Full Coverage: economy

17.04.2008 Bulgaria has received a grant of 300 million euros from the European Union for the development of its information and communication technologies. Although the country has a very high number of mobile and Internet users, there is still a scope for more ICT penetration in small towns and rural areas.

04.04.2008 The use of mobile phone communication for various services is rapidly growing in developing countries. The innovative use of mobile phones in the Philippines: lessons for Africa, a report published by Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency identifies the best practices and lessons learnt from the Philippines experience.

07.03.2008 E-Commerce Asia Summit 2008 is the most prominent forum in Asia attended by major international players and decision makers in e-commerce. Organised by Terrapin from April 9-11, 2008 in Singapore, the summit will be a comprehensive information, solution and networking event to bring fresh air into the Asian e-commerce marketplace.

07.03.2008 Indian IT company Infosys Technologies, in collaboration with an international development organisation, is improving the efficiency of the country's agro supply chain. The ICT-enabled application enables farmers to access technical information like data and images, access to region-specific weather updates and market information such as daily sales volumes and average prices.

20.02.2008 The budding IT industry in Pakistan, currently worth $3 billion, is now looking east towards India to set up its data centres. It is expected that more of its new technology firms would soon seek to leverage Indian expertise and talent.

07.12.2007 IBM could not resist itself from tapping opportunities that the booming private health sector in India offers. The company will provide range of IT solutions from patient record management to creating a vault of information for doctors, nurses, insurers, and much more.

23.11.2007 Moving money will soon be easier, cheaper and user-friendly, once mobile phone money transfer becomes operational. Over 200 million mobile subscribers in India will be among the first beneficiaries of this facility.

07.11.2007 Slow internet connections at cafes in Nairobi will shortly speed up, thanks to a deal soon between the Kenyan government and French/US engineering company Alcatel-Lucent, to lay a fibre-optic cable network in the country.

02.11.2007 UNCTAD has recently launched a blog to stimulate debate on development issues. Heads of international organisations like UNDP, African Development Bank, WTO, WFP, etc. will actively be participating in the blog to share their ideas.

31.10.2007 BangaloreIT.in 2007 - billed as AsiaÂ’s biggest ICT event - got on to a slow start on October 30, with few IT enthusiasts participating on the first day.

25.10.2007 KPO Australia 2007 will bring together enterprise, government and outsourcing providers to promote the key benefits of Knowledge Process Outsourcing at Sydney, from 7 - 9 Nov 2007.

23.10.2007 African countries may have the world's highest growth in mobile phones but still lack basic access to the internet. Better connectivity can help unleash its true economic potential, say business leaders. The upcoming Connect Africa Summit will focus on making ICT capability available for economic development.

09.10.2007 Reuters Market Light (RML), a mobile phone-based service launched by Reuters, will connect India's 250 million farmers with buyers and traders and offer updated pricing information, news and weather updates. So far, 7,500 farmers have signed up for the service.

09.10.2007 Reuters Market Light (RML), a mobile phone-based service launched by Reuters, will connect India's 250 million farmers with buyers and traders and offer updated pricing information, news and weather updates. So far, 7,500 farmers have signed up for the service.

24.08.2007 NOKIA says India has become one of the largest markets and overtook the United States in the second quarter to become its second-biggest market by sales after China.

22.08.2007 The Spices Board of India is going to launch electronic auction (e-auction) to ensure transparency in commodity trading. The new initiative will provide proper and error-free documentation, facilitating speedy billing and invoicing to eliminate the chances of hidden costs for the benefit of small growers.

17.08.2007 Nepal has developed simple and cheap technologies that make the best of local resources and don't damage the environment. The new technologies have been indigenously designed, based on traditional skills and knowledge, and are cheap and easy to use and maintain.

26.07.2007 According to a recently released report by the United Nations
Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the world's least developed countries (LDC) are falling behind in technology. The report said foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into LDCs had increased substantially three times in the past 10 years but with little contribution to technological apability accumulation in LDCs.

26.07.2007 India currently produces 150,000 tons of e-waste a year but has been slow to regulate disposal with no proper guidelines and law. Delhi itself has 10,000 people who search for gold, copper, palladium, or anything else in the e-waste to reap profit from it even though it is a hazardous task.

25.07.2007 The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries have agreed on a new approach to make online shopping safer. They have called on national authorities and business to set out clear, simple policies, explaining steps that customers should follow to make a complaint and then have it resolved.