Duty-free market access in the Republic of Korea: Potential for least developed countries and Bangladesh

The paper attempts to assess the benefits of Duty-Free and Quota-Free Market (DFQF) access initiatives of the Republic of Korea for least developed countries (LDCs), which have been in place since 1 January 2008. Following a brief introduction on the background of this initiative, this paper examines the exports profile of LDCs, reviews the DFQF scheme of the Republic of Korea, and assesses the potential benefits of the DFQF scheme for LDCs as well as Bangladesh. The export profile of LDCs shows that the share of those countries in world exports in recent years has increased; this can be attributed to price increases for petroleum constituting a major share of LDC total exports. The Republic of Korea is the tenth largest destination of LDC exports, which indicates that the DFQF initiatives of the Republic of Korea for LDCs will have a positive impact on LDC exports. The DFQF scheme of the Republic of Korea covers 6,967 tariff lines, representing about 59 per cent of the all tariff lines of its Customs Schedule. There are at least 25 chapters where product coverage within the chapter is very low, notably below 10 per cent. These include garments, made-up textiles, and major agricultural products including fisheries. Among the DFQF lines, 1,464 lines are duty-free on a most-favoured nation (MFN) basis. Hence, LDCs enjoy tariff preferences on 5,503 tariff lines, while the average margin of preference on these lines is 7.89 per cent. The margin of preferences in most cases is either 6 per cent or 8 per cent. In order to enjoy the preference granted under the scheme, the products should be wholly obtained, or should have at least 50 per cent value addition. Analysis also reveals that the DFQF scheme covers 36.1 per cent of LDCs’ export to the Republic of Korea in 2007, keeping 64.9 per cent of current LDC exports to that country outside the purview of preferential treatment. Only three major export items from LDCs – copper cathodes, raw tobacco and plywood – enjoy -free access. Bangladesh, Congo, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Malawi, Myanmar, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia are likely to benefit from duty-free access for these items. The Republic of Korea is the seventh-largest destination for Bangladesh exports. Bangladesh enjoys preferential access to the Republic of Korea under the Asia-Pacific Trade Agreement (APTA). DFQF access for LDCs adds 5,471 tariff lines for Bangladesh under preferential access. However, analysis shows that the additional lines cover only 4.63 per cent of Bangladesh’s exports to the Republic of Korea in 2007. However, there are important apparel articles in the scheme that may yield benefits for Bangladesh. APTA continues to remain attractive to Bangladesh because of higher trade coverage and more relaxed rules of origin. Nevertheless, the DFQF scheme currently offered by the Republic of Korea is a milestone for the developing countries’ initiative for LDCs, and one that is likely to lead to other countries coming up with similar initiatives. In time, the Republic of Korea is likely to incrementally increase the product coverage, which will lead to higher trade coverage and more favourable rules of origin, and will yield significant benefits for LDCs.least developed countries, Bangladesh, Korea, market access,

CXCR4 chemokine receptor antagonists : new metallodrugs

Chemokine receptors are a target of growing interest for new therapeutic drugs, as their role in multiple disease states has been demonstrated. The CXCR4/ CXCL12 pairing has been implicated in HIV and cancer, as well as chronic inflammatory diseases, including asthma and rheumatoid arthritis. HIV uses CXCR4 or CCR5 receptors in the key binding step of the infection process, leading to the idea that drugs could be developed to block this interaction. Cancer metastasis has also been linked to cellular communication via the chemokine pathways and hence, receptor antagonists could potentially inhibit this important pathway of disease progression. Small synthetic CXCR4 antagonists exist including AMD3100 (Mozobil®/Plerixafor), which has been identified as a potent CXCR4 antagonist exhibiting anti-HIV, anti-inflammatory and anti-tumour activity. Configurationally restricted analogues of AMD3100 complexed to metal ions have improved binding characteristics compared to AMD3100 and its metal complexes.Herein we report the binding of a new class of cyclen, cyclam and tris-cyclam based complexes in vitro. Compounds competed effectively in anti-CXCR4 competition assays with the tricyclam linear complex displaying improved binding characteristics. The difference in activity of the compounds is discussed in relation to the different possible binding interactions that are occurring. Furthermore, a monocyclam derivative conjugated to biotin competed effectively in competition with a CXCR4 mAb, however could not directly be detected via a fluorescent conjugated streptavidin molecule.Our most potent compound to date, copper(II) cross-bridged bicyclam was found to have a significant higher relative residence time in CXCR4 compared to AMD3100 and copper(II) AMD3100 in vitro. Moreover, copper(II) cross-bridged bicyclam was able to totally block CXCL12 induced and partially block serum induced, invasion of CXCR4 positive cancer cells with a higher potency than AMD3100 and copper(II) AMD3100. This shows the potential of using such a drug in the clinic.Using CXCR4 mutants, it has been shown that CXCR4 defective degradation and recycling increases invasion in breast cancer cells. Moreover the development of a multicellular tumour spheroid (MTS) is reported that could be used as a preclinical model in the evaluation of the anti-cancer activity of CXCR4 antagonists

Milk Supply Chain and Efficiency of Smallholder Dairy Producers in Pakistan

Many developing countries are re-orienting their production and marketing systems by linking local agri-producers with organized supply chain networks and supermarkets to meet increasing consumer demands. However, the existing literature is silent on the effects of such integration on relative inefficiency of smallholder producers. This paper analyzes the effects of such supply chains using data from a natural experiment in the dairy sector of Pakistan. We study the impact of rural milk supply chain, known as milk district, on smallholder efficiency of commercial dairy producers by employing stochastic production frontier and technical inefficiency effects model using survey data of 800 dairy households. While location of dairy households in our sample is exogenously determined, building of milk supply chain indeed decreases technical inefficiency. We detect stronger power of milk district in further reducing technical inefficiency if the farms are located in remote areas, or if their size is relatively large. The advice to policy makers from these results conforms to the standard economic view that market competition leads to decreased levels of technical inefficiency of smallholder producers.supply chain, Production frontiers, Dairy efficiency, Food policy

Impact of Supply of Money on Food and General Price Indices: A Case of Pakistan

The paper probed the impact of supply of money on food and general price indices by estimating a series of equations taking CPI food, CPI general, WPI food, WPI general, GDP deflator and SPI as measures of inflation and M1, M2 and M3 supply of money as explanatory variables. For analysis, OLS technique is used covering time series data for the years 1975-76 to 2006-07 that was made stationary by Durbin-Watson criterion. AR (1) is used to check autocorrelation. The results for CPI food, CPI general, WPI general, GDP deflator and SPI show that they are negatively related with M1 supply of money. CPI food, CPI general, WPI general, GDP deflator, and SPI are also negatively related with M2 supply of money. The results show that CPI food, CPI general, WPI general, GDP deflator and SPI are positively related with M3 supply of money. It may be concluded that supply of money M1 and M2 affects the food and general indices in the same way. However, M1 supply of money affects the CPI general strongly than CPI food.Inflation, Money supply, Consumer Price Index, Food prices, Sensitive Price Indicator.

Disks Around Merging Binary Black Holes: From GW150914 to Supermassive Black Holes

We perform magnetohydrodynamic simulations in full general relativity of disk accretion onto nonspinning black hole binaries with mass ratio 36:29. We survey different disk models which differ in their scale height, total size and magnetic field to quantify the robustness of previous simulations on the initial disk model. Scaling our simulations to LIGO GW150914 we find that such systems could explain possible gravitational wave and electromagnetic counterparts such as the Fermi GBM hard X-ray signal reported 0.4s after GW150915 ended. Scaling our simulations to supermassive binary black holes, we find that observable flow properties such as accretion rate periodicities, the emergence of jets throughout inspiral, merger and post-merger, disk temperatures, thermal frequencies, and the time-delay between merger and the boost in jet outflows that we reported in earlier studies display only modest dependence on the initial disk model we consider here.Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures, 5 tables, added discussion and references, matches published versio

To Highlight the Usability Issues in the Bangladesh Universities Websites

Websites are the mean of exploring the information from the internet and have a significance role in the field of internet. Usability also plays an important role in the exploration of the websites. The objective of this paper is to highlight the usability issues in the Bangladesh universities websites and giving the suggestions about the usability of the websites regarding its fulfillment of the rules and provide an easy way for the user to use the website smoothly and with no time consumption. After checking of some parameters regarding the usability of the websites, it was concluded that some websites have the rules fulfillment gap due to which a user is not facilitated properly in exploration these sites. There is one university which completely follows the rules according to the mentioned parameters regarding the usability. It was concluded that all websites should be developed around the fixed rules and regulations and they should strictly follow these rules in facilitating the new and experienced users

The State of Pakistan’s Dairy Sector : An Assessment

While there is a plethora of research documenting a multitude of dimensions of the crop sector of Pakistan, there is virtual absence of meaningful economic analysis of the dairy economy that is surprising. No serious attempt has been made in the past to clarify the micro-level potential of this sector in creating an impact on rural economy. This paper is a pioneering attempt to provide an objective assessment of the state of Pakistans dairy and to point out areas of further research. The paper analyzes some core issues and highlights the potentials, and recommends measures that could be adopted.dairy, rural economy, research areas

Relationship between Employees Motivation and Turnover Intention: Empirical Study of Traffic Police of District Charsadda

Motivation is the combination of all the factors both external and internal that stimulate desire and energy in people and make them constantly interested and committed to a job, role or subject, and enable them to make efforts for achieving organizational goals. Less motivated people can cause low performance, bad inspiration for co-workers, employees burnout etc. every organization tries to utilize their employees in an optimal way but sometimes motivation does restrict their desired goals. As an employer expects his personnel to perform, employees also expect something in return, which works as stimulus for motivation and when employees expectations are not fulfilled, addressed they simply leave the organization. This study was approached with the purpose of finding the perceived level of motivation (both intrinsic and extrinsic) and its effect upon employee's turnover intention. Data were collected through predesigned, self administered questionnaire. 62 respondents participated actively . For data investigation statistical measures like percentage, frequency, correlation and linear regression were used. For determining the validity Cronbach's alpha was used and it found that all the variables values stood above the minimum level of 0.70. showing the reliability of the data. The end results showed that both intrinsic motivation and over all motivation had effects upon turnover intention and it was concluded that there is significant and empirical correlation between motivation and turnover intention and also between intrinsic motivation and turnover intention

A Usability Assessment of Pakistani Universities/Institutions Websites

Websites are playing a very important role in field of information Technology. Usability is also of much importance in exploring the websites. The objective of this paper is assessing the usability of the websites of the Pakistani Universities and giving the idea of developing the websites of the universities/institutions fulfilling the user needs. Different parameters were analyzed in light of usability in the websites of different universities in Pakistan. It was evaluated that these universities websites have the errors in the parameters not following the rules of usability. The usability of websites of different universities/institutions of Pakistan can be improved applying the one rule for every factor so that the user can encounter every task easily with no tedious effort and confusion. These rules of usability should be announced by the government and the universities should be limited in these rules to facilitate the fresh and experienced users