Archive

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EXTENSION of Austria’s ecopoint regulation – which restricts the number of lorries that can cross its ecologically sensitive Alpine passes – is on a political knife-edge, with the European Parliament and the EU Council of Ministers at loggerheads over the shape of a future system.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
INDIA’S Alkem Laboratories is introducing a new antibiotic branded Megapime into its home market. It has been approved as a stand-alone drug which can be administered, without waiting for an exact diagnosis, to serious patients suffering from fever who have a low white cell count.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Parliament has adopted a resolution that “deplores” the American refusal to strike a deal at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks on licensing generic drugs in developing countries facing health crises. MEP’s criticised the USA for “favouring a unilateral solution and a narrow list of medicines for which WTO intellectual property rules would be waived.”…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched an “e-learning” website to provide information on its own eLearning projects and to provide links to Internet material on other national public and private initiatives in the field. EU education Commissioner Viviane Reding said the new portal was ” part of the European efforts to improve the exchange of information and the sharing of knowledge on e-learning in Europe.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission will stage a conference in May to discuss the consequences of the abolition of quotas under the WTO’s agreement on textile and clothing. This symposium – The Future of Textiles and Clothing Trade after 2005 – will be held in Brussels on May 5-6.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission and Vietnam have struck a new textile and clothing trade deal. Until 2005, the EU will increase the size of Vietnam textile and clothing export quotas by between 50 and 75 per cent, generating Euro 200 million of trade opportunities and boosting Vietnamese exports to the EU by 25 per cent.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
INDIA’S four-day 18th International Leather Fair, in Chennai (Madras), this month (Feb) concluded INDRupees 5,090 million (US$106.8 million) worth of business, said its organisers. Staged at the Chennai Trade Centre, it attracted more than 8,000 visitors, said the Indian Trade Promotion Organisation, of whom five per cent were from abroad, including representatives from 20 countries, notably from Italy, Germany, Spain, Brazil and China.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
A NEW international treaty significantly extending the public information required of companies over their output of pollutants has been agreed by 30 member countries of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and is expected to be formally adopted in Kiev in May.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has referred to the Belgian competition authorities six merger cases involving the sale by Flanders local authorities of gas and electricity supply services to the country’s energy giant Electrabel. The councils have been forced to offload the services to comply with Belgium’s electricity and gas liberalisation legislation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development is investing Euro 7 million of new equity into in Dalkia Termika, the Polish subsidiary of France-based Dalkia International, which will make a further investment as a result. Its Polish business will develop energy installations in Poland, especially district heating projects, making them more efficient.…