Archive

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
A FORMER president of the Thai Leather Goods Association has said that the Thailand leather industry has to improve its designs to more effectively compete globally. Sunanta Wuthisakul said that this would build upon the standard product quality of local manufacturers, which in general “currently met international standards,” notably those of the big brands which use Thai leather.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
INDIA’S Council for Leather Exports has expressed disappointment over the recommendations of an Indian government industry task force, which has suggested cutting tax and duty exemptions. The council said that export promotion schemes such as advance licensing, the Duty Entitlement Pass Book and the Export Promotion Capital Goods exemption had been introduced to offset some of the cost disadvantages for Indian exporters.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE RUSSIAN government has been pressing the European Union (EU) for a promise that it will not impose cap on its gas imports preventing it buying more than 30 per cent of its supplies from one non-EU exporter, papers released at last week’s EU-Russia summit in Brussels have revealed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank is planning to lend Egypt up to US$450 million to build a natural gas liquefaction plant, enabling the country to export a large chunk of its plentiful gas reserves. The El Behera Natural Gas Liquefaction Company plant would handle 3.6 million tonnes per year and include a tanker-loading jetty at its site at Idku, 50 km east of Alexandria.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has publicly backed the growing privatisation of Europe’s water utilities, with its internal market commissioner backing British government moves to inject competition into its national sector.

Indeed, Frits Bolkestein defended the much-maligned record of privatised water services in the UK, blaming the price rises in the 1990’s on a failure to ensure private water companies could compete and previous government neglect.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has been asked to negotiate away restrictions maintained by European Union (EU) Member States that prevent non-EU companies from providing “services incidental to energy distribution” within the EU. The call has come from countries involved in the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) three years old services talks, which were rolled into the WTO’s general Doha Development Round at its Qatar summit last year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SCIENTISTS have used data from NASA and the European Space Agency to examine the impact of the 1997-98 Indonesia bushfires, and have concluded that they contributed significantly to the largest recorded annual increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. They calculated the fires released up to 2.57 gigatonnes of carbon, 40 per cent of average worldwide fossil fuel carbon emissions.…

BY MARK ROWE
RUSSIAN veterinary officials have started inspecting US poultry exporters for the first time since new American sanitary guidelines came into force on September 15. Russia, the largest market for US poultry producers, banned imports of American poultry in March over concerns about production methods and salmonella.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed new fuel quality limits for ships as part of a strategy to reduce maritime industry air pollution. It has proposed a directive capping the sulphur content of such fuels at 1.5 per cent for those used by vessels in the North Sea, English Channel and the Baltic and by passenger ferries on regular services to or from any port within the EU.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union is to lift a ban on another two Chinese food imports, which was imposed over concerns about the misuse of anti-biotics. The EU Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health has approved the health of Chinese crayfish and surimi.…