By Kavaljit Singh | Op-Ed, Times of India | January 30, 2003
Historically, women’s groups and NGOs initiated microcredit programmes at local levels as one component of the development strategy to empower poor women. But nowadays microcredit is no longer a localised activity. For banks and financial institutions, microcredit offers new avenues of profit-making since interest rates range from 20 to 40 per cent and repayment rates are over 90 per cent, far above commercial lending. This economic logic makes the poor more attractive to banks and financial institutions, but not vice-versa. Even agricultural and consumer goods companies have jumped onto the microcredit…
By Kavaljit Singh | Jointly Published by Madhyam and Reality of Aid | January 2003
In recent times, the terms ‘governance’ and ‘good governance’ have become buzzwords in the development discourse. Pushed by powerful international financial institutions, ‘good governance’ has become the cornerstone of development cooperation. Nowadays it is difficult to come across aid packages of multilateral financial institutions and bilateral donors that do not use the term ‘good governance’ and contain ‘governance’ conditionalities.
The governance agenda is full of inherent contradictions and dilemmas. If used technically, it may reinforce the intellectual models and traditional…
By Kavaljit Singh | January 2003
China became a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on 11 December 2001. To facilitate its entry into WTO, China agreed to undertake a series of important market access commitments to open and liberalize its financial sector.
These commitments will allow foreign banks to capture markets in those regions (e.g., coastal regions and cities) where bulk of banking business is concentrated. Given the fact that foreign banks have considerable international exposure and can launch new products and services, they…
