Transformation of the Relationship Between Grocery Retail Chains and Their Suppliers in the New Economic Context

The present-day economic situation affected by the pandemic are causing certain changes in the relationships between grocery retailers and producers. The article studies transformation of these relationships, including agreements and conflicts, in the context of a new trading formats and the emergence of a new grocery market infrastructure. The authors state that the key problem of relationships between the two parties is unreasonable extra requirements that retail chains commonly expect suppliers to meet. The hypothesis based on the analysis of the up-to-date sources of information assumes that the conflicts are usually caused by pricing, logistics and marketing barriers set by retail chains in the process of signing deals. Basing on the results of a statistic and factor analysis and on the empirical quantity and quality data, the authors study the opportunity of applying a new strategy of interaction between grocery retailers and producers.

Fruit and Vegetable Seed Production and Marketing: Existing Practice and Perception of Vegetbale Seed Farmers and Sellers in Bangladesh

Bangladesh has the largest river delta in the world and is known as the basin of South Asia. Accordingly, Bangladesh is naturally fertile, which is the main factor that provides the country with a huge opportunity to produce fruit and vegetable seeds. However, the lack of quality seed production, insufficient seed supply, and lack of seed preservation systems make the seed sector unstable. This research attempts to determine the cause of these problems and identify ways to mitigate them and make a sustainable marketing system. A descriptive research method was applied, based on a survey conducted in Bangladesh in three major seed producing divisions, namely: Dhaka, Chittagong, and Mymensingh. The data were gathered from 40 farmers and 40 retailers & wholesalers who were chosen at random, and the data was analysed in Microsoft Excel. The objective of the study is to analyze marketing practices of vegetable and fruit seeds, the problems of vegetable and fruit seed distribution, and to propose a method for the sustainable distribution of vegetable and fruit seeds. The results showed a lack of genuine and timely market information, poor institutions and arrangements, and poor marketing infrastructure. These findings are indicative of poor marketing efficiency and thereby suboptimal operation of the seed marketing system. Hence, the results found in this study should help to institute appropriate measures for production, market infrastructure, arrangements, and institutions to improve the inefficient functioning of the seed marketing system.

Market Infrastructure and Species Availability of Four Wholesale Fish Markets in Dhaka City, Bangladesh

The study was conducted on species availability and infrastructure analysis of four different wholesale fish markets in Dhaka City. Two markets were selected from Dhaka South City Corporation, Showari Ghat and Jatrabari fish market, and two from Dhaka North City Corporation, Karwan Bazar and Abdullahpur fish market. The investigation was carried out from November 2018 to October 2019. Questionnaire based survey, FGDs (Focus Group Discussion) and KIIs (Key Informant Interviews) were conducted to get quantitative and qualitative data for present study. A total number of 62 fishes and 6 crustacean species were recorded during the study period. Among all species, 39 freshwater, 10 marine and 13 exotic fishes were recorded. Infrastructure facilities were very poor for all four markets in the matter of hygiene and quality control. Fish shades were not enough, improper sanitation and drainage system indicates the possibilities of disease transmission and deteriorate fish quality. Electricity and water supplies were good but no system was present to determine the distillation of those supplied water. Thus, infrastructural condition of the markets does not support a hygienic condition for fish marketing to provide quality fish and fish byproducts. The study highlighted the need for national initiatives, awareness building, and law implementation for improving the wholesale markets infrastructure to a minimum standard so that fish trade could provide good quality to the people of Dhaka City Bangladesh J. Zool. 49 (2): 289-300, 2021

Banking and Finance in South Africa

The importance of the financial sector is widely recognized by the public––who use and benefit from the products and services of the different financial industries––bank loans, insurance products, investments, and the payments system (to name a few). This chapter describes the different financial intermediaries, financial auxiliaries, and financial market infrastructure that comprise the sophisticated South African financial sector. Emphasis is placed on the banks whose liabilities (deposits) are uniquely the means of payment (money) and whose assets are loans to businesses, households, and the government. The role of banks is straightforward, but their basic fragility and risks they face in an uncertain world are complex. Failure of a major financial intermediary within the context of a deeply integrated system will have significant costs for the rest of the economy. For this reason, regulation tends to err on the side of caution, where stability is prioritized. This leads to a system where conservativism rules and profitability for the systemically important institutions is virtually assured. The chapter argues for greater awareness of the regulatory compromises given that the success of the sector is not costless to society.

Financial market infrastructure in Ukraine: consequences of legislative update

The defining principle of the effective functioning of the infrastructure of financial markets is a proper legal basis. It is emphasized that the general principles of infrastructure construction in the context of globalization should provide predictability, clarity and familiarity for international investors. This is most important for immature markets, where legal uncertainty, along with other objective difficulties in the functioning of the infrastructure, hinders the development and attraction of investment. The article notes the slow pace of modernization of the financial market infrastructure in Ukraine and the lack of significant progress in the implementation of international recommendations and proposals of foreign experts. In the course of the study of the updated Ukrainian legislation in the field of capital markets, its inconsistency with the legislation on payment systems and money transfers, inconsistency of terminology, lack of legal certainty, attribution of most fundamental issues to the regulator's discretion were substantiated. Legislative “innovations” of Law № 738-IX of 19.06.2020 are extremely destructive, and their practical implementation poses a threat to the integrity and operational landscape of the infrastructure of financial markets in Ukraine. It has been found that since the middle of 2021 a rather dubious form of cash settlements has been implemented, which revives the outdated inconvenient payment scheme and until 2023 preserves the monopolistic nature of clearing and settlement services, exposes stock market participants to legal and operational risks. It is stated that the Law does not follow the principles and recommendations developed in detail by international experts. The existence of preconditions in Ukraine for building a modern infrastructure of financial markets is substantiated, which requires a proper legal basis, which should be created taking into account the interests of market participants, active involvement of experts, quality implementation of European legal framework and international practices.

Stock market dysfunctionality in Ukraine: factor of voucher privatisation

The author determines the peculiarities of privatisation processes in transformational economies compared with mature ones and considers the difference of the goal – to accelerate the development of the already existing stock market, and in fact, to create the market anew. Socio-economic transformations, privatisation of property and creation of market infrastructure are prerequisites but not a guarantee for the emergence of the domestic stock market as a specific institutional phenomenon, especially in the absence of adequate incentives for public equity. It is established that some local stock markets are degraded against the background of increasing size, globalisation, liquidity, and integration of world capital markets, including the Ukrainian one. It is stated that, unlike the neighbouring post-socialist states (firstly, Poland), the stock market has not been built in Ukraine as a basis for compelling attraction and allocation of capital. Paper substantiated that this is primarily a consequence of inefficient and protracted privatisation, mainly over-the-counter sale of shares, inconsistency of state and regulatory policy, optional iterations in the development of market infrastructure, the creation irrationality of privatised enterprises (even the smallest) exclusively in the form of open joint-stock companies, which die to their objective inability to raise public capital faced inadequate financial burden and coercion of listing on exchanges. The author identified the main problems of the Ukrainian stock market laid down during privatisation: excessively consolidated share capital structure, insecurity of minorities, meagre free-float and liquidity, conditional exchange pricing, the predominance of over-the-counter circulation of shares, etc. Emphasis is placed on the consequences of the attempt to implement the squeeze-out procedure in Ukraine. In the absence of market prices and the acquisition of control by dominant shareholders long before the legislative changes, the share buyback did not protect minorities. However, it led to significant investors’ losses, termination of circulation of shares of most issuers, even greater conditionality of indices, capitalisation and other indicators of market development. It is noted that the effectiveness of the announced state plans for the development of the stock market due to the privatisation of state property remains in doubt in the absence of prerequisites for balancing economic interests between market participants, the objectivity of pricing, incentives for public capital raising and effective institutional environment. It is concluded that in Ukraine, the focus on privatisation procedures in the stock market development has no prospects in the absence of adequate incentives for the public raising of capital.

The stock market infrastructure development in formation of the investment bank business model in Ukraine

Introduction. Modern trends in the world economy development cause an objective process of increasing stock market role and stimulate forming of investment bank business model in the domestic financial markets. Aim and tasks. The aim is to determine the role of the stock market infrastructure development in formation of the investment bank business model in Ukraine. It is necessary to perform the following tasks to achieve this goal: to determinate direction of Ukrainian financial market development and to analyze dynamic of the structure of loan and investment bank portfolio in last five years which allow to evaluate forming of the investment bank business model in Ukraine; to estimate the stock market infrastructure development through its participants. Results. The analysis of the loan and investment bank portfolio structure has shown rising of banks’ interest to the operations in the stock market and forming of the investment bank business model in Ukraine. But the structure of the investment portfolio of Ukrainian banks is dominated by domestic government bonds. The main reasons of such investment structure: the low total trading volume in the stock market; the absence of other financial instruments in the stock market; the low level of stock market development through the need to form stock market infrastructure. Studying the stock market infrastructure essence has substantiated the using of institutional approach to identify the level of its development. To the infrastructure participants in the stock market it is carried out organization of trade in financial instruments, clearing institutions, depository system, information, analytical and rating agencies. The infrastructural participants of the stock market in Ukraine has been characterized and analyzed. Conclusions. The Ukrainian stock market infrastructure is actively developing in the direction of creating conditions that brings it as close as possible to European and world standards. Such situation will make foundation of the investment bank business model forming. But conducted research has shown that it is necessary, on the one side, to stimulate the increase in stock trading volume and, on the other side, to make the stock market more accessible not only to investors, but to individuals too. The development of information technologies as an integral part of the stock market infrastructure in Ukraine has been worked out.

Rights And Responsibilities In The Labor Market Based On The Platform Economy

Platform employment is a dynamically developing flexible format that can play the role of both primary and secondary employment. Although the available statistics do not allow us to accurately estimate the size of this segment of the economy, we can talk about its large-scale growth, as well as the number of people involved and turnover. The platforms are intermediaries and assistants in the process of providing services. Without employers, they would now become an integral part of the labor market infrastructure. In fact, platforms perform the function of matching supply and demand, and in this sense, they do not hire employees, but serve them themselves and create a convenient platform for clients and clients to find work. In this context, when using platforms, platforms should be seen as partners offering services in the ecosystem they have created.

Small business and social stability of society

In any country in the world, the importance of small business development is great in establishing a stable economic and political environment. Small business is recognized as a guarantor of employment, revenues growth and social stability. In the development of small business, the state's particular interest lies in it's socioeconomic role. Solving problems in a small business is the same as sustained economic development. Development of small business has a special role in the regions of Georgia. Today an important issues are resolved for the development of entrepreneurship. "Rules of the game" of small business are relatively acceptable and stable. An administrative barriers ar fewer. Nevertheless there are still a number of problems in a small business development today. Many institutions of market infrastructure are not fully accessible to small entrepreneurs yet. Anty-monopoly activities are not enough. We don't have different approaches in small business policy by region specifics. The main problem of small entrepreneur is finances , expensive bank loans, which significantly interrupts start-up and development of new business.