October 1, 2004
Mobile phone revolution boosts rural Sri Lanka
Two years ago, there were few mobile handsets visible at Colombo's Pettah market, Sri Lanka's fresh produce hub. Today, around 75 percent of market workers -- from stall holders to workers lugging sacks of carrots -- have one.
A mobile line rental costs around a fifth of that of a land line, and a sharp fall in handset prices has spurred sales.
"There is a rise in mobile usage in rural areas because of the low cost and because they can carry it with them," said C. Maliyadde, secretary of the Telecommunications Ministry.
But now a boom in the mobile telecoms market is pulling the informal sector into the economy and even influencing food prices, reports Reuters.
Sri Lanka's Central Bank says prices of key commodities such as paddy and vegetables have gone up because of better access to demand and price information thanks to mobile telephones.
"What you see is an improvement in the efficiency of the markets... We can't yet quantify the impact but certainly in terms of access to market information this is a significant improvement," said Anila Dias Bandaranaike, head of the bank's statistics department.
"They are not chatting with their friends but optimising and increasing their production," she added.
Dialog GSM, Sri Lanka's largest mobile network operator is devoting half of its planned investment in the next two years to rural services, and says customers will soon be able to access wholesale fruit, vegetable and grain prices via voice and messaging by simply dialling in a product code."
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