Search Results for: Dominican Republic

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ALMOST all eastern European countries applying to join the EU have asked for special transitional periods averaging three years to raise health standards at some of their food processing plants to meet EU regulations. Products from plants where improvements are still being made will not be able to circulate the EU.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
AN AGREEMENT supporting research into new technologies for food distribution has been signed by the EU, Argentina, Chile, Cuba, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BRITAIN’S health authorities provide fewer drug addicts with substitution treatment than do a majority of other European Union Member States, a statistical review by an EU drug-use agency has claimed.

The proportion of “problem drug users” given alternative medicines to wean them off their addiction ranges between six and 22 per cent in the UK, taking into account available data, estimates the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank has drawn up plans to lend First Quantum Minerals Ltd up to Euro 14 million to expand the Bwana Mkubwa hydrometallurgical copper production facility in Ndola, in the Zambian copper-belt.

Its aim is to boost its copper production from 10,000 tonnes per annum to 30,000 tonnes per annum, extending the useful life of the plant by at least six years.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has approved the management of European Union ‘SAPARD’ agricultural development funds by the Czech Republic and Slovakia. This means that meat producers in the two countries will benefit from annual grants worth Euro 22.4 and 18.6 million respectively, payable until the countries join the EU, maybe by 2005.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE PRACTICE of allowing companies to deduct bribes paid to secure contracts overseas from their domestic tax bills is still widespread, with a United Nations report saying it was allowed in 50 per cent of countries surveyed. The paper on how the organisation’s 1996 declaration against Corruption and Bribery in International Commercial Transactions said that it was however banned in Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Germany, Iceland, Nigeria, Norway, Slovenia, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.…

Keith Nuthall
THE REPUBLIC of Ireland has been sent a final legal warning note alleging that its government has failed to implement a EU scheme for monitoring CO2 emissions from new passenger cars. Under the scheme, Member States are supposed to send data to the European Commission annually, with the deadline for producing the first information report being July 1, 2001.…

From Alan Osborn
The European Commission has opened a formal State aid investigation

procedure into a decision by the German government to give financial

assistance to BMW for the construction of a new car plant in Leipzig. Total

investment in the factory is around 1.2 billion euros (about pounds 720

million) of which some 418.6 million euros (pounds 250 million) is covered

by the planned aid.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE CZECH Republic has launched an investigation which may lead it to impose safeguard duties on citric acid imports, which Prague claims rose by 18.72 per cent in 2001, threatening domestic producers, who shed 11 per cent of their workers last year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
“SERIOUS concern” has been expressed by the European Commission over the failure of a number of Member States to set up telecommunications and IT networks to establish a New Computerised Transit System, which should seal an administrative loophole bleeding millions of Euro’s in defrauded revenue.…