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Trade of Only Hopes

Despite having one fifth of the world population, SAARC intra regional trade totalling less than five per cent of the region’s world trade is too low. India can be the largest market as well as producer for all its neighbouring countries. Small countries, at the moment are not so successful to produce competitive products to compete with the Indian products as well as cheap Chinese products.

Most of the exportable goods produced by the SAARC countries are similar, for example, garments and carpets are common to most of the countries. As a result, they are competing with each other. This also diminishes the market prospects within the region. Most of the countries in the region seem to be prioritising international trade rather than regional trade.

This is mostly because of the lucrative trade prospects beyond the region. The purchasing power in the region is still less even though the middle class population is fast increasing. The cost of connectivity is also high within the region. Procedural delays, non-tariff barriers and other hurdles are encouraging international trade.

The Indo-Pak relationship is seen as the major reason behind intra SAARC trade not fulfilling its potential. When the regional cooperation itself is not successful, the trading gets affected too. Though there are regional and bilateral agreements, their successful impact on the trade is questionable. Such agreements are only trading hope rather than the real goods.

Sudarshan Sharma
Kathmandu

Compensation Competition

Compensation and benefits for employees in an organisation is one of the major human resource expenses for a company while it is a motivation for the employees. Even though the employees do not work only for monetary benefits, it is counted as one of the most important aspects.

Compensation for an employee for his/her performance and work execution can also come in various forms other than monetary benefits. Compensation and benefits are often connected with compensation policies in the job market and it becomes an important factor for people while accepting employment.

The company’s competency among the competitors is somehow connected to the compensation policy too. It is believed that better compensation attracts better human resources. Motivated staff members perform better than underpaid and demotivated employees. For hiring better employees, companies use higher perks as a tool to attract skilled people and compete in the job market.

Robust Poultry

The poultry products’ growth is expected to rise by 30 per cent, which is an encouraging fact and hope tomany within the industry and supportive sectors. When this industry grows, chickens do not grow alone. Other industries like feed industries and employment grow simultaneously.When 50 feed mills produce 450,000 tonnes of feed per year, they also generate employment to numerous people locally. The poultry industry provides employment to around 70,000 people and helps support the livelihood of thousands of families and households.

The country, as such, has become self-sufficient on poultry products. However, majority of raw materials for feed production is still being imported from India.The quality of the poultry farms and the farmers’ knowledge is often questioned. With the overall growth in the sector, these things are expected to improve over time. Other things that need to improve in Nepal are the per capita consumption of poultry products which is still low. If the poultry farms get bigger in scale and the cost of production can be further lowered, such issues can be solved without any delay

Shankar Dhakal
Chitwan

Corrigendum

The names of the scholar and the university mentioned in the first paragraph of the article by Sujit Mundul published in the November 2011 issue of New Business Age (page 66) were changed to protect the identity of the scholar.

Editor