The Finance Minister Tendai Biti admitted “Under the current multi currency regime, the inadequacy of smaller denominations has posed a number of challenges in transactions.” Nonetheless, the economic commentator Bekithemba Mhlanga told VOA Studio 7 reporter Gibbs Dube that the country needed to adopt the rand as its principal currency to hold down large importation costs of notes and coins. “Zimbabwe will fail to import all these required small denominations if it does not adopt the rand,” Mhlanga suggested.

The Zimbabwean government dumped the local currency last year in favour of the US Dollar, the South African Rand and the Botswana Pula as the political crisis and economic meltdown triggered record-breaking hyperinflation. Even though the currency situation improved after it adopted multi currency system the cash flow got impeded in view of US embargo pressure and poor returns from investments.

The acute shortage of foreign currency in the country has even deterred many Zimbabweans from depositing their money in banks. Some reports claim that people are literally washing the dirty US dollar bills to extent their lives in circulation.

The US Federal Reserve destroys about 7,000 tons of worn-out notes every year, and it is estimated, the average $1 bill circulates in the US for about 20 months. Though larger denominations are less dirtied since they are either from banks or international trade, smaller denominational US currencies outlive the estimated circulatory cycle in Zimbabwe.

Interestingly, the retailers have resorted to requesting shoppers to take other goods in exchange of change, and in some cases ‘credit notes’ replaced the balance of small change. Such credit notes even entitled shoppers to redeem them at a later stage for more goods from the issued shops.

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Last week, Mehmet Simsek, Finance Minister of Turkey told that his country’s GDP would grow 12 percent in the first quarter of 2010. He had claimed that the economy was recovering quickly from the backlash of the global meltdown in view of country’s several internal crisis management programs.

The 2nd TWTB meet, which is expected to become a venue for 7bn of trade deals, is held between 14th and 20th June. According to sources, the meet has been able to attract nearly 2,200 businessmen from 135 countries and 1,200 Turkish traders as well. About 1,600 translators are interpreting the forums into 38 languages, and the participants would form delegations to visit 62 provinces of Turkey.

The primary objective of the meet would be to include and optimize small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) of Turkey to tide over the challenges from the monopolistic-oriented economies. Moreover, Turkey has no intention to endlessly wait for the EU membership to shape its economy to usher in growth particularly at a time when Europe is facing a volatile economic climate.

Through the TUSKON, a confederation with a strong base in Turkey and abroad, the country will be assisting entrepreneurs to overcome the language barrier by providing language courses, and in some cases even translations. The Turkish business confederation along with its affiliations across the world would be working together by simplifying and expediting business processes for country’s SMEs to make the export engine move forward rapidly.

The TUSKON has sister organizations in 135 countries across the world, and these institutions are set up by the Turkish entrepreneurs and volunteers to integrate its members to the international business environment. The Indo-Turkish Business Association, Thai-Turkish Business Association, South Africa Turkish Business Association and the Turkish and Cameroon Business Association are some of the business organizations affiliated to the parent confederation.

Turkey as an emerging export-oriented economy is paying vital importance for the TWTB meet as its trading history indicates those Turkish international business entities monetized significantly better than the domestic ones. A number of government agencies and companies including the Foreign Ministry, the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM), Turkish Airlines (THY) and Bank Asya are joining force with the TUSKON to make the meet successful.

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SA’s present crisis besides damaging trade with Europe and Asia, it also corroborates the criticism by some European countries in regards to the preparedness of the country to host such a mega event like the World Cup come June and July. The SA Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Tina Joemat-Pettersson told reporters losses to the industries under her ministry are estimated over 1bn rand ($127mn).

The strike, well over a fortnight has already brought the exim trade of the country to a standstill inflicting potential losses to the job market and international trade contracts. Items like metals, cars, fruits and wine to Europe and Asia, as well as imports of automotive parts and fuel supplies is reported to have affected. FIFA, the football governing body has informed imports of some equipment for the event has also been impacted.

Though it was predicted before the strike the coal and iron ore exports and fuel supplies could be stalled, stocks and supply process as so far avoided such a situation. Likewise, the domestic power supplies also have not been affected much by the strike since coal for the power plants is largely supplied through conveyor belts directly from the mines.

The workers of the SA logistics group Transnet which has about 54000 trade union members began strike demanding 15 percent pay hike despite the group conceding 11 percent. Although over 60 percent have returned to work since Monday, the smaller South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) has decided to go ahead with its demand.

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Mary Lascelles Relocation Director at Moving Links 4 You commented “My son recently went to Kashmir, India where he spent three months working on a project. So many folks advised against it as it was an unsafe place, and the newspapers certainly lead us to believe it was nuts for going. He has now returned and he said he never felt unsafe while there. Goes to show that a lot of times fear is instilled by media hype. Still, it’s important to use your intuition – while still living life and not shutting out important experiences.”

Barbara Holtzman, Executive Consultant & Management Coach said she would follow her intuition and did not avoid any place based on an alert alone, and also endorsed Lascelles’ view. While Sally Shiff Social Network Coordinator at Maoz Inc. opined “I live in the Middle East (Israel) and have learned to be aware of safety. What we don’t have here is the theft and harm that I used to see on the streets in the US or as a traveler abroad.” She later added that the places which were unsafe to travel were often found barricaded, and was glad rather to comply with such warnings.

However, some participants in the poll are of the opinion that it would be unwise to overlook these advisories. Similarly, those in the travel and transport industry are also found to be paying attention to the alerts as they feared it would hurt their businesses.

The poll clarification on as to why ask this question read – It is observed that advisories are used these days as foreign policy. Instead of pinpointing the terror strike areas, and helping those countries to nab the perpetrators before the event, most governments just release a terror alert to put that country/ies and administration/s in all kinds of trouble.

The recent terror advisories issued by the US, Britain, Australia and Canada on the Indian capital has forced the government to turn New Delhi into a fortress with heavy deployment of security forces and also increased security checks. Furthermore, some analysts believe operatives under the guise of crank callers could be involved in hoax calls (the recent series of anonymous calls about bombs being planted at various locations in New Delhi) to destabilize day to day business of the city.

It should be recalled that in February the Home Minister of India P Chidambaram had said about a US advisory then “I don’t think it was based on any new information nor do I think that it was intended to send any alarm signal. I think it was a routine advisory and it should be seen as such.”

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At WEF, Zuma again downplayed concerns over security, which was sparked off by the recent deadly attack on Togo footballers in Angola. On the other hand, he stressed the mega event offered great business opportunities for investors to showcase their merchandise.

According to the FIFA, 2mn tickets have now been sold, around two-thirds of the total that will be available. The third ticketing sales phase, which will conclude with a random draw for oversubscribed matches on 1 February, saw a total of 1,206,865 applications from 192 countries.

In the wake of the attack on Togo players at the Africa Cup of Nations in Angola, many famous football personalities as well as the English and German media have been making concerted effort to brand SA as an unsafe destination. In response, Valcke on the premise of nowhere is safe in the world, argued “Where can we organize the World Cup? On the moon, where there is no one?”

Franz Beckenbauer, the former West Germany captain and coach who won the WC in both capacities, has said slow ticket sales were due to doubts over the cost and security. Likewise, the manager of Hull City, an English Premier League club, Phil Brown, has said the Angola incident put a “question mark” over the WC.

The FIFA blamed both the media and the football personalities for making potential investors and spectators to panic over the eagerly awaited global event of the year. Valcke urged the media to stop publishing articles such as, the WC is the biggest mistake by holding in SA, don’t fly to SA – it is dangerous and so on.

Zuma as a rebuttal to the criticism said that no security breach has ever happened in previous international sporting tournaments hosted by SA. He expressed confidence by saying that SA was truly ready for business and football fans from across the globe.

The SA president told that what happened in Angola would not happen in SA as the former had just emerged from a war. He informed his country was prepared for the big event with the backing of its police force, army and other security elements.

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The US Trade Representative Ron Kirk revealed about the stalemate on the FTA at the sidelines of the inauguration ceremony of the Jacob Zuma presidency. However, he claimed there was still room for growth as South Africa was by far the largest beneficiary of trade under Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). He later added that it was possible to think of a new start with the new government at the helm since the US had very good foundation in South Africa with over 600 US business investments in various sectors.

Even though the central reason for the disinterest is not spelled out by the US authorities, the possibilities to this action seemed to be the same old ones. The old demand of the US particularly the intellectual property rights, and protectionist strategy could have checkmated the deal as of now.

South Africa is one of the SACU members that has largely benefitted by the Generalised System of Preferences that allows certain products to enter the US duty-free. South African clothing and selected textile products have duty-free access to the US market through the AGOA, an initiative of the Clinton administration.

According to the Department of Trade and Industry of South Africa, the US is the largest market for its merchandise. On the other hand, South Africa’s third largest imports are from the US.

South Africa’s trade analyst Peter Draper admitted that the US government’s move did not come as a surprise “for a number of reasons”. In his opinion, the failure to clinch FTA with the US is a huge blow to SACU.

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