Archive

BY KEITH NUTHALL
DEFINITIVE anti-dumping duties on imports into the European Union of the fragrance fixative coumarin that has been manufactured in China have been re-imposed by the EU Council of Ministers. It agreed that a rate of Euro 3,479 per tonne should be set, reflecting concerns that the high 50 per cent level of previous dumping leading to the old duties being erected, (in 1996), would be resumed if the tariffs lapsed.…

BY MARK ROWE
THE INTERNATIONAL Monetary Fund is to help set up an Islamic Financial Services Board to regulate and lay down standards for financial transactions throughout the Islamic world. A key aim of the project is to incorporate the special insurance tenets that exist in the Islamic business world into the wider capitalist system.…

BY SWINTEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
THE SALE of Sri Lanka’s state owned Insurance Corporation is underway, with the appointment of a tender board and technical evaluation committee to handle the privatisation and the award of an overseeing contract to Pricewaterhouse Coopers.

As the south Asian country’s only state owned insurance venture, the Insurance Corporation commands a 44 per cent market share in general insurance and 35 per cent in life portfolios and has been prospering from a 1.2 per cent growth rate.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has cleared the start-up of inreon, (NOTE: all letters in lower case) an online business-to-business reinsurance trading platform set up by Swiss Re and Munich Re. The service will enable insurers to obtain bids from reinsurers on big property and catastrophic risks and conclude contracts online.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INSURANCE companies are being unnecessarily exposed to risk through employment accident policies because of the estimated two million workers who die annually through job-related accidents or diseases, eighty per cent of which are preventable, the International Labour Organisation has claimed.…

BY JONATHAN THOMSON
ALMOST three quarters of Britain’s firms carry out little or no investigation into workplace accidents according to a study whose results were revealed at a major safety conference today.

Dr David Embrey, managing director of consultancy firm Human Reliability Associates (HRA), told the RoSPA Safety and Health at Work Congress 2002 that the findings would fuel pressure for legislation requiring all organisations to carry out proper accident inquiries.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
NIPPON Paper Industries Co. of Japan has developed a paper product that it says is five-to-10 times more elastic than ordinary paper.

The high elasticity comes from tiny wrinkles the company adds to the paper during the production process, as well as the use of extra-elastic pulp fibre.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A NEW joint venture to operate an Internet business-to-business marketplace for office supplies has been given competition clearance by the European Commission. It will be called Date AS, and will sell stationary equipment and consumables such as pencils, pens, paper, hardware and mobile phones.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
MANY paper mills in India processing waste paper into recycled stationary are facing closure, the All-India Small Paper Mills’ Association is claiming. It says about 300 small mills are at risk, because they are failing to compete with overseas players on cost and quality grounds.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
LETS face it. The reputation of the European Union for taking firm action against crime is not solid. Rather it is known for issuing waffley communiqués that say what needs to be done, without saying when or how.…