| Username |
Post |
| ashu |
Posted
on 11-Feb-04 08:43 AM
Or next door neighbors -- India and China -- are attracting foreign money at breakneck speed to grow more and more prosperous. The Indian middle-class today is a lot richer, more assertive and more confident about itself than ever before.
This latest move by China is good, as it opens an window now for FURTHER FDI in the media sector in coming years.
While other countries - including a communist country -- are moving ahead toward economic progress, let us NOT slide backward in Nepal just to please some cartel members.
enjoy,
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
*************
FDI ban eased for TV content in China
REUTERS[ TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2004 12:50:51 AM ]
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/486604.cms
BEIJING : China has eased its ban on foreign investment in television programming as part of reforms intended to revitalise the country’s sprawling state-dominated media, regulatory officials said on Monday.
The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) regulations, in effect since December 30, allow foreign media firms to hold minority stakes in joint venture production companies, officials said.
“Now we allow foreign companies and domestic companies to set up joint ventures to produce all kinds of TV programmes, except for news programmes,” Zhu Hong, an official with SARFT, said.
Another SARFT official said the agency had already received applications for joint ventures, but had not yet approved any. “We are talking with them now,” the official said.
Permitting television programming joint ventures is part of a raft of reforms aimed at bringing foreign production expertise to China ’s often stodgy and programmatic state broadcasting arena.
Chinese television is heavy on patriotic fare, and Beijing has long used the medium as a propaganda organ. “It is an important step of opening to the outside,” Zhu said.
SARFT in early December announced reforms allowing foreign investors to buy minority stakes in once-strictly controlled film studios. Those regulations took effect on December 1.
Local private companies would also be allowed to jointly develop pay channels and to help fund plans to expand pay television and digital TV services, Zhu said.
Direct stakes by foreign firms in Chinese media firms remained forbidden, as did foreign investment in news programmes, the officials said. China currently allows six foreign firms to broadcast in the wealthy southern province of Guangdong , next to Hong Kong , but the officials said there were no immediate plans to expand beyond that.
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| Spark |
Posted
on 11-Feb-04 09:10 AM
wondering why ashu suddenly popping up with different threads lobbying n preaching for FDI!! moto rakam hat pareko jasto chha ni sathi le 4 bzness consuling propaganda. don't you think the issue too tautological?
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| ashu |
Posted
on 11-Feb-04 05:12 PM
Spark,
In another thread, you wrote that "You and I know each other well."
Now, your CHEAP comments re: "moto rakam" above assure me that you
don't really know me, and are now reduced to showing a Kantipur Publications-like
recent desperation to throw mud around.
You have no solid arguments, do you?
So, continue.
Be a "proud" Nepali who can't behind his own views.
Be a "proud" nationalist and help keep most Nepalis stuck in poverty.
And continue to attack me instead of my ideas.
You will not be the first, nor the last to do so.
Meantime, I wish you well.
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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| askme |
Posted
on 11-Feb-04 10:09 PM
What about Nepal, will she get any share, or just remained sandwiched between there two giants.
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| Spark |
Posted
on 12-Feb-04 12:22 AM
ashu, I love to read your original ideas, but not the one pumped by someone. Poverty is not inherited with nationalism. What theory tells you FDI in media can break national poverty? Are you the guru of poverty too?
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| spark |
Posted
on 12-Feb-04 01:25 AM
Ashu, if FDI in media can bring people out of poverty, that is nothing but hoax.
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| ashu |
Posted
on 12-Feb-04 03:10 AM
Spark,
You are now NOT attacking me with cheap allegations but you are challenging my ideas.
And that's good.I like that. That's the way to go.
****
Spark wrote:
"If FDI in media can bring people out of poverty, that is nothing but hoax."
Allow me to sip this tato-tato cup of Muna chiya, enjoy today's quiet Nepal Bandh (all
my appoiintments have been cancelled) and give you this response . . .
Take Annapurna Post and THT, our favorite examples.
Whatever you and I think of them in our own disagreeable ways, we can't deny that they are indeed employing more than 300 people i, out of which, they say, 96 per
cent are Nepalis.
Now, what does that mean?
That means, like it or not, 280+ jobs for Nepalis have been created by these two newspapers.
Sure, 280+ media-related jobs do NOT solve all of Nepal's poverty-related problems. Her's I agree with you. But, hey, it's a SMALL start, a step in the right direction. A Nepali with a paying job is better off than a Nepali with NO job at all.
Besides, government gets taxes too . . . money it can then use to pay for education, health, and um . . . arms for the military.
Now, imagine other foreign investors coming to Nepal to either independently (as in
the case of DHL) or in partnership with Nepalis (as in the case of Dabur, NABIL Bank) to open MORE businesses in all sorts of sectors in Nepal.
What would that mean?
It would mean: More jobs for Nepalis.
A wider tax net for the government.
A transfer of skills and know-how and systems-knowledge.
An access to different markets for Nepal-made goods and services, and so on and on.
Again, such an approach does NOT solve EVERY poverty-related problems. Here, too, I agree with you. But such an approach does mark a step in the right direction.
Why?
Because helps squeeze value out of capital, it helps make capital or money actually work for Nepalis so that we can pay for the goods and services.
You see, Nepal is a wealthy country.
But what good is all our wealth if we cannot turn that wealth into capital . . . into "poonji" that we can use to extract value?
Take the example of water resources. Yes, we are wealthy in terms of water resources. But what good are they when we still suffer from blackouts and burnouts and when villages do not still have bujul and we pay one of the highest bijuli rates in the worldi? Never mind that bijuli came to Nepal in 1911 AD -- almost a hundred years ago.
Just having wealth is NOT enough.
Having and applying the know-how to turn that sitting wealth into moving capital is what will make us rich.
Since we cannot, by ourselves, turn that sitting wealth into moving capital, we have to rely on others who can do it for us.
And that's where FDI comes in.
Again, sure, FDI, in and of itself, will NOT solve Nepal's every poverty-related problems. But, it'd be a step in the right direction . . . tools that helps us turn physical or intellectual wealth into capital that we can use.
Hope this answers your question.
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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| Spark |
Posted
on 12-Feb-04 11:42 PM
Ashu, pls no hard feeling. i assure you that i was never hostile to you. btw, there has been a rumormill that JPGupta and Ramesh nath pande had a large bribe allowing fdi in media in nepal. what do you think?
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| ashu |
Posted
on 14-Feb-04 04:07 AM
Spark,
Sure, no offence taken.
As for Gupta's and Pandey's "saanth-gaanth", I have no idea. Let's hope that Nepal's investigative journalists dig up the truth evidence for us all to see soon.
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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| isolated freak |
Posted
on 14-Feb-04 07:12 AM
ashu dai,
You are forgetting one thing here: China is yet to allow foreign direct investment in news. This means, no newspapers with FDI, no TV/radio news programs with FDI. If the foreign investors want to publish lifestyle magazines, they can do it. However they cannot publish anything that is news/news analysis related/ based. Its called being careful, or xiao xin yi dianr (/i> in Chinese.
Also, this news comes a bit late. One of the last year's hit Chinese movies, Cell Phone (Shou Ji) was marketed and released by Sony/Columbia Pictures.
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| isolated freak |
Posted
on 14-Feb-04 07:13 AM
Ashu dai,
You are forgetting one thing here: China is yet to allow foreign direct investment in news. This means, no newspapers with FDI, no TV/radio news programs with FDI. If the foreign investors want to publish lifestyle magazines, they can do it. However they cannot publish anything that is news/news analysis related/ based. Its called being careful, or xiao xin yi dianr in Chinese.
Also, this news comes a bit late. One of the last year's hit Chinese movies, Cell Phone (Shou Ji) was marketed and released by Sony/Columbia Pictures.
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| isolated freak |
Posted
on 14-Feb-04 07:27 AM
China currently allows six foreign firms to broadcast in the wealthy southern province of Guangdong , next to Hong Kong , but the officials said there were no immediate plans to expand beyond that.
Also, pay more attention to the above line. Its only in HK, Guangdong area, with no immediate plans of expansion. This means, the approach is quite similar to that of 1978, when China opened 14 coastal cities for FDI. Before jumping on the bandwagon of opening up, let's do a bit experimentation and see what results we get and based on those results determine our next course of action- this is the Chinese attitutude, which is totally different than that of the Nepali authorities. It will be another 10-20 years, when China opens other areas/cities for FDI on media w/o news contents.
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| ashu |
Posted
on 14-Feb-04 05:19 PM
Isolated Freak wrote:
"China is yet to allow foreign direct investment in news."
Yes. But the operative word here is: Time.
China has just allowed FDI in TV programming, and I would think that it's only a matter
of time before it allows FDI to collect, edit and distribute news too. Let's wait and see.
India, BTW, has been allowing FDI even for the news section in the print media (up to
26 per cent) for the last year and half, and, having seen mostly positive results, it is,
as per newspaper reports, thinking of allowing more FDI for news.
**********
Isolated Freak wrote:
"It will be another 10-20 years, when China opens other areas/cities for FDI on media w/o news contents. "
Well, I am not so sure about it.
These days, the news business is driven by knowledge and rapidly changing technology.
10 years ago, who would have thought that people would someday get their news
and views from Internet Web sites? Now they can even watch TV news programs of other countries online.
As China embraces newer and newer (news-related) technology, how it collects, edits and distributes news will also undergo big changes. We'll just have to wait and see these changes.
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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| kingkong |
Posted
on 15-Feb-04 11:07 AM
no offence tara media le poverty bata nikalchha bhanne argument ta madhav kumar nepal le via satellite america lai electricity bechera nepal lai dhani banaune bhane jastai kura lagyo ho
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| ashu |
Posted
on 15-Feb-04 06:01 PM
Kingong,
To put it simplistically, media is an INDUSTRY just like that of beer or hydropower.
To grow, any industry, at a minimum, needs:
money (domestic or foreign),
people (staff)
and machines (or technology).
Needing people means giving them jobs.
And when people or Nepalis, have jobs (as in this case, as reporters, writers, printers, advertising agencies, photographers, designers and what not), they start earning their own money.
And earning their own money means they are better off with jobs than with no
job at all.
And joblessness of educated and uneducated Nepalis remains NUMBER ONE problem
in Nepal.
Sure, media industry does NOT take care of ALL of Nepal's poverty. But by providing jobs to hundreds of Nepalis, it makes Nepalis better off.
In this respect, BOTH Kantipur Publications and APCA are to be congratulated for providing jobs to hundreds of Nepalis. We surely need more of them.
And so, Nepal's goal should be to make it easier for both Nepalis and foreigners (including NRNs) to start private-sector, for-profit companies in Nepal in almost
all sectors.
Yes, Nepal can put in certain rules and regulations in place, but, on the whole, by
making it easier to do business for BOTH Nepalis and foreigners, there is more we as
a country will gain than lose.
That's my point.
************************
On another note, I have realized, again and again, that even otherwise intelligent people of national stature in Nepal are basically illiterates when it comes to
discussing basic economics.
Sometimes, that is a function of ideology: Bearded Marxists and socialists in Nepal see "capital" or "poonji" as the source of all trouble, even while they send their kids off to the capitalistic West for higher education and even for residence.
Often, these people's ideas have NEVER been challenged in a public forum, and that's why they have been holding sway in the court of public opinion.
I, for one, have decided that enough is enough, and will be doing my bit.
That is, by writing a MONTHLY column in simple and clear Nepali bhasa for a national fortnightly magazine. I expect to analyze economic matters that are in the news,
and will argue a certain point of view with logic, evidence, sense and considerations for the opposing views.
Such writing may help change a few minds. If nothing else, it will help me write in clear and simple Nepali bhasa to get certain points across to the public at large :-)
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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| mirador |
Posted
on 15-Feb-04 06:58 PM
Ashu ji,
FDI is useful when it spurs technological change (which, essentially is the engine of growth) and fosters competition so the resources are allocated as efficiently as possible by the firms involved.
Now, I don't think FDI is needed in Nepal to spur competition in the media industry (but you may disagree on this.) Me thinks that there is already plenty of competiotion in that sector and the papers are already trying to be very cost efficient. I don't have facts to support it. It's just a hunch.
Now the transfer of more productive technology could possibly come from FDI in Nepal. But the impact of that transfer will be limited to the this industry, which, I doubt, will have any meaningful ripple effects in other industries. I say that because media technology is not to my knowledge applicable to manufacturing, which is what we would like to see improving.
I'm all for FDI. But it would probably be best to best gauge the impacts before throwing ourselves in. There are other industries in Nepal which desperately need more reduction in costs ( the energy industry comes to my mind) and most consumers will benefit with more competitive manufacturing sector. And a more productive one , which will make our exports strong and affordable to Nepalis as well.
Yeah, competition is great but perhaps we don't need FDI to foster competition in the media industry. Of course, we can always disagree on how competitive we want it to be. But a good measure of competition would be the price of the average newspaper in Nepal which has plummeted ridiculously, I take that as a proof that our media industry is already very competitive and efficient.
thanx
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| kingkong |
Posted
on 15-Feb-04 07:53 PM
thanx for the response ashu dai
i was just kidding
i am well aware of your ideas and i respect them
keep it up
saayed kunai din ma nepal ko pm bhaye bhane artha mantri banna request garda nai chai nabhannu la
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| ashu |
Posted
on 15-Feb-04 09:30 PM
Mirador wrote:
"There is already plenty of competiotion in [the print media] sector and the papers are already trying to be very cost efficient."
That's in theory.
But in practice, the story is different in Nepal.
The newspaper publishers are in no mood to compete with one another.
That's why, they have formed this cartel called the Nepal Media Society, which NOT
only fixes newspaper prices and ad rates but also restricts job mobility of all who work
for them.
I have this feeling that if THT and TAP had quietly become members of that cartel,
and had played the game through NMS's blessing, NOBODY would have raised any
halla-khalla over FDI in print media.
The cartel's attitude is: Let consumers get screwed as long as our business interests
are protected.
It's only when THT and TAP started slicing off HUGE market shares (in Kathmandu, Pokhara and other urban towns) that Kantipur Publications' publishers started
portraying themselves as more Nepali than Bhanu Bhakta Acharya.
Lesson?
All thing being equal, FDI industries can help WEAKEN the power and the strength of local cartels and monopolies who are POLITICALLY powerful for anyone to do anything about them.
An example:
From yesterday on, we in Kathmandu are reduced to living with SHORTAGES of petrol, cooking gas and kerosene. Long lines are already forming outside depots that
distribute those fuels.
Guess who is responsible for these shortages?
The cartels of various businessmen who are in the equivalents of Nepal Media Society in their respective fuel-related industries.
Such, such are the joys of living here.
oohi
ashu
ktm,nepal
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| mirador |
Posted
on 16-Feb-04 01:28 AM
Ashu,
Last time I was in Nepal , I could buy a newspaper for 2 rupees. I wholly attributed that to the competition in the print media.
I was unaware of the cartels. Aren't cartels illegal. If we have anti trust laws against price fixing (since you claim it is overt) , they should be implemented . If not, they will , i hope, come up with the laws soon and the problem can be taken care of through the judiciary system. Which could also be a warning against other cartels.
I agree. Cartels harm consumers. I was shocked by the extent bus owners collude to prevent entry etc. Same with the petrol suppliers you mentioned. In my humble opinion,the solution should be change our system (read laws) so that free entry to easy and quick. Then, the cartels would be left powerless. Not that I'm against FDI in Media or any other sector. I just wanted to point out that there are solutions other than FDI. I personally believe that FDI is neither necessary nor sufficient condition for strengthening our industries. Proper laws, competition and transfer of technology (there are ways other than FDI) might give lot better results than FDI, especially if the foreign investors chose to play dirty. And there are examples of world economies that have done rather well without FDI and those that have suffered because of FDI and its unreliabilities.
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| Spark |
Posted
on 20-Feb-04 02:50 AM
Here is RNPandey's verdict about FDI in Media scandal. it is as published in Kathmandu Post's editorial of today's issue.
Defamation
31 - This is in response to the news report “Ex-ministers bribed to okay foreign investment” (February 13) which quoted Pradip Nepal, Standing Committee member of the CPN-UML.
I strongly object to what Nepal said about my so-called “role” in inviting foreign investment in media and in “receiving bribes for that purpose”. This is a totally irresponsible, utterly cheap and baseless statement. He should make a public apology for trying to defame me and mislead the people by making ridiculous remarks.
Ramesh Nath Pandey
former minister
Bishalnagar, Kathmandu
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| chinausbusiness |
Posted
on 20-Feb-04 06:33 AM
Has any Minister ever commenced that they have taken a bribe-- ask Govind Raj Joshi or Chiranjivi Wagle.
I live in Guangzhou-- I was walking past the street when a Chinese Lady came running to hand me a handout. It had info about how to get foreign TV channels via local cable operator. I have also heard that in other parts of China, people had put some kind of antenna and were able to watch some Indian channels.
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