Search Results for: World Trade Organisation

The international gold trade is worth over USD6 trillion a year, according to the World Gold Council (WGC), but oversight of the supply chain is considered weak by many critics, relying on self-regulation, making it vulnerable to money laundering.

Gold remains scarce and hence valuable: from antiquity until 2019, just 197,576 tonnes has been mined – equivalent to a 21.7 metre cube, according to the World Gold Council.…

Many of European Union’s 27 member states appear to have been dragging their feet when implementing a key provision of the fifth anti-money laundering directive (5AMLD) (1), setting up a public ultimate beneficial ownership (UBO) register.  The registers should have gone live for the corporate world on January 10, 2020, and two months later on March 10 for trusts.…

SOUTH Africa’s paints and coatings industry has been struggling though the particularly tough Covid-19 lockdown imposed by the country’s government, which saw its manufacturing plants and most paint retailers closed from March 26 until May 1.

What made this order worse was that from March 26 until May 1, homeowners were told to remain at home except for essential purchases, making it hard for them to help each other with renovations, swapping decoration equipment and more – preventing many from undertaking renovations during this enforced time off.…

IT is maybe not a common occurrence for the tobacco industry to find itself on the right side of judicial rulings, but in December, South Africa’s Western Cape High Court ruled that a four-and-a-half month national ban on sales of tobacco products, justified to prevent the spread of Covid-19, had been unconstitutional.…

The Peruvian alpaca-based fabric industry is targeting a robust post-Covid 19 recovery by strengthening its international relationships through strategic alliances. Also, by focusing on innovation, this speciality wool segment is also trying to reverse declines in production and exports worsened by claims of cruelty by alpaca farmers made by USA-based campaign group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals).…

CANADIAN auto sales experts have warned that aftermarket supply chains, including parts for repairs, must be guaranteed to boost consumer confidence about buying EVs in this vast unevenly populated country. With rural drivers maybe scores of miles from a repair shop, motorists fearing delays for EV parts to arrive, may be reluctant to switch from combustion engine vehicles, say marketing experts.…

In the car of the not-too-distant future, Japanese vehicle technology developer Kyocera Corp believes the dashboard, the engine bay, the front wheels and the front pillars of the vehicle will effectively have disappeared. 

At least from the perspective of the driver and/or passengers when inside the cab.…

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Legislators in the European Parliament and the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers have voted to insist labels on wine bottles sold in the EU must display the product’s calorie content in kcal (kilocalories – 1,000 calories). The Council text says the purpose of the change is “to provide a higher level of information to consumers”.…

Jordanian garment manufacturers are hoping a newly formed government will help the country’s clothing sector rebound from the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, calling for exemption from income tax and delaying requirements to increase the number of Jordanian employees.

The new government of Prime Minister Bisher al-Khaswaneh, appointed in October ahead of parliamentary elections this month, has put economic recovery from the pandemic at the centre of its programme, with GDP forecast to drop by some 5% this year, according to International Monetary Fund (IMF) figures.…