Archive

Keith Nuthall
FISCAL concessions developed to encourage unregistered gray market Italian businesses declare themselves officially and start paying tax have been approved by the European Commission as fair way in which to boost the regularisation of the Italy’s economy.

Rome has offered businesses in the country’s underground economy a range of discounts in tax and social security to persuade them to establish themselves legitimately.…

Keith Nuthall
ACCOUNTING procedures within the European Commission are to be speeded up and made tougher, with ministers and MEP’s being asked to approve a new package of reforms to Brussels ‘Financial Regulation.’

This is the rule-book that governs the Commission’s accounting practices, and which has been under review since 1999.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the proposed take-over of Haindl, a German family-owned paper company, by Finland’s UPM-Kymmene and the subsequent sale of two of the Haindl mills to Norwegian paper manufacturer Norske Skog. Brussels concluded following an inquiry that the deal would not erode effective competition in European Union paper markets, notably in those for newsprint and wood-containing magazine paper.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Trade Organisation has agreed to launch a new wide-ranging round of talks on liberalising international commerce, negotiations that will include industrial goods, which will be combined with the ongoing discussions on services and agricultural products.

Ministers at the summit in Doha, Qatar, struck a deal after six days of bargaining, with their task being made achievable by the wide-ranging draft communiqué that was drawn up beforehand.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A GLOOMY report from the World Trade Organisation has concluded that the growth in global commerce has fallen steeply and is now expected to reach just two per cent, compared with much healthier estimates at the start of the year and a 12 per cent boom in the year 2000.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE, in Columbo
A LOW cost pump system, which can generate ultra-fine air bubbles for fish tanks, has been launched in Japan. Its Bubble Tank Co’s EOXMICRO system creates bubbles that are so uniformly small, that they are more easily dissolved in water than more conventional pumps.…

BY MARK ROWE
SHIPPING live prawns in a hibernated state to Europe is being promoted in Thailand as a means of combating increased export competition from regional neighbours. Thai exporters are being encouraged to explore the possibility of shipping live tiger prawns to Europe by keeping the cargo in hibernation.…

BY MONICA DOBIE
THE EUROPEAN Commission has formally adopted a regulation that will force the aquaculture industry to label their fish and fish products as being farmed or cultivated in a bid to better inform consumers and help officials police the Common Fisheries Policy.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has launched an investigation into state aid paid by the Italian government to its shellfish producers; it fears they were overcompensated for problems caused by the spread of mucilage in the Adriatic last year.

Rome paid fish farmers Euro 775,000 to cover up to 30 per cent of their losses caused by this natural jelly hindering their operations.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Trade Organisation has agreed at its ministerial meeting in Qatar, to intensify its ongoing agriculture talks. Ministers ruled that by the end of 2003, member governments should propose formal concessions on quotas, tariffs, subsidies and other trade barriers.…