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Document CELEXE0020080424e44h000ev
IR

When trade winds smell sweet - India and Africa

1,065 words

12 April 2008

The Economist

EC

ECN

387

English

(c) The Economist Newspaper Limited, London 2008. All rights reserved
China and India are competing to sell goods and acquire resources in Africa
A new scramble for Africa means that an old historical relationship is taking on a fresh significance
WITH a munificence that accompanies 9% growth, India recently played host to some South African development experts, who were invited to inspect sanitation and low-cost housing. Alas, their experience—of a country where 700m people lack indoor lavatories and half the biggest city's inhabitants live in slums—did not impress. According to one insider, the South Africans laughed all the way back to the rainbow nation.
But a more serious bid to woo African hearts and minds took place this week. Guests at an inaugural Indian-African summit, complete with an exuberant cultural programme (see picture), included many of the continent's bigwigs, from South Africa's president, Thabo Mbeki, to Ethiopia's prime minister, Meles Zenawi. Even Uganda, whose expulsion of all Asians in 1972 was a low point for Indian-African ties, was volubly present—in the person of President Yoweri Museveni, who has welcomed Indians back.
Thanks to the trade winds that gust across their common ocean, to the delight of merchants and shark fishermen, Africa and India have enjoyed close relations since time immemorial. Islam intensified the link, as did the Portuguese, who colonised both Goa and Africa's coasts. Starting in 1895, the British shipped thousands of Indians to east Africa to build a railway; they became station-masters, artisans, clerks and shopkeepers. India's biggest diaspora, by some counts, is formed by the 1m or so citizens of South Africa who descend from labourers brought over in the 19th century.
But it is not the past which haunts Indian strategists. It is a future dominated, many fear, by competition with India's vast, commodity-hungry and increasingly Afrophile neighbour, China. A decade ago India's two-way trade with Africa was worth more than China's. In recent years, partly thanks to investments in Nigerian oil, the Indian total has surged, to around $25 billion last year. But China's, now topping $55 billion, has grown even faster.
China and India both want access to African natural resources, and both see Africa as an outlet for their manufactures. Of the Asian giants, China's diplomatic profile in Africa is higher, after a series of tours by President Hu Jintao. But India wants to catch up. For example, it is keen to sell Africa its high-tech products, particularly in cheap telephony and mobile internet services. One of the success stories on show in Delhi this week was India's donation to several African countries of tele-education and tele-medical care systems, as well as video-conferencing facilities.
Given that their needs overlap so clearly with China's, the Indians are no less anxious than the Chinese to impress the Africans with their hospitality and charm. Although Indians hate direct comparisons, China hosted an even bigger gathering for African leaders in 2006. (For good measure, a Japanese-African summit will be held in Yokohama in May.)
India is no more squeamish than China about dallying with dictators. It happily does deals with the tyrants of Sudan; one recent contract was for a $200m pipeline linking Khartoum to Port Sudan. Like China, India has refrained from criticising misrule in Zimbabwe.
But India also does good in Africa: it has helped out many UN missions there, with some 9,000 blue helmets now in the field. Over the past five years it has offered lines of concessionary credit to Africa worth $2.5 billion. Now it is talking about a $10 billion investment fund for the continent.
So far India has escaped the abuse heaped on the Chinese for their dealings in the worst-governed bits of Africa. The main reason is that, hitherto, India's transactions have been on a more modest scale. But the free pass may not be valid for long. The human-rights advocates who berate China for complicity in the plight of Sudan's Darfur region are already beginning to turn their attention to India.
In the field of commerce a different set of factors comes into play. When Indian firms have competed in Africa with China's much bigger corporations, they have often lost out. In 2004 India's oil and gas corporation, ONGC, bid $310m for an Angolan oil block; its Chinese rival offered $725m. To hold its own in Nigeria—which accounts for 20% of India's crude-oil imports—ONGC formed an alliance with a Dutch-based compatriot, Mittal Energy.
Yet Indian firms in Africa also have advantages, such as the continent's ethnic Indians, who form a useful bridge. Take east Africa's best-known industrialist, Manu Chandaria, who was born in Kenya nearly 80 years ago to Gujarati parents. “Indians have been dealing with Africa for centuries, and we are here to stay,” says the entrepreneur, whose manufacturing empire ranges from aluminium to software to steel to household utensils. With his easy access to the elites of Africa, India and the other parts of the English-speaking world, Mr Chandaria does not, as yet, have any obvious Chinese equivalent.
The existence of a diaspora also reassures investors in India. “Where we find Indians living, we feel at home,” says Sanjay Kirloskar, chairman of the Kirloskar Group, an Indian firm that is building pumping stations in 25 African countries. As a result, Indian companies tend to be more integrated into the local economy than China's. They employ more Africans than do Chinese firms, who often import workers. Indian firms may thus be less vulnerable to a populist backlash.
As so often with awkward neighbours, India dislikes being mentioned in the same breath as China. And in any discussion of geopolitics and Africa, where China's race for resources tends to be called neo-imperial, any mention of parallels makes India squirm. So the talk at this week's summit was not about resources but about India's contribution to African development. To make it clear that this was not a rerun of the Beijing shindig in 2006, the format in Delhi was as different as possible. For the visitors, though, these distinctions mattered little. Treated to some fine luxury, far from any sanitation project, all they smelt was opportunity.
Document EC00000020080410e44c0001o
WORLD BANK GROUP PRESIDENT, ROBERT B. ZOELLICK, OPENING PRESS BRIEFING AT WB-IMF SPRING MEETINGS 2008
6,240 words

10 April 2008

States News Service

SNS

English

(c) 2008 States News Service
The following information was released by the World Bank:
P R O C E E D I N G S
MR. HANLON: Good morning, and welcome.
Thank you very much for joining us this morning for this news conference. President Zoellick will begin with opening remarks and then take your questions.I would ask you if you could please identify yourself and the name of your outlet, and if you could limit it to one question, that will help us get around the room. And if you haven't had a chance yet to turn off cell phones, this would be a great opportunity.
Mr. Zoellick, sir.
MR. ZOELLICK: Thank you, Carl.
We have a number of important issues that we'll be discussing at these meetings. First, we have to reenergize the international community, donors and clients, to meet the Millennium Development Goals. We are at the halfway point. Much of the world is on track to halve extreme poverty, but there are very serious shortfalls in reducing child and maternal mortality, and in education, sanitation, nutrition. On current trends, Sub-Saharan Africa could miss all the Millennium Development Goals. This must not happen.
How does this relate to the current financial crisis? We have to connect the dots. While we are witnessing upheaval in the financial markets, we are also seeing new growth poles in India and China. And yes, although we have short-term illiquidity, we actually have a lot of money out there looking for someplace to go.
So we must respond to the immediate emergency situation but do so in a way that can seize opportunities for the medium and long term, which will stimulate inclusive and sustainable growth to help reach those Millennium Development Goals. Last week I outlined four areas for action:
EITI++; key to trying to ensure that countries that are rich in resources, which can be drivers of growth, don't fall short of their potential, lose out to corruption, or even slip into conflict among fortune-hunters. We'll be launching this initiative on Saturday.
A One Percent Solution to build equity investment in Africa so that it can become a complementary growth pole over the next 10 or 15 years, just as China, India, Brazil and others are complementary poles today. The allocation of even one percent of the assets of sovereign wealth funds to equity investment in Africa could draw $30 billion to African growth, development and opportunity. It is the World Bank Group's role, especially through the IFC, to develop the investment platform for this equity investment. And, completion of the Doha Round and a New Deal for Global Food Policy.
We will also be discussing climate change. We will not succeed unless we bring the interests and needs of developing countries to the table. We will be discussing this on Sunday morning at the meeting of the Bali Breakfast, a group of development and finance ministers that will become a regular feature of the Spring and Annual Meetings precisely because we need to get development and finance ministers from developing and developed countries alike to sit around the same table. Addressing climate change won't work if it is simply seen as a rich man's club.
But let me end my remarks on the subject of food and rising food prices. In the U.S. and Europe over the last year, we have been focused on the prices of gasoline at the pump--$2.50, $3.00, $3.50 and more. While many are worrying about filling their gas tanks, many others around the world are struggling to fill their stomachs, and it is getting more and more difficult every day. In many developing countries, the poor spend up to 75 percent of their income on food. When prices of basic foods rise, it hits hard. Let me just give you two examples.
In just two months, rice prices have skyrocketed to near historical levels, rising by around 75 percent globally and more in some markets, with more likely to come. In Bangladesh, a 2- kilogram bag of rice--like this--now consumes about half of the daily income of a poor family. With little margin for survival, rising prices too often means fewer meals.
Or, take wheat, where over the past year, the price has risen by 120 percent. That means that the price of a loaf of bread--like this--has more than doubled. Poor people in Yemen are now spending more than a quarter of their incomes just on bread before they pay for other essential foods for their children, let alone basic health care or shelter.
This is not just about meals foregone today or about increasing social unrest. This is about lost learning potential for children and adults in the future, stunted intellectual and physical growth. Even more, we estimate that the effect of this food crisis on poverty reduction worldwide is on the order of seven lost years. So we need to address this not just as an immediate emergency but also in the medium term for development.
Meetings such as this are usually about talk. Words can focus attention. They can build momentum. But we can't be satisfied with studies and paper and talk. This is about recognizing a growing emergency, acting, and seizing opportunity, too. The world can do this. We can do this. We can have a New Deal on Global Food Policy.
First, for the immediate crisis, the international community must fill the at least $500 million food gap identified by the UN's World Food Programme to meet emergency needs. Governments should be able to come up with this assistance and come up with it now.
And we need to expand and improve access to safety net programs such as cash transfers and risk management instruments to protect the poor.
We need to increase financial support for short-term needs, restructuring existing projects and fast-tracking grants and loans where needed.
We must make agriculture a priority. The Bank has announced that it will double agricultural lending for Sub-Saharan Africa over the next year, from $450 million to $800 million. IFC, our private sector arm, will be boosting its agribusiness investments across the value chain of product.
And we need to complete the Doha Round.
Thank you.
MR. HANLON: Thank you very much.
We'll be pleased to take your questions, and once again, if you could identify yourself and the name of your outlet, that would be very helpful.
The gentleman from TV Globo--and also wait for the microphone which will come to you.
QUESTION: Good morning. Luis Fernando Silva Pinto from TV Globo Brazil.
It seems clear, the picture that you paint but how do you think you can go about obtaining these contributions and this change of policy? In the case of Brazil, there is a large amount of arable land and technology and all that. Do you have a specific message to Brazil on how to help in this food crisis?
MR. ZOELLICK: Well, as I suggested, you have to look at this as a combination of actions, and I have been very pleased that a number of world leaders seem to be sharing and seizing the moment. Prime Minister Brown of Britain just wrote a letter to Prime Minister Fukuda as Chair of the G-8, urging that the UN agencies that work on food, the World Bank and the IMF, work together to try to identify across the spectrum of actions.
The first and most important--and I just urge this for all countries, and I know it is primarily an obligation of developed countries, but if a developing country like Brazil that was a generous contributor to IDA, our support for the poorest, can help as well with food, we have got to get that food to the World Food Programme, whether cash, commodities, or a combination, because every time you open the newspapers, you can see the crisis that this is causing. In Haiti, the World Food Programme made a call for about another $70 or $80 million, and it only has about $17 or $20 million. You've got riots. You've got things that are threatening that government. So the first is to try to meet that need.
The second, what we are trying to do, is to, as the paper yesterday suggested, work with governments to look at the array of programs, depending on their capacity, that they can put in place quickly. It might be food-for-work programs. It may be targeted food or cash assistance programs. The school feeding programs can be really important, because some of those are in place, but you can expand them. Sometimes if you just give extra food to a child going to school, they can bring it home to their parents and help deal with that issue. But then, we have also suggested in some countries that still have had high tariffs on food, so they are blocking food; and then we need to stop countries from doing things that make the crisis worse and actually build a sense of hoarding, as some of the bans on food and exports.
Brazil has been a very good agricultural producer, a very strong producer, so one of the things that the Brazil Government has talked about working with us on is sharing some of its expertise in agricultural research, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, and that's the other key component that we are trying to move quickly toward is trying to expand the production. Some countries--I was just looking at the situation in some in Central Asia, where they missed the spring growing but are moving into the summer growing season, so even in the course of this year in the growing season, one can make a difference. In some countries in Africa, the problem is fertilizer. It's a question of getting the fertilizer and the inputs.
So Brazil is a country that has had great agricultural experience, so there are short and medium-term aspects as well as helping to share its experience overall. And then, Brazil will be an important player in the Doha negotiations, which are very important to build confidence for the world economy and help end the prospects of the impediments of subsidies and tariff barriers that have impeded the market.
MR. HANLON: Thank you.
Barry, from Voice of America.
QUESTION: Barry Wood, Voice of America.
Mr. Zoellick, what is your analysis as to why prices of rice and wheat have risen so rapidly, and what should be done to get the prices down?
MR. ZOELLICK: Well, on the causes, the reports that we just released over this week highlight a number of the elements. One, you do have globally some shifting of diet and higher incomes and people shifting to, for example, meat, which will use more grain. Our report yesterday highlighted the effect of the biofuels issue. In some cases, you have also had climatic conditions; you have had very bad droughts in Australia, some in Central Europe.
What has further complicated this market is that food stocks are very, very low, so you actually have a similarity here to what you see in the energy markets, where in the energy markets, the ability to expand capacity is quite limited, and in agriculture, the ability to have stocks that deal with extreme circumstances are very, very low. That means that if there is any fear or uncertainty or any sense of hoarding or sense that prices may be going up, you have much greater risk in the sense that you cannot bring other supply on line.
So that is a complicating feature with financial markets, because as people have money that they want to invest, one needs to recognize that energy and food are now part of commodity prices, so people will shift to commodity price as an asset class. So you have a number of activities here that are coming together.
I mentioned some of the short-term things one needs to do, but of course, the medium- and long-term answer is to try to increase the productivity and increase the supply of food. Now, this creates an opportunity, as I outlined in the speech I gave, because a lot of the opportunities for increasing productivity are in the developing world. We saw great increases through the green revolution in South Asia and India. We believe that we can have a green revolution in Sub-Saharan Africa, but based on different dimensions. In the case of India, it was very much crop varieties and some supporting inputs. In the case of Sub-Saharan Africa, we have to look all across the value chain.
Tenure--knowing you own your own land--allowing women to be able to own land, because the role of women in rural areas--their one role in the economy is in agriculture. Fertilizers; irrigation systems; marketing systems.
We have also seen that where you have a country that is very dependent on rain for its agriculture, you may have booms and busts, so there are ways that you can use markets and risk mitigation tools that we can use to help avoid the good years and the bad years in terms of prices that create aspects of uncertainty. And then, there is avoiding the distortions in the global market and the trading system.
So, what I have tried to do over the past weeks is to outline some of the steps, and we are trying to work with individual countries on their needs, but we are also trying to make some points about the need of the global food system, which is why I called for a New Deal for Global Food Policy.
MR. HANLON: The gentleman in the front row, please, from ITAR-TASS.
QUESTION: Thank you.
My name is Andrei Sitov, and I am with ITAR- TASS, the Russian News Agency.
Thank you, sir, for your dramatic and concise presentation. I want to ask you about which countries of the former Soviet Union are especially vulnerable to the food problems that you have described to us. And also, on a more general subject, does what you say imply that the Bank needs to shift its resources to these countries and basically to the poor--for instance, from some new members of the EU from some politicized cases like Kosovo and things like that.
Thank you.
MR. ZOELLICK: As for your first question, I have been focused most recently on some of the countries of Central Asia that start out as poorer countries and have particular vulnerabilities. And as you look toward Ukraine and Russia, those have historically been very good agriculture producers, so I would look to that as potential support on the production side.
As for your second question, I think the World Bank can handle a range of activities. I talked a little bit about climate change; there is important work that we are trying to do, all related to the Millennium Development Goals, health, education. So our priority is certainly for those that are the poorest countries.
At the same time, because a lot of our service is bringing knowledge and learning activities, that is also available for middle-income countries, and these become connected. In many of the so-called middle-income countries, you have very large poor populations. Keep in mind that in China, India --the middle-income countries represent 70 percent of the people living on under $2 a day. So you have a lot of poor in these countries.
Just to give you an example of the different range of innovation, in Mexico, we have been working with the government on some financial innovation to try to be able to help with natural disasters such as earthquakes. This built on some activities that we did in the Caribbean with hurricanes.
So, part of the new Bank operations is trying to serve all of our clients, but recognizing that you have to customize your services depending on their needs.
MR. HANLON: Thanks.
Bob Davis, please.
QUESTION: Hi. Bob Davis with the Wall Street Journal.
I have two questions. As you said, these meetings are often about talk. What would you specifically hope to accomplish that the members here will accomplish by the end of the weekend?
Second, the paper that the Bank published yesterday put a lot of emphasis on biofuels as the reason that food prices are going up. Do you think that countries ought to rethink their focus on biofuels--or at least some countries?
MR. ZOELLICK: Let me deal with the second one first, Bob.
On biofuels, it is important any time you have a product to distinguish among different aspects. So, as I have said on other occasions, the data that I have seen suggests that the sugar-based biofuels out of Brazil have the greatest benefits in terms of both fuel and dealing with the climatic effects.
I also think that there are some important possibilities with some of the second-generation biofuels, some of the cellulosic developments, and we have been in touch with some around the world that are trying to deal with some of the energy security issues.
So what we are seeking to do in the report is recognize that biofuels have responded to different purposes. One is they have responded to the very high energy prices. Some of them have responded to concerns about energy security. So people should look closely at the effects of these and see the effects in terms of overall food prices. If they have subsidies for these, they should certainly consider whether the subsidies make sense. If they have tariffs at the same time that impede the imports of something that they are subsidizing, that certainly would be something that people should look at and see if that makes economic sense. And at the same time, they need to see food and agricultural policy as a whole, which is why I tried to emphasize this in the speech. And I would hope that countries that, for whatever reason, energy security and others, have emphasized biofuel development will be particularly sensitive to the call to meet the emergency needs for people who may not have enough food to eat, which contributes to malnutrition, which, as we have tried to point out--I started doing this at the time of (the)Davos (Forum)--in my view is in some ways the most dangerous Millennium Development Goal to fail to meet, because the effects run through a whole generation. We now have evidence that children who have malnutrition at early ages, particularly negative nine months, pregnancy period to 24, it stunts their growth, physical and mental, their whole lives. So this is the issue that we are trying to draw additional attention to.
Your first question was what to expect out of this. Well, my basic hope is that we can come out of this with additional momentum on the items that I was highlighting coming into the Spring Meetings and with the speech. That includes, first and foremost, trying to build more support for this emergency need for the World Food Programme, and then, on top of that, the type of thing that Prime Minister Brown and other have been saying of a supportive nature about the outline for food program development.
But I'm not waiting, frankly, for that. What I have tried to outline today is that we are trying to shift and reallocate resources. We added $10 million in Haiti because of the conditions. We shifted or added some moneys to Burkina Faso, and there are three other African countries we are trying to focus attention on. The programs in Haiti are going to deal with issues like mother-to-child feeding and school feeding and some labor-intensive work programs. We are working with Bangladesh. We have two IDA loans which are concessionary grants that we raised the money for last year of $320 million that we want to bring to the Board, and that will help us deal with some of the fiscal gap that high food and oil prices have created in Bangladesh. In Yemen, we are sitting down with them right now to try to create the systems to provide cash transfers to the poorest, and we have about $170 million in support for increasing agricultural productivity in Yemen.
So, in country after country, I am working with our teams to see either where we need to shift, add, bring other resources to bear, and--since we are by nature a development and not a humanitarian emergency organization--with some of these to see how we can work with others. And in food most of all, part of the challenge--and I have been very pleased, and my colleagues have been working on this for some time, with the FAO, the World Food Programme, IFAD--we have got to get the different pieces of this network to move more effectively together, and I have been pleased that we have gotten some support from some of the NGOs also to do this.
Also, as I mentioned in my remarks, we plan to have the formal launch of our Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative ++. We are seeing about some support we can get from some of the NGOs such as Transparency International. You might have seen, if you read The Financial Times today, that Paul Collier and Michael Spence, the author of "The Bottom Billion" and a Nobel Prize winner, were promoting and supportive of the concept. So I am trying to build momentum in that area as well.
In the area of the one percent for sovereign wealth funds, I have been having some ongoing discussions with some of the sovereign wealth funds, and we have some of the countries and funders here. I want to further explain the idea so that over the course of the coming months as IFC builds the platform, we can try to draw some of the investment into that.
MR. HANLON: Okay. The lady in the third row, in the orange, please.
QUESTION: Good morning. Alicia Salgado from El Financiero Newspaper.
Mr. Carstens, President of the Development Committee, said that as the World Bank has left behind the institutional crisis that it had a year ago, that now is the moment to rethink about the possibility of changes in the World Bank, just in the same way the IMF is doing. So, are you prepared for this meeting to introduce a proposal in this sense?
MR. ZOELLICK: Well, I think Minister Carstens is right. I think for an institution that was founded over 60 years ago, it certainly makes sense to see how we adjust the voice and participation issue. And it certainly accords with the vision that I have outlined of an inclusive and sustainable globalization to make the institution more inclusive.
When I came here, I learned that the shareholders, the countries that are members of our Board, had recommended that the World Bank wait until the IMF finished its process in terms of some of the share reallocation. So, since that process has at least moved to a very important first step--that I compliment Dominique Strauss-Kahn and his predecessor, Rodrigo Rato, for moving forward--I plan to have as part of the Development Committee discussions some initial exchange at the ministerial level to get their appetite for the types of change. These could include, obviously, shares, but there are other aspects, and where they are within our authority, within the World Bank, we haven't waited.
Since I have come to the World Bank, I have appointed four new officers of the Bank, and all four of them have been from developing countries--China, Nigeria, Turkey and Bulgaria, which is in our system a Part 2 country, which is a country in transition. The number of direct reports to me now are about 41, 42 percent from developing countries.
We are moving at the operational level, so for example, by the end of this year, I believe that about 75 percent of our Country Directors will be in the field, which is important, and all of those in Sub-Saharan Africa will be in the field.
We are trying to expand the diversity and inclusiveness of the work force at all ranks and at all levels and have efforts to do that. Our operational programs are designed to bring ideas to the table but to have country ownership.
So there is a lot that we can do as an institution and are doing. As for the questions that the IMF dealt with, those are questions that ultimately are decided in capitals by the shareholders. So my hope is to get a sense of the range of views and possibilities, and then we'll need to work with them to try to come up with a reform plan of our own.
MR. HANLON: Thanks.
The lady in the back row, please.
QUESTION: Good morning, Mr. Zoellick. I am Carole Graveline from Radio Canada.
What can the World Bank do concretely to convince countries that this time around, they have to do something? If you don't have a stick and you don't have a carrot, what can you do concretely?
MR. ZOELLICK: To do something on what?
QUESTION: To convince them to do more to help you and help the countries that need help.
MR. ZOELLICK: On food?
QUESTION: Yes, on food.
MR. ZOELLICK: On food. Well, we have a microphone--or a megaphone--as a start, and it is getting some attention, because I think that in many societies in the developed world, there is a recognition that the danger of people starving and suffering is something that people want to act on. I have seen that discussions in the U.S. and the European Commission have talked about some emergency food aid support. I have recommended to the Japanese as host of TICAD, which is a meeting every four or five years on Africa, as well as the G-8 Summit, that they be supportive. I think that in this sense, meetings such as this and the attention helps focus the priorities of political leaders on an issue such as that.
Secondly, we then need to try to use the policy institutions to try to drive forward some of the ideas. So I was pleased that Prime Minister Brown pushed forward the idea of a very similar set of issues along the lines of the ones that I have suggested.
And then, they are helping us now in the sense that last year, I worked very hard over the six months I was here to get additional contributions to IDA15, which is for the 80 or so poorest countries, grants and concessionary loans, and including our own contributions, we got $41.6 billion. So a lot of that money will go toward this type of expansion of things that we have talked about in the agriculture area.
But there are other players here, like the question you heard from Brazil. I have been very pleased about the Brazilian interest in sharing some of its agricultural expertise.
Ultimately, there are issues such as export bans and others that, as you say, are in the power of sovereign states, but I think we can help shine the light on them and explain how they are counterproductive policies. And part of what one does in an international institution is try to put out the best facts, make the best arguments, rally support for the cause, and this is not only, I hope, useful for the governments but for their publics.
I have found that particularly on some of the basic issues of survival and food and malnutrition, there is a very strong interest, whether in religious groups or whether on colleague campuses or others. And I certainly saw this in some humanitarian issues like Darfur that I worked on. So that's part of what we are trying to do.
MR. HANLON: Okay. The gentleman in the front row, please.
QUESTION: Thank you. Frederick Noma- Addison, African Insight.
As far as African countries go, which is a bigger priority--meeting the Millennium Development Goals or growing the economies, because they are two tracks right now.
MR. ZOELLICK: I don't think you can have an either/or. I think you need both. And from the start of my tenure here, I have emphasized that when I visited West Africa, East Africa and Southern Africa before becoming President of the World Bank, I got a very strong message that a number of the countries wanted to focus on help on the social development agenda, on the Millennium Development Goals. They knew those were the prerequisite and the foundation in education and health and basic needs. But they didn't want to stop with that, and that's what I found so encouraging. They wanted a growth agenda, and they wanted infrastructure, they wanted energy, they wanted regional integration, they wanted to develop their private sector.
In the speech that I gave last week, in part trying to link this to the possibilities for investment in Africa, I pointed out that 17 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa had grown on average 5.5 percent between 1995 and 2005. That's a reasonable good growth rate. So, if one is looking toward building on something, that's something to build on. There were another 7 countries that grew about 8 or 9 percent that were the resource development countries, and you could see exactly where the EITI++ fits into that. We want to make sure that countries have the full range of capacity and knowledge so as to use those resources to avoid some of the problems of dual economies and resource curses and others.
There was a third category, and we'll be talking about that at the Development Committee as well, and that is post-conflict states and those that are facing state breakdown. If you look at the population of Sub-Saharan Africa, you have roughly one-third in each. And that last category is one that I want to continue to draw attention to with the ministers, because it is not only heart-rending and disastrous for the people in those countries, but it has overflow effects on their neighbors.
So I believe, as I said, that with the right work and attention and support, there are great possibilities in Sub-Saharan Africa, and I think part of the mission of the Bank is to look at different ways--agriculture, resource development, post-conflict situations, this idea of trying to channel equity investment--that we can be supportive of Africans who want to grow.
MR. HANLON: And we have time for a final question. The gentleman in the front row.
QUESTION [Interpreted from French]: I am Jerome Sekana Pene-Papa - Galaxie Media from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
You take the green revolution to solve the food crisis in the world, especially in Africa. What do you want to do concretely for malnutrition? Are you going to use donations, or are you going to industrialize agriculture, because you said that your envelope is going to go from $450 to $800 million. Is that enough? There are already tensions in Senegal and in Cameroon because of the food crisis. What are you going to do specifically? You need a lot of money, a lot of resources, to resolve this kind of problem.
Thank you.
MR. ZOELLICK: Great. Well, first, I think one has to distinguish the different steps. The first one that I have emphasized, building on the work of the World Food Programme, is that you need at least $500 million--and I think their estimates are actually going up. But it is also important how that money is spent and how the aid is spent. So there have been great advances in micronutrients--this goes to your question about dealing with some of the malnutrition--you now have the ability with a cup of food to be able to customize the nutritional needs for different areas around the world so that you could try to make sure that children and their families not only get food but get the right nutrition. So you are very right to focus on that dimension.
Secondly, there is the array of programs that we can be involved in, that some of the other UN agencies are involved in, that I have mentioned. School feeding programs are tremendous because they help get kids to school, they help to make sure they have the nutrition to learn, and as I said, some of them can also create an incentive to bring some food back to the family. There are food-for-work programs.
The type of thing, as I mentioned, that we are trying to set up right now with Yemen is the notion that people in a community may decide that they want to work on an irrigation system, they may want to work on some roads, they may want to work on a forestation project to help deal with the winds or other aspects. You can provide the food, and in return, people will help build aspects that invest in their community over time.
More developed developing economies--Mexico; Brazil has a good example of this; Egypt is looking at this--have what are called conditional cash transfer programs, and we are actively involved with these, where you target cash on some of the poorest countries, and in return, the families agree to send their children to school, and they agree to get basic medical and preventive health care.
Now, to go to the production side that you mentioned, the $450 million to $800 million is something we are trying to do over the next year, so obviously, that's not the end of the process. And in terms of what those programs will look like, we need to develop this with each country; each country's circumstances are different. But I used this term "across the value chain," and we want to be attentive to smallholders as well as larger farm possibilities. And I alluded to, but the papers give more detail about the types of things--fertilizer, irrigation, market systems.
One that I am very interested in that we have started to do some work on, but I want us to do more, is to try to deal with some of the risks of small farmers who start to move into the market system, and if there is volatility in prices or weather. So we helped provide technical support to a project that the World Food Programme did with Ethiopia and, as I recall, with AXA, a large French insurance company, to do drought futures. The agriculture in Ethiopia is very dependent on rainfall, so if you can create an insurance system that says if you get drought--and we can refine these with various parameters of conditions--then you get money that helps support you.
I think we need to look at trying to do these and to provide more support further down in the agricultural system.
So, that is why, again, when I spoke about a New Deal for Global Food Policy, I am trying to emphasize that it is not just food today, and it's not just food production tomorrow--it is everything along the spectrum, and we have to look at the full range of inputs and activities and risk mitigation measures.
So, part of the point I was trying to make in my speech last week is that I think the challenge for institutions like the World Bank, or governments, for that matter, is to deal with the immediate, but deal with the immediate in a way that sets up longer-term policy change, so you aren't just moving from crisis to crisis.
So, a lot of what we are talking about this week and weekend is how do we meet the immediate needs, going to some of your questions, but how do we set the foundations in place to move ahead for these issues over coming years, and agriculture in Africa is one that has tremendous benefits not only in terms of supply, but--we did a World Development Report last year that showed that the benefits for overcoming poverty of a gain in agriculture are three times that of other sectors. A lot of poor people are in rural areas, and the benefits for women's empowerment are also great, but this is also where, if we can help change some of the rules to allow women to be able to have better property rights and ability to keep some of the sweat of their brow, or the benefit of the sweat of their brow, that would be helpful, too.
MR. HANLON: Thank you very much.
The remarks that Mr. Zoellick delivered will be available at the entrance as you leave.
Thanks very much.
[The press briefing concluded at 11:15 a.m.]
###
04/11/08 08:30:05
Document SNS0000020080411e44a000ur

ALCATEL- LUCENT : Alcatel-Lucent strengthens leadership in optical networking for 2007 according to Ovum RHK
851 words

3 April 2008

Hugin Southern Europe Press Release

CPNYEN

English

Copyright 2008 Hugin. All Rights Reserved.
29% yearly growth confirms leadership for the seventh year in a row
Paris, April 3, 2008 - Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) further reinforces its optical networking leadership by consolidating its #1 position with a 24% market share for the full year 2007, according to Ovum RHK.
" Alcatel-Lucent exceeded our expectation of their performance in optical networking for 2007, breaking the 'law of big numbers' to outstrip the growth of the market for the year by registering a 29% growth versus the 24% of the market as a whole," said Dana Cooperson, Vice President of the Optical Infrastructure at Ovum RHK. "Overall, Alcatel-Lucent grew year over year in the high growth segments, 51% in the multi-reach DWDM segment and 54% in metro WDM, but also in the aggregation space with a 21% increase and in the optical cross-connects segment with a 35% growth."
The on-going IP network transformation in fixed and mobile networks, across regions and technologies continued to be a key driver of Alcatel-Lucent's performance, along with the continued momentum in mobile backhaul infrastructure deployment, the growing demand for Ethernet-based services for business customers and business expansion in non-traditional buyer segments including cable MSO, government and enterprises. Furthermore, ROADM-based solutions continued to gain traction, especially in Europe.
"The continued success of our solutions further confirms the role that optical networking has in competitive transformation," said Romano Valussi, President of Alcatel-Lucent's Optics activities. "Our performance was directly attributable to addressing market requirements and ability of executing our technology leadership that was further enhanced with innovations to meet video and Triple Play service demands, bandwidth growth and mobile traffic requirements."
Customer announcements in 2007 included: Belnet (Belgium), the Chinese Government as the sole supplier of China's largest high-speed e-government backbone network and Mobile'>China Mobile, Globacom (Nigeria), Hanaro Telecom and SK Telecom in Korea, I21 CAT Foundation and Telefónica in Spain, NORDUNet (Nordics), Total E&P Indonesie, Transpower in New Zealand, University of Pittsburg Medical Center (UPMC) in the U.S., T-Mobile Czech (Czech Republic) and the completion of the optical-data network for DANTE in the framework of Europe's largest research network GÉANT2.
Leveraging its technology and innovation leadership, Alcatel-Lucent is spearheading the transformation to all packet transport. Alcatel-Lucent integrates its experience, leading portfolio and innovative vision into optical and wireless transport solutions that support a broad range of blended service applications - such as triple play, Carrier Ethernet connectivity, Mobile TV and 2G/3G mobile backhaul - exceeding customer needs in the fixed, mobile, submarine and vertical markets.
According to Ovum RHK, Alcatel-Lucent also continues to lead for full year 2007 the aggregation segment with a 23.3% market share, the wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) segment with an 18.4% market share and # 1 position in both metro WDM and multi-reach dense WDM segments, and the bandwidth management segment, including digital and optical cross-connects, with a market share of 32.6%.
About Ovum RHK
Ovum RHK provides market research advisory services to telecoms equipment and component vendors and service providers alike. Ovum RHK is part of Ovum, a Datamonitor company, advising on the commercial impact of technology and market changes in telecoms, with offices in London, Paris, Cologne, Boston, Melbourne, Seoul and San José.
About Alcatel-Lucent
Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) provides solutions that enable service providers, enterprise and governments worldwide, to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users. As a leader in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP technologies, applications and services, Alcatel-Lucent offers the end-to-end solutions that enable compelling communications services for people at home, at work and on the move. With operations in more than 130 countries, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with global reach. The company has the most experienced global services team in the industry, and one of the largest research, technology and innovation organizations in the telecommunications industry. Alcatel-Lucent achieved revenues of Euro 17.8 billion in 2007 and is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris. For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on the Internet: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com
Alcatel-Lucent Press Contacts
Régine Coqueran  Tel: + 33 (0)1 40 76 49 24  [e-mail] 

Mark Burnworth  Tel: + 33 (0)1 40 76 50 84  [e-mail] 


Alcatel-LucentInvestor Relations
Rémi Thomas  Tel: + 33 (0)1 40 76 50 61  [e-mail]  

John DeBono  Tel: + 1908-582-7793  [e-mail]  

Tony Lucido  Tel: + 33 (0)1 40 76 49 80  [e-mail] 

Don Sweeney  Tel: + 1 908 582 6153  [e-mail] 


Copyright Hugin
Information réglementée : Type : Nouvelle information Thème(s): Communiqués au titre de l'obligation d'information permanente - Autres communiqués
[CN#134847]
http://www.companynewsgroup.com/documents/LOGOS_SOCIETE/1029_alcatellucent.jpg
134847
Document CPNYEN0020080403e443000gp
Alcatel-Lucent Strengthens Leadership in Optical Networking for 2007 According to Ovum RHK
821 words

3 April 2008

09:21 AM

PR Newswire Europe

TWOTEN

English

Copyright © 2008 PR Newswire Europe Limited. All Rights Reserved.
PARIS, April 3 /PRNewswire/ --
- 29% Yearly Growth Confirms Leadership for the Seventh Year in a row
Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) further reinforces its optical networking leadership by consolidating its #1 position with a 24% market share for the full year 2007, according to Ovum RHK.
" Alcatel-Lucent exceeded our expectation of their performance in optical networking for 2007, breaking the 'law of big numbers' to outstrip the growth of the market for the year by registering a 29% growth versus the 24% of the market as a whole," said Dana Cooperson, Vice President of the Optical Infrastructure at Ovum RHK. "Overall, Alcatel-Lucent grew year over year in the high growth segments, 51% in the multi-reach DWDM segment and 54% in metro WDM, but also in the aggregation space with a 21% increase and in the optical cross-connects segment with a 35% growth."
The on-going IP network transformation in fixed and mobile networks, across regions and technologies continued to be a key driver of Alcatel-Lucent's performance, along with the continued momentum in mobile backhaul infrastructure deployment, the growing demand for Ethernet-based services for business customers and business expansion in non-traditional buyer segments including cable MSO, government and enterprises. Furthermore, ROADM-based solutions continued to gain traction, especially in Europe.
"The continued success of our solutions further confirms the role that optical networking has in competitive transformation," said Romano Valussi, President of Alcatel-Lucent's Optics activities. "Our performance was directly attributable to addressing market requirements and ability of executing our technology leadership that was further enhanced with innovations to meet video and Triple Play service demands, bandwidth growth and mobile traffic requirements."
Customer announcements in 2007 included: Belnet (Belgium), the Chinese Government as the sole supplier of China's largest high-speed e-government backbone network and China Mobile, Globacom (Nigeria), Hanaro Telecom and SK Telecom in Korea, I21 CAT Foundation and Telefónica in Spain, NORDUNet (Nordics), Total E&P Indonesie, Transpower in New Zealand, University of Pittsburg Medical Center (UPMC) in the U.S., T-Mobile Czech (Czech Republic) and the completion of the optical-data network for DANTE in the framework of Europe's largest research network GÉANT2.
Leveraging its technology and innovation leadership, Alcatel-Lucent is spearheading the transformation to all packet transport. Alcatel-Lucent integrates its experience, leading portfolio and innovative vision into optical and wireless transport solutions that support a broad range of blended service applications - such as triple play, Carrier Ethernet connectivity, Mobile TV and 2G/3G mobile backhaul - exceeding customer needs in the fixed, mobile, submarine and vertical markets.
According to Ovum RHK, Alcatel-Lucent also continues to lead for full year 2007 the aggregation segment with a 23.3% market share, the wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) segment with an 18.4% market share and # 1 position in both metro WDM and multi-reach dense WDM segments, and the bandwidth management segment, including digital and optical cross-connects, with a market share of 32.6%.
About Ovum RHK
Ovum RHK provides market research advisory services to telecoms equipment and component vendors and service providers alike. Ovum RHK is part of Ovum, a Datamonitor company, advising on the commercial impact of technology and market changes in telecoms, with offices in London, Paris, Cologne, Boston, Melbourne, Seoul and San José.
About Alcatel-Lucent
Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) provides solutions that enable service providers, enterprise and governments worldwide, to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users. As a leader in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP technologies, applications and services, Alcatel-Lucent offers the end-to-end solutions that enable compelling communications services for people at home, at work and on the move. With operations in more than 130 countries, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with global reach. The company has the most experienced global services team in the industry, and one of the largest research, technology and innovation organizations in the telecommunications industry. Alcatel-Lucent achieved revenues of Euro 17.8 billion in 2007 and is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris. For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on the Internet: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com
Alcatel-Lucent
1829308.xml
Document TWOTEN0020080403e443001md
Alcatel-Lucent Strengthens Leadership in Optical Networking for 2007 According to Ovum RHK; 29% Yearly Growth Confirms Leadership for the Seventh Year in a row
829 words

3 April 2008

09:25 AM

PR Newswire (U.S.)

PRN

English

Copyright © 2008 PR Newswire Association LLC. All Rights Reserved.
PARIS, April 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) further reinforces its optical networking leadership by consolidating its #1 position with a 24% market share for the full year 2007, according to Ovum RHK.
" Alcatel-Lucent exceeded our expectation of their performance in optical networking for 2007, breaking the 'law of big numbers' to outstrip the growth of the market for the year by registering a 29% growth versus the 24% of the market as a whole," said Dana Cooperson, Vice President of the Optical Infrastructure at Ovum RHK. "Overall, Alcatel-Lucent grew year over year in the high growth segments, 51% in the multi-reach DWDM segment and 54% in metro WDM, but also in the aggregation space with a 21% increase and in the optical cross-connects segment with a 35% growth."
The on-going IP network transformation in fixed and mobile networks, across regions and technologies continued to be a key driver of Alcatel-Lucent's performance, along with the continued momentum in mobile backhaul infrastructure deployment, the growing demand for Ethernet-based services for business customers and business expansion in non-traditional buyer segments including cable MSO, government and enterprises. Furthermore, ROADM-based solutions continued to gain traction, especially in Europe.
"The continued success of our solutions further confirms the role that optical networking has in competitive transformation," said Romano Valussi, President of Alcatel-Lucent's Optics activities. "Our performance was directly attributable to addressing market requirements and ability of executing our technology leadership that was further enhanced with innovations to meet video and Triple Play service demands, bandwidth growth and mobile traffic requirements."
Customer announcements in 2007 included: Belnet (Belgium), the Chinese Government as the sole supplier of China's largest high-speed e-government backbone network and China Mobile, Globacom (Nigeria), Hanaro Telecom and SK Telecom in Korea, I21 CAT Foundation and Telefonica in Spain, NORDUNet (Nordics), Total E&P Indonesie, Transpower in New Zealand, University of Pittsburg Medical Center (UPMC) in the U.S., T-Mobile Czech (Czech Republic) and the completion of the optical-data network for DANTE in the framework of Europe's largest research network GEANT2.
Leveraging its technology and innovation leadership, Alcatel-Lucent is spearheading the transformation to all packet transport. Alcatel-Lucent integrates its experience, leading portfolio and innovative vision into optical and wireless transport solutions that support a broad range of blended service applications - such as triple play, Carrier Ethernet connectivity, Mobile TV and 2G/3G mobile backhaul - exceeding customer needs in the fixed, mobile, submarine and vertical markets.
According to Ovum RHK, Alcatel-Lucent also continues to lead for full year 2007 the aggregation segment with a 23.3% market share, the wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) segment with an 18.4% market share and # 1 position in both metro WDM and multi-reach dense WDM segments, and the bandwidth management segment, including digital and optical cross-connects, with a market share of 32.6%.
About Ovum RHK
Ovum RHK provides market research advisory services to telecoms equipment and component vendors and service providers alike. Ovum RHK is part of Ovum, a Datamonitor company, advising on the commercial impact of technology and market changes in telecoms, with offices in London, Paris, Cologne, Boston, Melbourne, Seoul and San Jose.
About Alcatel-Lucent
Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) provides solutions that enable service providers, enterprise and governments worldwide, to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users. As a leader in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP technologies, applications and services, Alcatel-Lucent offers the end-to-end solutions that enable compelling communications services for people at home, at work and on the move. With operations in more than 130 countries, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with global reach. The company has the most experienced global services team in the industry, and one of the largest research, technology and innovation organizations in the telecommunications industry. Alcatel-Lucent achieved revenues of Euro 17.8 billion in 2007 and is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris. For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on the Internet: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com
SOURCE Alcatel-Lucent
200804030925PR_NEWS_USPR_____UKTH013.xml
Document PRN0000020080403e443004h5
Overseas trade - International marketing strategy.
802 words

2 April 2008

Petroleum Review

PETREW

46

English

(c) Energy Institute, All rights reserved
Recognising that energy is vital to our existence and sustainable energy is key to our future, UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) is the government organisation that helps UK-based companies succeed in international markets and assists overseas companies to bring high-quality investment to the UK, writes John Strang, Trade Development Manager, UKTI.
Globally, more than £10tn/y will be spent supplying energy by 2030. New technology-driven growth sectors - including clean coal power generation, non-hydrocarbon transportation fuel (biofuels and fuel cells) and renewable energy (wind, wave, tide stream and bioenergy from waste) - could account for more than £1tn of the total, with an increasing trend.
In an ever-changing and challenging global landscape, the UK's energy sector is thriving. However, we cannot be complacent - increasing competition from developing markets means we must become more internationally focused in order to remain at the forefront of sustainable and clean energy technology development, and keep ahead of the competition.
It is expected that demand for energy supply will rise by 50% globally by 2030. Exploiting these potential opportunities is a key aim of 'UK Energy Excellence: An International Marketing Strategy for the UK's Energy Business' - a strategy launched by UKTI and Lord Digby Jones on 17 December 2007.* Developed on behalf of, and in close consultation, with sector experts, UK businesses and government departments, the strategy will be taken forward by an industry-led team to promote UK expertise to an international audience.
The strategy examines UK expertise in meeting future global energy demand, identifying challenges and opportunities towards 2030. It will be a business-led initiative and will create a working partnership between UK energy companies and government to develop real solutions to some of the global challenges arising from climate change.
UK energy companies currently generate revenues of more than £90bn from domestic and international business, employing 600,000 people. These statistics are expected to rise to a staggering £200bn and 1mn employees by 2030. Our established expertise in traditional energy sectors has created an export value estimated to reach £19.4bn in 2007 and we have worked hard to offer a highly regarded investment market.
This strategy will provide the UK with a unified, compelling voice to sell and promote our capabilities. It will help to maintain our momentum, but also provide focus for new growth sectors including clean coal power generation, non-hydro carbon transport fuel, carbon capture infrastructure development and the advancement of photovoltaics.
The UK is well positioned to exploit the international appetite for technological innovation and we must realise our potential in high growth markets from China, India, Russia and Brazil to Kazakhstan, Libya, Nigeria and Venezuela. UK business has the potential to provide real solutions to the challenge of climate change and ensuring a secure and diverse energy mix. These solutions will further position the UK as the international partner of choice.
Positioning the UK as a worldwide hub for energy technology development and application, and offering the UK's energy sector the loudest possible voice on the world stage, are key priorities of the strategy. Other elements include:
- Identifying opportunities for the UK to make a leading contribution to the provision of cleaner, high-value energy, including low-carbon options.
- Developing a world first, prototype online database mapping tool of expertise across the whole energy field - matching areas of expertise against available opportunities.
- Capitalising on the UK's strong research base and world-leading academic institutions, and engaging a skilled and experienced workforce to deliver technological innovation.
- Providing a framework for the establishment of an energy sector marketing board. This will help shape the UK energy brand and identify and prioritise key global opportunities so that the UK and UK businesses continue to be world leaders in sustainable energy technology, striving for a sustainable future for all.
Waves of change
The changing energy landscape is also reflected in this year's Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston, which is themed 'Waves of Change'. UKTI will offer a full programme of briefing and networking events, showcasing UK capability and highlighting the range of international opportunities available to UK companies. Members of UKTI's global energy team based in embassies, consulates and high commissions around the world will be at OTC to meet with companies and explain how UKTI can help you access these exciting new opportunities.
UK Energy Minister Rt Hon Malcolm Wicks MP will lead the UK group at this year's event, highlighting how the UK is meeting these new challenges and working towards building a sustainable future.
For more information on UKTI activities at OTC 2008, visit www.ukatotc.com
Visit UKTI at OTC 2008 at Block 2441, Stand 2457, Hall C/D/E.
*The full strategy can be downloaded at www.uktradeinvest.gov.uk .
Document PETREW0020080403e4420002d

Industry News - China's US$50bn For Nigerian Infrastructure
798 words

2 April 2008

Business Monitor International

EMDN

English

© Copyright 2008 Business Monitor International.