Suchergebnisse

In November 2016, Egypt agreed a comprehensive aid programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Its stated objective was to stabilize the country's macroeconomic situation within three years and put it on track for inclusive economic growth. At the half-way stage, hardly any structural reforms have been implemented despite a short-term macroeconomic stabilization resulting from the conditions put in place. Rather, the increasingly influential military has prevented the emergence of a functioning market economy. This has been compounded by the disastrous human rights record of the government under President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, which has also had a negative impact on Egypt's economic development. Germany played a key role in the IMF agreement being concluded. The German government should, therefore, work to ensure the IMF produces a critical assessment of the reforms that have taken place so far. It should also link its willingness to support future aid packages with improving the human rights situation and strengthening civil society. (Autorenreferat)

Die Auslandsverschuldung der Entwicklungsländer hat auch in den letzten Jahren weiter zugenommen. Eine immer größer werdende Zahl überschuldeter Länder muß um Umschuldung und Restrukturierung bei den Gläubigern nachsuchen. Maßgeblicher Koordinator dieser Politik ist der Internationale Währungsfonds (IWF). Die derzeit praktizierte Umschuldungspolitik bringt jedoch erhebliche Risiken sowohl für die Stabilität der Länder als auch für die Gläubigerbanken mit sich. Bei den umschuldenden Ländern wurden zwar erste Anpassungserfolge erzielt, die jedoch zu keinem Abbau der Gesamtverschuldung führten. Die Gläubigerbanken sind zu fortgesetzter Kreditvergabe gezwungen, da ihr Engagement in den überschuldeten Ländern in mehreren Fällen eine Höhe erreicht hat, bei der eine formelle Zahlungsunfähigkeitserklärung die Solvenz der Banken unmittelbar bedrohen würde. Wegen der kurzfristigen Refinanzierungsbasis der international tätigen Geschäftsbanken ergibt sich ein laufender Refinanzierungsbedarf, der auf dem internationalen Dollarmarkt weiterhin zu hohen Zinsen führt, andererseits die Schuldenbelastung der Entwicklungsländer weiter vermehrt." (Autorenreferat)

Alkaline water electrolysis (AWE) is a mature hydrogen production technology and there exists a range of economic assessments for available technologies. For advanced AWEs, which may be based on novel polymer-based membrane concepts, it is of prime importance that development comes along with new configurations and technical and economic key process parameters for AWE which might be of interest for further economic assessments. This paper presents an advanced AWE technology referring to 3 different sites in Europe (Germany, Austria, Spain). The focus is on financial metrics, the projection of key performance parameters of advanced AWEs, and further financial and tax parameters. For financial analysis from an investor's (business) perspective, a comprehensive assessment of a technology not only comprises cost analysis but also further financial analysis quantifying attractiveness and supply/market flexibility. Therefore, based on Cash Flow (CF) analysis, a comprehensible set of metrics may comprise Levelised Cost of Energy or, respectively, Levelised Cost of Hydrogen (LCH) for cost assessment, Net Present Value (NPV) for attractiveness analysis and Variable Cost (VC) for analysis of market flexibility. The German AWE site turns out to perform best in all three financial metrics (LCH, NPV, VC). Though there are slight differences in investment cost and operation and maintenance cost projections for the three sites, the major cost impact is due to the electricity cost. Although investment cost is slightly and labour cost is significantly lower in Spain, the difference can't outweigh the higher electricity cost compared to Germany. Given the assumption that the electrolysis operators are customers directly and actively participating in power markets, and based on the regulatory framework in the three countries, in this special case electricity cost in Germany is lowest. However, as electricity cost is profoundly influenced by political decisions as well as the implementation of economic instruments for transforming ...