Archive

BY MARK ROWE
THAI-JAPANESE joint venturers have floated a plan to turn a hillside in northern Thailand into one of the world’s most unlikely ski venues. Leisure Patine International Co Ltd, which has previously developed ice rinks in Thai shopping centres, has suggested that Japanese snow-making machines could be used to establish a ski slope near the town of Chiang Mai, a place better known as a haven for European and Australian backpackers.…

KEITH NUTHALL
A COMPREHENSIVE reform of the European Union’s VAT package for travel agents has been proposed by the European Commission, which would change the special rules that apply for the sector. Because their services are often consumed in a foreign Member States where different sales tax rates can apply, travel agents are allowed to pay VAT on the profits that they make rather than handing over the VAT charged directly on services that they supply, minus the VAT they paid when incurring allowable business expenses.…

BY MARK ROWE
A HUGE cleanup operation has been launched in Djibouti after a spillage at the port’s dockside of 10 containers full of toxic pesticides en route from the United Kingdom to Ethiopia. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is overseeing a Pounds 70,000 emergency fund to tackle the contamination which occurred almost four weeks ago but details of which have only just emerged.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank is to help finance the construction of two new fast and technologically advanced “cruise ferries” for the Italian shipping company Grandi Navi Veloci (GNV) for use on routes between Genoa and Sardinia/Sicily.

The EIB, the financing institution of the European Union, is making a Euro 99 million (Pounds 60 million) loan in conjunction with a syndicate of Italian banks.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union ministers have been formally asked to approve the shipping agreement negotiated with China last year by the European Commission; the deal covers commercial, safety and security maritime issues and could be formally signed at a planned EU-China summit at the end of this year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INDONESIAN navy has dispatched three warships to the Malacca Straits following the release of International Chamber of Commerce’s Annual Piracy Report, which found they are still the most dangerous waters for commercial shipping in the world, the global business group claims.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Court of Justice has announced five weeks of public hearings for a case between Nigeria and Cameroon, who are disputing their mutual maritime border. Nigerian troops currently occupy part of the disputed Bakassi peninsular, provoking the Cameroon government into launching the case, which calls for a fixing of the coastal and associated sea frontiers and the withdrawal of foreign forces.…

BY MARK ROWE
SHIPPING companies and their related organisations are being invited to submit bids for funding under a new Euro 280 million North Sea initiative launched by the European Union.

Grants will be made available for projects that will promote efficient and integrated transport and maritime systems in the North Sea and its adjacent coastal regions.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE STRUCTURE of the World Trade Organisation negotiations launched last year in Doha, Qatar, to liberalise much of global commerce, has now been set, with committees and working parties being given the task of agreeing detailed timetables for their work.…

Keith Nuthall
EUROPEAN Union ministers have approved a new ‘solvency margin’ directive that increases by 50 per cent the minimum financial reserves that must be retained by EU-registered insurance companies writing aviation industry policies, as these are deemed by Brussels as ‘volatile-risk’.…