A Long Chau drugstore. The pharmaceutical retail market was seeing the rapid expansion of modern drugstore chains. — Photo FPT Retail The winds of change are blowing through Viet Nam’s retail pharmaceutical industry, with giants wrapping up investments to establish modern retail chains in an anticipated fast-growing market, which mom-and-pop stores currently dominate. After Pharmacity, FPT’s Long Chau, and Mobile World Investment Corp’s An Khang pharmacy chains, Masan Group is supposedly gearing up preparations to enter the pharmaceutical retail market. According to the national portal about business registration, Winphar Trading Services Corporation was founded on March 31 with WinCommerce, holding a stake of 80 per cent, Do Thi Hoang Yen and Tran Phuong Bac, 10 per cent each. WinCommerce, a member of Masan Group, currently operates the most significant nationwide grocery modern trade retail platform Winmart and Winmart+ while Yen and Bac both held important positions at … [Read more...] about Giants reshape retail pharmaceutical market
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From coffee to toothpaste, Nigerians buy small as hardships bite
From five grams of toothpaste to 10 millilitres of cooking oil, many Nigerians struggling with soaring prices now buy their basic necessities in small quantities packed in tiny plastic bags to be consumed on the same day. Consumer brands behind this "sachetisation of the economy" see it as a creative innovation, allowing consumption for all Nigerians, the majority of whom live on less than $2 a day. But critics see the development as an economic and ecological aberration, even as Africa's largest economy struggles with the inflationary fallout from Russia's war in Ukraine. In the streets of Lagos, the vibrant economic capital of Africa's most populous country, small sachets are now part of the decor: they colour its streets, packing the wood and tin shops found on the corner of most streets. Sitting on a stool, Ibrahim Atahire has been running his small grocery store for 30 years in a busy area of Obalende, a popular district of the megalopolis. "At my place, you can buy … [Read more...] about From coffee to toothpaste, Nigerians buy small as hardships bite
Austrian scientists race to reveal melting glaciers’ secrets
Jumping from rock to rock to rock over a creek formed off Austria's Jamtal glacier, scientist Andrea Fischer worries that precious scientific data will be irreversibly lost as the snow and ice melt faster than ever. "I couldn't have imagined that it would ever melt as dramatically as this summer... Our 'archive' is melting away," says the glaciologist. Fischer -- vice director of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Mountain Research at the Austrian Academy of Sciences -- has spent more than 20 years surveying Jamtal and four other Alpine glaciers across Austria's highest peaks for the oldest areas of ice. For scientists looking to reconstruct the Earth's climate in the distant past, such ice formations are a unique time capsule stretching back thousands of years. The glaciers contain an invaluable treasure trove of data -- as they grew, the ice encapsulated twigs and leaves, which can now be carbon-dated, Fischer explains. And based on the age of such material and the depth … [Read more...] about Austrian scientists race to reveal melting glaciers’ secrets