Search Results for: China

BY MARK ROWE
THAILAND’S shoemakers have been told they must create a niche market of intricately designed products or rise losing their global market share to China and Vietnam where costs are lower. The Thai Footwear Association said the country should make a virtue of the fact its shoemakers had greater skills than their Asian counterparts.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A INVESTIGATION has been launched by the European Commission into an alleged boom in imports of prepared or preserved citrus fruits, following complaints from the government of Spain, especially about sales from China. The inquiry could lead to a temporary safeguard duty being erected by Brussels.…

BY MARK ROWE
THAILAND’S leather goods exports have slipped for the third consecutive year, as manufacturers of international brands of leather goods move away from the country to tap cheaper labour costs in China. Exports are expected to fall below last year’s total value of Baht 70 billion (US$1.6 billion), according to the Thai Leather Goods Association, which said that the SARS virus and the Iraq war had further added pressure to the market.…

BY RICHARD HURST
THE SOUTH African tobacco sector is surviving despite the unfavourable conditions imposed by its government and an increasingly hostile marketing environment. Nonetheless, the industry contributes Rand 5.5 billion in excise and tax to the government exchequer, equivalent to a quarter of the nation’s health care expenditure.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
NON-FERROUS metal producers in the existing 15 European Union (EU) countries could see some lowering of labour costs after enlargement of the EU next year as low-paid Polish and other workers move into the higher wage countries like Germany, according to industry sources.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
DETAILS of the money demanded by four west African countries seeking compensation for subsidies paid to cotton producers in the developed world and China have been released at the World Trade Organisation. Speaking on behalf of its proposal partners Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali, the government of Benin has claimed that developing countries lose exports worth US$25 million because of the rich world supports, rising to US$1 billion considering losses incurred by people living indirectly from cotton production.…

Keith Nuthall
THE CONTINUED threat posed by Chinese shoe exporters willing to fraudulently exploit trade concessions in European Union markets enjoyed by its east Asian neighbours has led to the likely extension of surveillance measures designed to crack down on the problem.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Finance Corporation, of the World Bank, is lending US$22 million loan to a Chinese pork producer. The Jilin Huazheng Agricultural Development Company Ltd will increase its pig breeding farms, upgrade slaughtering capacity, and build a new processing plant for ready-to-eat packaged meats.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE BOARD of Russia’s Gazprom has approved the creation of an offshoot company that will participate in an US$18 billion West-East multinational joint venture helping to build a 4,000 kilometre trunk-line to pump gas across China, from west to east.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
CHINA has rebuffed claims that its cotton trading and production subsidy policies harm the export trade of west African countries. It released a statement following the tough attack at the World Trade Organisation on global cotton subsidies by Burkina Faso president Blaise Compaore; he named China as a country needing to liberalise its cotton industry.…