Search Results for: World Trade Organisation

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Finance Corporation (IFC), of the World Bank, will invest US$22 million into modernising and restoring Bulgaria’s Stomana steel mill, part of a US$94 million investment programme dominated by Greek steel producer Sidenor. The money will improve the efficiency of the plant – in the Pernik industrial region – enabling it to better produce a wider product range that commands higher values than its current output, as well as improving production methods and environmental performance.…

Keith Nuthall
THE NUMBER of women seafarers working in the world’s merchant navies is on the rise, but female ship workers still face discrimination and a lack of tailored facilities, an International Labour Organisation report has said. It claims women make up between one and two per cent of the world’s 1.25 million seafarers, on around 87,000 ships.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A POLITICAL battle is brewing between the European Union (EU) insurance industry and the European Parliament over a safety net law defining the minimum cover that must be offered by insurers selling compulsory motoring policies, which are required by national laws.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has bit the bullet and drawn up plans to lend US$250 million to help build the planned key Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil and gas pipeline from the Caspian Sea to Turkey’s Mediterranean coast.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) Council of Ministers has approved the extension of an existing steel market access deal with Russia, widening it to cover two boron-alloyed flat products. As a result, for 2003, EU import quotas of 20,000 tonnes are to be opened for alloyed quarto plates, rising to 20,500 tonnes next year, while quotas for 95,000 tonnes of alloyed cold rolled and coated sheets will be opened for 2003, rising to 97,375 next year.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE
THE FLOCKS of sheep floating about in a livestock ship in the Middle East will be brought back to Australia or killed at sea. Desperate negotiations to give them away to various Middle Eastern countries as a goodwill trade gesture have so far failed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A KEY European Parliament (EP) committee has called for a significant boost in European Investment Fund spending on actions that suppress the growing illegal trade in bushmeat, which is threatening wild species in Africa, Asia and Latin America.…

BY MARK ROWE
PEPSICO, which is marking 50 years of operations in the Middle East, finds itself at something of a crossroads. An all-American company, in a region where anti-Americanism has rarely been so widespread, it faces several challenges to ensure that it will continue to operate successfully in the Middle East for a further half a century.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A NEW European Union action plan fighting illegal logging is flaws because it ignores the Baltic States, claims the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). It says extensive illegal logging is taking place in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, 15-25 percent of all logging in Latvia and 40-50 per cent in Estonia.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE OFFICE International des Épizooties (OIE) will review its BSE trade guidelines following requests from the USA, Canada and Mexico, but claims governments fail to implement existing advice. The north American trio requested action following complete trade bans on Canadian beef because of one BSE infected cow.…