Inquiry Letter

A letter of inquiry is on off the most important types of business letters.When a buyer wishes to get some information about the quantity,price,location etc.od goods to be bought or about the termd of sale,payment etc he written a letter of inquiry to the seller. 

Accrding to Morris philip said: The letter the seeks information concetning the goods & servives from a business is called an inquiry letter

 Types of Inquiries 

There are 4 types of inquiry letter,solicited,unsolicited,routine & inquiry for some favour. These are discussed below: 

1)      Solicited Inqyiry:An inquiry made in response to the sellers advertisement & publicity is called a solicited inquiry.Actually it is a response by the buyer to the advertisement or publicity of a seller.

2)      unsolicited Inquiry:An  inquiry made at the buyers own initiative ia called unsokicitwd inquiry.This tyeps of inquiry is made when a buyer wants to know anything from thr seller.

3)      Routine Inquiry:An inquiry made by an old or regular buyer in the regular course of action is called routine inquiry.Most of the business inquiry fall in this category. 

4)      Inquiry for some favor:An inquiry made not about goods but some other information like special price/ favorable terms is called inquiry for some favor. 

            So,we  find the different types of inquiry

 Causes of writing inquiry letter 

Inquiry letter is written in order to carry out one of the following objectives:

1)      To get price quotation of specific commodities.

2)      To ask for catalog.

3)      To know the payment system.

4)      To know the past records of job applicant.

5)      To ask for folders.

6)      To know the financial strength of a firm/ a person.

7)      To know the business reputation of a firm.

8)      To learn about the quality of a product.

9)      To know thr avaibility of an item.

10)  To make request for sample

  Rules for drafting inquiry letter

Drafting is most necessary to use inquiry letter writimg so that you can quickly get the information you wish to collect & also locate the right seller.This are given bellow: 

1. Described your need clearly & precisely.
2. Request the seller for catalog,price qutation & terms of of payment.
3. Ask for sample / demonstration if necessary.
4. Give an idea of the quantity you intend to buy.
5. State the details of your business and what you are interested in.
6. Ask for terms relating discount,credit,mode of delivary.
7. Ask the seller to indicate the period for which his quotation will be valid.
8. Avoid length & unnecessary statement
9. Avoid repetition.
10. Avoid apologies-dont say sorry . 

The above mentioned rules mist be followed in preparing anyinquiry letter to send to seller.

Hints for writing  inquiry letter  

 Inquiry letter must be written in direct approach.The ipening & closing sentence are very important to attract the attention of the reader. There are some example a few opening & closing sentence are given below: 

 Some opening sentence for inquiry:

1. Please quote your lowest rate for the following items.
2. We should appreciate details.
3. May we request you to let us have your lowest rate from the following items.
4. We should be grateful if you kindly inform us of the terms & condition.
5. Please let us know your lowest rates as early as possible for the supply of

                    

Some closing sentence for inquiry:

1. We should really appreciate an early response.
2. On hearing from you we shall place a firm order with you.
3. As we need these goods urgently we shall be grateful for an early reply.
4. We loom froward to placing an order with you.
5. Since we plan to give you regular business we are sure you will quote your most favourable terms.

Adaptation

Adaptation we mean fitting the message to the specific reader.In other word ,adaptation is the process of adapting or making the message or writing according to the recruitment or the level of the reciver of the message.The ability to write clearly depends not your audience only,but also on how much you know about your audience  For writing to be clear it must adopt to the reader.

Reader even in same country dont all have some vocabulary,the same knowledge or subject because of cultural difference this become more serious in cross culture communication l.....

 So we should try to know the person with whom they are communicate & aware of his / her cultural backgraund.                                  

 Basic principles of  Adaptation

1)      Symbol of communication should fit recivers mind: when we do communicate we actually  exchange different symbols in precise form.The symbols we use in communication should fit recivers mind because his/her  mind is full of language & symbol that are shaped by his/ her cultural & level of education .

2)      Filter is the basic for adaptation:The meaning wr give to the symbols we recive are determined by our minds filter. Since every filter is made everything the mind has retained from all the perceptions that we have passed through it,no two are alike.

3)      Good communication adapts to the recivers filter: As the makes up of filter differ, you may adapt your communication to fit tge individual filter or filters concerned. 

4)      The technique of adaptation is a hard work: Adapting your worda & concepts to your reciver will not come autometically to u.we work hard to find out the words,synbol,language & this provess is the best adapt the recivers cboice. 

5)      Adapting begins with visualizing your reciver: In adapting your communication, you should beging by visualizing your reciver.1st off all know about your subject,what their eduvational levels,mentality, & how they think. 

 So this is the basic of adaptation process it helps all over the persons

Selection of words for   adaptation

1)      Use familier words: The 1st rule of word selection is to use familier words.Familier words are everyday words with sharp & clear meaning in mind.It uses for clear meaning to fit your purpose & ypur reader understand them.

2)      2.choose short word:As short words tend to communicate better then ones, you should favour them in your writing.The bottom line is that you should short & familier words

3)      Use strong & powerful words:Like people worda have personality. Some words are strong & powerful wors,some are dull & weak & weqk & others fall in between then extreams.Use of strong words  makes your bussiness writing more powerful.

4)      Use tge concrete words: concrete words are those  which form sharp,clear & specific meaning in the minds of the reades.Specific worda means bank, chair,table this is abastract worda this is fuzzy images in recivers mind.

5)       Avoid camoflaged verbs: Camoflaged verbs that are unnecessarily changed to noun, wbich results in adiction of verbs in a sentence.

6)      Use correct idioms:Idioms is the way we say things in our messege.Much of our idioms has little rhyme or reason but violation will defend the reader.

7)      Avoid sexiest words: Many words in english suggest male dominance.Avoid using them.perhaps the most sexiest worda are the masculine pronouns,when they are used to refer to both sexes. 

   The above mentioned rules should be followed with due importance to ensure effective attractive writing.Writing is an art, we should articulture it as the situational permits

Women in Development (part 1)

Women in development has required a worldwide recognition. In Bangladesh, as in other developing countries, the need for integration of woment into the development process is widely recognized by the policy makers and planners. Significant efforts have therefore been made to uplift the status of women by ensuring their meaning involvement in the policy making process as well as other socio economic measures.

Women in Work:  The status of women in Bangladesh, like many other developing countries, remained marginalized for long time. In the recent years, women are coming out and hundreds and thousands of women are working in the formal sector which was inconceivable 25 years ago. Participation of women in developing process of the country is increasing gradually with the increase of literacy rate. According to the World Bank’s 1995-96 report, participation of women in workforce is 67 percent in villege while 27 percent in urban areas. Though literacy is still higher among rural women they take part in agricultural activities. Bangladesh is not the only developing nation where women are now encouraged to participate in outdoor work. It is happening in other developing countries too, not to speak of the developed countries. In China and Russia, women are encouraged to work all the day and their children are looked after by the day care center run by the government.

Women in Political Process: Women are now participating in politics of the country at a great number. The participation of women in the political process has been ensured through accepting in the constitution the principal of universal adult franchise as the basics of choosing peoples representatives. The active and constructive participation of women in the political process has amply been demonstrated  by the fact that at present there are 50 women representative in the jatiyo sangsad which comprises 350 members. At present both the leaders of the house, who is the prime minister of the government and the leader of the opposition are women members. The constitution of the country ensures women representation not only in the jatiyo sangsad but also in all local bodies. The union parisod bill passed in the parliament in 1988, provides for election  of three women members in every union through the direct voting. The Gram Parisad bill also ensures women participation in the village council. Besides, important policy and administrative measures have been taken to widen participation of women, who constitute about 48 percent of the total population, in the entire socio economic and political process.

Women and policy making process : The government has been placing greater importance on women participation in the policy making process. In order to carter to the need of women, a separate ministry of women affair has been created in 1989 to take care of all kinds of interest of women including formulation of policies and strategies for women development and coordination implementation of these policies. The government has also established WID focal points in 23 ministries including the M/O agriculture, education health and family welfare, local government and rural development to coordinate the multi sectoral and multi ministerial activities to achieve improvement integration of programmes and monitoring. Besides the M/O women affairs the departments of women affair was set up as the principle field office of the ministry which is headed by a director with the rank and status of a joint secratery. The departments has its field office in all the old 22 districts and 136 thanas. The depertment is responsible for implementing programmes and projects in accordance with the policy under taken by the ministry of women affair and the planning commission.

Bangladesh participated in the UN decade for women and made commitments towards women equity development and peace, to fulfill its national goals and objectives. The governments of Bangladesh has under taken various measures to ensure a conducive atomsfare for womens participation in the socio economic activities and in maintaining their legal rights. For the overall integration of women in the development process, the government has adoted measures with the following objectives :

1)      Reduction of the imbalance between the development of man and women through the increased participation of women in income generating activities

2)      Motivating women for greater participation in education.

3)      Expanding credit facilities for women to enable them to become self employed.

4)      Improving leadership and managerial training of women at various level.

5)      Ensuring more jobs for women through quota system.

6)      Taking measures for moral, physical and cultural development of children.

7)      Training and rehabilating socially handicapped and distressed women.

Human resource development

The important of human element in development can hardly be over emphasized. Classical economist laid emphasis on land as the main factor of production. Later on the economist laid emphasis on the availability o natural resources for making rapid progress in the economy of a country. Colonization of Asia and Africa by the Europeans followed as a result of this search for natural resources. Industrial revolution in Europe in the 18^th century shifted the importance to machines and mechanical devices. The trend continued unabated for about two centuries and recently the economist have started placing importance on development of a country. The key to development is now believed to be in the making o human productive by developing his skills, capability and motivation. In fact, productivity of man is now considered to take off point and attempt to propel the society further upward.

Human resource development is a process o helping people to acquire competencies. It is a process of increasing knowledge, skill and capacity of a people in a society. In economic term it means accumulation of human capital and its effective utilization for development of an economy. In political term the human resources development prepares people or active participation in the political process. From the social and cultural point of view, the development of human resources contribute to the enrichment of life. It is now admitted that human factor is the basic element involved in any development effort. For example, if the people engaed in any productive enterprise are not equipped with adequate knowledge and skills, the production is found to remain stagnant.

Education and training are considered to be the primary inputs to develop the people into effective human resources. The people in general without skill can neither be called man power nor resources in any development process. For the purpose of development, it is necessary to convert the population into man power and human resource through system of education, training, motivation and proper health care. All the economist including Adam Smith, David Ricard, Stuart Mill etc. have considered investment on education as vital for human capital formation. It was once believed that labour, capital and organization are the primary factors of production. But it is now said that the growth of economy is not determined by the capability of human beings. It was so in the past and shall continue to remain in the year to come.

Great philosopher like Pleato, Aristotle and Russel said that education is a human enterprise and must be patronized by the state. Plato in his book Republic wrote that If the citizens are made responsible men by good education, then will readily see through all the questions. So education plays an important role in development. USA as the first country to take education as a state policy. In 1827 Massachusetts was the first state to enact law for compulsory primary education and this was allowed by other states. In 1862 US congress passed the famous Merril act commonly known as Land Grant for the state to promote education. As a result agriculture and industrial development were accelerated by the newly educated and highly educated manpower rising the labour efficiency by 30 percent and education alone contribute to 42 percent of growth in production. Ten years of compulsory and universal primary education programe in Russia after the bolshevic revolution increased the level of literacy from 30 percent to 90 percent during 1920 to 1960. This contributed a tremendous impact on the efficiency of labour force.

Japan is a unique example of human resource development through education and training o her people. The strategy of of good teacher efficient administrators trained supervisors, wise manager and skilled labours. In the Japanese fundamental code of education 1872, education was considered to be the principle instrument for future development. The miraculous recovery of the post world war divested economy of Japan and the then west Germany and their emergence as great economies of the present day world stand as an outstanding testimony of the crucial role that human capital can play in the economic 

Four Types of Credit Market Instruments

In terms of the timing of their payments, there are four basic types of credit market
instruments.
1. A simple loan, which we have already discussed, in which the lender provides
the borrower with an amount of funds, which must be repaid to the lender at the
maturity date along with an additional payment for the interest. Many money market
instruments are of this type: for example, commercial loans to businesses.
2. A fixed-payment loan (which is also called a fully amortized loan) in which the
lender provides the borrower with an amount of funds, which must be repaid by making
the same payment every period (such as a month), consisting of part of the principal
and interest for a set number of years. For example, if you borrowed $1,000, a
fixed-payment loan might require you to pay $126 every year for 25 years. Installment
loans (such as auto loans) and mortgages are frequently of the fixed-payment type.
3. A coupon bond pays the owner of the bond a fixed interest payment (coupon
payment) every year until the maturity date, when a specified final amount (face
value or par value) is repaid. The coupon payment is so named because the bondholder
used to obtain payment by clipping a coupon off the bond and sending it to
the bond issuer, who then sent the payment to the holder. Nowadays, it is no longer
necessary to send in coupons to receive these payments. A coupon bond with $1,000
face value, for example, might pay you a coupon payment of $100 per year for ten
years, and at the maturity date repay you the face value amount of $1,000. (The face
value of a bond is usually in $1,000 increments.)
A coupon bond is identified by three pieces of information. First is the corporation
or government agency that issues the bond. Second is the maturity date of the bond. Third is the bond’s coupon rate, the dollar amount of the yearly coupon payment
expressed as a percentage of the face value of the bond. In our example, the
coupon bond has a yearly coupon payment of $100 and a face value of $1,000. The
coupon rate is then $100/$1,000  0.10, or 10%. Capital market instruments such
as U.S. Treasury bonds and notes and corporate bonds are examples of coupon bonds.
4. A discount bond (also called a zero-coupon bond) is bought at a price below
its face value (at a discount), and the face value is repaid at the maturity date. Unlike
a coupon bond, a discount bond does not make any interest payments; it just pays off
the face value. For example, a discount bond with a face value of $1,000 might be
bought for $900; in a year’s time the owner would be repaid the face value of $1,000.
U.S. Treasury bills, U.S. savings bonds, and long-term zero-coupon bonds are examples
of discount bonds.
These four types of instruments require payments at different times: Simple loans
and discount bonds make payment only at their maturity dates, whereas fixed-payment
loans and coupon bonds have payments periodically until maturity. How would you
decide which of these instruments provides you with more income? They all seem so
different because they make payments at different times. To solve this problem, we use
the concept of present value, explained earlier, to provide us with a procedure for
measuring interest rates on these different types of instruments.

Measuring Interest Rates

Different debt instruments have very different streams of payment with very different
timing. Thus we first need to understand how we can compare the value of one kind
of debt instrument with another before we see how interest rates are measured. To do
this, we make use of the concept of present value.
The concept of present value (or present discounted value) is based on the commonsense
notion that a dollar paid to you one year from now is less valuable to you than
a dollar paid to you today: This notion is true because you can deposit a dollar in asavings account that earns interest and have more than a dollar in one year.
Economists use a more formal definition, as explained in this section.
Let’s look at the simplest kind of debt instrument, which we will call a simple
loan. In this loan, the lender provides the borrower with an amount of funds (called
the principal) that must be repaid to the lender at the maturity date, along with an
additional payment for the interest. For example, if you made your friend, Jane, a simple
loan of $100 for one year, you would require her to repay the principal of $100
in one year’s time along with an additional payment for interest; say, $10. In the case
of a simple loan like this one, the interest payment divided by the amount of the loan
is a natural and sensible way to measure the interest rate. This measure of the socalled
simple interest rate, i, is:
If you make this $100 loan, at the end of the year you would have $110, which
can be rewritten as:
$100  (1  0.10)  $110
If you then lent out the $110, at the end of the second year you would have:
$110  (1  0.10)  $121
or, equivalently,
$100  (1  0.10)  (1  0.10)  $100  (1  0.10)2  $121
Continuing with the loan again, you would have at the end of the third year:
$121  (1  0.10)  $100  (1  0.10)3  $133
Generalizing, we can see that at the end of n years, your $100 would turn into:
$100  (1  i )n
The amounts you would have at the end of each year by making the $100 loan today
can be seen in the following timeline:
This timeline immediately tells you that you are just as happy having $100 today
as having $110 a year from now (of course, as long as you are sure that Jane will pay
you back). Or that you are just as happy having $100 today as having $121 two years
from now, or $133 three years from now or $100  (1  0.10)n, n years from now.
The timeline tells us that we can also work backward from future amounts to the present:
for example, $133  $100  (1  0.10)3 three years from now is worth $100
today, so that:
The process of calculating today’s value of dollars received in the future, as we have
done above, is called discounting the future. We can generalize this process by writing
$100 
$133
(1  0.10)3
$100  (1  0.10)n
Year
n
Today
0
$100 $110
Year
1
$121
Year
2
$133
Year
3
i 
$10
$100
 0.10  10%
62 PA RT I I Financial Markets
today’s (present) value of $100 as PV, the future value of $133 as FV, and replacing
0.10 (the 10% interest rate) by i. This leads to the following formula:

How Reliable Are the Money Data?

The difficulties of measuring money arise not only because it is hard to decide what
is the best definition of money, but also because the Fed frequently later revises earlier
estimates of the monetary aggregates by large amounts. There are two reasons why
the Fed revises its figures. First, because small depository institutions need to report
the amounts of their deposits only infrequently, the Fed has to estimate these amounts
until these institutions provide the actual figures at some future date. Second, the
adjustment of the data for seasonal variation is revised substantially as more data
become available. To see why this happens, let’s look at an example of the seasonal
variation of the money data around Christmas-time. The monetary aggregates always
rise around Christmas because of increased spending during the holiday season; the
rise is greater in some years than in others. This means that the factor that adjusts the
data for the seasonal variation due to Christmas must be estimated from several years
of data, and the estimates of this seasonal factor become more precise only as more
data become available. When the data on the monetary aggregates are revised, the seasonal
adjustments often change dramatically from the initial calculation.
Table 2 shows how severe a problem these data revisions can be. It provides the
rates of money growth from one-month periods calculated from initial estimates of
the M2 monetary aggregate, along with the rates of money growth calculated from a
major revision of the M2 numbers published in February 2003. As the table shows,
for one-month periods the initial versus the revised data can give a different picture
of what is happening to monetary policy. For January 2003, for example, the initial
data indicated that the growth rate of M2 at an annual rate was 2.2%, whereas the
revised data indicate a much higher growth rate of 5.4%.
A distinctive characteristic shown in Table 2 is that the differences between the
initial and revised M2 series tend to cancel out. You can see this by looking at the last
row of the table, which shows the average rate of M2 growth for the two series and
the average difference between them. The average M2 growth for the initial calculation
of M2 is 6.5%, and the revised number is 6.5%, a difference of 0.0%. The conclusion
we can draw is that the initial data on the monetary aggregates reported by
the Fed are not a reliable guide to what is happening to short-run movements in the
money supply, such as the one-month growth rates. However, the initial money data
are reasonably reliable for longer periods, such as a year. The moral is that we probably
should not pay much attention to short-run movements in the money supply
numbers, but should be concerned only with longer-run movements.