Search Results for: World Trade Organisation

BY PHILIP FINE

FORD has confirmed in its annual report to the US Securities and Exchange Commission that it will be reducing its stockpile of the precious metal palladium, following a substantial decline in world prices. The vehicle manufacturer lost US$1 billion last year on its stocks of palladium, which is used in catalytic converters.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Commission has released details of its review of the contested anti-dumping duties on Indian cotton-type bed linen imports, formally asking EU ministers to confirm, (and therefore re-impose), these suspended tariffs. New Delhi has already reacted angrily to the review, restarting disputes proceedings at the World Trade Organisation.…

Keith Nuthall
THE EUROPEAN Union Council of Ministers has taken little time to approve the proposals from the European Commission to confirm, (and therefore re-impose), the suspended tariffs on cotton-type bed linen from India. New Delhi has already restarted disputes proceedings at the World Trade Organisation.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has lost a legal bid to suppress the payment of state aid by the French government to a cooperative agency that handles small-scale exports of French language books. The European Court of Justice ruled that the Commission had failed to understand that the subsidies did not help the Centre d’Exportation du Livre Français compete in the general book trade.…

Keith Nuthall
THE MARITIME transport committee of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has agreed that global guidelines should be drawn up which would allow legal negligence to be established when shipowners and charterers have taken advantage of sub-standard vessels.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
IN an interesting recent analysis of the problems facing livestock and other food producers in Europe, the European Union agriculture commissioner Franz Fischler suggested that one way forward could be through contract farming.

Instead of producing in the traditional way for the open market, he said, producers might consider linking with retail groups or the meat processing industry and delivering precisely what was needed in terms of both quality and quantity.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
NATURAL gas exploration companies working in the inhospitable Snøhvit field, off the far north coast of Norway, should be granted tax privileges, following acceptance of a scheme by the Surveillance Authority of the European Free Trade Area. Gas will be landed onshore via pipeline, cooled, then liquefied for ship transportation to international markets.…

KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is poised to release tenders for work in Kazakhstan, funded by a US$45 million loan, which will help pay for the modernisation of its electricity utility’s transmission management systems and communications networks.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CHINA has sought to bury grumbling amongst its fellow World Trade Organisation member countries that it has been slow to implement quotas, by delivering its promise to publish import quotas in April that fulfill its commitments under the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing.…

Keith Nuthall
CENTRAL American coffee producers are to receive aid worth US$ millions from the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank, who have agreed to re-allocate money from rural development budgets worth US$500 million, at the request of local governments, to help coffee-producing areas.…