SRB

• ECB and EBA step up efforts to make banking industry data reporting more efficient
  - ECB and EBA establish Joint Bank Reporting Committee to make data reporting by the banking industry more efficient
  - New structure will harmonise and integrate reporting of statistical, supervisory and resolution data with the aim of developing common definitions and standards
  - Process will involve all relevant EU bodies, as well as national authorities and banking industry representatives
  The European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Banking Authority (EBA) aim to harmonise and integrate data reporting by the banking industry with the goal of improving efficiency and reducing the associated costs.
• “High-quality data is essential to fulfilling our mandate”, said ECB Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel.
• “I am pleased that we will have a structure in place to simplify and facilitate data reporting by the banking industry in an integrated, efficient and standardised system.”
  “A harmonised, proportionate and fit-for-purpose reporting system is a priority for the EBA,” said EBA Chairperson José Manuel Campa.
• One key tangible deliverable of the JBRC will be a common data dictionary for the reporting of statistical, supervisory and resolution data by banks.

• NEW YORK, Feb. 12, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- OTC Markets Group Inc. (OTCQX: OTCM), operator of regulated markets for 12,000 U.S. and international securities, today announced Serabi Gold Plc (AIM: SRB; TSX: SBI; OTCQX: SRBIF), a Brazilian-focused gold mining and development company, has qualified to trade on the OTCQX® Best Market.
• Serabi Gold Plc upgraded to OTCQX from the Pink® market.
• Serabi Gold Plc begins trading today on OTCQX under the symbol “SRBIF.” U.S. investors can find current financial disclosure and Real-Time Level 2 quotes for the company on www.otcmarkets.com .
• Serabi’s CEO, Mike Hodgson commented, “We are delighted to qualify for the premier tier on OTC Markets.

• Trial mining license at Coringa renewed for a further three years.
• Serabi Gold plc (“Serabi” or the “Company”) (AIM: SRB, TSX: SBI), is pleased to announce a three year renewal of the trial mining licence for its wholly owned Coringa mine (“Coringa”).
• The National Mining Agency (ANM) has issued a renewal of the Company’s trial mining licence (“GU") for Coringa for an additional three years, demonstrating continued stakeholder support for Coringa.
• The GU permits the transport of up to 50,000 tonnes of ore per annum from Coringa, to be processed at the Palito Complex.

• Following a historic 30-year-long imbalance in the male-to-female sex ratio at birth, young men far outnumber young women in the country.
• As a result, some 700,000 to 800,000 “extra” South Korean boys born since the mid-1980s may not be able to find South Korean girls to marry.

The reasons

• In most countries, more boys are born than girls – around 105 to 107 boys per 100 girls.
• The gender imbalance is likely an evolutionary adaptation to the biological fact that females live longer than males.
• After fluctuating a bit at elevated levels through the 1990s and early 2000s, it returned to the biologically normal range by 2010.

A preference for sons

• South Korea experienced a rapid fertility decline in a 20- to 30-year period beginning in the 1960s.
• From six children per woman in 1960, fertility fell to four children in 1972, then to two children in 1984.
• Yet, South Korea’s long-held cultural preference for sons did not shift as quickly as childbearing declined.
• Abortion, which is legal and socially acceptable in South Korea, was then often used to allow families to select the sex of their child.

Sex by the numbers

In South Korea, beginning in around 1980 and lasting up to around 2010 or so, many more extra boys were born than girls. When these extra boys reach adulthood and start looking for South Korean girls to marry, many will be unsuccessful. The extra boys born in the 1980s and 1990s are now of marriage age, and many will be looking to marry and start a family. Many more will be reaching marriage age in the next two decades.

• I have calculated that owing to the unbalanced SRBs in South Korea between 1980 and 2010, there were born approximately 700,000 to 800,000 extra boys.
• Already this is having an effect in a society where over the centuries virtually everyone was expected to marry, and where marriage was nearly universal.

Foreign brides and ‘bachelor ghettos’

• If the extra bachelors do not marry immigrant brides, they will have no alternative but to develop their own lives and livelihoods.
• Such “ghettos” have already been observed in other Asian cities where men outnumber women, such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou in China.

• South Korea’s high fertility of the mid-20th century was holding the country back economically.
• Its program to bring down a fertility rate of nearly six children per woman was hugely successful.
• Women in South Korea have greater access to education and employment, and there is less pressure for men to be sole wage earners.

Dudley L. Poston Jr. does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.