Search Results for: World Trade Organisation

BY KEITH NUTHALL
PRACTICAL guidelines on steps that governments should take to fight digital piracy have been released by the Council of Europe, an organisation whose members include Russia and other eastern European countries, and where such crimes are known to have taken place in the past.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CANADA’S Northwest Territories new found wealth in the diamond industry has fuelled concern amongst authorities in the region, as well as the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). They fear that organised crime may be on an upswing as a result of an influx of money and people that the region has not seen since the Yukon gold rush of the Nineteenth Century.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has cleared the proposed takeover of SSM Coal BV, of the Netherlands, by Germany’s Rheinbraun Brennstoff GmbH, concluding after an inquiry that the deal would not create competition problems in the EU petcoke market.

Rheinbraun, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the German RWE Group, distributes coal and other solid fuels.…

Keith Nuthall
SIR RICHARD Branson, speaking as chairman of the Internet car sales company VirginCars, has called for the end of the block exemption in car distribution in the EU, saying this would led to an average 5 per cent cut in new car prices and give “greater leverage to the consumer.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INTERNATIONAL mining companies are to find it easier to work in China, following the approval of its membership of the World Trade Organisation, a decision that was achieved by China making a wide range of concessions that will liberalise its commercial laws.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CHINA is to reserve the right to maintain its state tobacco monopoly under the agreements that it has struck to secure World Trade Organisation membership, which has been approved after 15 years of often intense negotiations.

Tobacco is one of only a limited number of sectors, where China has insisted on maintaining exclusive state trading controls, other industries include cereals, fuels and minerals.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
MOST governments are keenly concerned about the quality of food their people eat, and quite rightly so. They pass laws to ensure food purity and safety and that’s all very commendable – but it can be overdone.

Regulations can, sometimes deliberately, be drawn up so tightly that they effectively bar the sale of food produced in other countries, thus constituting an impediment to free trade.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
DETAILS on the agreement reached by China on the terms of its accession to the World Trade Organisation, thereby opening up the world’s potentially largest consumer market to international drinks manufacturers, distributors and retailers, have been revealed in a briefing paper.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CHINA is to abolish its laws requiring international oil companies to channel their crude and processed oil through state importers. The promise has been accepted as part of Beijing’s price for membership of the World Trade Organisation which was approved by the WTO’s China accession working party last month (September).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
FOREIGN investors will be blocked from controlling Internet, third generation mobile and other telecommunications joint ventures in China under the final deal struck over its accession to the World Trade Organisation, a briefing paper from officials in Geneva has said.…