1.1 Introduction

All of us live in families and depending on the income, we have different standards of living. We require various types of goods and services to satisfy our needs and wants. Some members in your family have to work to earn and provide for the needs of the family. Thus, people engage in different activities which are known as economic activities. In ancient times, people had limited wants to satisfy. In modern times however, we need a large variety of goods and services to satisfy our needs and to raise our standard of living. On the one hand the supply of goods and services has led to various activities. On the other hand, activities of different types are undertaken by people to earn sufficiently to fulfil their increasing wants. Thus we find large numbers of people engaged in business, industry, and profession. Such economic and business activities satisfy various needs and demands for goods and services.


In this lesson you will learn about the nature and purpose of business.

1.2 Objectives

After studying this lesson, you will be able to :

• recall the meaning and scope of human activities;
• enumerate the types of economic activities and their characteristics;
• identify business as an economic activity;
• differentiate between business and other economic activities and explain the meaning and characteristics of business;
• distinguish between different types of business activities;
• explain the significance of business in modern society;
• establish the relationship between production and distribution and identify different types of industries;
• state the concept of retail and whole-sale trade and export and import;

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• identify the auxiliaries that facilitate trade and commerce.