Search Results for: Australia

BY RICHARD HURST
BHP Billiton, one of the world’s largest aluminium producers, has claimed that the boom in Chinese aluminium smelting is putting pressure on global alumina stocks and that any unforeseen disruptions to the world supply of the mineral would have an immediate affect on production of the metal.…

SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
A SHOE making cooperative in India has shown how a niche brand can seize up-market export sales by exploiting elaborate and imaginative designs. The Toe Hold Artisans Collaborative, Karnataka, exported US$60,000 of its lines to Italy, Australia, Japan and Sweden in 2002-3, and is targeting US$100,000 sales this financial year.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON
WHAT price safety? Ports and shippers racing to comply with an extremely tight deadline to meet the new International Marine Organisation security requirements are still not sure what the final bill will be. However, with the newly added SOLAS (safety of life at sea convention) special measures and the also new International Ship and Port Facility Security (ISPS) code due to come into effect on 1 July 2004, those who are not already well down the line to meeting the requirements will find the costs rising sharply as demand for security services steps up.…

BY RICHARD HURST
THE US$5 million second phase of the Dikulushi copper-silver mine, in south-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is to start soon, by the second week in November, according to Bill Turner, managing director of Australia’s Anvil Mining. He said that the new phase would extend the life span of the mine by another five years allowing the mine to produce 42 million pounds of copper and 1.8 million ounces of silver.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE, in Brisbane
A NEW technique for drying timber using microwave technology has been developed by researchers at Australia’s Cooperative Research Centre for Wood Innovations. It reduces the time needed to dry hardwood from around one year to one day.…

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 RICHARD HURST
MOZAMBIQUE President Joachim Chissano has announced that his country would begin initiating steps to become involved in the downstream activities of aluminium production. Speaking at the inauguration of the Mozal II project in Maputo on Thursday (9-10), Chissano revealed that his government had been engaged in talks with various investors to fund aluminium-manufacturing facilities.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A DISPUTE proceedings panel has now been established at the World Trade Organisation to rule on the legality of the European Union’s sugar export subsidies. Australia, Brazil and Thailand allege the handouts break world trade laws. Barbados, Canada, China, Colombia, Jamaica, Mauritius, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago and the US reserved their right to participate.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) has drawn up plans to lend Euro 70 million to help Australia’s Oxiana Resources develop a copper mine in Laos. On the basis of its policies supporting international development, the EIB would fund Oxiana’s development of the Khanong open cast pit, 370 kilometres southeast of the Laos capital Vientiane.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EU has demanded a disputes panel be established at the WTO to hear its complaint that Australian quarantine rules against food products are so tough, they break world trade laws. Brussels says the import of tomatoes, fresh citrus fruit, apples, peaches, nectarines, cucumbers, lettuce, carrots, apricots, edible eggs and egg products, uncooked pigmeat and uncooked poultry meat is unfairly restricted.…