Archive

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has – somewhat grudgingly it appears – called off its investigation into alleged market sharing agreements between the large international brewers Carlsberg of Denmark and Heineken of the Netherlands. Brussels said it found no evidence that the suspected infringement continued after May 1995 and noted that under EU rules it had no power to fine companies where abuses could not be proved in the five years preceding the start of an investigation – in this case 2000.…

BY SWNINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
SRI Lankan press reports have claimed that clay mining in the country’s Lower Ma Oya Valley has been carried out so recklessly that the local river has burst its banks and has invaded villages in the valley.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
THE CHINESE state-owned Aluminium Corporation of China (Chinalco) has asked the Indian government permission to set up a 12-million tonne aluminium smelter and captive power plant worth INDRupees 17.5 billion (US$360 million). Of this investment, INDRupees 5.25 billion (US$110 million) would be in equity, with a 50 per cent foreign equity element, and the remaining INDRupees 12.25 billion (US$250 million) would be from international investors.…

BY RICHARD HURST
THE MANAGING Director of Zimbabwe Platinum has welcomed several incentives recently introduced by the Zimbabwean government that are designed to assist the platinum group metals industry develop in the country.

Roy Pitchford, managing director of Zimbabwe Platinum said that he was confident that investors would have a safe return on investments despite the political and economic uncertainty surrounding the rule of president Robert Mugabe.…

BY MARK ROWE
SAND quarrying in Indonesia has been suspended for two months amidst claims by mining companies that they cannot afford new taxes and royalties imposed by the central government; investors have also blamed complicated licensing procedures designed to reduce smuggling.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
A SENIOR Sri Lankan government official has warned his country’s construction industry that it faces running out of sand unless it stops over-exploiting river deposits and fails to develop extraction from the seabed offshore.

Janapriya de Silva, Chairman of the island’s Geological Survey and Mines Bureau, has warned: “We could run short of sand in another two years’ time.”…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA and KEITH NUTHALL
THE GOVERNMENT of Sri Lanka is embarking on a comprehensive survey of the country’s clay resources as demand grows thanks to an official policy of promoting a home-grown ceramics industry, which is already the largest mineral-based sector in this south Asian country.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
*A supermarket boom in sub-Saharan Africa is raising food production and distribution standards, which many small farmers cannot meet, said the UN’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). It called for the funding of cooperatives, micro-loans and training, especially in South Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is lending the Russian subsidiary of IKEA US$100 million to finance Russia’s first combined mega-shopping and entertainment complex. It will be built on the outskirts of Moscow and will be Russia’s largest shopping mall, covering 170,000 square metres.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A PROPOSAL to liberalise the global trade in artificially propagated orchids been approved by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Its member governments – meeting in Santiago, Chile – exempted six species from trade controls.…