THE ROLE OF SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES (SME) ON THE ECONOMY

SME is the productive economic activity widely occupied by the people to sustain their household economy, community, and nation's economy. The SME sector can stand firmly as one of the economic prime-movers for many circles within the community, providing and absorbing workforce to decrease unemployment in the society. The presence of SMEs can also provide added value on farming products so that the farming commodity may increase its usefulness value. This article aims to discuss the role of SMEs in the Indonesian economy. The research method implemented in arranging this study is a literature study by reviewing articles published by the previous writers and examining the abstract of those researches. Based on the literature study, this research concluded that SME presence, either internationally, nationally, or developing economic growth in various regions in Indonesia. The SME has the crucial meaning and roles for developing and increasing the income (PDB and PDRB), provider and employee/workforce, diminishing poverty rate, increasing investment rate, increasing foreign commerce through export, and contributing tax as the state income sources.

The United States and the Portuguese Atlantic

Due to treaties between the British and Portuguese empires, Portugal and its Atlantic islands had served as some of the most important trade destinations of British Americans prior to the American Revolution. After US independence, however, Portugal restricted North American access to Portuguese markets. As a result, North Americans anticipated a day when they could trade with independent, republican Brazilians. For their part, however, Brazilians followed a different trajectory toward independence. The Portuguese monarchy liberalized trade in the 1790s to avoid uncomfortable associations of free trade and republican revolution. During the Napoleonic Wars, the Portuguese court relocated from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro to save the empire, opening Brazil to foreign commerce in the process. As a result of such reforms, Brazilians rarely equated republicanism with free trade. After the court returned to Lisbon in 1821 and Brazilians declared independence in 1822, Brazil adopted a monarchy rather than a republic. Brazil disrupted North Americans’ tidy narrative of the Americas as a hemisphere of republics contrasted with European monarchies.

A importância do café para São Tomé e Príncipe frente à proibição do comércio de escravizados pela Inglaterra

<p>Este artigo aborda a cultura cafeeira em São Tomé e Príncipe durante o período imediatamente posterior à proibição inglesa do comércio de escravizados em 1807. Considerada a cultura capaz de desenvolver a agricultura no arquipélago, o café, apesar da resistência inicial ao seu cultivo, manteve o interesse e a presença de embarcações estrangeiras quando da interdição inglesa e da isenção de ancoragem concedida pela Coroa portuguesa a todos os navios do Brasil que comercializavam na Costa da Mina; desde que fossem recolhidos os direitos aos portos onde ocorreram as barganhas comerciais. Beneficiando-se da demanda existente e da qualidade, o grão aos poucos conquistou o interesse e foi apontado como a cultura que ajudaria a superar o cenário de proibição do comércio de sua maior receita alfandegária até então, o comércio de escravizados.</p><p>The Importance of Coffee for São Tomé and Príncipe in View of the Prohibition of Slave Trade by England</p><p>This article addresses coffee farming in São Tomé and Príncipe just after the English ban on the slave trade in 1807. Considered a key crop for of the development of agriculture in the archipelago, despite initial resistance to its cultivation, coffee maintained foreign commerce when the English ban and the anchorage exemption granted by the Portuguese crown to Brazilian ships trading in the Costa da Mina provided rights to the ports where the commercial bargains occurred. Benefiting from the demand for quality coffee beans, the crop gradually won the interest of local producers seeking to overcome the negative economic impact of the ban on the islands’ largest source of customs revenue: the commerce in enslaved people.</p><p>Coffee | Sao Tomé and Príncipe | Slave trade</p>

Transformation of foreign commerce of Ukraine: realities, problems, perspectives

The paper analyzes transformations of foreign trade in goods of Ukraine in 2000-2017. The choice of the study period is due to the fact that the "recovery" and the gradual growth of the Ukrainian economy after the long crisis of the 1990s has began since 2000. Ukraine had a mostly negative foreign commercial balance (except for 2000-2004 and 2015); generally balanced foreign trade; dangerous import dependency ratio; extremely economy openness index; the high exports ratio in 2000-2017. The volumes of export, imports and foreign commercial turnover had unstable dynamics with negative trends in 2008-2009 and 2013-2015. Base metals and their ware; plant products; animal or plant fats and oils were prevailed in the export component of the foreign commerce; mineral products; machines, equipment and mechanisms, electric and technical equipment; products of chemical and derivative industries were dominant in the structure of import in 2017. The export was characterized by increase in the share of products of the primary sector (due to crop production) and decrease in the secondary sector (due to metallurgy, machine building, chemical and textile industry) during 2001-2017. The import was characterized by decrease in the share of raw materials and increase in the share of all other goods during the mentioned period. Commodity structure of foreign trade became more proportional, without a highly dominant product. The Russian Federation, Poland, Turkey, Italy, India were the key partners in the export of goods, while those ones in the import were the Russian Federation, China, Germany, Poland, Belarus. The key partners remained during 2001-2017 (the Russian Federation, Poland, Turkey, Italy, China, Germany were key partner in export; In the import - the Russian Federation, Germany, Poland, Belarus, the USA, Italy were key partner in import. Despite the drastic decrease in trade relations with the Russian Federation, it remains the largest partner in the Ukrainian foreign commerce. Among the regions of the world, the largest trading partner of Ukraine in recent years is Europe with relevant reduction of CIS countries in the common share. It is necessary to provide a set of measures aimed at increasing the efficiency of export activity and import substitution in the certain sectors of the economy to balance foreign commerce of Ukraine.