Search Results for: Brazilian

But even though the Lava Jato task force was officially disbanded in 2021, Pierpaolo Bottini, partner at São Paulo-based Bottini & Tamasauskas Advogados, and a former director of the Economic Criminal Law of the Brazilian Institute of Criminal Sciences, said this abuse of crypto has been highlighted in cases he is defending. …

INTRODUCTION

Textile and clothing companies are well aware of two major trends driving sales in the industry – sustainability and digitisation. One is driven by the need to adopt sustainable manufacturing processes and materials, to boost sales amongst environmentally conscious consumers and reduce financial and regulatory costs associated with pollution and carbon emissions.…

Brazil’s larger companies operating digital textile printing services have experienced a sharp recovery since social distancing restrictions imposed by Covid-19 waned, with many companies now investing in new equipment to move forward. But the country’s troubled politics – with far-right President Jair Bolsonaro earlier this month (September) saying he would refuse to recognise decisions made by the country’s Supreme Court – are limiting how much commercial risk textile firms are prepared to make.…

With electronic communication methods proliferating, as machine learning and artificial intelligence systems develop fast, the potential for using technology to detect deception and lies is growing. But interrogation experts maintain that the most effective way of detecting lies and deceit remains a combination of face-to-face interviews, backed up with analysis that can help them assess the resulting exchange.…

With electronic communication methods proliferating, as machine learning and artificial intelligence systems develop fast, the potential for using technology to detect deception and lies is growing. But interrogation experts maintain that the most effective way of detecting lies and deceit remains a combination of face-to-face interviews, backed up with analysis that can help them assess the resulting exchange.…

Brazilian textile company Dalila Têxtil, based in the southern city of Jaraguá do Sul, in Santa Catarina state, became a global name after creating fabrics capable of destroying the protective outer layer of the Covid-19 virus. The company’s anti-viral finishing uses silver particles to attract the virus, causing it to bind to sulphur groups on the surface around the virus, creating a reaction that stops the virus from binding to the host cell and blocks its replication.…

INTRODUCTION

The COVID-19 pandemic has had many profound social and economic impacts, but maybe one of the most important for the clothing and textile sector has been how it encouraged the meshing of design and function in products.

With consumers staying at home, they have looked for apparel to provide comfort as much as formal elegance, of more importance when working in an office or attending public evening events.…

Brazil’s Chief Justice Luiz Fux refused to acknowledge the death of the sprawling Lava Jato (Car Wash) corruption probe in a historic full court session on April 23, declaring: “This is not the end of Car Wash.” 

However, he might have been forgiven for accepting that these investigations were at an end.…

INNOVATIVE confectionery and sweet bakery companies will be able from next month (July) to explore applying for research funding from the European Union’s (EU) Horizon Europe programme, which has a budget of around EUR95.5 billion. This spending will last until 2027, with companies needing to form international consortia focused on food, ingredients and packaging projects to have the best chance of securing funding.…

Anti-money laundering specialists may be focusing on how crypto-currencies and online transactions pose an increasing ML/TF risk, especially with Covid-19 encouraging ecommerce, but the reality is that cash remains the money launderers’ best instrument for moving dirty money.

That is the conclusion of Gabriel Hidalgo, a managing director at risk specialists K2 Integrity, in New York: “Cash is king for ML; it continues to be king; and on the majority of levels, illicit actors will continue to use cash,” he said.…

It takes minutes for any Brazilian on Instagram to be bombarded with ads of modern companies selling exquisite items from tofu tikka masala stew to cauliflower risotto. But these are not from restaurants heavily impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic and now use social media to survive.…

THE REPUTATION of the Caribbean’s major cigar production centres – Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua – has dominated global markets for years. But the entire region’s balmy and moist climate and rich soils are ideal for growing cigar wrapper and filler leaf.…

LATIN America has been hit particularly hard by the Covid-19 pandemic – with Chile, Peru, Brazil and Colombia in the top-20 of countries regarding cases per million people – and its paint and coatings market and industry has faced a similarly rough ride.…

Textile industry innovators are seeking to create and improve naturally coloured cotton, that can reduce or even remove the need for manufacturers to add dyes that can be expensive and generate significant levels of pollution.

Natural coloured cotton is not new, with Liv Severino, head of Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária (Embrapa), the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation, a state-owned research corporation affiliated with Brazil’s ministry of agriculture, livestock and food supply, noting evidence that human clothes were made from such fibres in the Andes 5,000 years ago.…

One year ago, there were few options in the Brazilian market of non-meat alternative products. But brands have started luring beef-crazy Brazilians into buying several plant-based meat substitutes, chiefly hamburgers. And some of the country’s biggest meat packers are now exploring this relatively small, but promising category.…

THE UNITED Nations’ Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has proposed creating a permanent ‘observatory’ monitoring cocoa markets, assessing value and costs, to help chocolate sales revenues be more equitably distributed throughout supply chains.

In a report called a ‘Comparative study on the distribution of value in European chocolate chains’, the FAO said such “objectified and cross-checked data” would aid “a multi-stakeholder discussion” at national and global levels on revenue sharing.…

THE COVID-19 crisis has severely depressed sales of personal care products within Latin America and it is unclear when the market will pick up.

In Argentina, for example, a coronavirus-induced lockdown has pushed the economy deeper into recession, slashing sales of most unessential beauty and personal care products.…

AS a key part of the food production supply chain, the international can manufacturing and filling industry has largely stayed open, with some exceptions, during the Covid-19 crisis, not just in developed economies, but also in key emerging markets such as the BRICS countries.…

There is, however, much less protection in Latin America. In Brazil, the country’s justice and public security minister Sérgio Moro left the job in April accusing President Jair Bolsonaro of interference with federal police work. By doing so, he effectively became a whistleblower himself, but his suggestions on the topic are far from being the law of the land.…

THE TREND towards consumers buying confectionery made with natural ingredients is gathering pace, with research from Germany-based international food ingredients-maker Döhler saying that worldwide more than 50% of confectionery consumers now want a “healthier” product and more than 60% “value natural ingredients”.…

THE ROLE of whistleblowers in the Americas has been given special attention in since last August, when an intelligence officer lodged a complaint with the Intelligence Community Inspector General about a phone call by President Donald Trump to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky pressuring him to open an investigation into alleged corruption by former vice-president Joe Biden.…

Brazil’s graft-busting justice minister Sergio Moro has resigned from President Jair Bolsonaro’s government, accusing him of meddling in federal police efforts to fight corruption for political gain. Moro stood down April 24 after Bolsonaro fired the federal police chief, Maurício Valeixo, because newspaper, Correio Braziliense claims an investigation into fake news and anti-democracy protests was homing in on the President’s son, Carlos Bolsonaro.…

In a market long dominated by well-established players, the success of ‘masstige’ beauty brands, which combine elements of mass and luxury products, is creating fierce competition in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. Consumers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman looking for skincare and cosmetics are increasingly shopping from South Korean brands such as Etude House, which opened a branch in Dubai Mall in 2018 and is known for its quirky kitsch products, and The Face Shop, which arrived in Dubai in 2008 and recently renovated its four concept stores in the city.…

For almost six years the federal prosecutors, policemen and judges of Brazil’s Operation Car Wash (Lava Jato) were hailed as anti-corruption heroes. Their spectacular raids and testimonies led to scores of politicians and businessmen jailed throughout Latin America, and especially in Brazil.…

THE EUROPEAN Parliament has called for a more robust approach to defend European honey production, as bee numbers continue to fall. In a motion supported almost unanimously, the EP’s environment committee has called for the European Union (EU) Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) – which is now under review – to include active steps on reducing pesticide use, which MEPs blame for honey bee deaths.…

AFTER 20 years of negotiations the European Union (EU)-Mercosur trade deal, which has boosted hopes for increased textile trades with Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay is at risk of being blocked ahead of its ratification.

Furious about ongoing deforestation and wildfires in Amazonia, EU countries, including influential countries France and Ireland, have warned that they are ready to block the deal because of alleged breaches by Brazil of its international environmental commitments.…

THE GROWING variety of ready-to-drink (RTD), capsule, and home-brewing ground coffee products being made available in China is a testimony to how this market has matured since Nestlé started pushing instant coffee on consumers from 1990.

Market researcher Euromonitor International estimates that China’s RTD coffee market size is burgeoning, predicting it will grow 32.9% to Chinese Yuan Renminbi CNY10.9 billion (USD1.54 billion) in 2023, up from CNY8.2 billion in 2018.…

WHILE the spectre of Brexit looms over the British economy and hence its beauty markets, the fundamentals of its personal care product sector live on. As the UK ponders leaving the European Union (EU), maybe in October, commentators often cast a wary eye at Germany to see how this economic engine of the EU is performing – maybe to check whether Brexit is as big a business mistake as many experts warn.…

‘AUSTRALIAN-made’, ‘cruelty-free’ and ‘natural’ – these were the marketing buzz words most commonly cited during Australia’s leading beauty event – Beauty Expo Australia – staged in Sydney between August 24 and 25.

Although ‘Proudly Australian’ has become a slogan used by many beauty brands based in Australia, the conference actually demonstrated how Australian beauty retailers and consumers are open to trying more international lines, new treatments and innovative products.…

A EUROPEAN Union (EU) trade deal struck with South America’s Mercosur group of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, will open this emerging market to EU confectionery exporters, but Europe’s sugar sector fears increased Brazilian sugar exports. The agreement, which now needs to be ratified by both sides, will phase out Mercosur duties on EU exports of chocolate and sugar confectionery of 20%; biscuits (taxed at 20% to 35%); liquorice extract – 8%; and confectionery-making equipment – 14%.…

THE EUROPEAN metal packaging sector will be hoping that the newly negotiated European Union (EU)-Mercosur trade deal is ratified quickly, given it scraps import duties imposed by Brazil and Argentina on such exports of between 12% and 35%. These are the key markets in the South American trade bloc, that also includes comparative minnows Uruguay and Paraguay, whose protective duties shadow their larger Mercosur neighbours.…

BRAZIL’S textile industry has welcomed the new trade deal between the Mercosur bloc (of which Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay are fellow members) and the European Union (EU) which was announced on June 28.

With existing tariffs having impeded trade in fabrics, yarn and fibre between the two blocs in the past, Renato Jardim, the superintendent of industrial and economic policy for Brazilian Textile and Apparel Industry Association (ABIT – Associação Brasileira da Indústria Têxtil e de Confecção) told WTiN.com:…

THE EUROPEAN automobile manufacturing sector will be hoping that the newly negotiated European Union (EU)-Mercosur trade deal is ratified quickly, given it scraps import duties imposed by Brazil and Argentina on EU automobile exports of 35%.

This agreement has been welcomed by the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), which noted that the South American trade bloc, which also includes Uruguay and Paraguay, is home to around 270 million people, where 3.3 million new cars were sold during 2018.…

EUROPEAN Union (EU) importer of liquid fuels should benefit from a trade deal struck between the EU and the Mercosur bloc of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. The agreement will phase out all EU duties charged on industrial goods over 10 years.…

A EUROPEAN Union (EU) trade deal struck with South America’s Mercosur group of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, should boost trade between the two blocs of industrial minerals. The agreement, which now needs to be ratified by both sides, will phase out all EU duties charged on industrial goods (including minerals and mineral items) over 10 years.…

Brazilian beef exports to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) saw an increase of 439.84% year-on-year in the first half of 2019, according to figures issued by the Dubai-based Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce. Brazilian beef sales to all Arab countries were up 47.62%.…

THE TRADE in textile finishing chemicals and products made with them between the European Union (EU) and the Mercosur bloc of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay is likely to intensify under a new trade deal between the two regional groupings.

The agreement, which now needs ratification by both sides, will phase out all EU duties charged on industrial goods (including dyes and other finishers) over 10 years.…

IT has been another subdued year for the beauty and personal care product market in Latin America, as the region’s economy underperforms yet again after six years of deceleration (and in some countries outright recession), keeping a lid on sales growth. …

Are universities and the media doing enough in the defence of knowledge when faced with the global rise of populism? This question has been debated at the third Worldviews International Conference on Media and Higher Education. Staged at Canada’s University of Toronto, speakers asked how can higher education and journalism counter the claims of elitism made against these institutions?…

A EUROPEAN Union (EU) trade deal struck with South America’s Mercosur group of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, will boost trade between the two blocs of non-ferrous metals and related articles. The agreement, which now needs to be ratified by both sides, will phase out all EU duties charged on industrial goods (including metals and metal items) over 10 years.…

A EUROPEAN Union (EU) trade deal struck with South America’s Mercosur group of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, will boost trade between the two blocs of non-ferrous metals and related articles. The agreement, which now needs to be ratified by both sides, will phase out all EU duties charged on industrial goods (including metals and metal items) over 10 years.…

AFRICAN swine fever (ASF) has been squeezing pork supplies in China to a point where the country’s political leadership fears upheaval, as reflected by the country’s government influenced social media restricting ASF-related discussion. Even academic articles, if ASF-themed, now require explicit regulatory approval before publishing, informed sources in China, who requested anonymity, told just-food.  …

A EUROPEAN Union (EU) trade deal struck with South America’s Mercosur group of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, will open this emerging market to EU drinks exporters. The agreement, which now needs to be ratified by both sides, will phase out Mercosur duties on wine of 27%; whiskey and other spirits (taxed at 20% to 35%); and soft drinks (taxed at 20% to 35%).…

BRAZIL’S automotive industry sector is optimistic about the future, now that the new government of right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro has left the new Route 2030 package of industrial incentives untouched.

The President, who assumed office on January 1, had criticised Route 2030 (Rota 2030 in Portuguese) last November (2018), as a potential waste of money.…

Although religious universities educate only about 15% of all higher education students in Mozambique, they make a significant contribution to a country with very low levels of access to tertiary studies. Only 1% of the 29 million Mozambicans are currently attending attend higher education courses according to data provided by the country’s ministry of science and technology and higher education.…

SUPERFRUITS offer personal care product brands lots of marketing muscle, delivering an image of exoticism, as well as offering real functional benefits.

As a result, beauty companies have been willing to trawl the world for new super fruit ingredients to give their lines a competitive edge.…

SOUTH African award-winning knitwear entrepreneur Laduma Ngxokolo has a personal dynamism that underpins the 32-year-old’s dominance in his niche market of integrating Xhosa art and cultural traditions with knitted garments.

Hailing from Port Elizabeth, a major South African city in the Eastern Cape, he embraced his cultural heritage to found knitwear fashion house MaXhosa Africa by Laduma in 2012.…

THE GLOBAL art trade’s exposure to abuse by money launderers is to come under scrutiny as the European Union (EU) countries have started adopting the 5th EU anti-money laundering directive (EU 2018/843 – 5AMLD), which brings cultural artefacts trading under AML controls.…

THE WOOL industry worldwide needs to bolster its reputation for sustainability, amidst increasing siren attacks on its marketing position from animal rights and environmental activists, the 2018 International Wool Textile Organisation (IWTO) Wool Round Table, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, heard this month (December 3-4).…

The US and China at the G20 meeting in early December settled for a 90-day suspension of their bilateral trade war including a halt to any additional tariffs, but sourcing patterns are not going to become business-as-usual any time soon for China’s soybean sector.…

THE WORLD Trade Organisation (WTO) Disputes Settlement Body (DSB) has approved establishing disputes settlement panels ruling sought by the USA on whether retaliatory duties imposed by the European Union (EU), Canada, China, and Mexico on US confectionery and sweet bakery and associated ingredient exports, imposed in response to America’s controversial steel and aluminium tariffs, break WTO rules.…

AN INDUSTRIAL chemical used to make paints, primers, varnishes and coatings should be regarded as carcinogenic and regulated accordingly, a European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) committee has concluded. Its committee for risk assessment (RAC) said that exposure butanone oxime carried this risk as well as causing drowsiness or dizziness if swallowed and being harmful in contact with skin, could cause damage to the upper respiratory tract after a single exposure and damage to the blood system through prolonged or repeated exposure.…

WITH an estimated USD1.5 trillion lost to the global economy because of bribes, the World Bank is pushing for a diverse array of technology to be deployed – it is a call being answered with anti-graft systems being installed worldwide.

Reducing corruption “is a priority” for the World Bank, it said in a briefing note in September 2017.…

EUROPEAN Union (EU) and Mercosur negotiators went into crucial trade talks in Uruguayan capital Montevideo September 10-14, cheered on by automakers on both sides who want a deal, even though there are tough technical issues to resolve. The round is another bid to smash the deadlock over a future trade pact between the EU and the four founding Mercosur nations – Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. …

BRAZILIAN state energy giant Petróleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) has settled bribery charges with USA and Brazilian law enforcement agencies, agreeing to pay an eye watering USD1.78 billion to resolve outstanding accusations.

However, USD933.4 million of this will be credited by the USA’s Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) to Petrobras, taking into account money disgorged under a previous settlement of a securities class action lawsuit in the United States.…

THE CHINESE government has directly targeted the American confectionery and related ingredients sector in its latest tit-for-tat response in the trade wars launched by US President Donald Trump. Beijing has highlighted these goods as products that may become subject to retaliatory tariffs, should the USA impose a threatened third list of duties on Chinese tech, drafted over alleged thefts of American IP.…

THE NONWOVENS sector has always been at the cutting edge of materials production, and so established developed economy manufacturers have often had the edge. But with global markets integrating, and emerging economies becoming increasingly sophisticated, new nonwovens manufacturing bases are growing all the time.…

Cotton industry analysts have said the clothing industry should not overreact to a major hike in Chinese cotton futures contracts, following years of stockpiling the fibre by China buyers, even though they accept market uncertainty has been driving up prices.

Contracts have been purchased covering more than 361,000 bales of US cotton for 2019-20, according to US Department of Agriculture data which “would be enough to make 400 million t-shirts,” the Wall Street Journal suggested in an article on June 10, adding: “China has never booked that much cotton that far in advance at this time of year, in data going back to 1998” and has now become a “major consumer” of US cotton.…

THE LATIN American personal care product market, buffeted in recent years by economic and political instability, looks back on track, with trouble-spots such as Venezuela being very much an exception to overall progress.

Data released by market researcher Euromonitor International has said that the region’s beauty and personal care product sales in 2017 topped USD65 billion in 2017, growing by 42.5% between 2012 and last year.…

THE INTERNATIONAL Cocoa Organisation (ICCO) has released an ambitious policy plan designed to steer the industry towards sustainability. Called the Berlin Declaration, having been released at the fourth World Cocoa Conference, of governments, farmers, traders, grinders, processors, manufacturers, researchers, trade unions, civil society organisations, trade unions, consumer organisations, it says higher farm gate prices should be paid.…

BRAZIL’s agriculture minister Blairo Maggi has announced his country, “the world’s second-largest producer and largest poultry exporter” wants to contest the European Union (EU)’s restrictions on poultry meat exports at the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The case could set an important world trade law precedent for poultry imports, regarding the extent to which importing countries can block trades over salmonella contamination.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed stopping 20 Brazilian companies exporting meat products into the European Union (EU), following a unanimous vote at the April 18-19 European Commission special committee of member state experts on plants, animals, food and feed.

A Commission spokesperson told GlobalMeatNews the measure delisting companies from those allowed to export poultry meat “relates to deficiencies detected in the Brazilian official control system”.…

TRADE in clothing and textiles between Brazil and Argentina has been growing, as manufacturers in these neighbouring South America countries rein in their comparatively high costs, according to international trade data. Brazilian textile and apparel exports to Argentina rose 4.9% to USD251 million in 2017 from USD239 million in 2016, while Brazil’s imports from its southern neighbour shot up 22.6% to USD86.9 million from USD70.9 million over the same period. …

BRAZIL’S senate is debating a bill 626/2011 that could lift an existing ban on harvesting sugarcane in the country’s Amazon region to make ethanol fuel. The proposal has been supported by Brazil’s centrist President Michel Temer but opposed by environmental groups and the Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association (UNICA – União da Indústria de Cana-de-Açúcar).…

BRAZIL’S automotive industry is awaiting the final details and presidential sanction of a 14-year incentives program called Rota 2030, that will offer up to Brazilian Reals BRL1.5 billion (USD467.4 million) in annual tax credits sector-wide to auto and auto parts manufacturers selling cars in Brazil.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission wants to delist all companies involved in the latest cases of fraud in Brazil’s meat sector from having access to European Union (EU) markets, the EU executive’s spokesperson for health and food safety Anca Paduraru has told GlobalMeatNews.…

BRAZIL’S textile sector would contract, should the country abandon its protectionist policies, however, its added value clothing industry would perform better, an Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) report has concluded.

Noting that average tariffs levels weighted by imports are almost twice as high in Brazil as in Colombia and more than eight times higher than in Mexico or Chile, the report highlighted how around 450 tariff lines are at the maximum of 35%, including textiles, apparel and leather.…

MAJOR shifts in the power of exporting countries within the meat and livestock sector in the past decade have been identified in new statistical analysis released by the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The global body has noted how India between 2006 and 2016 became a bovine meat export power house (notably in buffalo meat) with overseas sales rising from 79,400 tonnes (1.9% of world exports) to 1.2 million tonnes (18.7%) and the world’s largest exporter to boot.…

Brazil’s textile industry has reported an overall growth in sales of 3.2% for 2017, and even bigger increases are forecast for the year ahead. Latest data from the Brazilian Textile and Apparel Association (ABIT – Associação Brasileira da Indústria Têxtil e de Confecção) predicts an overall growth in revenues of 3.29% for the year 2018.…

THE RUSSIAN government has said it plans to significantly increase its beef exports from Latin American states (except from Brazil) to compensate for potential domestic supply shortages created by the existing ban on imports of meat from western countries and a recent ban on beef imports from Brazil.…

Brazilian state-controlled oil giant, Petrobras, is offering to pay out USD2.95 billion to settle an American class action lawsuit by shareholders that lost money in the massive Brazilian corruption scandal uncovered in Operation Car Wash (Lava Jato). In a statement, Petrobras has said that the payout, which still needs to be agreed by a US federal court, is intended to resolve all pending and prospective claims against the company in the US, “eliminates the risk of an adverse judgment … and puts an end to the uncertainties, burdens and costs of protracted litigation.”…

EUROPEAN Union (EU) and Brazilian textile industry associations have joined forces to draw up common proposals to put to negotiators drawing up the clothing and textile chapters of a future free trade agreement (FTA) between the EU and Mercosur group of countries, consisting of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.…

OECD SAYS 49 JURISDICTIONS WILL AUTOMATICALLY EXCHANGE TAX INFORMATION THIS YEAR

THE IDENTITY of 49 jurisdictions that will automatically exchange tax information in 2017 under a global standard has been revealed by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD).…

THE RUSSIAN Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance (Rosselkhoznadzor) may impose a ban on all imports of beef and pork from Brazil, the largest meat importer to Russia, in coming days over concerns about the detection of a forbidden hormone, government officials have warned.…

THE WORLD Trade Organisation (WTO) appellate body is considering an appeal by Brazil against a WTO disputes panel ruling that a wide range of Brazilian tax systems, designed to promote domestic production and exports, breach global trading agreements. The WTO backed Japan and European Union (EU) complaints that these discriminate unfairly against non-Brazilian competitors.…

CHINA’S imposition of temporary safeguard duties to protect its sugar industry have been challenged at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), with sugar giant Brazil arguing Beijing’s tariffs break global commerce rules. In a signal that Brazil might be considering launching a disputes case against China, diplomats for the South American country told a WTO safeguards committee meeting that the duties broke the WTO agreement on safeguards and the general agreement on tariffs and trade (GATT). …

BRAZIL may be the source of just 1.6% of all nanotechnology research papers across the world according to UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation), but it remains a leader among its Latin American neighbours due to its National Nanotechnology Programme.…

THE BRAZILIAN arm of Brussels-based speciality chemical firm Solvay says that it is prospering in Brazil though sales of biodegradable polyamide yarn Amni Soul Eco, reflecting the demand for bio-based materials and products in Latin America’s largest country.

Renato Boaventura, CEO of the Brazil Rhodia Solvay Group’s ‘fibras global business unit’ told WTiN.com…

‘Colourful’,’ young’, ‘big’ and ‘clever’ are words often bandied about to describe the positive qualities of Brazil, and they certainly could be used to define La Estampa, a Brazilian textile company specialising in digital print B2B.

With a global print capacity of 25,000 metres per day, La Estampa is able to punch its weight in global digital textile markets.…

RESTRICTIVE quotas limiting European Union (EU) sugar production to 13.5 million tonnes have finally been scrapped, freeing producers to hit market demand. The abolition of the quotas from October 1 sees European Commission officials predicting that EU sugar production will increase 20% and reach 20.1 million tonnes for the next harvest.…

CONFECTIONARY manufacturers in India are having to grapple with their products and ingredients attracting a wide range of tax rates under the country’s new goods and services tax (GST), which started to be levied from July 1.

India’s GST Council, a body representing the central and state governments, has been deciding which goods will be covered by the zero, 5%, 12%, 18% and 28% tax rates allowed under India’s GST legislation. …

THE LEAGUE of Arab States’ 22 countries have imported more Brazilian textiles and clothing between January and July of 2017 than during the whole of 2016, according to the latest industry figures from the Brazilian-Arabic Chamber of Commerce (CCAB – Câmara de Comércio Árabe-Brasileira).…

TEXTILE finishers in Brazil should take heed of local consumers’ demand for complex and colourful design in fabrics, traders at SAARA, Rio de Janeiro’s biggest open-air market, have told WTiN.com.

Grassroots interviews at this market in the city’s historic centre said Brazil’s mass market fabric tastes eschew simplicity – the market, originally founded by immigrants at the end of the 19^th century, is a medley of shopfronts selling everything from sports equipment and beach chairs to makeup and plastic jewellery.…

Leather exporters in the north Indian production hub of Kanpur (in Uttar Pradesh) are facing closure of their tanneries over environmental concerns, even as they are trying to overcome the shortage of raw hides and loss of business to Brazilian companies.…

THE RUSSIAN Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance (Rosselkhoznadzor) may impose a ban on all imports of beef and pork from Brazil, the largest meat importer to Russia, in coming days over concerns about the detection of a forbidden hormone, government officials have warned.…

BRAZIL maintains high tariffs on its textiles and clothing imports to encourage foreign investment, according to a new World Trade Organisation (WTO) trade review, but data inside a detailed report suggests this policy is proving ineffective.

“Clothing, textiles, and transport equipment continue to benefit from the activity’s highest tariff protection (35%), the main tool in an apparent tariff-jumping policy to attract FDI” (foreign direct investment), said the WTO.…

THE OWNER of a major digital printing business in Brazil has predicted that the country’s finishing sector will abandon traditional colouring techniques by 2027. Marcelo Castelão, the sole owner of La Estampa, a Rio de Janeiro-based printing company, told WTiN.com: “Within five to 10 years, the cylinders will be gone.…

CJ CHEILJEDANG Corp, South Korea’s leading maker of processed foods, in a Korea Exchange (KRX) filing on June 12^th announced KRW541 billion (USD479.3 million) investment into the construction of a processed food production facility in Jincheon County in central South Korea.…

Brazilian prosecutors have fined the parent company of Brazil meatpacking giant JBS, J&F Investimentos, a record Brazilian Reals BRL10.3 billion (USD3.2 billion) for bribing 1,900 local politicians. Payments, which will start in December, will be spread over 25 years under a May 30 leniency agreement between J&F Investimentos and Brazil’s Federal Prosecution Service (MPF). …

BRAZIL’S beauty and personal care market took a hit in 2016, as the world’s fourth-biggest beauty market struggled to emerge from its worst-ever recession amid political corruption scandals. 

The outlook is for a slow recovery this year, as high unemployment keeps a lid on purchasing power in this market of 207 million people.…

THE SOUTH African hair care market grew 6% in current value terms in the past year to South African Rand ZAR6.6 billion (USD488.4 million). And this growth is projected, by London-based market researchers Euromonitor, to rise by a 1% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) in constant value terms over the next five years.…

THE RELEASE of a taped conversation between unpopular Brazilian President Michel Temer and CEO of giant meatpacker JBS has put the South American nation in another political turmoil only one year after its former President Dilma Rousseff was impeached.

The revelations have put heavy pressure for Temer to resign, who denies wrongdoing.…

OVER a sunny weekend in May 2017, 74,000 people headed to Barcelona’s Palau Sant Jordi, a futuristic events space built for the city’s 1992 Olympic Games, and many were going to learn about Spain’s organic and natural cosmetics products. On other occasions, these impressive numbers would be expected for the international pop stars who regularly perform here.…

FOUR Brazilian presidents (including the incumbent), dozens of lawmakers, nearly all governors, mayors of major cities, members of the judicial system and of the press, have been tainted with corruption allegations by the sprawling Lava Jato probe. It has had global impact as one of the biggest scandals in history.…

REDUCING Brazil’s excessive duty tariffs through renewed European Union (EU)-Brazil trade talks is essential to increase textile exports to the Latin American country, EURATEX (the European Apparel and Textile Federation) director general Francesco Marchi has told WTiN.com.

Decisions on tariffs are central to negotiations between the EU and Mercosur – the trading block of Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay and Brazil (Venezuela was suspended from the group in December 2016).…

INDIA’S perfumery market is expanding with fast growing demand, easier availability of top brands and greater choice of products across the price range. According to market researcher Euromonitor International, the country’s overall fragrance market registered annual sales of USD298 million in 2016 and is projected to grow at an annual rate of 13.7% in next five year as the country’s USD2 trillion economy continues to grow at more 7% annually.…

THE RELEASE of dozens of plea bargain testimonies from executives at Brazilian constructor Odebrecht have sparked a flood of high profile criminal investigations for illegal graft within the country’s sprawling ‘lava jato’ (car wash) corruption probe. The inquiries that started looking into shady dealing at the state-run oil major Petrobras may now have reached a climax, with judges opening investigations into eight government ministers, 12 governors, hundreds of public officials and lawmakers and all of the country’s five living former presidents.…

THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has launched a comprehensive study into the healthiness of consuming sugar, that could guidance telling consumers when to stop eating sugary foods, such as confectionery. An ad-hoc working group with expertise in dietary exposure, epidemiology, human nutrition, diet-related chronic diseases and dentistry will examine the issue, along with Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, which requested the work.…

India’s perfumery market is expanding with fast growing demand, easier availability of top brands and greater choice of products across the price range. According to market researcher Euromonitor International, the country’s overall fragrance market registered annual sales of USD298 million in 2016 and is projected to grow at an annual rate of 13.7% in next five year as the country’s USD2 trillion economy continues to grow at more 7% annually.…

THE BRAZILIAN government is taking urgent and comprehensive action to fight corruption and collusion between food inspectors and Brazil’s meat industry, an envoy to Brussels has told GlobalMeatNews.

The first secretary of the Brazilian mission to the European Union (EU), Henrique Choer Moraes, Moraes said that until now, technical analyses of the problem has not indicated risks to public health.…

IS the Brazilian textile sector finally seeing an end to the contraction in sales and production prompted by the country’s recession? According to figures released by industry association ABIT (Association Brasileira de Industria Textil e Confecçao), the tide is turning and better times are ahead. …

Europe’s auto suppliers are pushing the European Union (EU) work harder to secure a free trade deal with the Mercosur bloc to end tariff barriers restricting the current EU exports of vehicles and parts to its South American member countries.

At present this trade with the four founding members of Mercosur – Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay – is worth a mere USD8 billion.…

INTERPOL is seeking international assistance in its own investigation into alleged frauds against the Brazilian poultry and pork industry, with a key industry association admitting the sector has been suffering from external attacks by fraudsters, GlobalMeatNews can reveal.

The international police agency has issued a ‘Purple Notice’ which means its 190 member countries are asked “to seek or provide information on modus operandi, objects, devices and concealment methods used by criminals”.…

Brazilian overseas beef meat sales are set to grow in 2017, according to projections from the Associação Brasileira das Indústrias Exportadoras de Carne (ABIEC). “Our export forecasts for 2017 are USD5.5 to USD6 billion, said Antônio Jorge Camardelli, the ABIEC president.…

After a major investigation showed evidence of rotten and poor quality meats being consumed in Brazil and exported over the last two years, Brazilian meatpacking industry associations have now spoken out – accusing the police of exaggeration in its claims.

Speaking at a press conference in São Paulo, on Monday (March 20), Francisco Sergio Turra, head of the Brazilian Association of Animal Proteins (ABPA – Associação Brasileira de Proteína Animal), said that the country’s meat production standards follow international models.…

South Korea’s ministry of agriculture, food and rural affairs announced yesterday (March 13) that it plans to lift chicken import tariffs from early April to stabilise local chicken prices.

These have been rising since the ministry on March 6 banned imports of US poultry after a strain of H7 bird flu virus was confirmed at a Tennessee, USA, chicken farm that supplies poultry major Tyson Foods.…

South Korea on March 21 lifted an import ban on chicken from BRF, a major Brazilian poultry exporter that has been at the center of a food safety scandal involving meatpackers allegedly paying off inspectors to overlook practices including processing rotten meat.…

The European Union (EU) has suspended meat imports from four Brazilian exporters, a European Commission official has confirmed to just-food. The official would not name the companies, but noted that the ban followed Friday’s Brazil federal police announcement that four out of 21 meatpacking companies had manipulated certificates for exports to European markets.…

THE TRADE in confectionery products between the European Union (EU) and Canada is likely to increase now the European Parliament has approved the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).

The vote – on February 15 (2017) – follows years of detailed negotiations and means that large sections of this trade deal can now come into force, maybe as early as April, as long as Canada stages its own vote in time.…

MORE than two thirds of countries rated for public sector corruption in Transparency International’s latest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) failed to score 50, the halfway point between 0 and 100, with zero regarded as totally corrupt and 100 as unimpeachably clean.…

ROLLS-ROYCE has announced that it has reached deferred prosecution agreements (DPA) with the UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO) and the USA Department of Justice (DoJ), plus a leniency deal with the Brazilian government, to settle bribery and corruption claims. The agreements will see the company pay GBP671 million (USD808 million) in total, which will suspend prosecutions over alleged bribery and corruption involving intermediaries in overseas markets.…

NORTH Africa has never been a particular easy place to do business, but female and male consumers are prepared to spend on personal care products, and profits are there for the taking for companies that take time to understand these vibrant and often contrasting markets.…

Brazil’s tumbling textile exports to Venezuela may fall further if the country is suspended from the south American trading bloc, Mercosur next month. (December, 2016) 

According to World Bank data, Brazil’s textile and clothing exports to Venezuela peaked in 2011 at USD90.3 million but have been falling steadily ever since.…

The Brazilian meat industry has welcomed a commercial agreement struck by their country’s government with Malaysia, that will encourage and enable Brazilian beef and chicken exports to this south-east Asian country.

Brazil’s ministry of agriculture, livestock and supply (ministério da agricultura, pecuária e abastecimento – MAPA) is now awaiting the result of a November visit of a Malaysia technical team who have inspected the country’s slaughterhouses and operators.…

The chairman of the Indonesia textile association (API – Asosiasi Pertekstilan Indonesia) has welcomed his government’s initiative to open bonded logistics centres, saying that they will reduce textile manufacturers’ logistics costs by as much as between 25% and 35%.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo inaugurated 11 bonded logistics centres earlier in the year as part of a series of economic reforms designed to boost trade in southeast Asia’s largest economy.…

Brazil’s Lavo Jato investigation, the biggest corruption probe in the world today is at serious risk of ending in frustration, at least to observers wanting to see Brazilian politics and business cleaned from top to bottom. Mauricio Savarese reports from São Paulo.…

BRAZIL’S textile industry is upset that the summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, and custom from its 500,000 foreign visitors, has failed to give its producers a significant shot in the arm, despite needing help during the country’s ongoing recession.…

MEAT retailers in Rio da Janeiro, Brazil, have expressed disappointment that the Olympic and Paralympic Games in August and September had a weak impact on sales, although a selected band of suppliers scored extra sales.

There were indeed many visitors: the city government of Rio announced 1.17 million tourists visited Rio during the games, 410,000 of them were foreigners, with big meat consumers USA, Argentine and Germany sending more than any other country.…

BRAZIL’S exports of pigmeat are booming, with over January to July, volume sales overseas increasing 42.2% year-on-year compared to the same time period in 2016. The Brazilian Protein Association (Associação Brasileira de Proteína Animal) says that from January to July this year (2016), 413,300 tonnes have been exported, be it frozen or processed meat, including sausages.…

MAJOR delays are expected at Dubai International Airport in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after an Emirates airline plane crash-landed and burst into flames on a runway at Dubai International Airport just after 12:45pm local time today (August 3). Flight EK521 was arriving from Trivandrum International Airport, Thiruvananthapuram, India.…

South America’s cosmetics and personal care sector is looking to bounce back from a slowdown caused by the region’s macroeconomic troubles, but political pressures and regional trade alliances are driving individual country markets down divergent paths.

Over the last year, countries across the region have been buffeted by economic turmoil that has had a knock-on impact on the cosmetics sector.…

Brazil will continue to challenge the USA for the position of being the world’s biggest meat producer and exporter over the next 10 years, with chicken leading the way, Brazilian government forecasts indicate. It says that Brazilian meat production in 2025/26 will be 29.8% higher than in 2015/6 – amounting to 7.8 million tonnes in additional production – resulting in 23.6 million tonnes of output.…

The emergence of Brazil as a major economic power and highly promising market of 200 million inhabitants is luring Mauritian textile producers to foray further in Latin America’s largest national market. Indeed, despite Brazil’s ongoing economic recession, Mauritian textile and clothing exports to the country have more than quadrupled since 2012, according to trade promotion body Enterprise Mauritius.…

BRAZIL’S JBS, the giant meatpacker and meat processing company, has been arguing it has not been harmed by raids carried out by Brazilian police earlier this month, dubbed ‘Operation Sepsis’, part of the country’s ongoing ‘Lavo Jato’ corruption investigations.

Brazilian media has reported that on July 1 federal officers searched the São Paulo home of Joesley Batista, CEO of J&F Investimentos, the parent company of JBS.…

BRAZILIAN companies are looking to break into international ethical personal care product markets supplying sustainable cosmetics inputs from the Amazon forest, leveraging an innovative government project.

This ‘Structuring Project for Amazon Forest-Based Cosmetics’ scheme, launched in 2013 by the Brazilian Micro and Small Business Support Service (Servicio Brasileño de Apoyo a las Micro y Pequeñas Empresas – SEBRAE), is amassing information and data to help companies identify useful natural ingredients and advises on processing, manufacturing and marketing the resulting products.…

BRAZIL’S fragrance sector has struggled as the country continues to struggle through an economic recession that started during 2013, but the industry hopes it has turned the corner and sales are now recovering. In 2015, for the first time in 23 years, Brazilian cosmetics, toiletries and fragrances sales fell, dropping 8% year-on-year, according to the Brazilian Industry Association of Toiletries, Perfumes and Cosmetics (ABIHPEC – ‘Associação Brasileira da Indústria de Higiene Pessoal, Perfumaria e Cosméticos’).…

BRAZIL’S fragrance sector has struggled as the country continues to struggle through an economic recession that started during 2013, but the industry hopes it has turned the corner and sales are now recovering. In 2015, for the first time in 23 years, Brazilian cosmetics, toiletries and fragrances sales fell, dropping 8% year-on-year, according to the Brazilian Industry Association of Toiletries, Perfumes and Cosmetics (ABIHPEC – ‘Associação Brasileira da Indústria de Higiene Pessoal, Perfumaria e Cosméticos’).…

A DUTCH specialist in digital printing has told a major textile conference in Brazil that its textile finishing sector should embrace this technology, despite its higher costs. Rene Wolferink, application specialist at the Netherlands’ SPGPrints was speaking at the International Abit Congress, staged by the Brazilian Textile and Apparel Industry Association (ABIT – Associação Brasileira da Indústria Têxtil e de Confecção), staged in São Paulo on June 1 and 2.…

HIGH tech sales specialists are advising Brazil’s textile sector to keep refining their ecommerce strategy to boost their competitiveness in a tough market.

Paulo Renato Macedo, innovation director at Tropos Lab, a consulting company for entrepreneurs based in Belo Horizonte, north of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, said while “creativity, quality and brand keep being important,” adopting new electronic marketing was essential for the textile and clothing sector in Brazil.…

BRAZIL’S textile sector needs to look to boost exports by producing quality products to survive the current recession, a major industry conference has been told. Brazilian textile and yarns makers must invest, innovate and globalise if they want to ride out the recession, said the majority of speakers addressing the International ABIT Congress, organised by the Brazilian Textile and Apparel Industry Association (ABIT – Associação Brasileira da Indústria Têxtil e de Confecção), staged in São Paulo on June 1 and 2.…

Brazil’s economic and political crisis is delaying plans to develop its nuclear power industry, experts say. This could be a lost opportunity to help the country reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 43% below 2005 levels by 2030, and 37% below 2005 levels by 2025 as committed by the government at the United Nations’ 21st Session of the Conference of Parties (COP21), in Paris last December (2015).…

Argentina’s automotive industry is poised for a rebound in 2017 after production slumped by 38% over the past four years, say experts encouraged by the performance of the country’s new government.

“We see Argentina’s car market turning the corner now,” said Neil King, the London-based head of automotive research at Euromonitor International, a research firm.…

Brazilian textile businesses need to prioritise sustainability certification to compete in the face of slumping domestic consumption and increasingly demanding consumers, say local industry analysts.

The Brazilian textile and apparel industry association, Associação Brasileira da Indústria Têxtil e de Confecção (ABIT) is pushing for companies to embrace its Green Stamp (Selo Verde) eco-label as a nationally recognised scheme.…

NORTH America’s textile sector – of which technical textiles comprise nearly 70% production by value in the USA and just below 50% in Canada – has grown slowly when compared with global production. And growth within the industry in North America will further slow by 2020 due to competition from the Asia-Pacific region and Western Europe, according to industry analysts at Euromonitor. …

In less than a year, Brazil had three different civil aviation ministers, and Brazil’s ambitious airport development plans have been harmed. One of the trio – Mauro Lopes – is a member of the Chamber of Deputies that voted for the motion to impeach President Dilma Rousseff over allegations she warped government accounts.…

THE EUROPEAN Association of Sugar Pro­ducers (CEFS) and the European Federation of Trade Unions in the Food, Agriculture and Tourism sectors (EFFAT) have called for the European Union (EU) to push for a global agreement ending all subsidies and other trade-distorting policies affecting the sugar sector.…

Boxes are not known for their excitement, but personal care product companies are making secondary packaging more alluring by designing them to give consumers an enticing glimpse of the goods inside. They are also using their collective imaginations to create aesthetically desirable mixes of different materials and textures, maybe combining these with visually arresting spatial design.…

BRAZIL may have emerged the world’s largest sun care market in terms of sales in 2014, pushing past the United States (US), according to market researchers Euromonitor International. And the country may retain its suncare crown – sales are expected to continue growing between 2014 and 2019, albeit at a slower pace compared its growth between 2009 and 2014. …

Automotive industry experts seem to agree – past concerns that tough environmental laws could force auto-manufacturing from a green jurisdiction to a country or region with laxer controls, no longer see to apply.

In doing so, industry specialists are backing the conclusions of a new report from the world’s largest think-tank, the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD), which said following tighter environmental rules can be good business.…

Sports gear, geo textiles, flags, souvenir clothes, you name it. Every part of Brazil’s textile industry is waiting to see if they will win or not with the Rio de Janeiro summer Olympic Games from August 5 to 21 – but concern is growing that the event will not deliver a much needed boost in sales. …

Manufacturers of insecticide impregnated textile products, including mosquito nets and special clothing, are among the few commercial winners in the current healthcare facing Brazil through the Zika virus outbreak. Stores have not only reported a boom in sales in the country’s northeast – the epicentre of the crisis – but also in wealthier southern states such as São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, which have been less affected.…

British engineering firm Rolls-Royce has been dragged deeper into Brazil’s Petrobras corruption mire with fresh questions arising over its links to Brazilian entrepreneur Julio Faerman, charged last month with bribery, money laundering and tax evasion. Faerman was one of 12 charged in ‘Operation Black Blood’ for an alleged bribery scheme between the state-owned oil company Petrobras and Dutch contractor SBM Offshore.…

Playing the blame game with worldwide known fashion brands has become a key strategy at Brazil’s labour and employment ministry, stopping the country’s textile and clothing sector from exploiting vulnerable workers, government inspectors have told WTiN.

They say that the high impact and publicity raids on manufacturing plants over the last five years are finally leading to businesses becoming more responsible over the hiring of workers to toil in poor conditions for little pay.…

Brazil’ biggest money laundering and corruption scandal kicked off at a petrol station that sits only two kilometres away from the National Congress of Brazil. And it still has a lot of fuel to burn.

When the Federal Police of Brazil raided a currency exchange booth at this fuel retailer on March 17, 2014, it began dismantling a political party financing and personal enrichment scheme that defrauded state-run oil giant Petróleo Brasileiro SA – more commonly known as just Petrobras – by at least USD2 billion in current figures.…

Vegetable oil companies are rightfully concerned about the reputation of key feedstocks such as soy for good environmental and social sustainability. Bad news stories about poor pay, pollution and virgin land clearances can knock consumer demand for products and that is bad for business.…

Despite Paraguay’s past difficulties in effectively fighting money laundering, the country has been introducing new regulations to boost its controls; however their reforms’ implementation have been hampered by lack of political will.
Located between Argentina and Brazil, Paraguay is a key country in the struggle against money laundering and financing of terrorism in South America because its porous border is used by drug cartels to smuggle drugs, among other illicit items, into the two region’s biggest markets for cocaine and marijuana.…

Pakistani meat exporters are optimistic that the Iranian government will lift an import ban imposed in early 2014 on Pakistan-produced meat following a meeting on Wednesday (April 22) between the country’s trade ministers.
Khurram Dastagir Khan, Pakistan’s commerce minister and Mohammed Reza Nematzadeh, Iran’s minister for industry, mines and trade met in Tehran at a scheduled session of the Pakistan Iran joint trade committee.…

Iraq’s government has been undertaking a series of policy twists to restrict the export of poultry products from Turkey. According to the Turkish Poultry Promotion Group, Iraq retracted a recent major increase in customs tax, only to halt all full chicken imports from Turkey as of April 8. …

THE MIDDLE Eastern halal meat market is anticipating significant growth in the next few years, driven by rising populations and rising consumer awareness about food content. However, the lack of a common global halal standard is hindering the market’s potential, given that the region is heavily dependent on imports from non-Muslim countries.…

Sales of women’s fragrances in Brazil already generate an impressive USD4 billion in retail value annually (in 2014), according to market researchers Euromonitor. But doubts on continued growth in the segment started to be voiced when the country’s economy started declining two years ago.…

THE EUROPEAN Commission may block or impose conditions on a planned acquisition by US-based Cargill of the industrial chocolate business of its American rival Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). The European Union (EU) executive’s directorate general for competition has opened an in-depth investigation into the deal, to assess whether it could damage the availability of reasonably priced supplies of this key confectionery input.…

CHINA has been cracking down on beef smuggling with a string of arrests being announced by police. State news agency Xinhua reported last month that officials from China Customs had arrested 33 suspects involved in a nationwide smuggling ring, involving the illicit sale of USD32.6 million’s worth of beef from the United States.…

THE LATIN American paint and coatings sector has been facing tough times in the past year, with sluggish overall economic performance depressing demand for the industry. Even, last summer’s World Cup football fiesta in Brazil, did not give the region’s largest market any motive to celebrate.…

Volkswagen Brazil’s new EUR200 million from the European Investment Bank (EIB) may not be enough to help the German automaker recover its long-standing position in Latin America’s largest market, a senior auto expert has warned. VW’s Brazil market share dropped from 22% in 2004 to 17% last year, which puts them behind leaders Fiat and in a struggle with Chevrolet to keep the second position in South America’s key market, according to Brazil’s automotive industry association – Associação Nacional dos Fabricantes de Veículos Automotores (ANFAVEA).…

SOUTH America’s personal care product sector has been is facing tougher times than usual – with some countries experiencing weaker sales last year and others faltering this year.
The region’s largest market Brazil is facing a rocky 2015, with a general slowdown in Brazil’s economy, expected to shrink by 1% in 2015.…

A long-running dispute between the European Union and Brazil over taxes on cars imported into Brazil has entered a critical final stage with a decision by the World Trade Organization (WTO) to set up a panel to consider the dispute. The row is not as straightforward, however, as an argument about allegedly punitive and illegal taxes.…

A long-running dispute between the European Union and Brazil over taxes on cars imported into Brazil has entered a critical final stage with a decision by the World Trade Organization (WTO) to set up a panel to consider the dispute. The row is not as straightforward, however, as an argument about allegedly punitive and illegal taxes.…

WHILE the global nonwovens industry maybe booming through investments, acquisition of new sites, expansion of capacity, more customers and exhibitions all over, the same optimism cannot be applied to emerging market former starlet Brazil. Despite its huge market with 200 million inhabitants, the nonwovens sector of South America’s economic powerhouse is looking for another deep loss of steam in 2015.…

ADAPTIVE licensing methods such as that proposed by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) are indeed useful in the development of medicines for rare diseases, Martin Andrews, the senior vice-president at GSK Rare Diseases, has told the World Orphan Drugs Congress 2014.…

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) seems to have sparked a regulatory trend with its REACH chemical control system, with more and more countries in Asia adopting REACH-inspired chemical management laws. Thus textile finishing units, companies and suppliers will have to pay increasingly close attention to chemical regulations in Asia-Pacific countries such as China and South Korea.…

COUNTRIES lacking systems engineering capacity to boost their air traffic management by following international blueprints have been offered practical policy implementation kits by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).

The launch was a highlight of ICAO’s first Global Aviation Cooperation Symposium (GACS), staged at its Montréal headquarters to assess synergies between technological developments across the civil aviation sector.…

Two years ago Brazil was so worried that its main airports would not be ready for the 2014 World Cup that its government froze plans to build and renovate 270 airfields nationwide. Now that the football fiesta is over and the concessions running key hubs has delivered good results, South America’s powerhouse looked set to start focusing on airports and airfields in smaller cities, especially those that are not state capitals.…

Brazilian booksellers teamed up at São Paulo’s international book biennial from August 22 to 31 to lobby its government to help protect them against Amazon’s physical and e-book sales service, now serving South America’s largest economy.

Amazon launched its physical books service on August 21 with 150,000 titles available, the vast majority on Brazilian Portuguese.…

Brazilian fashion has been focusing on sustainability – not just from the environmental standpoint but also from the stance of social responsibility, according to Rafael Cervone, CEO of Texbrasil, the Brazilian Fashion Industry Internationalisation Programme.
Many Brazilian companies are looking to Brazilian cultural roots in the way of inspiration.…

Latin America’s cosmetics and personal care products sector has boomed as consumers take advantage of their rising disposable incomes. The region (including Mexico) accounted for 17% of global sales in the beauty and personal care industry, according to market analysts Euromonitor International in 2013. …

IN 2012, after years of delays, Brazil instated a new money laundering law, finally bringing this economically vibrant and influential country more or less in line with international standards.  Two years later, what difference has it actually made?    

Brazil’s first official money laundering law (Law 9613) was enacted in 1998.…

While Brazilians have been happy with the success of their FIFA World Cup party, the prospects of the country’s confectionery industry are rather more mixed.

Sales of sweet confectionery have been soft as consumers turn away from sugary snacks in favour of healthier snacks.…

THE DIRECTOR general of the European Apparel and Textile Confederation (EURATEX) has called on the European Union (EU) to keep pushing for a free trade deal between the EU and the Mercosur trade bloc, notably because it is dominated by Brazil (also including Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela), which today remains a tough market for the European textile industry.…

THE NICARAGUAN government has raised fears that the planned reopening of the US market to Brazilian beef could risk spreading foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) to north and central America. Its representatives spoke out at a meeting this week (Thursday March 26) of the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) sanitary and phytosanitary committee, in Geneva.…

NORDIC nonwoven companies Suominen, Ahlstrom and Fibertex are fast emerging from the post-2008 economic downturn fitter and leaner. This follows five years of cost-cutting and market re-alignment projects that included unit divestments, strategic acquisitions, and increased use of automation to reduce costs and strengthen profitability.…

THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) RASFF food safety alert service has warned of e-coli being detected in Brazilian meat cargoes exported to Europe. Dutch customs officials rejected three consignments of chilled beef from Brazil after discovering they had been contaminated with shigatoxin-producing Escherichia coli.…

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) and Brazil are to boost their cooperation over health controls in their trade in meat and livestock, said a joint communiqué released after a summit meeting in Brussels. Both sides said they would boost “longstanding bilateral relations” and “raise the level of communication, cooperation and engagement to solve sanitary and phytosanitary issues in line with the principles, regulations, rights and obligations” set out by the World Trade Organisation (WTO).…

AUSTRALIAN beef and veal exporters have been buoyed by data from the Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) showing record export numbers for the industry in 2013. The country exported nearly 1.1 million tonnes of chilled and frozen beef and veal in 2013, up 14% from the 963,779t achieved in 2012.…

BRAZIL’S taxes on imported products, meant to encourage domestic production, has curbed imports of motor vehicles from the European Union (EU) and in some cases even moved research and engineering jobs from Europe to Brazil, an EU official has told wardsauto.com.  …

BRAZIL-based textile industry conferences in 2014 will focus on innovation, with the country’s fabric sector seeking to trade up to higher end products.

Fairs such as Première Vision, have been growing in size. The bi-annual event was staged this month in São Paulo from January 21-22, with a follow up meeting from November 4 to 5.…

BRAZIL will host not only the 2014 FIFA World Cup, but also the 2016 summer Olympic Games, and the resulting significant infrastructure projects are boosting its paint and coatings industry. “These events are having a very positive effect on the Brazilian paint and coatings industry,” said Fabio Humberg, spokesperson for the Brazilian Coatings Manufacturers Association (ABRAFATI).…

BRAZIL will host not only the 2014 FIFA World Cup, but also the 2016 summer Olympic Games, and the resulting significant infrastructure projects are boosting its paint and coatings industry. “These events are having a very positive effect on the Brazilian paint and coatings industry,” said Fabio Humberg, spokesperson for the Brazilian Coatings Manufacturers Association (ABRAFATI).…

BRAZIL, Russia, India, and China are eager to boost biofuels production, with their governments laying out energy targets and detailed plans to achieve them. And while each country has made progress, manufacturers in all the BRICs countries can still struggle with irregular feedstock supplies and spotty regulation.…

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has launched formal talks at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) with Brazil over claims it imposes discriminatory taxes helping the Brazilian automotive and electronics sector. Brussels claims these companies are benefiting from unfair and illegal advantages by taxing them at special low rates when they operate in Brazilian free trade zones.…

CHINA’S beef prices have been soaring as wealthier consumers consume more meat, and switch to beef from pork. But there are more fundamental issues at stake, not least the collapse in local herd numbers.

A supply shortage has meant whole sale beef prices pushed to a “critical juncture” of Chinese Yuan Renminbi CNY60 per kilogramme in the second half of 2013, according to a report entitled ‘China Livestock Research and Investment 2013-2017’ produced by the Beijing-based China Suppliers Institute (CIS) – http://www.hyzsyjy.com,…

THE EUROPEAN Commission is currently looking into claims made by the tribal rights non-governmental organisation NGO Survival International regarding alleged human rights violations by a company producing Paraguayan beef. Brussels spokesperson David D’Arcy told globalmeatnews.com: “The complaint has been received by the European Commission and passed to relevant desks at DG [the directorate general for] Trade and the European External Action Service.”…

THE EUROPEAN Commission has gone on the record and confirmed it is working on a legislative proposal to limit the use of plastic bags. Julius Langendorff, deputy head of unit at the directorate general for the environment said: “We are working on a proposal on plastic bags which we hope will see the light of day still this year,” he said, speaking at an event organised by the European Organisation for Packaging and the Environment (Europen) in Brussels on Wednesday.…

ACCORDING to World Bank data on Brazil, air transport measured in passengers carried jumped from 32.3 million in 2003 to 94.6 million passengers in 2012. And airport infrastructure has failed to keep up with this rapid growth in demand. Adding the extra 600,000 tourists which the Brazilian Institute of Tourism expects to visit the country during the 2014 FIFA World Cup and Brazil’s creaking airports could struggle to cope.…

A SIGNIFICANT set of acquisitions by Brazilian meat major JBS has been given European Union (EU) regulatory approval by the European Commission. Acting as Europe’s international competition regulator, the Commission approved JBS’ purchase from Brazilian food processor Marfrig Alimentos of Netherlands-based Columbus Netherlands BV also known as Zenda) and six Brazilian-based companies that together form the Seara group.…

SEPTEMBER 12, 2013: MULTINATIONAL companies are less worried about the risk of having to pay bribes to ‘buy business’ than they are about lower level corruption affecting their routine operations. Despite concern, only half of them have safeguards in place.

These findings in a new survey from global risk consultancy Control Risks and the Economist Intelligence Unit are at odds with international enforcement efforts focused on “classic” corruption, i.e.…

THE BRAZILIAN government will not push ahead with further airport privatisations while it considers the impact of its first five sales, the country’s civil aviation secretary Wellington Moreira Franco has announced. He said remaining airports will stay with state-owned manager Infraero, while the five privatised airports are monitored: São Paulo’s Guarulhos and Campinas-Viracopos airports; Brasília International; Rio de Janeiro’s Galeão airport and Belo Horizonte’s Tancredo Neves.…

BRAZIL is an innovative technical textile producer, declares a report from a senior São Paulo’s business school the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV), despite the sector experiencing teething problems as it expands. Looking at the Brazilian textile sector as a whole, the study estimates that 77% of investment into the sector during 2012 was used to buy innovative machinery – and the technical textile sector especially has a lot of demand to meet.…

WHILE it is hard to generalise about a region as diverse as Latin America, the truth is that many of its consumers are more concerned about personal appearance than is typical elsewhere in the world, and that is good news for the personal care product industry.…

The Brazilian textile manufacturing industry may come under threat as neighbouring Peru eyes up opportunities for expansion in Latin America’s biggest textile market. Peru currently exports USD102 million in textiles and apparel to Brazil annually (in 2012), and these exports have been increasing annually by 15% on average since 2010 according to the Brazilian Textile and Apparel Industry Association (ABIT).…

POPULAR models in the Brazilian car market are likely to vanish from the streets in Latin America’s largest nation as new safety standards come into play. Brazilian automotive experts have said that the upcoming car safety law, which will be enforced from the start of 2014, will make popular models such as the Volkswagen Kombi, still commonly driven in Brazil, unfit for driving and too costly to upgrade.…

A COMPREHENSIVE Brazilian government plan to boost Brazil’s textile industry has been delayed because the programme would have included protective duties that could put the country in breach of its World Trade Organisation (WTO) free trade commitments.

A meeting of 313 textile industry and government representatives on June 19 in the capital Brasilia failed to back a proposed ‘competitive tax regime for the textile sector’ (RTCC, is its Brazilian acronym).…

THE CHANGES made in 2012 by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to global anti-money laundering and terror finance guidance might have been agreed by consensus, but governments are responding in a wide variety of ways. Some jurisdictions considered to be leaders in anti-money laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) practice are taking time to respond, while others have taken advantage of the new recommendations to revamp their AML laws and regulations.…

A CENTRE-left Portuguese member of the European Parliament (MEP) Nuno Teixeira has raised concerns about the safety of Brazilian beef after learning that two shipments of Brazilian beef meat have been blocked in the port of Rotterdam after testing positive for the presence of Ecoli bacteria.…

The privatisation and expansion of the Brazilian airport sector has proved to be a significant opportunity for the American civil aviation sector, which has been vying for opportunities in Brazil’s air navigation, airport and airport-related services. These opportunities are set to increase with the United States Trade and Development Agency’s (USTDA) having brokered a US-Brazil Aviation Partnership, signed last April and now being rolled out in earnest.…

Drinks packaging design has always been about communicating with consumers – whether it is broadcasting a brand image or delivering information. And with new technologies aiding communication in many ways, interaction is a key theme with international beverage packaging designers today.…

AFTER many false starts and delays, Pakistan appears to be finally ready to expand its bagasse and biomass co-generation output by persuading the 83 sugar mills in the country to start production of electricity on commercial basis. The government is planning incentives such as an attractive upfront power purchase tariff and help in capital financing.…

DESPITE the presence of anti-fraud legislation, fraud and corruption are an everyday part of life throughout South America, where fraudsters are unlikely to be convicted, let alone penalised.

“Penalties don’t really have an effect on fraudsters,” said Fernando Gamiz, an analyst at the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), with over 20 years of experience working on South American fraud.…

THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) recent decision to impose antidumping duties on imports of bioethanol from the United States is triggering fears that trade remedy measures may become the new tool of choice for protecting domestic biofuel producers from foreign competitors.

EU ministers decided on February 18 to impose a definitive (long-term) antidumping duty of Euro EUR0.63 cents per metric tonne on US bioethanol imports in response to a complaint from the European Renewable Ethanol Association (ePURE).…

US confectionery industry chiefs have accused an American sugar lobby group of crying wolf with its claims Brazil’s annual USD2.5 million sugar subsidies depress world prices by up to 30%. A recent American Sugar Alliance report slammed Brazilian government programmes saying they give Brazil sugar exporters an unfair advantage

But the USA’s National Confectioners Association (NCA) told just-food that not only do American sugar growers receive USD3.5 billion-a-year in subsidies, US legislation guarantees a minimum price for sugar, forcing consumers and businesses to pay almost double the world price.…

Emerging markets, with their major outsourcing sectors, offer an excellent marketplace for operational software vendors.

This is especially the case as American and European markets mature.

In China, textile and clothing manufacturers are not known for their heavy IT investment, but the financial crisis of 2008 has slowly pushed them into adopting management software such as ERP and PLM to cut costs through optimising their operations, said Patrick Hu, sales director at the Huansi International Group, a Hong Kong-based software vendor specifically targeting Chinese manufacturers.…

BRAZIL’S growing economy has given many Brazilian motorists purchasing power they have never had before. This – plus effective social welfare policies and an end to past hyper-inflation – has grown Brazil’s middle class, which is now about 54% of the 196 million population, according to the country’s presidential office for strategic affairs.…

WITH the Brazilian government actively deterring automotive imports and working to encourage the construction of auto plants on Brazilian soil, domestic and international car companies are setting up new plants in Brazil at a steady clip.

The country is already the world’s seventh largest automotive producer.…

BRAZIL’S government is betting its domestic automotive manufacturing sector will recover its production after output declined 1.9% for all vehicles (barring agricultural vehicles) in 2012 compared to 2011, according to Brazil’s National Association of Automotive Vehicle Manufacturers (ANFAVEA).

With overall industrial production in Brazil falling 2.7% last year (2012), the Brazilian Institute for Geography and Statistics (IBGE) said “vehicles exerted the highest negative influence on the overall index, pressed by the decrease in the production of approximately 80% of the products surveyed in this sector, highlighted by the smaller production of trucks, tractor trucks for trailers and semi-trailers, chassis with motor for trucks and buses, diesel motors for trucks and buses, car pieces and vehicles for transportation of goods.”…

WHILE Latin America has not seen the growth witnesses by emerging markets in Asia, their paint and coatings sectors are still strengthening, and can build on a higher historic levels of prosperity than most Asian countries.

And the industry is more robust than many.…

AFTER years of promises, the Ghanaian government, with some help from Brazil, is ready to make good on its pledge to equip Ghana with a second international airport. Construction under the government’s USD174 million plan to upgrade Tamale Airport, in northern Ghana, to enable it to better handle the international traffic for which it was designated in 2008, should begin this summer, according to Bernard Nyavor, the passengers director of Ghana’s Kotoka International Airport (KIA), in the capital Accra.…

Strengths:

China has a booming e-commerce sector, and growing online drinks retailers are building more warehouses nationwide. They need to balance ‘just-in-case’ and ‘just-in-time’ demands and also the need for flexibility versus low inventory. Negotiating these logistical pressures is vital in this huge yet highly fragmented market.…

Mossi & Ghisolfi, an Italian petrochemical multinational with headquarters in the northern city of Tortona, has commenced operations at a second generation bio-ethanol demonstration plant that uses rice straw and the common giant cane ‘Arundo Donax’ as a feedstock.

The plant is located in Crescentino, about 120 km southwest of Milan in Italy’s Piedmont region.…

BY TRICIA OBEN, IN DOUALA

THE GROWTH in the Cameroon personal care product sector in the past few years has been phenomenal. Imports of cosmetic products alone grew by more than Central African Franc XAF10 billion (United States Dollar USD19.1 million) in 2011, up from XAF31 billion (USD 62 million) in 2010, according to figures supplied by Cameroon customs.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has approved detailed poultry trade agreements with Thailand and Brazil that will tighten EU import rules, calming concerns that previous agreements were too vague and were being exploited by exporters. The new deals are supposed to fulfill commitments made by the EU at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to allow certain amounts of processed poultry meat from both countries into Europe.…

Latin America’s robust economy and fascination with beauty has made it a very lucrative region for cosmetics and perfume companies.  However corruption, weak border control and smuggling networks are helping to make the piracy of cosmetics and perfumes into a pervasive problem, causing major loss of revenue to both governments and companies alike.…

BY CARMEN PAUN IN BRUSSELS

THE EUROPEAN Commission is hoping that the recent overhaul of the European Union’s (EU) Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) will increase the flow of rare earth metals and aluminium oxide into the EU. Concerns persist about supplies of these important industrial minerals.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has today approved a shake-up of its special low duty system for poor exporting countries, which is expected to change tariffs paid on a wide range of metals paid on their entry into the EU.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

The EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) Council of Ministers for agriculture has upheld a ban on EU meat producers using the growth promoting drug ractopamine and on the import of meat from cattle treated with it. This overrode a decision by the UN’s global food standards body the Codex Alimentarius Commission to allow its use under strict limits.…

BY KITTY SO

Confectionery consumers worldwide are moving away from the traditional, sugary lollipop to other sweets, driven by health concerns and greater spending power. Market researchers say they are flocking to innovative, functional soft candies offering health benefits while consumers with more money turn to chocolates.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS, IN CALGARY, AND PACIFICA GODDARD

But while the USA offers a degree of complexity within its states, drinks companies face much sterner logistics challenges in Latin America, Marcelo Nascimento, spokesman for leading New Zealand-owned but international system supplier of carton packaging and filling machines for beverages, SIG Combibloc, which has been focusing on Brazil.…

BY JONATHAN DYSON, IN LA PAZ

STRONG growth in Bolivia’s personal care market is attracting an increasing number of both international and domestic cosmetics brands, capitalising on rising demand for products across all consumer demographics. This market success can be linked to the country’s overall economic growth in recent years, which has seen GDP rise about 5% per year since the country’s indigenous socialist president Evo Morales came to power in 2006.…

BY SHEENA ROSSITER, IN SÃO PAULO; RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, IN NEW DELHI; HELEN CLARK, IN HANOI; AND WANG FANGQING, IN SHANGHAI

WHILE the focus on emerging markets for the big international clothing brands has often been to view them as outsourcing opportunities, the truth is that there are a lot of people with a lot of money in these countries.…

BY SHEENA ROSSITER, IN SÃO PAULO; RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, IN NEW DELHI; HELEN CLARK, IN HANOI; AND WANG FANGQING, IN SHANGHAI

THE GROWTH in outsourcing has been maybe the most important trend in the clothing and textile sector in the past decade, with emerging market countries offering increasingly reliable and sophisticated services.…

BY JONATHAN GILBERT, IN BUENOS AIRES

ARGENTINA’S protectionist economic policy and controls on imports are causing difficulties for car manufacturers across South America. Auto production is falling in the country – to a certain extent, because parts are being held up at customs – and overseas producers have taken action by cancelling exports.…

BY SHEENA ROSSITER, IN SÃO PAULO

WITH Europe and north America’s economies continuing to perform poorly, the importance of large emerging markets as growth areas for the international nonwovens sector is growing, especially as their middle-classes expand. Brazil is a case in point, middle class demand for nonwoven consumer products is helping attract the foreign direct investment required to develop new plants and distribution networks.…

BY JONATHAN DYSON, IN LIMA

A GROWING demand for personal care products in Peru, paired with the country’s rising GDP (6.9% in 2011, and forecast to grow another 5.5% in 2012), is creating significant new opportunities for both international and domestic cosmetics brands, who are reaping the benefits of Peru’s strong economic growth.…

BY LEAH GERMAIN

BRAZILIAN airport officials are meeting with US trade and development representatives to discuss a new partnership designed to create new export opportunities for US businesses while helping improve Brazil’s civil aviation infrastructure.

The US-Brazil Aviation Partnership was launched in April and focuses on familiarising Brazilian aviation officials with US technologies, best practice and regulatory approaches regarding airport modernisation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL, MJ DESCHAMPS, PACIFICA GODDARD AND KARRYN MILLER

GOVERNMENTS can get things wrong – badly wrong – and alter the planet’s human and natural geography in ways that were never intended. And one of those embarrassing events is now unfolding: over the promotion of biofuels.…

BY CARMEN PAUN, IN BRUSSELS

THE EUROPEAN Commission has demanded that Mexico and Brazil provide a scientific explanation for a new ban on reproductive livestock material imports from the EU. The two countries have banned imports of genetic material from the EU over concerns related to the Schmallenberg Virus, which has been detected in livestock in Britain, Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Spain.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE BRAZILIAN government is tightening its gelatin production controls after pressure from the European Union (EU) about health concerns regarding this key capsule ingredient. The European Commission was threatening import restrictions on Brazilian gelatin after consumer health concerns were raised by the European Veterinary Office.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

WITH liquid fuels expected to remain the main energy source for transport for the foreseeable future, despite the continuing bad press about their carbon footprint, biofuels – especially second generation fuels based on waste – are still recognised as a useful means of lowering greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.…

BY STEPHEN EISENHAMMER, IN RIO DE JANEIRO

BUSINESS coaching in Brazil has been growing significantly in the past few years, with a significant escalation in the number of coaches, coaching companies and training providers. Business coaching has spread rapidly from its beginnings in the Brazilian subsidiaries of big international firms, to big national companies such as industrial conglomerate Votorantim, and even now to many mid-size businesses and the public sector.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) executive is taking diplomatic action to oppose trade red tape restrictions on EU auto parts manufacturers exporting to Brazil and Argentina. The European Commission has raised concerns bilaterally with Brasilia and Buenos Aires and also at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), where formal disputes proceedings could be launched.…

BY SHEENA ROSSITER, IN SÃO PAULO; LEAH GERMAIN AND MJ DESCHAMPS

THE FIFA World Cup never fails to draw huge international crowds to whichever country chosen to play host; boosting tourism and the local economy. However, significant influxes of visitors inevitably strains airport systems – which is why Brazil’s airports are currently undergoing significant expansions to prepare to host the football tournament in 2014, as well as the 2016 summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

WINNERS

VF

In one of 2011’s biggest deals, US-based VF announced its plans to buy major footwear brand Timberland in a US$2bn takeover. As well as boosting earnings by US$700m a year, the purchase would leverage VF platforms in Europe, Asia and Latin America, and boost e-commerce operations.…

BY SHEENA ROSSITER

BRAZIL is set to extend its global leadership in can recycling with millions being pumped into the recycling process. Novelis, one of the world’s largest producers of rolled aluminium products and a global leader in aluminium beverage can recycling, has the leading hand in investment with back-to-back investment of USD360 million having been injected into the aluminium recycling industry over the past two years and in the year to come.…

BY JILL LANGLOIS, IN SÃO PAULO

BRAZIL’S dyeing and finishing sector is working hard to maintain a commercial edge – especially through environmental good practice – while its key market, the Brazilian textile industry, faces some tough times.

Foreign competition, weak international branding and unhelpful Brazilian government regulations are weakening the textile sector in Brazil: "The industry’s deficit will hit a record USD5 billion [last] year [2011] – we’ve already had to cut 19,000 jobs…" said Aguinaldo Diniz Filho, president of the Brazilian Textile and Apparel Industry Association (ABIT).…

BY MEGAN DETRIE and KACI RACELMA

THE IMPACT of the Arab Spring revolution has rattled though North Africa, leaving no economic sector unscathed – including the personal care products industry. Despite the fact that the growth of the cosmetics markets in countries like Tunisia, Egypt and Libya remains limited in lieu of the year of demonstrations and political upheaval, efforts are currently being made to boost the industry.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

DOUBTS are growing about the wisdom of encouraging biofuel use in the European Union (EU) as a cornerstone of environmental policy aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The EU has painted itself into a corner with its renewable energy directive.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has removed an obstacle preventing Brazil-based Braskem from becoming the largest polypropylene producer in the USA – approving its purchase of Dow Chemical’s polypropylene business. Brussels, acting as the European Union’s senior competition authority, authorised the acquisition by Braskem America, Inc, the Brazilian chemical giant’s US subsidiary.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has today (July 15) approved without conditions the planned takeover by Brazilian steel and mining company CSN of one German and two Spanish steel companies. Following a fast-tracked inquiry by the Commission’s competition directorate general, Brussels approved CSN’s purchase of Stahlwerk Thüringen, which makes of semi-finished and long steel products; as well as semi-finished and long steel maker Corrugados Azpeitia; and Corrugados Lasao which manufactures steel electro welded mesh.…

BY GARRY PIERRE-PIERRE and KEITH NUTHALL

IT is more than 18 months since the earthquake that ravaged Haiti seriously damaged Toussaint L’Ouverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince, notably its air traffic control tower, rendering it unusable. The airport suffered structural damage to its terminal building walls and there were some major electrical faults.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Chemicals Agency (ECHA) has told manufacturers of intermediate chemicals – including those used in the paint, coatings and solvent sectors – they may have to submit more information under REACH chemical control system. ECHA screened more than 400 dossiers of substances declared as intermediates and has said that 86% have not proved that this special status should apply – the agency requires less information on intermediates than standard chemical substances.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ARGENTINA, Uruguay and Iran are among almost 100 countries expected to lose tariff breaks for their food exports to the European Union (EU), under a planned reform of the EU’s Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) system, which lowers EU import duties for emerging market and developing countries for more 6,200 tariff lines, including many food products.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE CREATION of the world’s largest wholesale supplier of orange juice will not cause competition problems in the European Union (EU) and should receive regulatory approval, the European Commission has concluded. This new mega-supplier will be created via a joint venture of Brazilian orange juice giants Votorantim and Fischer.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A NEW giant Brazilian company is to be created, supplying orange oils and essences to personal care product companies worldwide. This will be a joint venture of Brazilian orange juice giants Votorantim and Fischer, an initiative which has now been given competition approval for the European Union (EU) by the European Commission.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD

LATIN America is proving to be one of the most intriguing and exciting markets globally for beauty and personal care products. "The Latin American cosmetic market grew 20% in 2010, so now it is a market of US dollars USD64 million – almost as big as the north American market," said Mr Jaime Concha Prada, who recently served as president of CASIC, the Chamber of the Latin American Cosmetics Industry.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

BRAZIL is the latest major emerging market country to have joined the Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development’s (OECD) chemical safety data mutual acceptance system. It means regulators and cosmetics companies in Brazil will use OECD methods for non-clinical tests on their chemicals.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

INDIA and Brazil have joined the Organisation for Economic Cooperation & Development’s (OECD) chemical safety data mutual acceptance system. It means regulators and companies in these countries will used OECD methods for non-clinical tests on chemicals. As a result, other participating countries (all 34 OECD developed country members plus South Africa and Singapore) will accept Indian and Brazilian test results, promoting their chemical exports.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) consumer protection network RAPEX has warned three Brazil-made personal care have been subject to recalls in France because their formaldehyde content was found exceeding EU cosmetics directive limits. These included a hair conditioner with chocolate called ‘Lissage Ultime’, sold under the SOCAP Professionnel Paris brand; a ‘Nanokeratin system’ hair straightener; and a BHOME hair shampoo and styling treatment package.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD

BEING beautiful is a full-time occupation for many Brazilians, and clothing retail necessarily benefits from their dedication – as their country grows wealthier, its luxury clothing market can only grow.

In 2010, AT Kearney rated Brazil as the number one developing apparel market in the world, due to rising incomes and a youthful population (60% under the age of 30), unusually fascinated with fashion.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD

NATURA, Brazil’s leading producer of personal care products, from cosmetics to perfumes, including face, body and hair products, had a very productive 2010 – launching 191 new products. This included two new lines, Una cosmetics and Amó perfumes, while adding a soap category to its Ekos line, while re-launching Chronos, its anti-aging products line.…

BY WANG FANGQING, RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, MARK ROWE and PACIFICA GODDARD

THE BRICM countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and Mexico) have long been regarded as sources of cheap quality fabrics and clothes, but as they grow wealthier they are increasingly being regarded as vital international export markets.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD

PETROBRAS, Brazil’s national oil company, has been heavily investing in pipeline technology via a large-scale project to expand its pipeline network. This investment of time, energy and money has put Brazil on the cutting edge of global pipeline technology developments.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

18

THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the takeover by Unilever of Sara Lee’s body and laundry care businesses, on condition it sells off the US company’s Sanex brand and related business in Europe. Following an inquiry as the European Union’s (EU) lead competition authority, Brussels concluded there were particular concerns regarding Unilever’s future dominance of some EU deodorant markets.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) consumer protection network RAPEX has warned of a series of hair-care products being discovered containing substances banned by the EU cosmetics directive. Czech authorities banned Polish product hair dye 111 Noix Dore for containing 2-nitro-p-phenylenendiamine and hydroquinone.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE FRENCH and Brazilian governments have forged an unusual European-emerging market alliance, calling for increased coordination among G20 states during food supply crises, and tighter regulation of the global food market. They have issued a joint communiqué calling for the creation of global and regional food stocks, close monitoring of global cereal stocks especially, greater regulation of food market derivatives, and the creation of financial mechanisms (including price guarantees) to protect food producers from excessive price fluctuations.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

DEFINING a niche drink is an arbitrary matter and what may pass as niche today may well be considered mainstream tomorrow. Flavoured vodka, for instance, had a relatively specialised following in Europe until a few years ago – now it is classified as an official spirit drink under European Union (EU) regulations.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD, KARRYN MILLER, GARRY PIERRE-PIERRE, KEITH NUTHALL

FOR niche spirits, obscure can be good – and so products made in countries not renowned for their spirits production can gather export market cache. Latin America and the Caribbean are regions where effort by buyers can pay dividends.…

BY DOM PHILLIPS

BRAZIL is a huge and complicated tobacco market. Cigarette consumption is in decline – 2% down, in 2010, according to market researcher Euromonitor, whose August 2011 report Cigarettes in Brazil says sales have fallen from 89.8 billion sticks in 2005 to a predicted 83.4 billion in 2011.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON

SALES of new cars are still holding up surprisingly well despite the global downturn, but within a few years of their purchase, how many of them will be running on retread tyres?

The signs are that the market for retread and recycled tyres will grow, as world demand for rubber grows, particularly in China.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

BRAZILIAN cosmetics giant Natura Cosméticos has won a trademark case at the European Court of Justice (ECJ), securing European Union rights to the mark NATURAVIVA for personal care products and air fresheners. It has beaten off a challenge from Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Cologne, formerly Mülhens GmbH & Co.,…

BY EMMA JACKSON

THE TEXTILE and clothing industry maybe almost unrecognisable from its organisation today in 10 years’ time: Chinese-owned offshore production; unstoppable e-commerce, demand for eco-textiles, shifting luxury markets to Asia’s new middle class, and higher prices for everyone, are just some predictions.…

BY EMMA JACKSON

THE TEXTILE and clothing industry maybe almost unrecognisable from its organisation today in 10 years’ time: Chinese-owned offshore production; unstoppable e-commerce, demand for eco-textiles, shifting luxury markets to Asia’s new middle class, and higher prices for everyone, are just some predictions.…

BY ALAN OSBORN, KARRYN MILLER, GAVIN BLAIR, KEITH NUTHALL

MOST drinks manufacturers would bridle at the accusation that they used anything unnatural to make their products: after all poisoning consumers is bad for business. But in the world of marketing, everything is relative, and some ingredients are so fresh and untainted with processing chemicals that they can, simply, be sold as being more ‘natural’ than standard inputs.…

BY LEE ADENDORFF

TREND forecasters and cool-hunters have spawned a global sub-sector of the fashion industry, with university courses, computer software and academic research making a science out of predicting fashion’s ‘next big thing.’

This is no easy feat considering the multitude of factors – politics, energy resources, economies and environment, not to mention ideology and people – that will play a part in shaping the world’s fashion tastes of the future.…

BY DINAH GARDNER, PACIFICA GODDARD, KARRYN MILLER

AS the ranks of China’s middle class swell, their desire for leading healthier lifestyles – including what they drink – is also growing. Manufacturers have a wealth of ingredients from which to pick. Not only can they use globally-renowned healthy choices such as fruit juices and mineral-enriched drinks, they also have thousands of herbs, roots, flowers and fruits popular in Chinese medicine to choose from as ingredients and additives.…

BY MARK ROWE

INNOVATIVE packaging is transforming the drinks industry. Heavy tins and bottles are being replaced by lighter composite and biodegradeable materials; hi-tech cartons are being manufactured that tell consumers if the milk’s gone off; and RFID (radio frequency identification) tags are being embedded with temperature sensors.…

BY WANG FANGQING, RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, BILL CORCORAN, PACIFICA GODDARD, KEITH NUTHALL

DRINKS packaging can be quite different in emerging and developing markets than in the rich world. One issue simply is scale. Poorer consumers are often, simply, more interested in smaller sized portions than richer.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD

THE ORGANIC cosmetics market has been booming over the last few years, generating substantial consumer interest in the US and Europe. As cosmetics companies scramble to offer the latest, most effective natural ingredients, many are turning to the biodiverse region of Latin America for inspiration.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD

LATIN American men like to think they are known for good looks, machismo and self-confidence. And these consumers are today turning to cosmetics to sustain and accentuate this image. The Latin American market for male grooming products and services is one of the most dynamic in the world.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE INTERNATIONAL Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank is considering helping to create a new US dollar USD23 million bottle-to-bottle plastic recycling facility in São Paulo, Brazil. Unnafibras Textil already recycles more than one billion bottles-a-year into raw materials, but the quality of the new resin would be good enough to sell a soft-drinks bottling plant on Paraiba province, north-east Brazil, said the IFC.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE INTERNATIONAL Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank is planning to help create a new US dollar USD23 million bottle-to-bottle plastic recycling facility in São Paulo, Brazil. Unnafibras Textil already recycles more than one billion bottles-a-year into raw materials, but the quality of the new resin would be good enough to sell a soft-drinks bottling plant on Paraiba province, north-east Brazil, said the IFC.…

BY WANG FANGQING,RAGHAVENDRA VERMA and PACIFICA GODDARD

Convenience stores are no longer the preserve of cash rich but tine poor consumers in developed markets. They are increasingly popular in emerging markets too. Foreign convenience store operators in China, for instance, are now moving beyond major metropolitan centres – where they have long been established – to smaller lower-tier cities.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A WORLD Trade Organisation (WTO) study has found Brazilian municipalities near oil wells are little better off than those with no hydrocarbon resources. "Oil windfalls translate into little improvement in the provision of public goods or the population’s living standards," it concludes, warning flows of local oil royalties can increase corruption and crime.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE LITHUANIAN government has blocked sales of some German Biller’s naturkosmetik skin creams because they contained a chemical preservative methyldibromo glutaronitrile banned under the European Union (EU) cosmetics directive. Ireland has withdrawn from sale the US-made Marcia Teixeira branded hair lotion ‘Brazilian Keratin Treatment’ because of formaldehyde content deemed excessive under the directive.…

BY EMMA JACKSON,RAGHAVENDRA VERMA,WANG FANGQING and PACIFICA GODDARD,

AS people migrate across the globe, the drinks industry has witnessed a slow influx of regionalised flavours into untraditional markets. White and green tea from Asia is now sold across the globe in soft drinks, and ‘exotic’ fruits such as pomegranate, mango and lychee are becoming popular juice flavours in Europe and the US.…

BY WACHIRA KIGOTHO

EAST Africa is developing as an important source of biofuels and biofuel feedstock, with governments keen to attract foreign direct investment for this potentially strategic rural development option.

Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Sudan, and Tanzania are countries where foreign companies are competing to acquire land for biofuel projects.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD

While most of the alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages produced in Brazil are consumed domestically, the exception is the juice sector. Brazil is one of the world’s top three producers of tropical fruit, according to Brazilian Fruits Institute (IBRAF), and an important global provider of fruit juice.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD, RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, WANG FANGQING, JOHN PAGNI and KEITH NUTHALL

THE RISE of the world’s large emerging markets – Brazil, Russia, India, China and Mexico (or BRICM to give them a popular acronym) has been especially significant for the drinks industry.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD, ALAN OSBORN and KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN automakers will be looking to boost exports to the Mercosur countries of South America, if they strike a trade deal with the European Union (EU). A resumption of negotiations on slashing tariffs for goods traded between the EU’s 27 member countries and the four-country Mercosur block, (Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Paraguay), has been announced by the European Commission, the EU’s executive.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD

Despite the difficult economic climate, spirits are still selling well in Latin America, and in 2008, 3 billion litres of spirits were sold, according to Canadean. However, spirits for the most part are not a very dynamic segment, and consumption per capita has remained steady between 4.5 and 4.6 litres for the last five years, and growth was flat at 0.4% in 2009.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD

A decade ago, Latin America was considered to be one of the beer industry’s toughest markets, due to frequent bouts of economic uncertainty and political turmoil. But a lot has changed in the region since the year 2000, and recently instead of recoiling from this region, the biggest beer companies in the world have been fighting tooth and nail for shares of it.…

BY GEORGE STONE

THE DEMOCRATIC Republic of Congo (DRC) is moving towards giving permission to a consortium led by Irish independent Tullow Oil to develop oil and gas production on its side of Lake Albert, government officials have signalled. Kinshasa, DRC’s capital city, is currently a minnow in Africa’s oil producer’s league, pumping just 25,000 barrels per day (bpd) while the continent’s leading exporters Nigeria and Angola are hitting the 2 million bpd mark.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD

Although in most parts of the world consumers cut back on juice and nectar consumption, and growth in this segment has been the slowest in 10 years, juices and fruit-flavoured drinks were one of Latin America’s fastest growing segments in 2009, according to Euromonitor International.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD

The most important markets for bottled water have traditionally been developed economies like Western Europe and the United States. However, growth in these markets has recently flattened out, exacerbated by the global economic crisis and growing environmental concerns over the product.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD

INTRODUCTION

There are signs around the world that the textile market is beginning to recover from the global economic crisis, and developing markets will be leading that recovery. Asia is, of course, at the forefront, but many countries in Latin America have also weathered the crisis and have come out in a surprisingly decent position, with their dynamic textile and apparel industries well positioned for future expansion.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD

LAST year in Latin America, British American Tobacco (BAT) and Philip Morris International (PMI), the region’s two dominant companies, battled to maintain profits through declining volumes. Overall, Latin America was profitable for both companies. For BAT, profits were mainly attributable to a strong performance in Brazil, and improved premium brand sales, however volumes sales declined throughout the region.…

BY MARK ROWE

SEQUENCING the human genome has brought widespread interest and the potential for treatment of diseases, but confectionery industry researchers are increasingly applying this technique to key components in the food chain. One of the most high-profile sequencing programmes gathers pace this year, as Mars continues the sequencing of the cocoa genome, a project it is working on with the US department of agriculture’s subtropical horticultural research substation and IBM.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE UNITED Nations and Brazil are helping a small west African country fight against its exposure to organised drugs crime by funding and helping manage the construction of a new police academy. Since a civil war in the late 1990s, Guinea-Bissau – a former Portuguese colony – has seen weak governments under attack from international narcotics rings.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) regulatory approval has been granted for two Brazilian financial groups taking over major Brazil meat companies JBS SA and Bertin SA. The European Commission gave competition law clearance for the purchase by J&F Participações S.A.…

BY GEORGE STONE

GHANA, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are Africa’s latest upstream hotspots as major energy firms seek new provinces outside of regional heavyweight oil producers Nigeria and Angola. But jockeying for position has already led to friction between governments and the industry.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD

CIGARETTE MARKET

With a population of 192 million, Brazil is among the top 10 cigarette markets in the world. In 2008, 91.09 billion sticks were sold, valued at US$8.58 billion according to Abifumo, the Brazilian tobacco manufacturers association.…

BY GREGORY MELUS

THE BRAZILIAN textile industry is confident it can overcome any ill effects from its government placing World Trade Organisation (WTO)-authorised retaliatory tariffs on more than 222 US products. These will be applied to US textile imports, including threads, yarns, cotton, polyester fabrics, and finished products ranging from handkerchiefs to crocheted blouses, in response to US cotton subsidies which have been deemed too high by the WTO.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE SEIZURES of generic medicines in transit through German and Dutch ports (that prompted complaints from the Indian and Brazilian governments) have now sparked criticism from Oxfam. It and Health Action International Europe said in a report: "The EU’s [intellectual property] policies are increasing the cost of medicines.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

IT is a mind-bending question. How on earth, given the complexity and variety of available biofuels, their feedstocks and manufacturing processes, can their relative ‘green-ness’ be measured efficiently? But, to the delight of mathematicians and technical consultants the world over, this toughest of queries has to be answered.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed giving Brazil additional annual import quotas for its sales of sugar in the European Union (EU) to take account of the expansion of the EU through the accession of Romania and Bulgaria. The Commission wants 550,000 tonnes of extra Brazilian raw cane sugar imported annually for refining.…

BY ALAN OSBORN, LUCY JONES and KEITH NUTHALL

INTRODUCTION

CLOTHING and textile production and trade subsidies are under pressure today, as they have not been for many years. There has been a steady trend towards liberalisation in the sector worldwide, stemming from the abolition of the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) in January 2005 and with it, then end of restrictive quotas for imports for the WTO’s 152 member countries.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD and KEITH NUTHALL

THE TRI-BORDER area between Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay in South America is a notorious breeding ground for illicit activity, and the tobacco industry suffers more than most. Contraband goods of every description pass through Paraguay’s trading hub, Ciudad del Este – CD’s and DVD’s, fake designer clothing, sunglasses and watches, sports shoes, games and electronics, and of course one of the world’s most smuggled and lucrative legal substances: cigarettes.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON, JAMES BURNS, and JULIAN RYALL

With technological change being forced upon the auto manufacturing industry by high oil prices, plants are being retooled faster than in living memory. At such a time, companies are always looking for new ideas and technology.…

BY MARK ROWE

THE PSYCHOLOGY of colour has fascinated philosophers and scientists down the ages, so it is perhaps unsurprising that the world’s paint companies devote much of their time to working out why consumers prefer certain colours for certain everyday items – and why these tastes vary so much across the world.…

BY MARK ROWE

THE CHOCOLATE giant Mars has begun work on sequencing the cocoa genome, a move that it says could dramatically improve the health and yields of cocoa growers around the world, guaranteeing food manufacturers with more reliable and high quality supplies.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

SUSTAINABILITY has moved firmly to the top of the corporate agenda in the oils and fats sector following Unilever’s announcement in May that it intended to have all of its palm oil certified sustainable by 2015. By any measure this would be a bold pledge but coming from the world’s largest consumer of palm oil (Unilever takes 4% of total global production to make its food and cosmetic products) it serves additionally to raise the bar for others.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD

AS the price of petroleum climbs increasingly makes alternative energy sources such as biofuels sound increasingly attractive to many countries that had dismissed them in the past, Brazil, the largest consumer of ethanol in the world with over 30 years of experience developing their biofuels industry, has many lessons to offer.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD

CHINA’S entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2002 and the recent end of quotas in the US and European markets have created gigantic changes in the textile industry worldwide, with developing markets like those in Latin America expected to suffer the most from these shifts.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD, in Caracas

IN Latin America, the combination of economic growth, weak law enforcement, and a culture that turns a blind eye to corruption, creates an increasingly fertile setting for a variety of commercial crimes, Pacifica Goddard reports from Caracas.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD, in Caracas

LATIN AMERICA has long been notorious for its high levels of corruption, especially through money laundering, bribery and the illicit drug trade. And although the recent years of relative stability and democratisation in the region have brought economic progress, this has also widened the opportunities for fraudulent activities and fuelled an increasing sophistication by which they are performed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A BRAZILIAN shrimp-rearing farm has been infected by the infectious myonecrosis virus, the Aquatic Animals Commission (of the Office International des Épizooties – OIE) has reported. The pathogen was discovered at Canguaretama, in Rio Grande do Norte, on the eastern tip of Brazil, following a routine sampling sent to the country’s Federal University Laboratory of Santa Catarina.…

BY RACHEL JONES, in Caracas

SINCE biotech oil crops were first commercialised over a decade ago, their use has experienced yearly double-digit growth worldwide, with Latin America being something of a nursery for this growth. Globally, the area of biotech crops grew by 13%, or by 12 million hectares, in 2006, to reach 102 million hectares, according to the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA).…

BY LUCY JONES, in Dallas; ALAN OSBORN, in London; KARRYN CARTELLE, in Tokyo; BILL CORCORAN, in Johannesburg; PAUL COCHRANE, in Beirut; RACHEL JONES, in Caracas; MARK ROWE; and KEITH NUTHALL

WITH the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Doha Development Round being slow to proceed since its 2001 launch – and only this year approaching something resembling and end game – free traders wanting to encourage global commerce have looked to bilateral and regional trade deals.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

INTERNATIONAL standards are crucial for the trade in goods, because they allow

importers to have confidence that the foreign product they are buying meets the

specifications they are familiar with at home. So, it may come as some surprise that no

such global standard currently exists as regards the technical definition of biofuels.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) is to ban all Brazilian beef imports following concerns about Brazil’s handling of its latest foot-and-mouth disease outbreak. The European Commission had not wanted a blanket ban and instead offered Brazil a jointly-agreed list of FMD-safe producers, exporting to Europe.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) is moving to ban all Brazilian beef imports from today (Jan 31) following concerns about Brazil’s handling of its latest foot-and-mouth disease outbreak. The European Commission had not wanted to impose a blanket ban and had instead offered Brazil a jointly-agreed list of FMD-safe producers, who would export to Europe.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

CONCERNS that Brazilian beef producers are hoodwinking international animal and food health regulators by using superficial controls, have prompted European Union (EU) import ban calls. Irish MEP Mairead McGuinness told a European Parliament agriculture committee today (Mon 15-7): “It is important not only from a human health point of view but also from an ethical aspect.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

INCREASED demand for bio-fuels could drive up world prices for many farm products, notably sugar, according to an Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and UN Food and Agriculture Organisation report. It predicted that Brazilian annual ethanol production alone would reach 44 billion litres by 2016 from around 21 billion today.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) is being pressured to scrap or lower duties on biofuels as the European Commission drafts a law to promote this key energy sector. EU member states promised in March to replace 10% of standard transport fuel with biofuels by 2020, working from today’s 1.8% share of the market commanded by these green fuels.…

BY RACHEL JONES, in Caracas

A NUMBER of factors have contributed to a booming Latin American market in soap, perfume and cosmetics – most importantly, regional economic growth and a healthy overall GDP. Hair care is the region’s biggest seller, but an increase in life expectancy has created a growing demand for skin care products, especially those related to anti-aging and sun protection.…

BY ANDREW CAVE

BIOFUELS have generated earnest debate ever since German inventor Rudolph Diesel ran the world’s first diesel engine on peanut oil back in 1894, but suddenly there is a biofuels boom that’s moving global markets.
World economies are in a race to find alternatives to fossil fuels and turning crops such as wheat and corn into ethanol or oilseed rape, soya, or palm oil into biodiesel is having an impact on farmers, manufacturer and industrial producers worldwide.…

BY MARK ROWE

CONCERNS over the way in which soybean production takes place have led to calls for the Brazilian government to dramatically escalate its efforts to clean up the industry. Groups campaigning for a socially and environmentally responsible approach to soy production have called on the Brazilian government to speed up the process of providing satellite images that can map the scale of soy-related deforestation, and regulate the ownership of land earmarked for soy production.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has struck an important deal with Algeria, ensuring it supplies gas to European markets competitively, scrapping restrictive profit sharing contracts. Algeria is a key gas exporter in the EU’s fight to secure energy security without relying on Russia, and Algiers has now agreed with the European Commission that pipeline gas can be sold-on within Europe, without a cut going to Algerian gas producer Sonatrach.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

ARGENTINA has formally requested the creation of a World Trade Organisation (WTO) disputes panel to rule on whether Brazil broke the WTO’s anti-dumping agreement when imposing tough anti-dumping duties on Argentine exports of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) resins. Buenos Aires claims Brazil railroaded the tariffs through WTO-sanctioned legal procedures, ignoring commitments to properly consult with Argentine producers and carefully assess whether Brazilian PET manufacturer claims of cut-priced exports from Argentina actually held water.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE OIL and gas sector was always a global business, and with world trade increasing and new reserves being opened up in all continents and oceans, it is becoming ever more international. As a result, the need for common standards and practices, relevant to the industry, its suppliers and its customers is becoming increasingly important.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE OIL and gas sector was always a global business, and with world trade increasing and new reserves being opened up in all continents and oceans, it is becoming ever more international. As a result, the need for common standards and practices, relevant to the industry, its suppliers and its customers is becoming increasingly important.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ARGENTINA has formally requested the creation of a World Trade Organisation (WTO) disputes panel to rule on whether Brazil broke the WTO’s anti-dumping agreement when imposing tough anti-dumping duties on Argentine exports of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) resins. Buenos Aires claims Brazil railroaded the tariffs through WTO-sanctioned legal procedures, ignoring commitments to properly consult with Argentine producers and carefully assess whether Brazilian PET manufacturer claims of cut-priced exports from Argentina actually held water.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE OILS and fats sector is becoming increasingly globalised and so as a result, the need for common standards and practices, relevant to the industry, its suppliers and its customers is becoming increasingly important.

The International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) (NOTE: ISO USES AMERICAN SPELLING FOR ITS NAME) is the global body coordinating and publishing this kind of professional advice.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED States’ diplomatic service is surely the largest and best resourced international network of experts in the world, and this is born out by the depth of the narcotics strategy report – or INCSR to use its acronym.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union anti-fraud agency OLAF has uncovered a rules-of-origin fraud where 4,000 tonnes raw cane sugar was illicitly imported into Britain and Malta under duty-free African-Caribbean-Pacific quotas. The sugar was Brazilian, evading Euro 2 million duties.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) anti-fraud agency OLAF has helped uncover three rules-of-origin frauds costing EU coffers millions of Euros. In one case, an OLAF-German police inquiry has uncovered the loss of Euro 50 million in duties by the illicit rerouting of Chinese energy-saving lamps via Vietnam, Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Sri Lanka and Tunisia to evade 66.1% anti-dumping duties on China-made lamps; Euro 7 million of avoided taxation has been recovered.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) anti-fraud unit OLAF has uncovered a rules-of-origin fraud, where 4,000 tonnes of raw cane sugar was illicitly imported into Britain and Malta duty free, using special rights available to African-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) countries. The sugar was actually Brazilian and refined in Bulgaria, so Euro 2 million duties was evaded.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AFLATOXINS have been reported in a range of nuts in the European Union (EU) says European Commission food health alert service RASFF. Contamination was discovered in Iranian, Vietnamese and Turkish pistachios; Brazilian peanuts; Sudanese groundnuts; Moroccan almonds; and Turkish hazelnuts.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou has visited Brazil to pressure the Brazilian government into tightening its veterinary medicine residue and foot-and-mouth disease controls. Problems in both areas have led to restrictions on Brazilian meat sales to EU.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers have clarified the definition of ‘quality beef’ in EU import rules, to prevent Argentine, Brazilian and Uruguayan exporters using opaque regulations to sell beef of questionable quality into the EU, under ‘quality beef’ quotas.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has confirmed that non-European Union (EU) nuclear operators do not have to ask the European Commission permission to export uranium enriched within the EU, backing the line taken by the court’s advocate general.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Parliament has intervened in detailed debates over the restoration of North Sea plaice and sole stocks, accusing the European Commission of failing to listen to expertise within the fishing industry. In a comprehensive set of amendments to Brussels’ proposed conservation plan, the parliament has claimed the Commission is guilty of "totally ignoring the North Sea Regional Advisory Council (NSRAC)", and in this way "has missed an opportunity to generate support for its own policy", instead indulging in top-down policy dictates that were supposed to be a thing of the past.…

BY LIZ HALL

SIX years ago, government representatives from nine South American countries gathered in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, to sign a document of great importance to those concerned with fighting money-laundering (ML) and terrorism financing (TF).

On December 8, 2000, representatives of the governments of the following countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay, signed the Founding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) formally establishing GAFISUD, a regional body modelled on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).…

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Beirut

CONTRARY to Islamic stereotyping, lingerie sales are extremely healthy in the Middle East, although the brand is not as important as the style.

Indeed, there is lingerie openly on display that in Europe would usually be confined to sex shops.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Beirut

CONTRARY to Islamic stereotyping, lingerie sales are extremely healthy in the Middle East, although the brand is not as important as the style.

Indeed, there is lingerie openly on display that in Europe would usually be confined to sex shops.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE SOYBEAN industry is being exploited by international criminals to hide their illicit profits, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the world’s premier anti-money laundering body, has warned. In its latest ‘typologies’ report explaining the methods of launderers, FATF has included a case study where an unnamed German company transferred funds to a Brazilian business partner as an advance payment for soybeans.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

NON-EUROPEAN Union (EU) nuclear operators do not have to ask the European Commission permission to export uranium enriched within the EU, a European Court of Justice (ECJ) advocate general has concluded. Miguel Poiares Maduro was advising on a complex legal case focusing on the control of Brazilian-owned uranium transferred from Europe to the United States.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Beirut

THE COSMETICS and toiletries market in the Middle East is booming with 12% growth expected this year in a US$2.1 billion sector. Market trends differ from country to country, but the general trend is rising demand for European cosmetics over local products in the wealthier Arab countries, largely due to aggressive marketing campaigns by the major brands, and high demand for unregistered, fake brand name perfumes in countries with sizeable low-income populaces, such as Egypt, Lebanon and Syria.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

NON-EUROPEAN Union (EU) uranium owners do not have to ask the European Commission permission to export uranium enriched within the EU, a European Court of Justice (ECJ) advocate general has concluded. Miguel Poiares Maduro was advising on a complex legal case focusing on the control of Brazilian-owned uranium transferred from Europe to the United States.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE MULTILATERAL Investment Guarantee Agency, or MIGA, is the international organisation companies turn to when they want to invest in a jurisdiction where their assets might not be that safe. Oil and gas companies have long used MIGA to cover risks that are too tasty for the private insurance industry, and at December 2005, MIGA had supported 13 oil and gas projects, with guarantees totalling US$707 million, with a standard leverage of five-to-one, so investments covered are actually five times larger.…

BY STEVEN SWINDELLS, in Johannesburg

AFRICA’S tobacco leaf producers are facing troubled times.

Instead of capitalising on crop and currency woes in rival Brazil, too many producers across the world’s poorest continent are battling drought and low selling prices.

Brazil’s problems should have opened a door of opportunity for leading African producers to claim back at least part of the world leaf market lost to south American and other producers when Zimbabwe’s crop collapsed amid the violent seizure of white-owned farm land.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE BRAZILIAN government has been racing to limit the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in its top beef exporting state in Mato Grosso do Sul, appointing an emergency task force to pinpoint its origin and prevent the disease spreading.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is planning to ban Brazilian beef imports into the European Union from the cattle-rich Mato Grosso do Sul state, west-central Brazil, following a foot-and-mouth outbreak. The ban will apply to meat from animals slaughtered since September 30, affecting more than half of Brazilian exports to the EU, said Brussels.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is planning to ban Brazilian beef imports into the EU from cattle-rich Mato Grosso do Sul state, west-central Brazil, following a foot-and-mouth outbreak. The ban will apply to meat from animals slaughtered since September 30, affecting more than half of Brazilian exports to the EU.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is planning to ban Brazilian beef imports into the European Union from the cattle-rich Mato Grosso do Sul state, west-central Brazil, following a foot-and-mouth outbreak. The ban will apply to meat from animals slaughtered since September 30, affecting more than half of Brazilian exports to the EU, said Brussels.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
DETAILS of restrictions imposed on exports to European buyers of leather raw materials have been highlighted in the detailed European Union (EU) market report. It identifies India, China, the US, Pakistan and Russia as “very important markets” for the supply of leather raw materials, whilst Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Egypt, Indonesia, South Africa, Malaysia and Brazil are labelled as “important suppliers (mainly by tanners)”.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has appealed against a World Trade Organisation (WTO) ruling that it reverses a change of customs designation for frozen boneless chicken cut imports. The Brazilian government had protested about the reclassification of cuts with 1.2% or more salt content from salted to frozen meat, which attracts higher duty.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) will have to reclassify the customs designation of frozen boneless chicken cut imports, after a World Trade Organisation (WTO) disputes panel concluded that it broke WTO rules. The Brazilian government had requested that a panel arbitrated over a row about the fact that in the past, where they had a salt content over 1.2 per cent, they were classified as salted meat.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EU may have to reclassify the customs designation of frozen boneless chicken cut imports, after a WTO disputes panel concluded that it broke world trade rules. The Brazilian government had protested about the reclassification of cuts with 1.2% or more salt content from salted to frozen meat, which attracts higher duty.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SPANISH meat and poultry company Grupo Sada has lost an attempt to secure European Union (EU) trademark rights to its name, with the European Court of Justice (ECJ) fearing possible confusion with Brazilian competitor Sadia SA.

Meanwhile, Sweden should be censured for breaking EU directive 89/662/EEC on health controls for livestock and meat by insisting Swedish veterinary authorities be warned at least 24-hours ahead of impending shipments, an ECJ advocate general has said.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH
RURAL development will be the CAP’s cornerstone for at least the next decade in its twin ambitions of creating regional growth and supporting farmers who need to modernise, promises the recently arrived European Union (EU) agriculture Commissioner, Mrs Mariann Fischer Boel.…

BY DAVID HAWORTH
A CLOSER monitoring of live animal exports within the European Union (EU) is promised by the EU agriculture Commissioner, Mariann Fischer Boel, as the former Danish agriculture minister settles down in her new responsibilities.

She will be working hand-in-glove with colleagues who have a direct responsibility for the issue, the Commissioner told the Meat Trades Journal at her Brussels office.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE OFFICE International des Épizooties (OIE), the world animal health organisation, has confirmed that white spot disease has been detected for the first time in Brazil, infecting Pacific white shrimp. The announcement follows investigations by the Brazilian agriculture ministry’s Department of Animal Protection into three outbreaks amongst fish farms in Santa Catarina state, southern Brazil.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has asked the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers to extend definitive countervailing duties imposed on Indian exports to the EU of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film to Brazil and Israel. Brussels fears that Brazilian and Israeli companies are being used as fronts to funnel PET into the EU market, evading the duties.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE PURCHASE of Brazilian pork and poultry producer Seara Alimentos by US meat giant Cargill has been approved for European markets, without conditions, by the European Commission. Although both companies supply boneless chicken breasts to Europe, their products overlap “insignificantly”, said Brussels, and other large suppliers will continue to offer competing products.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) has launched work to create a global standard for corporate social responsibility, giving the Brazilian and Swedish governments the task of piloting the development of these guidelines. Detailed proposals will be shortly issued by ISO, launching three months of debates before preliminary decisions on their scope and content can be made.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission (EC) has asked the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers to extend definitive countervailing duties imposed on Indian exports to the EU of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) film to Brazil and Israel. Brussels fears that Brazilian and Israeli companies are being used as fronts to funnel PET into the EU market, evading the duties.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has lifted a remaining requirement for 20% of Brazilian poultry meat exports into the European Union (EU) to be tested for residues of nitrofuran antibiotics.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has lifted a remaining requirement for 20% of Brazilian poultry meat exports into the European Union (EU) to be tested for residues of nitrofuran antibiotics. All such cargoes had been tested after October 2002, with the proportion eased to 20% this March following improvements in Brazilian production standards.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) has corrected its anti-dumping duty on malleable cast iron tube or pipe fittings from Brazil, reducing the rate from 34.8 to 32 per cent. The move by the EU Council of Ministers follows a ruling last year by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) that the European Commission had erred when calculating the original duty (erected in 2000).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE OFFICE International des Épizooties (OIE), the world animal health organisation, has reported outbreaks of blue tongue disease amongst sheep in Cyprus and scrapie in Brazilian flocks. The Cypriot outbreak has hit six flocks and involved 71 cases, almost entirely amongst females.…

BY MARK WILSON
AWASH with recently-passed legislation and newly-established Financial Investigation Units, the small nations of the Caribbean have transformed their money laundering controls since the mid-1990s. In 2000, five Caribbean island jurisdictions made up one-third of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) list of fifteen non-cooperative countries and territories, each of them with ‘serious systemic problems,’ in the words of a FATF review published on June 22 of that year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union is ordering a reduction from 100 to 20 per cent in the frequency of checks on poultry and poultry meat from Brazil to detect residues of the banned anti-biotic nitrofuran. Blanket inspections have been held since October 2002, after the drug was found in Brazilian poultry, but none has been discovered since August 2003.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE BRAZILIAN government has requested that a World Trade Organisation disputes panel arbitrates over a row with the European Union regarding the customs classification of imported frozen boneless chicken cuts from Brazil. In the past, where they had a salt content over 1.2 per cent, they were classified as salted meat.…

Keith Nuthall
THE NUMBER of women seafarers working in the world’s merchant navies is on the rise, but female ship workers still face discrimination and a lack of tailored facilities, an International Labour Organisation report has said. It claims women make up between one and two per cent of the world’s 1.25 million seafarers, on around 87,000 ships.…

Keith Nuthall
THE NUMBER of women seafarers working in the world’s merchant navies is on the rise, but female ship workers still face discrimination and a lack of tailored facilities, an International Labour Organisation report has said. It claims women make up between one and two per cent of the world’s 1.25 million seafarers, on around 87,000 ships.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has authorised a deal involving the merger of two key Brazilian suppliers of iron ore into the European Union market. It has approved the proposed acquisition by CVRD (Companhia Vale do Rio Doce) of sole control of Caemi, which it currently shares with Japanese iron ore trader Mitsui.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE BRAZILIAN government has largely failed to secure a tougher ruling at the World Trade Organisation’s appellate body against the European Union’s anti-dumping duties on malleable cast iron tube or pipe fittings from Brazil. In its initial ruling, a WTO disputes panel found that the EU had erred in two technical ways regarding the setting of the duties, but Brazil appealed, asking the appellate body to declare the duties broke world trade laws more comprehensively.…

BY MARK ROWE
RUSSIA is to resume imports of Brazilian boneless beef and pork. Russia, a major new market for Brazilian beef exporters, banned purchases from Brazil last December because of concerns over the disease bovine vesicular stomatitis. Brazil says the export herds have been free of the disease for at least one year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
TEMPORARY safeguard measures protecting Brazilian producers of dried coconuts, (shelled and shredded), have been imposed on imports into Brazil of this confectionary ingredient from the Ivory Coast and Indonesia. These countries supply 4.67 per cent and 59.49 per cent of dried coconut imports into Brazil respectively, said a note to the World Trade Organisation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRAZILIAN steel producer V&M do Brazil has struck the largest deal to date under the Kyoto Protocol Clean Development Mechanism. It will see the steel maker selling five million tonnes of greenhouse gas reductions for Euro 15 million to an International Finance Corporation/Dutch government fund, the IFC-Netherlands Carbon Facility.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
GOOD practice guidelines of how to reduce a company’s exposure to HIV/AIDS in the workplace have been released by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank. Its note provides companies with advice on designing and implementing HIV/AIDS prevention and care programmes for employees.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Union is to remove all textile import quotas applied to Brazil under a

Memorandum of Understanding signed between the two sides this month (November). In return, Brazil will respect maximum tariff levels, refrain from applying non-tariff barriers to EU exports, and discontinue the application of an additional tax on textile and clothing imports.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank is lending US$30 million to Brazilian footwear producer Sao Paulo Alpargatas S.A. (SPASA), to finance its on-going investment programme, modernising production facilities and increasing capacity. The company has been identified by the IFC as a company that would effectively use such finance; since 1997, it has improved performance and market position by upgrading product quality and lowering costs, notably through new manufacturing technologies and relocating production facilities to the impoverished north-east of Brazil, an area which the World Bank wants to help develop.…

BY PHILIP FINE

COCA-COLA is trying out a popular Brazilian drink on US consumers. Earlier this month, Coke began selling Kuat, (pronounced "kwatch"), a guarana-flavoured drink, as a test marketing exercise in Texas, Florida and in parts of the US eastern seaboard’s mid-Atlantic region.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union is to abandon special testing of fish from China, because it no longer considers there is a serious risk of these exports being significantly contaminated with restricted anti-biotics. It has taken the same decision for shrimp shipments from Vietnam and Pakistan.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union is to abandon special testing of certain fish products from China, and shrimp from Vietnam and Pakistan because it no longer considers there is a serious risk of exports being contaminated with banned antibiotics. However, checks are being introduced for Ukrainean milk powder and Brazilian poultry.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union’s EU Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health has recommended that systematic testing for antibiotic residues should be introduced for all imports of Brazilian poultry meat, products and preparations, after checks revealed that cargoes have been contaminated with restricted nitrofurans.…

KEITH NUTHALL
APPLICATIONS made by Nicaragua and Germany for the trade in two hardwoods to be controlled under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) have been supported by the CITES secretariat. The species are big-leaf mahogany (Brazilian mahogany) and tree-of-life (pockwood or sonora guaiacum).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL, ALAN OSBORN, MONICA DOBIE AND PHILIP FINE

IF there is one striking characteristic about Washington’s Bush Administration, it must be its almost unprecedented ability to infuriate the entire world with its unilateralism, especially its self-serving trade policies.

For years, the US government has actually played Mary Poppins on food production subsidies, claiming that its handouts do not encourage farmers to overproduce when prices are low.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Health Organisation has released a draft treaty text providing the basis for the final stage of the negotiations of a Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Assembled by WHO Brazilian Ambassador Luiz Felipe de Seixas Correa, Chair of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body on the convention, it highlights areas of potential agreement on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, black-marketeering, taxes, and international cooperation in agricultural diversification and financial resources.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE ISRAELI Foreign Trade Risks Insurance Corporation has reinsured US$53 million of US$83.5 million in guarantees posted by the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) of the World Bank. The security covers Israeli telecommunications company ECI Telecom’s investment in Brazilian company Global Village Telecom Ltda, which wants to construct and operate wireless telephone networks in Brazil.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
1902-1912

British American Tobacco was created on September 29th 1902 as a joint venture between Imperial Tobacco Company of the UK and the American Tobacco Company of the US following a fierce trade war. The parent companies agreed not to trade in each other’s domestic territory and to assign trademarks, export businesses and overseas subsidiaries to the joint venture.…

KEITH NUTHALL
APPLICATIONS have been made by the Nicaraguan and German governments for the trade in two hardwood species to be controlled under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). These species are, respectively, big-leaf mahogany (also known as Brazilian mahogany) and the tree-of-life (also known as pockwood or sonora guaiacum).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRAZIL has requested formal talks with the United States at the World Trade Organisation to pressure Washington into lifting anti-dumping duties that it has imposed on Brazilian exports of silicon metal.

These were imposed in 1991 and include metal produced by the Companhia Brasileira Carbureto de Cálcio, (CBCC); it has regularly participated in annual administrative reviews of its dumping margin, applying the duties to be scrapped.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRAZIL and the USA have struck a deal over the licensing of generic drugs, which should see an end to the looming World Trade Organisation dispute between the two countries, brought by the American government.

The Brazilian government have agreed to consult the US, if in the future it thinks that it might have to use its Article 68 law to a grant compulsory licence on patents held by US companies.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
MOLSON Inc. has announced that it will close its Regina, Saskatchewan brewery as part of a cost-cutting scheme, which will save the company $150 million (CND) over a period of three years.

“Our review of our capacity utilisation in our western Canadian brewery network has unfortunately led us to make this difficult decision,” said Daniel J.…