Search Results for: China

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE LAST minute decision to impose European Union (EU) anti-dumping duties on shoes exported from China and Vietnam has been savaged at the European Parliament. Leading MEPs from the key socialist and liberal groups denounced the move as folly, although the parliament will not be able to reverse the decision.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

HONG Kong and China have been branded as the world’s serious hotspots for counterfeit clothing and accessories, in a global European Commission survey of countries where product fakes are manufactured. The Commission’s directorate general (DG) for trade gathered the information from companies, diplomatic missions and trade federations.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE UNITED States is coming under pressure at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) over its refusal of a licence allowing the registration of the contested Havana Club rum trademark to be renewed. Washington has already lost a WTO disputes case over the issue, with a panel declaring illegal clauses in its Omnibus Appropriations Act that prevent the registration of trademarks expropriated in the Cuban revolution after 1959.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN business leaders, led by high end footwear manufacturers, are calling on European Union (EU) member states to resist Mediterranean country pressure to impose definitive anti-dumping duties on shoes from Vietnam and China. In a joint letter to governments, EU shoe manufacturers, retailers and distributors are pushing for the rejection of a compromise proposal from current EU president Austria, which would impose duties for 12 months, with an option to renew over five years.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE FINNISH government has helped secure the withdrawal from sale of 14 lines of tops because of concerns that their drawstrings could strangle children wearing them. The offending products were from Denmark, China, India, Hong Kong and Estonia, and included the BOYSTAR fleece-jacket; the BOGI Aaron-jacket; JONATHAN ECO CLIMATE baby overalls; and other lines, reported the European Commission’s RAPEX consumer alert service.…

BY DINAH GARDNER, in Beijing

CHINA is talking tough over the launch of a World Trade Organisation (WTO) case over its levying of tariffs on imported auto parts, and analysts expect Beijing to follow this up at the WTO before even considering compromise.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

SPORT is providing a welcome fillip to greening public transport services in developing countries, with Olympics-enthused China overseeing the rollout of hydrogen fuel-cell buses in polluted Beijing. The emissions laden smog that athletes will suck into their lungs in summer 2008 is already causing some concern, but a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) coordinated project will make a small dent in air pollution.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

PARIS (ICIS News)–Rates of anti-dumping duties set this week by the European Union (EU) Council of Ministers for imports into the EU from China and Thailand of plastic sacks and bags have been detailed by minutes released in Brussels today (26 Sept).…

BY STEVEN SWINDELLS, in Johannesburg

CHINESE exporters have emerged as winners in an ugly spat between South Africa’s retail industry, the Pretoria government and local unions over quota limits on China-made clothes and textile imports.

Chinese exporters will now be able to sell a full range of clothes and textiles to South Africa until January 1, 2007, avoiding a quota system which was due to go into effect on September 28.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Damascus and Amman

JORDAN and Syria both have large tobacco markets, with a third of Jordan’s population, and around 60% of Syria’s male population, being smokers. Both markets are growing, spurred on by large young populations and the cultural prevalence of smoking cigarettes and nargileh (water pipes), but not all is rosy in the sector.…