Search Results for: World Trade Organisation⊂mit=Search

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A MEAT purchase tax imposed by the French government on meat retailers is illegal under European state aid law, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled. It said that the tax, which funds the free disposal of carcasses and slaughterhouse waste, is a subsidy that places French meat producers at an unfair advantage in the European Union (EU) export market against competitors from other Member States.…

KEITH NUTHALL
CHINESE supermarket chain Wumart has secured the support of the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) in its drive to expand, establishing10 hypermarkets, 32 supermarkets and 152 convenience stores in China over the next two years. The IFC is to invest US$6.5 million in Wumart Stores Inc, supporting its international offering on the Growth Enterprise Market of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.…

BY PHILIP FINE

THE USA could become a major pectin producer after a Penn State University (Pennsylvania) researcher developed a process to extract high-quality pectin from orange peels. The complex carbohydrate, used to thicken jellies and fruit fillings, has been traditionally slow cooked by Europeans using lime peels imported from Mexico and south America.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has moved to impose retaliatory duties on a range of some US perfume and soap exports over a row about American foreign sales corporations, deemed illegal by the World Trade Organisation. The duties would cover essential oils of lavender or lavandin (not deterpenated) and of clove, niaouli and ylang-ylang (deterpenated).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AFTER a long period of consultation, a comprehensive directive protecting the European Union’s (EU) groundwater reserves has been proposed by the European Commission, which would force Member States to establish and police locally sensitive pollution limits. The legislation would insist that national governments carefully monitor groundwater quality and take steps to reverse its pollution, where it has exceeded these self-imposed thresholds.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has lost patience with the United States and has moved to impose retaliatory duties on US shrimp and prawn (in airtight containers) and tuna exports over a row about American foreign sales corporations, which have been deemed illegal by the World Trade Organisation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
POLITICAL pressure applied by the European Union (EU) on its Member States to improve the environmental performance of their water sectors is failing to achieve the desired results, according to a report from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Bank and its private sector subsidiary the International Finance Corporation has pledged their support for the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative launched by British Prime Minister Tony Blair at 2002’s Johannesburg sustainable development summit. It aims to improve accounting and auditing controls surrounding lucrative oil, gas and mining contracts in developing countries, where – said the bank – “the lack of accountability and transparency about these revenues can exacerbate poor governance and lead to more corruption, conflict, and inequality.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Bank’s International Finance Corporation is to lend US$250 million to help build the key Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline that will carry EU-bound oil and gas into Turkey from the Caspian basin. The financing is a small part of the overall US$3.2 billion price tag.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A KEY OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) committee has called on governments to promote competition within the emerging broadband and wireless sectors. The advice comes from the OECD committee on information, computer and communications policy, which outlined principles that should guide the development of DSL, cable, fixed wireless and satellite.…