Archive
International News Services archives articles supplied to clients one year or more after initial publication. These articles are protected by a password and not made available to readers without permission from clients. They are used as a background resource by agency journalists. Upon client requests, International News Services will remove such articles from the archive or not upload them in the first place. They are included to demonstrate the breadth of topics undertaken by the agency and also to help promote clients’ coverage.
GERMANY PET AID
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the payment by the German government of state aid worth Euro 28.13 million to DOW PET GmbH to extend its PET production site in Schopkau, Saxony, eastern Germany. The aid will be granted as investment premium via the country’s Investitionszulagengesetz scheme and will meet 23.44 per cent of the total Euro 120 million cost of the project.…
CZECH DUTY
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has approved European Commission proposals that a Czech company breaking promises not to dump cut-priced malleable cast iron tube or pipe fittings on the EU market should have its exemption from 26.1 per cent anti-dumping duties removed.…
VOESTALPINE AG
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) is lending Austrian pre-shaped steel manufacturer Voestalpine AG Euro 50 million to help it boost its metallurgical, welding and steel-forming processes plus undertake automotive sector research and development. The money would help fund a pre-rolling stand at the Leoben/Donawitz plant and a high-performance rolling mill at Voestalpine’s Schienen GmbH.…
EU-CARIBBEAN DEAL
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) and 16 Caribbean countries have launched negotiations to strike a trade deal by 2008, that should boost Jamaican bauxite exports into Europe. The mineral is already the eastern Caribbean’s largest non-food export to the EU, (eight per cent of all the region’s foreign sales being aluminium-related products – worth around Euro 223 million in 2003).…
RUSSIA - GRAIN ORIENTED SHEETS
BY KEITH NUTHALL
RUSSIA’S exporters of grain oriented electrical sheets will be temporarily exempt from European Union (EU) anti-dumping duties on their sales to the 10 countries joining the EU this weekend, under a proposed from the European Commission. It has responded to concerns from the exporters that the sudden application of the duties to these eastern and southern European countries would trigger “sharp price increases” making “the product prohibitively expensive for electromagnetic appliances and in installations such as power and distribution transformers”.…
MOLDOVA SCAM
BY KEITH NUTHALL
EXPORTS of steel rope and cables from Moldova into the European Union (EU) will now attract 51.8 per cent definitive anti-dumping duties, after the EU Council of Ministers approved a plan to prevent Ukraine producers fraudulently routing the product through its neighbour to evade existing tariffs.…
RUSSIA SILICON DUTIES
BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) ministers have been asked to waive anti-dumping duties imposed on imports from Russia of (with silicon content less than 99.99 per cent by weight) for three cooperating exporters, owned by the SUAL Holding Group. Its SKU LLC, of Sual-Kremny-Ural, and ZAO KREMNY, Irkutsk, have formally promised to maintain their silicon prices at a level that is acceptable to the European Commission, which has as a result proposed that they be exempted from the duties; the decision would also apply to their related trader ASMP GmbH, of Switzerland.…
BATTERY RECYCLING
BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament’s environment committee has proposed amending a European Union (EU) battery recycling directive, to increase amounts collected to 50 per cent, (up from the European Commission’s proposed de facto 40 per cent). The committee also proposed banning batteries with over five parts per million (ppm) of mercury by weight, 40 ppm of lead, and/or 20 ppm of cadmium.…
ASBESTOS CLOSURE
BY MONICA DOBIE
CANADA’S largest producer of chrysotile asbestos fibres, LAB Chrysotile, has announced it will indefinitely shut one of its two mines near Thetford Mines, Quebec, this November. The company has blamed the closure of its Black Lake mine, which will result in 450 job losses, on a high Canadian dollar in comparison to the US dollar and tough international competition.…
CLAY TEXTILE COMPOSITE
BY MONICA DOBIE
AMERICAN scientists have developed a new hybrid nanotechnology material made by combining clay with cotton, producing a substance that they claim has strong heat resistance ability, durability and suppleness. Researchers mixed microscopic montmorillonite clay particles into cotton fibres dissolved by a recyclable solvent that was later removed.…