The expanding blue economy, marked by its focus on sustainable use of ocean resources, offers enormous opportunity for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). However, for SMEs to properly integrate and succeed in this economy, they must first have a thorough awareness of the sector’s challenges and prospects. This research used a scoping review and a qualitative study to identify the challenges and opportunities facing SMEs operating in the blue economy. The study discovered recurring themes and gaps in the existing literature by conducting an extensive examination of scholarly publications. The key challenges identified include complicated regulatory frameworks, restricted access to funding, infrastructure restrictions, talent deficiencies, government support, and market outreach. In-depth interviews with Malaysian SME leaders, industry stakeholders, and policymakers were conducted to decipher these findings. The results of interviews confirmed the relevance of the regulatory framework, infrastructure restrictions, talent deficit, and market access challenges in the Malaysian context. In particular, the study revealed emerging opportunities for Malaysian blue SMEs in sectors such as renewable energy, sustainable fisheries, marine biotechnology, and ecotourism. The study emphasizes the importance of an encouraging policy framework, knowledge-sharing platforms, and capacity building activities. It finishes by underlining the ability of SMEs to drive a sustainable and thriving blue economy, if challenges are systematically handled, and opportunities are appropriately capitalized.
Accessible tourism is an area that has received only scant attention in Hungarian tourism research. A change in this is only visible in recent years, as a result of the work of a few researchers starting to focus on this issue. Based on the findings of a questionnaire survey, the author of this paper presents important characteristics of travel by people living with disabilities, discussing the need to develop its infrastructure. The issue of accessible tourism concerns approximately 10% of the population of Europe, so in addition to the social and moral magnitude of the issue, serving the travel needs of people living with disabilities is also significant for the economy. In order to create the special supply and to provide equal access of services for those concerned, their expectations and unique consumer habits must be known. As member of an Erasmus project called Peer Act, the author also details the research findings of four project partner countries (Germany, Italy, Spain and Croatia) where data was collected from small samples.
Kinnow production is hampered due to the lack of micronutrient applications such as zinc (Zn), iron (Fe), and manganese (Mn), which play a significant role in the metabolic activities of the plant, affecting yield and quality. The farmers of the region use mineral micronutrient fertilizers, but it leads to phytotoxicity due to unoptimized fertilizer application dose. In the present investigation, an attempt has been made to optimize the Zn, Mn, and Fe minerals dose as tank mix foliar application for improvement of fruit yield, quality, and uptake of nutrients. The twelve combinations of different doses of zinc sulphate, manganese sulphate, and ferrous sulphate fertilizers replicated three times were tested at kinnow orchards established at Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Bathinda, Punjab, India. The data revealed that the fruit drop was significantly low in the treatment F12 (43.4%) (tank mix spray of 0.3% ZnSO4 + 0.2% MnSO4 + 0.1% FeSO4 ) compared to control treatment. The fruit yield per tree was significantly higher in the treatment F12 compared to untreated control. The juice percentage was also recorded higher in treatment F12 as compared to control, and the juice percentage improved by 2.6%. The leaf nutrient analysis also revealed translocation of higher amount of nutrient from leaf to fruit under optimized supply of micronutrient. Thus, the application of tank mix spray of 0.3% ZnSO4 + 0.2% MnSO4 + 0.1% FeSO4 may be used for better fruit yield and quality.
This study explores the relationship between GDP growth, unemployment rate, and labor force participation rate in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries from 1990 to 2018. Furthermore, the study incorporates control factors such as government spending, trade openness, and energy use into the regression equation. We used panel dynamic ordinary least squares (DOLS) and Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FMOLS) estimators to investigate the relationships between variables in this investigation. The econometric technique accounts for nonstationary, endogeneity bias and cross-sectional dependencies between country-year observations. Cointegration was found among GDP growth, unemployment rate, and labor force participation. Long-term, the unemployment rate has a statistically significant negative effect on economic growth in the GCC nations. Meanwhile, the labor force participation rate significantly influences economic expansion in the long term. The expansion of government expenditures and international trade reduces economic growth. Alternatively, it is discovered that energy consumption has a substantial and positive effect on economic expansion. Okun’s rule and the unidirectional causality from economic growth to unemployment indicate that the primary cause of unemployment in GCC nations is a failure to adequately expand their economies. When developing economic strategies to reduce unemployment, policymakers are particularly interested in determining whether or not economic development and the unemployment rate are cointegrated.
The major objective of this research paper is to assess the management effectiveness of Sheikh Badin National Park District Dera Ismail Khan Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan with respect to tourist’s satisfaction. A sample size of 389 respondents (local community, wildlife staff, tourists) were selected through simple random sampling to conclude respondents’ attitude towards phenomenon investigated through three-level Likert scale as a measurement tool. Association between a dependent variable (management effectiveness) was assessed on the independent variables (tourist satisfaction) through a chi-square test. Association of management effectiveness was highly significant with tourists satisfaction from promos of park (p = 0.000), access to information (p = 0.000), roads network (p = 0.000), residential facilities (p = 0.000), trained guides (p = 0.000), safety from crimes and criminals (p = 0.000), provision of health and security services (p = 0.000), overall satisfaction of tourists (p = 0.000), recommendation of SBNP to other tourists (p = 0.000) and revisit intentions of tourists (p = 0.000). Improvement in security measures, better advertisement and improvement in park infrastructure were major recommendations considering the study.
We examine the role of the North Aceh Government in implementing the Law on the Governing of Aceh (LoGA) as a legal structure in development policy. As a symbol of peace, the LoGA is a reference for accelerating development to alleviate poverty, including North Aceh as a conflict region. However, until now, the area remains the poorest in the province of Aceh. This research used descriptive qualitative methods, evaluating the local government’s performance as policymakers based on the Law by reconstructing policy theory (Easton) and legal system (Friedman). Our findings indicated that the local government needed help implementing LoGA to form development policies to solve poverty. This research suggested the importance of providing legal certainty in the distribution of authority, capacity building, and strengthening of political will for local government conducting its role.
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