, have bioplastics re-emerged in consumer applications. In 2003, Nature Works- a joint venture of Cargill, the largest agricultural business in the United States, and Dow Chemical, the countrys biggest chemical company began producing Ingeo bioplastics, which can be extruded into containers for food packaging and into fibers for apparel, furnishings, and disposable products such as baby wipes. Ingeo is a PLA, or polyla ctic acid, derived from corn. Alternatives are also being made from castor beans, sugarcane, algae and even chicken feathers. Bioplastics are yet to meet the performance requirements of more durable goods. At the moment they are in their infancy. They are actually being used as molded products. Cell phone casings are one such example. The Japanese company NEC unveiled a phone with a corn- based plastic body. applications. Types of bioplastics: Starch linked plastics: Starch is a linear polymer (polysaccaride) made up of repeating glucose units linked by glucosidic linkages in the 1-4 carbon positions. Starch-based biodegradable plastics contain starch contents ranging from 10% to greater than 90%. Starch based polymers can be based on crops such as corn (maize), wheat or potatoes.As the starch content is increased, the polymer become more biodegradable and leave less recalcitrant residues. Often, starch-based polymers are blended with high-performance polymers (e.g. aliphatic polyesters and polyvinyl alcohols) to achieve the necessary performance properties for different applications. Biodegradation of starch based polymers is a result of enzymatic attack at the glucosidic linkages between the sugar groups leading to a reduction in chain length and the splitting off of sugar units (monosaccharides, disaccharides and oligosaccharides) that are readily utilised in biochemical pathways. At lower starch contents (less than 60%) the starch particles act as weak links in the plastic matrix and are sites for biological attack. This allows the polymer matrix to disintegrate into small fragments, but not for the entire polymer structure to actually bio-degrade. The bulk of soil bacteria are heterotrophic and utilize readily available source of organic energy from sugars, starch, cellulose and protein.[4] Microbes such as Bacillus, Clostridium, Micrococcus, Aspergillus, Fusarium, Rhizopus; etc are involved in starch hydrolysis. There are several categories of biodegradable starch-based polymers including: Thermoplastic starch products; Starch synthetic aliphatic polyester blends; Starch PBS/PBSA polyester blends; and Starch PVOH Blends. Starch based plastic constitutes about 50 percent of the bioplastics market, thermoplastic starch such as Plastarch material, currently is the most important and widely used bioplastic. Pure starch absorbs humidity and is therefore used for the production of drug capsules in the pharmaceutical industries. Biolac: Biolac is polylactic acid. Polylactic acid is an aliphatic polyester. The monomers which make up this polyester are lactic acid units. PLA is a transparent plastic produced from cane sugar, glucose or starch waste. It resembles conventional petrochemical mass plastics in its characteristics, and it can also be processed easily. Polylactic acid can be produced by chemical methods and by fermentation method using microbes.The Lactic acid bacteria (Lactobacillus amylophilus, L. Bavaricus,L. Casei) produce lactic acid using starch, which is then polymerised by bacteria such as A.eutrophus into polylactic acid.[5]Polylactic acid is biodegradable because it is the product formed by bacterial digestion of starch waste. The biodegradation of polylactic acid is brought about by the hydrolysis of the ester bonds by esterolytic enzymes produced by bacteria like Amycolatopsis species. PLA has become a significant commercial bioplastic. Its used in making bottles, yogurt cups, and candy wrappers. It is also used for making food service ware, lawn and food waste bags, coatings for paper and cardboard and fibers for clothing, carpets, sheets and towels and wall coverings. In biomedical applications it is used for sutures, prosthetic materials and materials for drug delivery. It also has many potential uses, for example as upholstery, disposable garments, awnings, feminine hygeine products and nappies. Microbially synthesized plastics ( Biopol) Poly -3 hydroxy butyrate ( PHB) is a polyester produced by certain bacteria like Rhodovibrio sodomensis in the presence of excess carbon like glucose or starch. It is also called as Biopol.Poly-ÃŽÂ ² hydroxy butyrate accumulates as energy reserve in many micro-organisms like Alcaligenes, Azotobacter, Bacillus, Nocardia, Pseudomonas, Rhizobium etc.It is a poly hydroxy-alkanoate ( PHA). It is a common storage material of prokaryotic cells consisting of a polymer of ÃŽÂ ²- hydroxybutyrate or another ÃŽÂ ²- alkanoic acid. Reserve polymers store excess nutrients present under favourable growth conditions for use during periods of nutrient deprivation.[6] A wide variety of Bacteria and Archaea produce PHAs. Biopol is made in industrial fermentor by bacteria that converts sugars ( refined from corn or beet) into a polymer. Genetically engineered Arabidopsis thaliana a type of cress is also used to make Biopol.[1] Its characteristics are similar to those of petroplastic polypropyle ne.It produces transparent film at a melting point higher than 130 degrees Celsius, and is biodegradable without residue. PHB is suitable for specialized areas like biomedical use and speciality coatings. A copolymer of PHB ( Poly ÃŽÂ ²- hydroxy butyrate) and PHV ( Poly ÃŽÂ ²- hydroxy valerate) are used in making shampoo bottles in Europe. PHB is easily degraded as it is an energy source of microbes. A copolymer containing approximately equal amounts of PHB and PHV has had the greatest market success thus far.[7] Bio-derived polyethylene The basic building block of polyethylene is ethylene. This is just one small chemical step from ethanol, which can be produced by fermentation of agricultural feedstocks such as sugar cane or corn. Bio-derived polyethylene is chemically and physically identical to traditional polyethylene, it does not biodegrade but can be recycled. It can also considerably reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Brazilian chemicals group Braskem claims that using its route from sugar cane ethanol to produce one tonne of polyethylene captures (removes from the environment) 2.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide while the traditional petrochemical route results in emissions of close to 3.5 tonnes. It can be used in packaging such as bottles and tubs Genetically modified bioplastics Genetically modified bioplastics are bioplastics which are produced from genetically modified plants and microbes. Normally the plants and microbes produce very small quantities of bioplastics, therefore their production on a large scale is expensive. Genetically modified plants and microbes can be used for the industrial production of bioplastics. Employing genetic-modification methods Monsanto has also developed plants (oilseed rape) that produce relatively small amounts of Biopol (5% of the total weight) in their cells. The ultimate aim is to develop plants that consist of up to 20% by weight of Biopol, thereby enabling various bioplastics to be produced for a wide variety of applications. Biodegradation of bioplastics All bio- and petroleum-based plastics are technically biodegradable, meaning they can be degraded by microbes under suitable conditions. However many degrade at such slow rates as to be considered non-biodegradable. The degree of biodegradation varies with temperature, polymer stability, and available oxygen content. Consequently, most bioplastics will only degrade in the tightly controlled conditions of commercial composting units. An internationally agreed standard, EN13432, defines how quickly and to what extent a plastic must be degraded under commercial composting conditions for it to be called biodegradable. This is published by the International Organisation for Standardization ISO and is recognised in many countries, including all of Europe, Japan and the US. However, it is designed only for the aggressive conditions of commercial composting units. There is no standard applicable to home composting conditions. Biodegradable plastics are made from traditional petrochemicals, w hich are engineered to break down more quickly. Traditional plastics such as polyethylene are degraded by ultra-violet (UV) light and oxygen. To prevent this process manufacturers add stabilising chemicals. However with the addition of a degradation initiator to the plastic, it is possible to achieve a controlled UV/oxidation disintegration process. This type of plastic may be referred to as degradable plastic or oxy-degradable plastic or photodegradable plastic because the process is not initiated by microbial action. The degraded plastic residue will be attacked by microbes. Applications Bioplastics are mainly used in making disposable items such as packaging and catering items such as crockery, cutlery, pots, bowls, straws, etc. The use of bioplastics in making shopping bags is already very common, after this initial use these bags are used for organic wastes and then they can be composted. Bioplastics are also used for making trays and containers for fruits, vegetables, eggs and meat, bottles for soft drinks and dairy products and blister foils for for fruit and vegetables. Bioplastics are used in making non-disposable items also for example mobile phone casings made by the NEC, carpet fibres by Dupont Sorona and car interiors done by the Mazda company. The French company Arkema, produces a grade of bioplastic called Rilsan, which is used in fuel line and plastic pipe. In these uses the goal is not biodegradability but to create items from sustainable resources. Drawbacks Though bioplastics are eco-friendly and are of great use, they have their own drawbacks. When some biodegradable plastics decompose in landfills, methane gas is produced, which is a very powerful greenhouse gas that adds to the problem of global warming. Biodegradable plastics and bioplastics dont always readily decompose. Some need high temperatures and in some conditions can still take many years to break down. Even then leave behind toxic residues. Bioplastics are made from plants such as corn and maize, so plants which are a food to be eaten are used to make bioplastics which is also an ethical issue. Some bioplastics are made from genetically modified plants which are harmful to the environment. Bioplastics and biodegradable plastics cannot be recycled easily. There are accelerated rates of deforestation due to the use of plants in making bioplastics. Manufacture of bioplastic materials is reliant on petroleum as a source of energy which is required to power farm machinery, irrigate growing crops, to produce fertilizers and pesticides, to transport crops and crop products to processing plants, to process raw materials and ultimately to produce bioplastics. Many bioplastics lack the performance and ease of processing of traditional materials. Polylactic acid plastic is being used by a handful of small companies for making water bottles. But the shelf life of these bottles is limited because the plastic is permeable to water the bottles lose their contents and slowly deform. Market value of bioplastics Bioplastics are rapidly catching up. Bioplastics are already unbeatable as medical implants, which dissolve in the body, as compostable mulch films for agriculture. Packaging materials constitute the most important application area for bioplastics, for example filler materials that are utilized in very large amounts. Supermarkets are increasingly using compostable shoppng bags. However the largest growth rates of the use of bioplastics are seen in electronic industries in consoles or cell phone cases. During the past eight years consumption of biodegradable plastics based on starch, sugar and cellulose has increased by around 600 percent. Starch based bioplastics are dominant in Europe. Bioplastics have the potential to reduce the petroleum consumption for plastics by 15 to 20 percent in 2025.Bioplastics have 10 to 20 percent share of the total plastics market and it will increase to 25 to 30 percent by 2020.There are over 500 bioplastics processing companies already available, more than 5000 is expected by 2020.Europe is one of the leading country in the market of bioplastics. Already bioplastics are used for variety of items, there would be more and more applications for bioplastics in the near future, especially in the automobile and electronics industries where plastics are indispensable. Toyota is one of the leading companies in research and usage of bioplastics. Bioplastic companies are relatively small plants and are in there initial stages of development. The scenario in India is a little different. The market of bioplastics is a little challenging here due to unawareness about the eco friendly nature of bioplastics and its uses. This therefore can be overcome by creating an wareness on the uses and benefits of bioplastics. The market for bioplastics in India grew at 30 percent in 2008 and will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 44.8 percent between 2009 and 2015.Apart from all this there is an availability of abundant feedstock in due to which it can become a hot destination for bioplastics companies.