Archive

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CHINA should formally become a member of the World Trade Organisation by March 2002, a move that will make it subject to the rights and obligations of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing. The accession follows 15 years of negotiations, and was approved by a formal meeting of the WTO’s China working party.…

KEITH NUTHALL
IT is common knowledge that the European Union is becoming increasingly involved in public water policy, legislating to control the environmental quality of water supplies and watercourses. Brussels ambitions to improve water services do not, however, end at the external borders of the EU.…

Keith Nuthall
EUROPEAN Union competition Commissioner Mario Monti has announced that Brussels is to clamp down on special tax regimes affecting financial services in 11 Member States, which it claims are probably so lax, they constitute illegal state aid payments that could unfairly favour local companies.…

Keith Nuthall
DETAILS of the European Commission’s plans to reduce the contrasts between tax regimes in EU Member States have been released, with Brussels publishing its policy paper “Towards an Internal Market without Tax Obstacles.”

As predicted in Accountancy Age, the Commission is aiming in the long term for the creation of a consolidated tax base for businesses operating across the EU, with the report highlighting the 30 per cent variations in national company tax rates.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission is preparing a potentially groundbreaking initiative to overcome the problems created by the existence of 15 different tax systems throughout the European Union, which could involve setting a harmonised EU corporation tax. In a report due to be released shortly, obtained by Accountancy Age, the Commission says differing tax national systems have caused losses in economic efficiency, generated compliance costs and contributed to a lack of transparency.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is threatening to take Belgium and Finland to the European Court of Justice, claiming that their mandatory no-claims bonus systems for motor insurance breaks the EU’s third non-life insurance directive.

Brussels claims that the regulations deny insurers the freedom to set scales of premiums allowed in the EU legislation.…

BY RICHARD HURST, in Johannesburg
THE SOUTH African drinks industry has attacked a government announcement that it intends to curb alcohol advertising on television and also order that health-warning labels be added to containers in all the country’s 11 official languages.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission has dashed the hopes of Sicilian wine-growers awaiting compensation from the Italian government for unused replanting rights. The island’s regional government had planned to pay some two billion Lire, (about Euro 1 million), to the growers, whose rights had become worthless as a result of drought in 1988-1990.…

BY MONICA DOBIE, in Montreal
MONTREAL based brewery, McAuslan Brewing, has announced plans to build a new CAN$7 million brewery, which will see the size of its current operations rise from a 30,000 hectolitre capacity to 200,000 hectolitres.

The 45-thousand-square-foot brewery will allow the company to produce ales and lagers and also provide the space to brew New Brunswick-based Moosehead beer under license, a deal recently agreed upon.…

BY RICHARD HURST, in Johannesburg
THE KENYAN finance Minister Chris Okemo has granted competition approval for Coca Cola Sabco, of South Africa, to increase its dominance of the east African country’s soft drinks market.

Sabco is now likely to try and increase its stake in Nairobi Bottlers, which has 52 per cent of the market, and acquire opposition East African Bottlers, which has a market share of roughly two per cent.…