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Posts of: Tunisia Live
All over the world, telecommunication is growing and nations are taking advantage of ICT to improve their economy. There is a tremendous growth of the telecoms industry in Africa as the continent is gradually improving on infrastructure to enhance its steady growth in the region.
Tunisia and Ghana are in the midst with Mauritius as the leading African countries in telecoms maturity as seen from the new index from BuddeComm.
BuddeComm has launched the Telecoms Maturity Index (TMI) to analyze fixed lines, broadband and mobile markets of a country with a range of economic indices.
The rankings which are based on a scale of 1 to 100 compare points with other countries in the region.
From the recently released report on top African rankings, Mauritius is leading Africa with a TMI of 43. Ghana comes second with a Telecoms Maturity Index of 32 while Tunisia is third with 31.
Mauritius’ high score can be attributed to the country’s growing tourism market that has impacted positively on telecoms and the broadband sector.
DSL infrastructure has been extended in the country and telecom operators have increased fiber-based services in many locations.
Mobile telecoms are arguably the popular services around Africa. Over 90% telephone lines on the continent are mobile-based. For the poor situation of fixed-line infrastructure in many markets, mobile internet access is equally dominant with over 95% of the populace using mobile internet connection.
The varied market penetration in Africa can be attributed to the scope and size of the diverse market in the African region.
In early 2018 the biggest mobile penetration was seen in countries such as Gabon with 163%, South Africa with 147%, Botswana with 159% and Mauritius with 146%.
New reports showed the intensity of high penetration depicts the popularity of telecoms service consumers having more than one SIM cards in spite of effort from most regulators to enforce measures by which service providers must register SIM card users on their network.
The Growth Of Telecoms In Tunisia
Tunisia has maintained a competitive position in telecoms growth in Africa. Tunisia represents the face of telecom’s growth by dominating in the North Africa region. It occupies a comfortable third position in the whole of the African region.
On the backdrop of the rankings in Africa, a wide range of initiatives is been put in place to facilitate development in the sector. A plan has been rolled out to move Tunisia’s telecoms forward towards achieving the laid out target for the sector.
In a bid to improve access to the services, real estate developers and operators of telecoms services will be made to see it a duty to make sure planned building constructions have included fiber optic infrastructure in such designs.
In the release of the Tunisia Broadband Strategy (TBS) in September 2012, it drew out the government plans to speed up growth in the ICT sector via a wide scope of measures including mobile broadband penetration, driving up fixed lines and improving fiber optics (FO) capacity.
Towards achieving the targeted plans, encouraging healthy competition among service providers (ISPs), increasing levels of ICT literacy, working to top broadband penetration rate in the region, ensuring low cost for services to meet the needs of the country form the notable measures considered necessary to facilitate faster growth in the nation’s telecoms sector.
With Tunisia recording a good 5.1% fixed-line broadband penetration in 2011, the National Telecommunication, INT is hoping to jack it up to a high of 60% by 2020.
ICT has played a major role in Tunisia’s economy. The industry already accounts for 5% of the country’s GDP. This encourages the government to look more closely into the sector to make it better.
The measures put in place by the government’s strategy shows their readiness to keep the sector active with more efforts given to infrastructural development.
TBS calls for compulsory cooperation on infrastructure installation, calling on authorities to improve efficiency, encouraging companies to focus more on infrastructure towards developing new services and products. With efforts toward improving fixed broadband infrastructure towards enhancing primary fiber optics capacity, the TBS aims to build a strong fiber optics backbone by integrating existing telecom networks.
A major aspect of the strategic plan on sharing of fixed infrastructure was a pledge to put an end to the Tunisie Telecom’s monopoly on fixed-line voice services. This will increase competition and which invariably will result in bringing innovation and driving the cost of telecoms services downward.
Telecoms Growth In Ghana
Ghana is notably one of the first countries in the African region to deregulate and liberalize its telecoms sector. After Ghana Telecoms was privatized in 1996, a rapid growth in the market was clearly visible.
The competition was observed in the internet and mobile sectors. Many service providers were licensed to provide quality services.
In 2009, Vodafone Group acquired Ghana Telecoms and became known as Vodafone Ghana. Vodafone was the primary fixed-line provider and as well, the third largest service provider behind MTN and the merged AirtelTigo. Ghana’s second national operator Westel was equally reprivatized in 2007 to become Airtel Ghana in 2007.
Many submarine fiber cables are entering the country and have significantly improved international bandwidth and lowered the cost of internet services.
The Roll Out a National Fiber Backbone Network adds to the development in the sector by completely bringing new life to the country’s broadband market and open doors to the convergence of technologies and services. The country’s regulatory sector are optimistic of universal access licenses to provide both mobile and fixed line services to replace the 2G license that is bound to expire in 2019.
A major development in the Ghana telecoms revolution includes Accra Digital Center, world’s most viable online company, Google’s construction of a 1,200km metro-net fiber as one of its project link programs in the regions of the country and the planned launch of Ghanasat 1 satellite in 2020.
Others are the launch of the fifth international submarine fiber optic cable, Setting up of the Ghana information Communication Technology Council set up to guide the ICT sector and the increasing growth of fixed-mobile technology.
Tunisia and Ghana telecoms are no push overs in African telecoms services. The sector will continuously see more growth in years to come if efforts on improving infrastructure are not relaxed. Also read to know why an analyst of International Crisis Group stated ‘Tunisia is seen as the land of recruitment for terrorist’.
The Prime Minister, Youssef Chahed of Tunisia, sacked its energy minister on Friday (August 31) over an allegation of corruption in the ministry, the government announced.
Corruption is like a plague affecting many African countries and preventing them from growing as expected.
A government which takes anti-graft cases seriously is taking a good step towards development. Tunisia is a country that has a bad history with corruption cases and why the last autocratic government was chased out of office to allow a democratic rule to charge of governance in the country.
Khaled Kaddour who was sacked along with other senior officials did not respond to the allegation at the time the sack was carried out.
The Prime minister, Youssef Chahed has given orders for a thorough investigation into the corruption in the ministry. He further ordered the merger of the energy and industry ministries according to reports from an official source to Reuters.
However, an official who was sacked along with Khaled denied ever getting involved in any corrupt practices and was determined to prove his innocence.
According to a government spokesman, Iyad Dahmani, the sacked minister and other officials were alleged of permitting a Tunisian investor to illegally explore one of Tunisia’s most important sites, the Halk Manzel Oilfield.
He was allowed without going through due process of licensing. Dahmani said the deal on the oilfield which is closed to the coastal city of Monastir also has undue tax privileges to it.
On the clampdown on corruption moved by the country last year, Kaddour happens to be the first minister to be hit by the anti-graft campaign of the administration.
The Secretary of State for Energy, Hachem Hmidi who is among the other four denied the accusations and was committed to clearing his name from the whole corruption saga in the ministry. He made it clear from his statements:
“My exit from the government helps me to devote myself to the case and prove that I am innocent of these malicious charges.”
The other sacked officials named in the allegation were the director general of illegal affairs in the ministry, the head of the national oil company- ETAP and the director general of fuel.
It will be recalled that corruption was the major reason for the revolt against the Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali’s regime in 2011. Today, many Tunisians are yet to see any difference since the transition into a democratic government the same year with a free and fair election process.
In July this year, parliament passed a law to compel senior officials to make their assets public in a bid to fight against unlawful enrichment when in government.
The committee on anti-corruption in the country agreed to the widespread of corruption in all sectors of business leading to an annual loss in billions of dollars to the government.
Following the sack of Tunisia energy minister and in the drive to rid the country of corruption, a big figure in the political circle in the country is currently under investigation for corruption accusation.
Chafik Jaraya is the man talked about here. He had been a strong financial support to the ruling party, Nidaa Tounes in 2014 elections. Also read to know why an analyst of International Crisis Group stated ‘Tunisia is seen as the land of recruitment for terrorist’.
Thousands of Tunisian jihadists in the past four years have been migrating to warring countries abroad such as Iraq, Syria, and Libya to be recruited into al-Qaeda and Islamic State.
This is far more than what any other nationality can account for. According to a senior analyst for the International Crisis Group, Michael Becher Ayari, Tunisia is seen as the land of recruitment for terrorist.
Obviously, this suggests reasons why the fear of invasion from jihadists from abroad is most likely. The migrants could possibly find their way back into the country with more battlefield experience and terrorist activities.
However, the fears haven’t resulted in any attack as declared by western diplomats, a regional analyst, and the government authorities.
Many Tunisian jihadists who migrated to join groups in Libya in 2016 must have died fighting to recapture Sirte, the capital of ISIS’ acclaimed caliphate in northern Africa.
Many extremists who went to Iraq and Syria are believed to have died as well. Many survivals may be captured and kept in prisons in Syria or in a hideout somewhere.
The Tunisian government has been proactive. Militants who find their ways back into the country are arrested and incarcerated to prevent future regrouping.
Tunisia’s Secular State Practice May Be An Issue
Tunisia as a country is a likely target owing to the more secular and liberal views of the government on Islam, freedom of expression and women.
There are records of previous attacks from international jihadist groups in Tunisia. The attack of 2015 still remains fresh when gunmen from ISIS attacked the popular Bardo Museum and the resort town of Sousse killing many people who are mostly foreigners.
Tunisians who are ISIS members came in from Libya and moved to capture Ben Guerdane before being repelled by government forces.
Ever since the attack, al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have executed more attacks in Tunisia but are not as disastrous. Likely invasion of jihadist from abroad is today not likely according to conclusions provided by government and other stakeholders. Also read about the never-ending war in Syria.
Brexit- Britain exiting the EU has been the talk among supporters and others on the other side of the decision by the United Kingdom government.
Exiting the European Union without a formal agreement with the body in a No-Deal approach is another twist to it. The UK Prime minister Theresa May’s argument that a no deal in leaving will be better off than leaving the EU with a bad deal instead.
It was seen in some quarters as a move that may be too costly for the country and may not materialize. But the possibility is gradually appearing to come to fusion by March 29, 2019.
This rare move that may come as an option has very little support in parliament except for groups who have limited understanding of international trade rules and legal obligations the move may carry along with it.
This may have a lot of serious consequences in the economy; affect how every Briton transacts business online and offline, and carry out inter-boarder trades.
With the Prime minister’s promise of keeping citizens informed through notices, the first batch of government papers to alert citizens on what to expect from a No-deal Brexit have raised a lot of concern from shoppers, businesses, farmers, UK expats, and NHS patients.
The “technical notices” released by ministers on a no-deal departure covers medicine, finance, and trade, Dominic Raab, Brexit secretary have said. Mr. Raab is optimistic for every Briton with the government’s preparation already put in place.
In the twenty-four technical alerts made available in August, the implications are well spelled out:
- Online shoppers will most likely get high cost of parcels to be delivered to the United Kingdom owing to the removal of VAT relief
- Increase in the charges of credit or debit card payments in the European Union should be expected on the removal of surcharges.
- Expats of British origin in the EU are more likely to lose access to their financial services including pension income.
- NHS patients could face delays in accessing innovative treatments.
- Organic farmers will face trade embargo and will experience delays in exporting to the European Union. They will need to apply for certification for this purpose from Brussels which may take as much as nine months to complete.
- Delays at the borders if coming from rail, sea or by road should be expected for a large amount of supply of medicines.
From the batch of notices released, many have pointed out that the government is clearly not prepared for a no-deal exit from the EU.
They are of the opinion that the papers have shown clear information that the no-deal option will only spell disaster which they never voted for.
The anti-Brexit campaigners are asking for a second referendum instead of going for the no-deal option to quit the EU.
However, included in the released paper, Mr. Raab informed of government’s preparation to recruit additional 9, 000 staff into the civil service to facilitate Whitehall preparations when No-deal Brexit applies.
Further plans to employ additional 1,000 border staff to handle any increase in demands of duties that may occur have been taken into consideration.
The call for a meeting by the Pope comes at a time when the church needed to take action against allegations on sexual abuse by church bishops. Many see it as long overdue and the call at this time is perfectly in order.
Pope Francis has summoned the Catholic Church’s top bishops all over the world to the Vatican City for a four-day long summit on the clerical sexual abuse crisis that has engulfed the Catholic Church and the papacy.
The Vatican has officially announced recently that the pope will be having a meeting with the presidents of bishop conferences slated for February 2019.
The announcement came just a day to the pope’s scheduled meeting with the US church leaders to look into the new discoveries and claims of sexual molestation and cover-ups by the church authorities which also linked him to the scandal. This is the first time this type of summoning will be called by the Pope.
The gathering which is expected to involve over 100 bishops is scheduled for February 21- 24. It will focus on the protection of minors.
Supporters of the pope’s leadership are seeing beyond just the sexual allegation but are also looking at upholding the legacy of the papacy amid allegations that the pope was involved in the cover-up as well.
This is a strong allegation. For the fact that it is coming from a former ambassador of the church makes it an important one to not ignore
There is rift already brewing between the Vatican reformers and the traditionalists on the conduct of the Pope about the sexual accusations.
Other Occasions That Would Have Moved The Pope’s Decision
The pope’s visit to Ireland in August should spark some concern to the papacy. The Irish church is alive to the many years of abuse in the region and was loud about it during the pope’s mass.
It was characterized by low turnout, public rebukes, and chanting, calling for the pope to apologize and beg for forgiveness.
The Pope’s action sparked an outrage January when victims of a Chilean priest who is known for his widespread abuse were not given credit.
The priest later apologized and went to agree with haven made grave errors in his judgment. As a follow-up, the hierarchy of the Chilean church was overhauled.
Another hit on Pope Francis’ credibility was a letter released by a retired Vatican ambassador to the US, Carlo Maria Viagano. He bypassed all pontifical protocol to accuse the pope of protecting Theodore McCarrick from continuing his punishment as handed down by the previous pope. McCarrick was suspended by Pope Benedict on the accusation of harassing and molesting seminarians.
Viagano’s 11-page publication has accused the pope of covering up for a man who he claims his corrupt and asks that the pope should resign.
Specifically, an excerpt of the letter reads:
“In this extremely dramatic moment for the universal church, he must acknowledge his mistakes and, in keeping with the proclaimed principle of zero tolerance, Pope Francis must be the first to set a good example to cardinals and bishops who covered up McCarrick’s abuses and resign along with all of them.”
Before this time, the leadership of the church in the US was not in any way at rest over the Pennsylvania grand jury report that showed 300 priests had abused over 1,000 students since 1940.
The details also alleged a line of bishops in six dioceses covered up for them.
A similar situation was recorded in Germany. The German media reported a church-commissioned report on sexual abuse in the German church.
It revealed 3, 677 cases of sexual abuse from 1946 to 2014. This is mostly on boys. It also has it that one in every six cases was a rape issue. About 1, 670 priests were involved, according to reports.
Finally, after about three decades of denying sexual abuse in the church and linking some to cultural and regional issues, the Vatican is finally coerced into making a way forward to handle the sexual allegations that have brought a dent to the church’s image over the past years.
Hopefully, the Pope’s call for a meeting will be a fruitful meeting that won’t end in the talks without strategic actions to curb the growing trend in the church. Also read about the implications of the China-U.S. trade wars.
Cancer is still one of the deadliest diseases in the world killing millions of people annually. The increasing rate of cancer over the past years till now is worrisome.
The number of cancer cases diagnosed all over the world every year has increased by about a third over the past decades.
This could mean that with increasing life expectancy, more cancer cases will be diagnosed during people’s lifetime.
According to findings from researchers, increase in lungs, skin and colorectal cancers could be from lifestyle habits such as diet and smoking.
Twenty-nine types of cancer deaths and diagnosed rates are audited across the globe every year by The Global Burden of Disease Cancer Collaboration. From its current reports, 17.2 million cases of cancer are documented with 8.9 million deaths all over the world in 2016.
This year, it is predicted that 18.1 million new cases and 9.6 million deaths are bound to occur according to predictions.
Experts attribute the rise right from the past years partly to the aging and growing population in the world.
From the figures provided, it implies one in every six women and one in every five men will have cancer in their lifetime.
But as many people increased in wealth, a lifestyle rather than natural occurrence becomes a likely cause. According to researchers, it is observed that though data collection and measuring of the disease has improved over the past years, the surge appears unabated but increases year in year out.
From the latest report, lung cancer, bowel cancer, and female breast cancer have risen more than before and responsible for one-third of all deaths and cases all over the world.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) frequently provides snapshots of the progression of cancer all around the globe with a focus on 36 different countries.
Women And Tobacco
Cancer of the lungs is still the world’s highest cancer killer. The disease accounts for 20% of all cancer deaths globally in 2016.
Though breast cancer remains the biggest cancer killer among women, however, the growing trend of lung cancer is quite alarming and degenerating.
According to findings from researchers, women in twenty-eight countries now have lung cancer as the major cause of cancer deaths in women. The US, China, Denmark, New Zealand, and Hungary top the list of countries that are worst hit by the trend.
It is observed that tobacco is traced to the reason why many women develop lung cancer in these countries and places around the world. For instance, in the UK, it is reported that smoking by women has increased over the past years.
Low-income countries are not spared of the smoking cause as more women now adopt the lifestyle more than before, no thanks to the strong marketing strategy of the tobacco companies.
Besides, the increase in industrialization, air pollution from the fumes of cars, household chemicals, and other sources contribute to the rise in lung cancer rates in the world.
Sedentary lifestyle, alcohol and processed foods are some other factors that may be considered as among the causes of cancer globally.
Effective tobacco control measures are suggested to check the alarming rate of the spread of the disease, as recommended by Dr. Freddie Bray of The International Agency for Research on Cancer.
Focus On Asia
The Asian region is one of the continents in the world where cancer cases are more prominent. Some factors are attributed to this in the region.
In all, it was stated in a report that about half of cancer deaths and cases this year will come from China. This is mostly because of their large population and partly because some particular cancers with high mortality rates are linked with the continent.
For instance, a high rate of liver cancer is one. It becomes quite obvious that different cancers can be linked to patterns of illness in different places around the world.
In low-income countries the issue of poverty cannot be ruled out as reasons for the widespread of the disease.
While cases of cancer may be completely eradicated, providing widespread access to facilities in healthcare will be a requirement to quickly detecting the disease for early treatment, according to Dr. Fitzmaurice. Offering access to more advanced technology to aid diagnostics is vital to surviving the cancer disease.
The Amazon should ring a bell to everybody who shops online. It opens doors for people to create their own stores while also making theirs alongside.
You can call it a monster e-commerce platform that everybody all the world will find a service or the other they are looking for.
Hitting the $1 trillion market value mark should just be appropriate considering the volume of activities on the company’s site.
First, it was Apple hitting the $1 trillion milestone to occupy the first position as the company with the highest market value. Recently in early September, Amazon did the same to become the second company in the US with the highest market capitalization.
As of October 23, 2009, the shares of the company reached $100. On October 27, 2017, the share value of the company has hit $1, 000 and just less than a year later; each share value went past the $2, 000 threshold on August 30, 2018.
It’s all been a great achievement that the founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos will be proud of and finding himself in the class of Bill Gates and other great men in the world who have made lots of money from their company.
Apple made the $1 trillion threshold weeks before Amazon achieved the same feat. Their high-in demand devices got them to speed in adding more value to their shares.
Today, Amazon has leveled up with Apple to have achieved this feat that may not be thought of in some years back as achievable in the shortest possible time they all did.
To get to this level, shares of the company increased to a high of $2,050.50 on a Tuesday morning to hit the $1 trillion mark before falling back to close at $2, 039.51 to exit the $1 trillion threshold market value.
What Amazon Put In To Achieve?
Amazon remains the topmost e-commerce giant in the world. To get to the level they did in just a couple of months shows a lot more was put to work.
Analysts were of the opinion that the many diversifications of the company are most likely to be responsible for the surge in the company’s shares. Just in 2017, Amazon entered into the grocery business by acquiring Whole Foods Markets.
The company is also working frantically on its logistics and hardware segments. It has worked on advertising to challenge the likes of Google and Facebook.
They’ve always shown investors they are capable of causing dramatic changes and make a profit in very rare areas of investment.
They added web services which have grown as far as 50% within the second quarter.
Exploring New Grounds
The Amazon investment strategy has no bounds. They are popular for online retail but they’ve taken it further up by exploring other areas of opportunities.
According to the CEO, some have led to a dead end but the most of them bring the explosion they’ve wanted to the Amazon brand. The current feat in Amazon reaching the $1trn threshold can also be traced to the success the company recorded in cloud computing.
The diversification drive of Amazon has not been limited to some investment opportunities alone. In fact, they go to the extent of exciting customers and investors on their new additions to expand the brand the more.
Amazon today sells anything you can think of even computing space to the smallest of home items and services.
This it has successfully done with assistance from its over 500, 000 employees to reach a profit of $178 billion annually.
People who are familiar with the brand won’t forget so soon how they started to offer people new ways to buy books online. They kept the excitement going with books by introducing the Kindle e-books and then came up with an interesting way to publish books online. They introduced Amazon Prime to bring innovation to how people get deliveries.
They launched into the tech world with Alexa, Fire, and others. Amazon is involved in Hollywood to make its movies and currently working on using drones to bring new ways to deliveries of its orders.
The company continues to evolve through the innovative mindset of the administrators to keep the drive going.
Behind Amazon’s successes are a dogged commitment and strong ambition to reach beyond where others will naturally feel they’ve reached the peak of their success. According to Jeff, they like to go down to unexplored alleys to discover what is at the end.
The company is committed to satisfying the commitment of their loyal consumers. Amazon is indeed a strong value addition to the US economy.
Seven years on, the civil war in Syria doesn’t seem to be ending very soon. It appears as time goes by the situation is getting worse still with many casualties recorded during major assaults on territories.
The end to a war comes when the warring factions come to see reasons why they should give consideration to peaceful discussions and resolve issues that separate them in an amicable way with no one particular side claiming victory.
Unfortunately, in the Syrian war, none of the factions are prepared to dialogue with others to see an end to the war that has cost the country about 500, 000 lives since it began. Over 5 million Syrian refugees have been camped in various locations and not less than 6 million people have been displaced from their homes without hopes of returning very soon on sight.
The latest and major onslaught that drew lots of attention because of the mode of the attack came in April 2018.
It was alleged that President Assad used chemical weapons and many civilians lost their lives when the attack was executed in Douma, one of the rebel’s strongholds. Though the allegation needed further investigation at the time, this is not the first time chemical weapons will be used against civilians.
A similar attack took place a few years into the war making the United Nations opt for a resolution demanding that chemical weapons be destroyed in 2013 and moved for peace talks in Geneva.
Up from then, it is quite unfortunate that peace talks have not been given a chance.
Too Many Interests To Contend With
On the demand for peace talks in Geneva, the obstacle has been that of diverse interests. And disagreements on who should be part of the peace talks.
The US won’t want to see an Iran or a Mr. Assad included, Russia doesn’t want the jihadist rebels included and Turkey doesn’t want to see the Kurdish people’s defense Unit (YPG) involved which America is solidly behind of.
Since the conflict broke out in 2011, close to 200 rebel groups have emerged.
There are still too many of them even when some of these rebel groups formed an alliance to become bigger.This is where the problem of a peace talk lies. It is difficult to know who the opposition is to the current President Assad’s regime.
All this time, President Assad’s regime has been claiming it is warring against Al-Qaeda, Islamic State, and the Salafi jihadist groups to maintain the country’s modern secular state status. Russia is solidly behind Mr. Assad by assisting to defeat all these groups with a support of air strikes to the ground troops of the Assad’s regime. Europe and the US are comfortable and like Assad’s ideology of modern secular state but don’t want either Assad or the jihadist group.
This diverse interest makes it quite impossible for a peace talk to be effective with the only option left for a fight to finish and a clear victory for one.
Mr. Assad’s Regime Victory Could Be The Long-Awaited End To The War
The Syrian war will end with a victory for one. With no clear peace deal on sight, President Bashar al-Assad is going all out to stamp its authority as the elected government in the country with a clear victory.
A victory for him and others mean an end to the war. He is taking all measures possible along with Russia to eliminate all rebel groups even if it has to be with many civilian casualties going for it.
This gives the reasons why Mr. Putin never accepted talks on resolution and Mr. Assad not honoring the 30-day ceasefire resolution from the UN.
Both countries don’t want to give a time for the rebels to fortify themselves or regroup again.
They are determined to wipe out all rebels as fast as it can be even if it has to come by any means.
However, with the US supporting the Kurdish YPG group and have successfully ended the occupation of the Islamic State, the war should see its end when the Assad’s regime, strongly supported by Russia eliminates every Salafi jihadist group to take control of western Syria.
This is not out of sight, though, it may be difficult to be optimistic about the whole Syrian War ending soon. Also read about the reasons of implications of the China-U.S. trade wars.
The business world has been agog with the trade stand-off between the top two largest economies in the world, the US and China. Close attention is given to what may result from the trade war between the two. As the trade confrontation between the two countries rages, the effects are bound to reach other parts of the world besides the two warring countries.
Recently, the administration of President Trump has increased tariffs on imports for some countries. The $34 billion increase in goods from China caused some uproar with a retaliatory move from China doing the same with a $34 billion tariff increase on US exports.
What could this portend for the world economy and how does it affect the US and China?
The trade tension went further higher when Donald Trump threatened one more time that he was prepared to impose tariffs on other Chinese goods to the tune of $267 billion in addition to the $200bn in duties he had warned on imposing on Chinese products.
Consumers And Producers Will Also Bear The Brunt In The US
No doubt, there are risks involved for both countries. Both consumers and producers alike will have a share of the consequences. Consumers in the US may have to live with changes and so will should it be for the Chinese people.
Should the dispute between the two countries worsen, consumers will need to suffer some increase in import goods, US businesses may need to go back on more hiring. The purchasing power of many US citizens will be lowered when a tariff increase is implemented.
From the minutes of the Fed meeting, policymakers agree to the fact that extended trade rift between the two countries can harm business sentiments, employment, and investment spending.
Already, the agricultural sector had seen noticeable declines in livestock and stock prices. It is among the sectors in the US that were hit by the Chinese retaliatory action on $34 billion of US goods.
The US economy may be shaken for this.
Implication On China
The impact on China may not have an immediate effect. It takes some time. Trade flows move slowly. These were the assertions of Jonathan Slone, the chief executive officer of an investment group.
On the Chinese part, the tariff increase could lead to lowering the productivity of the manufacturing sector and altering of the supply chains. Other possibilities include a significant increase in oil prices and negative effects on the housing sector. The impact already seen was the check on capital spending downwards to forestall any uncertainty by the government. The agricultural sector has, however, got upward improvements afterward.
Talks have been on between the two countries but no breakthrough has come their way.
Trump strongly affirmed he wasn’t ready to make any deal with China that China will like to commit to. However, he said his administration will continue talks with China.
Effects On Global Economic Ties
What may seem to be a battle with grave economic consequences for some may be a blessing in disguise for others. From the trade war between the US and China, Trump’s administration may be creating a good opportunity for Asia and the EU to open up their trade relationship for better improvement. The war may stand to make the trade relationship between the two regions grow faster than they’ve been in the past. Already, outside the US, a kind of urgency to catch on the development may have been capitalized upon by Europe and Asia by working on regional trade agreements and policies between their regions.
This scenario played out when the Trump’s administration withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Not quite long, a successor came in to take the place of the US. As China is seen as a major player in the Asian economy, Japan is already looking to unite with the Regional and Comprehensive Economic Partnership which China is one of the major components.
If it goes the way of Asian and EU forming closer economic ties, they’ll come to agree on the lower tariff on each other’s goods. Businesses in this open market will spark off competition which will also lead to more dynamism and improvement.
More expansion and productivity will be experienced outside of the US market as a result of this move between Asia and the EU. The implication of the US-China trade war may cause some drastic changes in the global economy.
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At Tunisia Live it’s all about news as the events unfold around us. Tunisia Live is a news portal dedicated to the North African country of Tunisia. Here, authors have the utmost goal of provided quality and informative stories from Tunisia.
