Search Results for: China

BY MARK ROWE

THE ONWARD march of the Chinese economy and its cheap labour appears to be on the verge of claiming another high profile casualty: the Czech leather shoe manufacturing industry. The country that gave the world Bata shoes, and which in the inter-war years carved itself a proud niche as a highly respected manufacturer of shoes, has been overwhelmed by Asian shoe imports sold at prices with which venerable companies are unable to compete.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INTRODUCTION

THE WORLD’S multilateral food trading system today stands at a crossroads: faced with the suspension of the World Trade Organisation’s Doha Development Round, it can either retreat to protectionism, leavened by a series of competitive bilateral trade deals, or it can grasp the nettle of liberal free trade, slash subsidies and tariffs, and then watch the economic rewards roll in.…

BY MARK ROWE

CZECH shoemakers have warned that customers putting cost before style have left the country’s footwear industry unable to withstand an onslaught from Chinese shoe companies, despite the anti-dumping dutioes recently announced by the European Commission. According to the Czech Shoe and Leather Association, 71 million pairs of shoes were produced in the country in 1991 by an industry that employed 35,000 people: today just five million pairs a year are made by 3,000 workers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed opening four confectionary-related European Union (EU) import quotas for China and American foodstuffs. These cover preserved pineapples, citrus fruit, pears, apricots, cherries, peaches and strawberries from China and the US; plus American raw cane sugar and chocolate.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Cairo

FOREIGN investment in Egypt is on the rise, spurred on by new legislation, deregulation and a pro-business Cabinet under Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, although there are still plenty of pitfalls for the unwary and unprepared.

Indeed, the door has only recently opened wide to overseas investors, with Egypt in 1997 allowing foreign companies 100% ownership of Egyptian companies, the repatriation of dividends and tax exemptions.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Environment Agency (EEA) has launched a research project aiming to document the effects of long-term, low exposure to toxic metals, such as mercury and lead, with the aim of influencing – probably tightening – future pollution controls.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE, in Sydney

NON-metallic minerals, long considered the poor relations in the extended family of industrial minerals, are suddenly popular again.

They have found favour once more because of their molecular structures and their usefulness in the rapidly advancing world of nanotechnology.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

THE COUNTRIES of eastern and southern Africa pose two particularly serious challenges for the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the world’s leading anti money laundering agency, according to Alain Damais, the organisation’s executive secretary. In an interview with the Money Laundering Bulletin, he also discussed developments in money laundering typologies, the progress made by China towards becoming an FATF member and EU legislation designed to thwart laundering.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

NEW EFSA BOSS BUDGET ROW – LATEST ADVICE

THE FRENCHWOMAN appointed to take the vacant top executive director job at the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) will need all her political skills to solve a potential budget crisis facing the agency.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD Bank has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with China’s finance ministry for developing a Clean Development Fund (CDF), funnelling pollution reduction revenues gained from emissions trading regimes into sustainable development. *http://www.carbonfinance.org

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