Search Results for: japan

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AS trade ministers flew home from four days of gruelling talks at last week’s World Trade Organisation (WTO) summit in Hong Kong, they could be forgiven for feeling some satisfaction: the end of the Doha Development Round is nigh, probably.…

BY TAMARA VANTROYEN, in Hong Kong

IT is not just a rumour anymore: China is officially upgrading its water quality, a move welcome to drinks manufacturers that rely on and control costs through guaranteed clean water supplies. China launched new drinking water standards in June, raising the number of forbidden water pollutants from 35 to 101.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A NEW United Nations inter-agency programme has been launched to minimise the loss of life and property damage caused by floods. The International Flood Initiative will be headquartered at the Public Works Research Institute, Tsukuba, Japan. The initiative would “integrate the scientific, operational, educational and public awareness raising aspects of flood management, including the social response and communication dimensions of flooding and related disaster preparedness,” said UN cultural and scientific organisation UNESCO director-general Koïchiro Matsuura.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AUTO manufacturing firms will be closely monitoring next week’s World Trade Organisation (WTO) summit in Hong Kong for signs that the WTO’s long-running Doha Development Round talks are about to crack open national automobile markets. Key auto industry countries – the US, the European Union, Canada, Japan, South Korea, India and Brazil – have been making steady progress this year in identifying non-tariff barriers to trade they would like to remove, such as burdensome customs procedures, technical engineering rules and licences.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) and Japan have joined Mexico in demanding formal talks at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) over American anti-dumping duty procedures protecting its steel industry. Mexico is challenging US tariffs on its exports of stainless steel sheet and strip in coils, alleging American trade officials erred when calculating dumping margins used to set duty levels.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYKE
A RENOVATION and expansion of Yangon International Airport, Myanmar, is to be completed by the end of 2005 at a cost of US$36 million. The country’s construction ministry, private Myanmar company Asia World, Japan’s Taisei Corp., and Singapore architectural consultants CPG are involved in the scheme, the 7-Days journal reported.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYKE
THE CENTRAL Japan International Airport Co. is to offer around Yen 700,000 per large commercial airliner at this third hub, Japanese newspapers claim. This compares with Yen 950,000 at Narita and Yen 830,000 at Kansai.…

BY MARK ROWE
AT the start of the 21st century, technology appears set to revolutionise health care in the same way as the discovery of anaesthesia, antiseptics and penicillin. And this is about far more than computer systems that make waiting lists more efficient or advances in keyhole surgery.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INCREASED compensation of up to US$1.152 billion for damage caused by serious oil spills will be made available from March 3 next year, when an International Oil Pollution Compensation Supplementary Fund comes into being. This follows the ratification of its founding protocol by Spain, fulfilling the minimum number of major oil importing states required for the formal creation of this International Maritime Organisation (IMO)-coordinated fund.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union has been authorised by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to impose retaliatory duties on US knitted products for failing to scrap its Byrd Amendment law allowing payments of anti-dumping and countervailing duties to American companies making complaints sparking such tariffs.…