China and the World Trade Organization Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

China and the World Trade Organization - Essay Example The main function of this body is to carry out and facilitate multilateral negotiations so as to improve the movement of goods and services in an open market and also to reduce trade barriers and such other bottlenecks, which actually bring unhealthy or poor competition in the market. It would be acting as a platform for its members to speak about their difficulties with their trading partners and in this way ultimately leading to the economic development of its members. Currently there are 145 members for WTO (The World Trade Organization and Agriculture, 2004). So the ultimate aim of WTO is to develop the economy of all its member countries whether it is developed, developing or least developed, to ensure employment for all through better production of goods and services and better standard of living for all (The basics of WTO. 2000). China joined WTO in the year 2001. A lot of commitments were made by China while joining WTO. According to that all the imports were to be exempted from trade tariffs. There is also domestic price liberalization and thus the price of the domestic as well as international price has almost become same. Apart from this tariff rate quotas replaced import quotas and licenses were abolished. In sectors such as telecommunications, insurance etc foreign participation was encouraged (WTO successfully concludes negotiations on China's entry, 2001). All these commitments increased transparency of China's trade regime and helped china to increase its trade volume. The volume of trade of China has increased from about $200 billion to more than $750 billion within four years after it's joining in WTO (The China Business review, 2006). There has been a change in the items of export as well. Before 2001 agricultural produce, leather, plastic items etc were the main exports, but after 2001, it is the electrical goods, machinery, power generation equipment etc. The imports also increased considerably in these 4 years and the main items include heavy equipments, machineries, vehicles and their parts etc. Export and import with United States increased to more than double during this period. China became the top supplier of consumer goods. The trade is increasing nearly 29% annually. Thus it could be seen that after joining WTO, China has made tremendous progress in its trade especially to United States and other developed countries. It has become the fourth largest economy in the world by the year 2006 (Yong, 2009). Thus the World Trade Organization which was formed as a result of increased globalization and liberalization, in order to facilitate trade across the countries has resulted in the development of economies not only of the developed countries such as US, UK, Germany etc, it has also helped the developed countries such as China to make tremendous progress in the trade and economy. Works Cited The basics of WTO [online] Available at: http://www.iisd.org/trade/handbook/3_2.htm 2000. (accessed on 12th June 2009) The China Business review [online] Available at: http://www.chinabusinessreview.com/public/0609/ChinaData.pdf 2006

The Challenges Faced by Small and Medium Scale Enterprises in Nigeria Dissertation

The Challenges Faced by Small and Medium Scale Enterprises in Nigeria - Dissertation Example The study will therefore cover these topics and will try to determine the issues faced by the SMEs in Nigeria. 3. Aims of the dissertation To identify the issues and the challenges faced by the SMEs in Nigeria. To recognize how the SMEs of Nigeria are presently dealing with it To provide recommendations regarding how the situation of SMEs in Nigeria can be improved 4. Dissertation’s position in the existing literature Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are the small firms or companies whose numbers of employees are considerably less and operate independently (Analoui and Karami, 2003). Moreover, the yearly turnover of these companies is less as and when compared with a large organization. However, in many countries SMEs outnumber large organizations by a broad margin. According to reports, every year around 600,000 new SMEs are registered throughout the world. However, only 10 % of them sustains in the market. The remaining 90 % close down within two years of operation (Teall , 2012). Throughout the world small scale and micro enterprises are considered as an instrument of driving the economic growth (Johnson and Turner, 2010). Apart from that, they also play a crucial role in creating employment opportunities in a country. For this reason, especially government of most of the developing nations have put in tremendous efforts to enhance the competences of small and medium scale enterprises. However, despite the government’s effort and cooperation from financial institutions, SMEs have fallen short of expectations in many countries of the world. Similarly, in the context of Nigeria, SMEs have failed to meet the government’s expectation and have not played a vibrant role in the economic prosperity of Nigeria. This has caused serious concerns that whether SMEs have the capacity to bring economic development in Nigeria. SMEs have to deal with several challenges which reduce their capability to function and contribute substantially to the nation al economy (Onugu, 2005). This study will identify and examine the challenges faced by small and medium scale enterprises in Nigeria. Once the challenges are identified, the study will also recommend some of the possible ways by which the challenges can be surmounted. 4.1 Characteristics of SMEs in Nigeria As such, there is no definition of an SME, as the classification of businesses into small scale and large scale is based on qualitative judgement and is also subjective in nature. in addition, different countries have set different criteria for judging and classifying a SME. In order to cite an example, countries such as UK, USA and Canada consider the number of paid employees and annual turnover to categorize businesses (Ayyagari, Beck and Demirguc-Kunt, 2005). In the context of UK, a business is said to fall under the SMEs, if it has an annual turnover of ?2 million or less and cumulative employee strength of less than 200. On the other hand in Japan, small scale enterprises are defined in terms of paid up capital, type of industry and the number of paid employees. Consequently, in Japan the manufacturing companies are tagged as SMEs if they have ? 100 million as the paid up capital and around 300 employees. The wholesalers are classified as SMEs if they have ? 30 million as paid up capital and 100 employees. The services and retail trade are considered SMEs if they