How to promote the spread of mobile phones among the world's poorest

How to promote the spread of mobile phones among the world's poorest

But affordable phones are only part of the picture. Operators in developing countries have been inventive in their efforts. Smart Communications, an operator in the Philippines, sells text messages for as little as $1.80 per 100 messages, and allows subscribers to pass airtime to phone “buddies” at a cost of less than $0.03 per minute. Yet even as the industry strives to make handsets and services cheaper, governments keep adding costs—mainly by levying taxes and customs duties. The average ratio of tax payments to operator revenues is 30%. On average the mobile industry, which accounts for 4% of GDP, contributes 7% of national tax revenue.

This enthusiasm for taxation is easy to explain: governments have to tax something, and mobile phones are an easy target, since operators' billing systems do all the hard work. But treating mobile phones as a cash cow is shortsighted, says Gabriel Solomon of the GSMA, because mobile-specific taxes reduce demand. If governments did away with them and charged only VAT, tax revenues from the mobile industry would be around 3% higher by 2012, the report found, and the average penetration rate would increase from 33% to 41%.

6.4.2 Образец текста разговорной тематики для письменного экзаменационного перевода

Different Types of UK Companies

There are four main different kinds of UK companies which can be registered. Each might be suitable in specific situations, although to some extent, more than one type of company may satisfy the particular requirements of the purchaser.

The different types of company in the UK are: companies limited by shares, companies limited by guarantee, public limited companies (PLCs) and less commonly known, unlimited companies.

When forming a company, the choice of which type of business structure to adopt is an important one and requires adequate consideration.

Changing the type of company might be possible in certain situations, whereas in others, it would not be an option.

Whilst it is possible to change a private company limited by shares to a PLC, it is not permissible to change the fundamentals of the incorporation and migrate it to a limited by guarantee entity.

Registering a company of any kind will carry with it its own set of business regulations which have to be adhered to. Some of the requirements are more stringent and potentially onerous than others, particularly those for public limited companies.

The purchasers should consider their capacity to both manage and fund whichever kind of entity they select and might wish to plan a migration route to another kind of company based on their future ambitions and plans.