October 1997 Edition
GLOBAL ECONOMY
The most recent forecast by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), states that Canada will lead the industrial world in growth both this year and next. The current boom in the global economy is being powered by Canada, the U.S. and Britain. This boom will likely continue into the next decade with projected growth of 4 per cent continuing until at least 2002. But while North American and European economies surge, Asian economies are faltering. On the eve of what has been dubbed the Pacific Century, several of Asia's best economic hopes are mired in stagnation and financial crisis. Only China remains a bright hope among Asian nations.
INDIA
Of India's 100 top companies, 70 are family businesses, and until recently they controlled about 15 per cent of the economy. This changed in 1991 when, in the face of financial crisis, the government opened up the economy to competition and foreign investment. The reforms sparked a consumer boom and surge in private investment. They also exposed just how bloated, inefficient and consumer-hostile many of India's top companies had become. For most of India's independence, socialist governments controlled the private sector with licences that told companies what they could produce, how much and when. This resulted in shortages and high prices for uncompetitive junk, as well as slow economic growth.
AGRICULTURE
Canada's agricultural and agrifood sector has reached a goal in export sales four years ahead of schedule. Agriculture Canada says export sales in 1996 reached $20 billion, a figure the federal government had hoped to see by the year 2000. The $20 billion represents a 50 per cent increase from exports in 1993, the year the target was set by the industry.
CUBES AND CAVES
In office design, open plan offices are called cubes, whereas an enclosed office is referred to as a cave. According to surveys by the International Facility Management Association, the cubist ranks are growing. An estimated 40 million Americans, nearly 60 per cent of the white-collar workforce, now work in cubes. And offices of all kinds are shrinking. Research shows that personal work space has shrunk 25- to 50 per cent over the last decade at 72 big, trend-setting companies studied.
CHINA
To help its attempts to become a member of the World Trade Organisation, China is cutting tariff rates by an average of six percentage points, from 23% to 17%, on nearly 5,000 items.
TUNNELS
Engineers are preparing to build the world's first floating tunnel, a 1.6 kilometre concrete tube moored 25 metres below the surface and 120 metres above the seabed, near Stavanger, Norway. It will contain two traffic lanes and a bicycle path. If the structure is successful, tunnels through the middle of lakes, fjords and estuaries are likely to be built in other countries. Proponents say floating tunnels are cheaper than bridges, or tunnels through the earth, and are more environmentally friendly.
EARNINGS
The number of women who earned more than their male partners increased in 1995, resuming a long-standing upward trend after a decline in 1994. In 1995, 983,000 females earned more than their male partners, up from 916,000 in 1994. Since 1967, this number has increased almost sevenfold, from 143,000.
NEW POWER
Daimler-Benz, maker of Mercedes cars, and Ballard Power Systems, a Canadian company developing fuel-cell technology, have launched a joint venture to develop an alternative to the internal-combustion engine. Together the companies are investing over $300 million to develop vehicles powered by fuel-cell engines. A bus, running on hydrogen and with zero exhaust emissions, is being tested on the streets of Chicago and Vancouver, and a specimen fuel-cell car was unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show. Mass marketing of such cars could begin within eight years.
LATIN AMERICA
The majority of Latin American countries have made progress in the fight against inflation during the past two years. Since 1995, only three countries in the region have had a rate of inflation above 25 per cent. The most striking change was in Brazil where, following the introduction of a new currency in 1994, inflation tumbled from 277 per cent to 4.8 per cent in July of this year. Chile's inflation has remained in single digits and has declined from 8.2 per cent in 1995 to 5.6 per cent this year. Argentina's inflation has been the lowest, even experiencing slight deflation.
MILLENNIUM
Australia's Prime Minister has announced that his country will celebrate the new millennium beginning Jan, 1, 2001--a year after the rest of the world, but mathematically correct.
HOUSES
According to an international study conducted by the Washington, D.C.-based National Association of Home Builders, Canadians have the best housing in the world by nearly any measure. The study, which compared Canadian and U.S. houses with those in other industrialized countries, showed that, based on the average number of persons per home, Canadians have the least crowded housing. On top of that, Canadian homes are only slightly smaller, on average, than U.S. houses which are the biggest in the world. The average Canadian home is 122 square metres while the U.S. average is 125 square metres. In the condominium category however, Canada is tops in size. The average apartment\townhome is 102 square metres compared to a U.S. average of 79 square metres.
EUROPE
Taxes and social-security contributions consumed a record 42.4% of the European Union's GDP last year, said the EU's statistical agency, Eurostat. Three Nordic countries imposed the heaviest burdens on their economies, with Sweden taking 55.2%. Ireland, Spain and Britain taxed less than 36%.
SPEED
Teraflops is a computer at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. It gets its quasi-acronym name because last year it hit a speed of 1.8 trillion calculations a second. It is 10,000 times faster than a Pentium MMX system. Somebody operating a hand-held computer would need about 57,000 years to calculate a problem that Teraflops could calculate in one second.
FRANCHISES
A new franchised business opens somewhere in the U.S. every eight minutes, according to the International Franchise Association. While restaurants such as McDonalds are the most visible examples, there are 65 categories of industry offering franchises. Nearly 600,000 franchised businesses operate in the U.S., generating sales of almost $1.4 trillion each year--close to half of all retail sales. Franchises are more likely to thrive than are independently owned businesses, with 92 per cent surviving after five years compared with 23 per cent of independents, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.
COMPLAINTS
According to a survey of 10,600 by the International Facility Management Association, the biggest complaint people have about the place where they work is that it's too cold. The second biggest complaint? It's too hot. Other complaints in the top five included not enough conference rooms, poor janitorial services and not enough storage space.
SCAMS
The Washington-based National Consumers League is posting Web pages warning Internet users of the top on-line scams. League officials say the most common signs of fraud are: extravagant promises of profit, guarantees of credit regardless of bad credit history, suspiciously low prices, or prizes that require up-front payments. They may be checked out at http://www.fraud.org/ifw.
WHOLESALERS
According to Statscan, the wholesaling industry is in constant transformation. Increased competition has pushed wholesalers to diversify in order to remain competitive. In addition to their main activity of selling to retailers, industrial clients and farmers, wholesalers provide services such as supply management, provision of information on new technologies and bulk breaking. They also sell a certain proportion of their products directly to household consumers. Sales to households by wholesalers are estimated to be about $1 billion a month, approximately 4% of total wholesale sales. Half of the sales made directly to households by wholesalers are coming from building materials (40%) and computers and packaged software (10%).
Canadian Tire Corp. Ltd. says it is breaking new ground by introducing an electronic flyer that will allow consumers to receive selective promotional information at their individual E-mail address. The electronic flyers will not replace the regular flyers that are dropped off at homes but will allow people to request information on deals in selective categories and avoid having to get material about categories they are not interested in. The company claims this marketing scheme will help them better predict high-demand merchandise and which products to stock in the stores. However, consumers will not be able to purchase products directly on-line.
2000
A U.S. retailer is bringing the world's first lawsuit over the millennium timebomb--a problem in which computers are unable to work with dates after the turn of the century. The Michigan supermarket is taking the supplier of its cash registers to court for the equipment's failure to recognize the year 2000 as an expiry date for credit cards. Whenever a card with the 2000 expiry date is swiped at the supermarket, it brings up an "invalid date" warning, quickly followed by the shutdown of the entire network. The case has been hailed as the beginning of a deluge which will occur over the next few years.
FINANCING
Industry Canada has launched an Internet site that will help small businesses and entrepreneurs find financing. Sources of Financing will provide owners with a broad range of Canadian sources of capital. It is available at http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/sources.
JOB SHARING
About 171,000 individuals, or 8% of all part-time paid workers, shared a job with someone in 1995, according to first-time national data on job sharing. Compared with regular part-time employees, people who shared jobs were more likely to be women, to be college- or university-educated, to hold professional occupations and to have children at home. The 1995 Survey of Work Arrangements (sponsored by Human Resources Development Canada) revealed that women held 72% of part-time jobs. But they occupied an even larger majority of shared jobs (84%). Almost 1 in 10 women working part time shared a job, compared with just 1 in 20 men who worked part time.
EMUS
The market for emus has collapsed in Louisiana reports the Associated Press. Pairs of breeding birds that sold for $50,000 in 1993 now change hands for $100 or less. The headache of unwanted emus is so acute that some people have set their birds free, causing traffic hazards and other problems.
QUALITY
A poll of international travel writers concluded that England and Russia tied for having the worst toilet paper in the world.
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