Consumers interested in sustainable products

Albe Zakes

Vice President

Media Relation Terra Cycle

Terra Cycle, Trenton, New Jersey, is one of the fastest growing eco -friendly manufacturers of the world . Founded in 2001, it makes affordable eco friendly products from a wide range of different non- recyclable waste materials. The company makes 50 products available at major retailers like Walmart, Target, The Home Depot, OfficeMax, Petco and Whole Foods Market. Albe Zakes, Vice President, Media Relations, spoke to BE' Priyalina Basu about the innovative eco friendly enterprise.

Q) What is the annual turnover of the company?

A) In 2009, we made 7.6 million in revenue. In 2010, we project 15 million.

Q) How much trash do you recycle each year?

A) We collect roughly 15 million units per week at the moment and have collected close to 2 billion units of waste since 2007.

Q) What kind of trash do you mainly recycle?

A) We use food and other consumer goods packaging that is difficult to recycle. For example, used drink pouches, crisp bags, yoghurt containers, used writing instruments, glue bottles, granola bar wrappers etc.

Q) What technology do you use?

A) Fusing the materials, also densifying and pelletizing as well as direct reuse.

Q) What are your future plans and does it include making use of the wastes in India?

A) We plan to continue expanding the types of materials we can collect and upcycle (currently 32 different types of materials). We will continue to expand throughout the world. We are currently operating in the US, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, the UK, and Ireland and are quickly moving into mainland Europe. Then we hope to start moving into the Asian markets and India!

Q) Has the demand for recycled products increased and does this reflect growing consumer awareness on good environ-ment practices?

A) Yes, we believe so. We have sold more products every year since our founding. I believe it represents two separate interests moving ‘closer’ together. The consumer has become more educated and thus interested in sustainable products; but also sustainable products are becoming more affordable, more effective and more available making it far easier for the consumer to make the switch.

Q) You have mentioned partnerships with consumer goods companies to find new ways of making use of waste. What are these ways and what lessons can be imbibed by India in this regard?

A) We collaborate with the consumer good manufacturers that make the product or the packaging we collect. They have an incentive to fund the collection of their packaging because it makes their product more sustainable and more attractive to an ever-growing segment of consumers.

In addition, the dollars are easy to come by: they simply buy slightly less advertising and use the dollars they save to fund our programmes. This concept could easily be replicated almost anywhere.

Reusable Bags, a US-based company, was founded in 2002. It has been a leading force in the reusable movement and has been fighting the mindless over-consumption of “use & toss” items. Realising early on the absurdity of the prevailing disposables mentality, it inspired a grassroots movement towards more sensible, conscious consumption of disposables. Vincent Cobb, founder of reusablebags.com spoke to Priyalina Basu about the growing consumer demand for eco-friendly products.

Q) How receptive are buyers to using bags from what would otherwise have been “trash”? Is there a conscious effort to buy recycled stuff?

A) There is definitely an interest in bags made from recycled materials. Buyers of reusable bags are people who are already concerned with their impact on the environment, so they are very receptive to the idea of taking something that would be thrown away and putting it to better use. There are a lot of innovative, recycled fabrics coming to market that look just as good, if not better than virgin materials.

Take Eco-Circle fabric, for example. It is durable, has a gorgeous look and can be used in place of materials such as nylon. And, it’s made of recycled, post-consumer materials such as plastic bottles. The downside of this trend is that many recycled materials are virtually indistinguishable from virgin materials, so it opens the door for counterfeits in the market.

Q) Do you see the trend for this kind of products increasing?

A) Absolutely. More of these kinds of products are hitting the market, and consumers are interested. Another trend I have seen is “upcycling”, which is the repurposing of other types of materials into bags. It gives these materials a second life and is basically recycled material in its purest sense. For example, our reuseit rice bag totes are made from bags that hauled rice or other goods in freighters. With just a few cuts and stitches, the bag can be reused as a shopping bag and the original rice bag is kept out of the landfill. Because it still has the look, texture and strength of a rice bag, it’s a very unique product that customers love to carry. And, it’s incredibly durable. You can also find old billboards and juice boxes repurposed as bags.

Q) Are you planning to diversify your end-products?

A) Yes. Innovation and development are things we are very passionate about. The market and breadth of recycled materials are rapidly growing and evolving and so are we.

Tale of two tragedies

Iconic images of a dead child after the poisonous gas leak in Bhopal in 1984 (Below) and of a pelican struggling in the water polluted by the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico this year (Above)

Recently two compensations have made headlines- British Petroleum (BP) oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the Bhopal gas tragedy (1984). BP has settled a compensation of USD 20 billion with a sincere apology within 56 days of the oil catastrophe, considered as the largest offshore oil spill in the US.
In an interview with Politico, President Obama said, “In the same way that our view of our vulnerabilities and our foreign policy was shaped profoundly by 9/11, I think this disaster is going to shape how we think about the environment and energy for many years to come.”
The Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) Gas leak disaster at Bhopal provides a stark contrasting picture. The court fined the seven convicted UCIL officials USD 2715 apiece and UCIL INR 5 lakh for causing the death of some 15,000 people and affecting nearly five lakh people over the years with several defects and diseases.
In India, instead of strongly criticising the Court’s soft judgement on the offenders, the former Chief Justice of India, A. M. Ahemedi said, “The hue and cry is happening because people want to raise the issue.”
This leads to a serious question: Are our laws more lenient for foreign companies unlike in the US? The answer unfortunately is YES. The entire procedure of compensation and regulation of a foreign/domestic company depends on how stringent the law of the land is and how determined are its enforcers to carry out their responsibilities.

Laws and implementation:
The US was able to extract a hefty compensation along with USD 75 million for cleaning the oil with the collaboration between federal and state authorities and BP by a legal process known as the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) established under the 1990 Oil Pollution Act.
However, in India, we do not have such strict laws that the MNCs are bound to observe. Even now, as the Pollution Control Board’s report states, the cyclone prone industrial zones of the country like Haldia are disaster-prone due to the lack of constant monitoring system and disaster resistant infrastructural mechanisms.
If we take the Nuclear Liability Bill for instance, we can see that certain clauses indirectly allow a way out for the manufacturers and the builders of the nuclear reactors from any financial and legal liability. The maximum financial liability in case a nuclear accident occurs in nuclear reactors would be USD 458 million- a similar law in US has set the financial liability for such accident at USD 10.5 billion.
Moreover, the operator will have to pay INR 500 crore and the remaining amount will be paid by the Indian government. The victims will not be able to sue anyone. So foreign companies will not pay an individual’s compensation once they have paid the total of INR 500 crore.

Corporate law:
There are very few laws in the world that give immunity to the corporates. However, in India, we do not have an effective corporate liability law for either Indian or foreign companies especially in cases of ' mass disaster’ where the killing could have been anticipated but profits were counted.
 Corporate offences relating to hazardous activity like in Bhopal have already been treated as cases under civil law. In criminal law, they are not counted as cases of strict liability with the accused (including corporations) having to show a lack of fault.
 There is no law to charge MNCs who control, are in charge of or are involved in the activity or its beneficiaries.
What Union Carbide did, was to find the loopholes and evade the responsibility. Therefore, the extradition of Warren Anderson, the CEO of Union Carbide during disaster, would not help much to get an exemplary verdict.
Union Carbide got the Supreme Court (SC) to reduce the charges to causing death by negligence - and limit punishment. This is unfortunate. The charge carried a punishment of up to two years or fine, or both (section 304A). Otherwise, corporate liability would have been tested under culpable homicide amounting to murder, carrying an imprisonment for 10 years (section 304 Part II).
In 1989, the deal included exculpating Carbide from criminal proceedings altogether. Mercifully, in 1992, the SC lifted the immunity it gave to Carbide. But Union Carbide (US) denied criminal jurisdiction to India. Anderson, a prime accused in the charge sheet on 1987, was denied extradition in 2004 for the lack of more “concrete” evidence. The trial, thus, became an Indian affair, as nine other accused were Indians.

Too Little, Too Late:
Realising the growing anguish of the people, the Indian government quickly convened a meeting of the Group of Ministers to come out with an acceptable compensation package.
 The total package costs around INR 1,500 crore.
 INR 10 lakh for the dead.
 INR 5 lakh for those with permanent disability .
 INR 3 lakh for those with partial disability.
 INR 100 crore to destroy the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal and construct a memorial in its place.
 Separate INR 300-crore remediation proposal to dispose of toxic waste.
 Treatment of second and third generation people.
All companies go through constant monitoring and reviews. None can feign ignorance of potential disasters. Therefore, it is imperative to have laws that deter companies from being criminally negligent. But more than that, there is a need for an apolitical and efficient administrative and judicial set-up to enforce these laws. The lesson of Bhopal must be learnt.

What next? 4G

4G, the successor of 3G, will soon become the standard for cellular wireless. The technology is currently available in some countries but it is still being perfected. The aim is to achieve “ultra broadband speed”- to be counted in gigabytes per second-three or four times faster than 3G.

What is 4G?
When the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) designed 4G in 2002, its official name was “3G Long-Term Evolutions"or 3.9G. It will allow users to download a full-length feature film to their cellular phone, laptop or other devices within five minutes. These will also be able to stream high-definition television and radio to hand-held devices and allow users to walk from one network to the next without an interruption in reception. The International Telecommunication Union - Radio communication sector (ITU-R) has allocated new frequency wavebands to IMT (3G and 4G International Mobile Telecommunications) from 3.4GHz to 3.6GHz and 2.3GHz to 2.4GHz, respectively.
The basic difference between 3G and 4G is in data transfer and signal quality. The highest download and upload speed in 3G are 14 Mbps and 5.8 Mbps respectively, whereas in 4G the download speed is up to 100 Mbps for moving users and 1Gbps for stationary users. Another key change in 4G is the adoption of packet switching instead of circuit switching in voice and video calls. 3G technology is a combination of circuit and packet switching. Circuit switching is an old technology that ties up the resource for as long as the connection is kept up. With packet switching, resources are only used when there is information to be sent across and it allows the mobile phone company to squeeze more conversations into the same bandwidth for voice calls and video calls. All information that is passed around would be packet switched to enhance efficiency. 4G uses spiral multiplexing-an antenna system known for faster transmission and reception of data allowing better signal than that of 3G.

Evolution of 4G:
After its initial design by the ITU, the technology has undergone various changes. The first commercial LTE deployment was in the Scandinavian capitals Stockholm and Oslo by the Swedish-Finnish network operator Telia Sonera and its Norwegian brand NetCom. Telia Sonera branded the network "4G". The modem devices on offer were manufactured by Samsung (dongle GT-B3710) and the network infrastructure created by Huawei (in Oslo) and Ericsson (in Stockholm). Telia Sonera plans to roll out nationwide LTE across Sweden, Norway and Finland.

Which countries have 4G?
Except for the Scandinavian countries, a few countries have started the 4G commercially. In the US, Sprint Nextel initiated the service last year. Other countries that are expected to launch 4G by this year are Germany (the first European country to complete the bidding process), Spain, China, Japan and England.

Infrastructure for 4G :
There are three primary technologies that support 4G – WiMAX (Worldwide interpretability for microwave access), LTE (Long Term Evolution), and UMB(Ultra Mobile Broadband). But main doubt is whether to implement WiMAX or LTE, the latter being an upgradation of GSM technology. The advantages of LTE are:

• Faster speed with 100 Mbps for download and 50mbps for upload.


• It makes CDMA and GSM database moot.


• It offers both FDD (Feature Driven Development) and TDD(Test- driven development) duplexing which means that it will have lower latency, which makes real -time interaction on high bandwith application using mobile phone possible.

Many of the world’s major telecom companies like Vodafone, T-Mobile, NTT DoCoMo, China Mobile , Telecom Italia and France Telecom and vendors like Ericsson, Nortel, Alcatel-Lucent, Nokia Siemens and LG Electronics–have all announced plans to deploy LTE-based 4G networks. Some of these service providers are also planning to support both WiMAX and LTE.

WiMAX :

According to Elias Aravantinos and M. Hosein Fallah,the limitation of WiMAX technology is in wireless bandwidth which might not achieve the required rate in a high-density area thereby increasing the cost. However, as a personal broadband option, WiMAX technology becomes useful when it is bundled with IPTV (Internet Protocol television). CDMA based operator Sprint- Nextel, that has introduce 4G to the US, is relying on WiMAX. Another Chicago-based service Xohm indicated the wireless bandwidth to be excellent (roughly 3Mbps/1.5Mbps and 70ms, respectively); but this is nowhere near the +100Mbps /50Mbps that LTE promises.

4G in India?

The inevitable question is when will India get 4G? It has already begun the process of introducing 4G as the TRAI issued a pre-consultation paper few months back that advocates for quick implementation of 4G.Then should we leapfrog from 2G to 4g as we did while introducing 2G in 1995, bypassing 1G analogue system? Many think so. India is among the latecomers in 3G. It is felt that by the time the operators implement 3G fully, 4G technologies such as LTE will be available commercially.It has taken three years for the government to decide on 3G-spectrum auction policy. 4G could face the same delay unless India wants to catch up with the rest of the world.

Copyright@ Business Economics July 15 -31 2010 page 36-37

25-30% increase in bilateral trade in sight: C. Sarat ChandranC. Sarat Chandran, Director, Indo-Australian Chamber of Commerce (Chennai) shares his views on bilateral trade between the two countries with BE

Q) Apart from coal, gold and copper, which sectors are being emphasised by Australia for export to India?

A) The main sectors are food and wine. Under food there are products such as confectionery and bakery items, as well as, dairy products. Wine is an area where Australia is looking to increase exports as it believes that the wine market has good potential for growth in India. Apart from finished goods, Australian technology is also being exported and this is an area that India can vastly benefit from.

Q) What about emerging export areas from India to Australia?

A) The largest areas are of course Information Technology (IT) and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO). Another major area is automobile components, in which India is doing good business. India’s twin advantages of skilled labour, as well as, low cost labour have led to booming exports in these two industries. An export industry, which is slowly building up is textiles, especially home furnishings. These are industries in which India excels and does the largest amount of trade, not only with Australia, but other foreign countries.

Q) Bilateral trade between India and Australia grew by 55 % last year. What is the target for 2010-11?

A) Last year, the bilateral trade amounted to about USD 15 billion - USD17 billion. This is not very high and therefore I think that this can definitely increase. I expect that this year it may increase by about 25-30%. However, this bilateral trade relationship is a bit skewed as Australian exports to India are higher than Indian exports. There has been growth in trade between the two countries because of investment and not because of increase in the quantities of goods and services traded. The focus is now more on exchanging services such as IT, BPO and educational consultancy rather than goods. India has also been investing in copper mines, automobile components and food in Australia and this is where there is an immense scope for expansion.

Q) Rajeev Ranjan, Principal Secretary, Industries Department, said that a new mineral policy would soon be announced. How will this affect imports to Australia?

A) I think rather than a new mineral policy, what will be more helpful for the mining industry in the long run is the opening up of the Indian mining and financial services. The change in FDI will enable Australia to invest in India, which will be useful for us as Australian technology can help to modernise the Indian mining industry. Thus, in the long run, instead of focusing on increasing exports, India will gain by first importing foreign technology, learning to apply this technology, eventually developing its own and then exporting superior quality products to other countries.

Q) Peter Varghese, the High Commissioner of Australia, was hopeful that a Free Trade Agreement between the two countries would soon be agreed upon. Which are the sectors that can benefit from such an agreement?

A) As Australian imports from India are low now, India will not gain significantly. However, in the long run, the Indian market will become more open because of such an agreement, thus encouraging investments from Australia. For example, many major Australian banks already have a presence in India – ANZ, National Bank of Australia and others. Their Indian branches can, and some have, started supporting their Australian offices. Thus, foreign skill and expertise will eventually help us boost export.

Q) In your opinion, how will the present decision of the Indian government to allow foreign universities in India benefit Australian educational institutions and vice versa?

A) Some Australian universities are world-class and would certainly like to open campuses in India. They will want to take advantage of the large student populations in countries such as India and China. Only a small percentage of the total student body can afford to study abroad. However, by opening campuses here, Australian universities can capture a larger market. Their established reputation will help them attract students here. I also think there is a huge potential in the area of vocational training. The service industry is rapidly growing in India and young people will need vocational training to supplement their theoretical learning to become employable. Australia specialises in various areas of vocational education such as fashion designing, hospitality, mining and construction, among others.

Q) Has tourism to Australia been affected after the series of racial attacks on Indian students?

A)This has adversely affected the number of Indian students going to Australia for education as families are obviously worried and there are other options such as Singapore, Canada, Britain and USA. This has not affected trade and tourism as the problem has largely been restricted to Indian students and not those Indians who have settled there. This is a passing phase and our bilateral relationship will continue to grow. Australia will take measures to prevent future attacks as it has a huge stake in India. At the end of the day, Indian and Chinese students make up a large proportion of Australia’s lucrative foreign students.

Illegal mining in the world

Not only India, illegal mining hurts other big economies too.
China:
China is the world's largest producer of coal, copper and bauxite. But the Chinese mining industry has a poor safety record with thousands of deaths every year, mostly in illegal mines, reported BBC.
The Chinese ministry of mining has detected 65,313 unlicensed mines, 4,509 unauthorised excavations, 960 unauthorised prospects and 1,365 illegal transfers of mining rights. The government closed almost 11, 155 illegal coalmines between 2005 and 2008 with 8,000 in 2006.
Miners, working in these mines, are 350 times more likely to die than their Indian counterparts. There are 7.29 deaths in China per million tonnes coal produced, as compared to 0.47 deaths in India per year.
In 2007, the Chinese authorities decided to take long -term actions and allocated USD 60 million to eradicate illegal mines. But in 2008, Xinhua reported more than 4,000 accidents, mostly in the illegal mines of Shanxi Yunnan, Guangxi and Hunan states.
USA:
Mountaintop mining, especially in coal, is a major illegal practice mainly in West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, south-western Virginia and Tennessee. In West Virginia, the state fined National Coal USD 170,000 in 2006 for illegal mining near an MTR site.
The illegal miners use almost 4 million pounds of explosives to blast the tops of mountains to take 600-800 feet off to get coal, causing severe damage to the Appalachians. However, in 2009, the Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining Bill was introduced to make it illegal. “The Obama administration has now taken several useful steps to limit future damage. But these are stopgap measures, well short of the permanent protections needed,” reported the New York Times.

South Africa:

The South African court announced illegal mining as organised crime only last year, while billions of Rands were lost as revenue due to illegal mining in the gold, platinum and diamond sectors. According to the South African Press Association (SAPA), the government loses ZAR 5.7 billion (USD 30 million) annually in the gold sector only. Previously, illegal miners were charged only with trespassing.
According to the Department of Mineral Resources (DMR), illegal miners not only deprive the government of revenue but also cause a huge loss of the concerned company’s prime products and assets such as explosives, machinery and equipment, and copper cables. Further business risks for the company include the threat of mine closure.
Select Committee on Economic Development (SCED) report stated that, between January 2007 and May 2008, an amount of ZAR 133, 123 (USD 17,199) was recovered from illegal miners, and an amount of ZAR 96 340 (USD 12,447) was recovered from the mine employees.
The DMR and SCED said that both the companies and the state had to take action against the illegal miners. “Without coordination in local and national levels, we will go nowhere,” said Jan Nelson, CEO, Pan African Resources.
Companies are requested to improve access controls to their underground workings by strengthening security measures; and warn mineworkers against involvement in illegal mining. SCED recommended that the state should undertake regular inspections and check attendance records; audit explosives and amend the Mine Health and Safety Act 2008 to increase fines from ZAR 200 000 to ZAR 1million for noncompliance with safety regulations.
“The objective is to eliminate illegal mining through close coordination between all relevant stakeholders,” said DMR spokesperson Jeremy Michaels.
Brazil:
Illegal mining is rampant in Brazil especially in the Amazon area. Gold is the major mineral excavated from the area. Across Brazil, people in search of gold are flocking to these mines. Apart from that, illegal miners operate on iron, copper, manganese, aluminium, nickel, tin, diamond and uranium mines. They consist of 30% of all mining production of the area.
Venezuela:
The Venezuelan government launched a massive operation last year to eradicate mining and deforestation in the south-eastern part of the country. According to the Central Bank (BCV) figures, illegal mining accounts for 60% of the total gold production in the country.
In addition to closing down illegal mining operations that smuggle resources out of the country, the government is considering revoking mining concessions of national and multinational companies that destroy the environment and exploit workers.

Tables turned on Paris Club

The Paris Club, formed by the world’s richest creditors, is now a group battling heavy public indebtedness. An International Monitory Fund (IMF) report on world economic and financial survey says, “The debt increase is largest in Britain and the United States, two countries strongly affected by the crisis, but is also significant in countries where growth prospects are weaker, such as Japan and some advanced European economies.”

Britain:

According to fiscal prediction published by the IMF, Britain’s deficit will be the highest among the Paris Club. The present government faces a deficit of £163 billion (USD 235 billion) in 2009-10, that is, 11.6% of the national income - the highest since the Second World War.

The newly elected government is heading towards austerity. George Osborne, the conservative Chancellor of Exchequer, said that the austerity measures worth £6 billion for 2010-11, would be helpful. As for the other £157 billion, they will go for an ‘emergency’ budget, preceded by a report from the new Office for Budget Responsibility. The OBR is widely expected to paint a bleaker picture than the previous fiscal projections. Among the other European nations, Spain closely follows Britain.

Spain:

The large real estate debt of Spanish banks raised fears about a new crisis. If foreign investors walk away from Spanish bonds, it could cause a sovereign debt crisis for Spain that could spread to the rest of Europe. The present government budget deficit is 10.4% of the national income. To tackle this, the government has decided to cut down €15 billion (USD 18 billion) over two years. Other Euro-zone leaders, anxious to avert a Spanish debt crisis, welcomed it because Spain’s economy, accounting for 12% of the Euro- zone, is four times bigger than that of Greece. Despite austerity measures, the growth rate might slow down from 1.8% last year to 1.3% this year.

France:

Though the IMF head in France said that there was no risk for France and Germany, the reality is different. French public finance is more tilted towards Greece than to Germany. Though the economy has weathered the recession well with growth in four quarters in a row, the budget deficit for this year is expected to be around 8.2%. The public debt (84% of GDP in 2010), though not as bad as that of Greece (133% of GDP in 2010), is worse than Germany's (76.7% the GDP in 2010 ).

France too has adopted austerity measures to lower the deficit by betting on GDP growth, which it thinks will reach 2.5% from 2011, to get the deficit below 3% of GDP by 2013.

Germany:

Germany is the only European country in a better position. The country’s budget deficit is only 5.7%, much less than of the other members of the Club. In the first quarter of 2010, it found a .02% increase in the GDP. According to the Federal Statistics Office, the reason is investment in farm equipments, exports, shrinking construction and private consumption.

Japan:

The Japanese crisis is, of course, different from that in Greece and the rest of Europe. Declining savings rate and the devaluation of the currency resulted in the recent slump.

Last year, about a quarter of Japan's entire government budget was spent on just servicing existing debt. This year’s budget (9.8% budget deficit in 2010) is the first where more than half of the money has been raised by issuing new debt — in the form of government bonds — to make up the shortfall in tax revenue. Japan’s sovereign debt now amounts to about 200% of Japan's GDP, while the figure for Greece is 133 %.

According to a report by Switzerland’s IMD business school, it will take Japan until 2084 to bring its debt down to a manageable 60% of GDP level; Greece will need until 2031, and the US until 2033.

USA:

According to Joseph Stiglitz, Professor of Columbia University, the US debt is different from other countries’ debt because the country promises to pay through dollar which it controls. Therefore, it will always meet the debt obligations. The question is the value of the dollar.

He said that the growth in the US would slow down significantly at the end of 2010. Whether or not it will slide all the way down in the negative territory is uncertain, though there is an increasing possibility that it will.

The US is already struggling with 11% deficit budget (USD 1.56 trillion in fiscal year 2010) including debt problems. The present government deficit has been 11%, only next to Britain’s. The budget forecasts that its public debt would be 71% of GDP by 2013 and will exceed 80% by 2020.

The Way Ahead

Now the question is How to get out of the crisis? Or, at least what measures can be taken to lessen its impact? Most of the European countries of the Paris Club are cost cutting and trying to manage huge public indebtedness.

But the policy, according to Joseph Stiglitz, is wrong. He feels, “That will lead to lower tax and the reduction in deficits will be much smaller than hoped. It’s a kind of austerity, which failed in Argentina... If Europe and probably the US go on austerity packages that the financial community is pushing for, the likelihood is even greater.” He has proposed debt redistributing like in Brazil and Argentina. Brazil had a debt crisis, which was helped over by liquidity. “Most of the countries are, I think, in the Brazilian situation. If the interest rate remains relatively low and market remains calm, then they won’t have any difficulties,” he said.

Copyright@ Business Economics June 16-31 2010 page 10-11