Search Results for: hong Kong

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD Trade Organisation’s (WTO) general council has permanently amended the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement to make permanent a 2003 waiver helping poor countries obtain generic medicines during health emergencies. The TRIPS amendment enables any WTO member country to export generic pharmaceuticals made under a compulsory licence to assist countries lacking their own manufacturing capacity and whose nurses and doctors would otherwise be unable to deal with a serious disease problem.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE LATEST and probably last draft communiqué for next week’s World Trade Organisation (WTO) summit in Hong Kong (Dec 13-18) includes the hopeful goal of setting overall targets for liberalising cotton production subsidies worldwide. This has long been the determined ambition of west African states, who want developed world producers, especially the United States, to stop subsidising their cotton industries, payments that depress world prices, impeding exports from low-wage developing countries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

TRADE ministers have imposed a tight deadline on World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiators to agree detailed goals of the industrial goods section of its Doha Development Round of liberalisation negotiations – April 30. This is the date by which an overall "modalities" agreement must be struck, which will say how much particular bands (by value) of tariffs must be reduced by all WTO member countries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

WEST African countries fighting to abolish developed country cotton production subsidies have won a partial victory at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) summit in Hong Kong, with trade ministers agreeing to end export subsidies on cotton in 2006.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

DECEMBER 2005’s semi-successful World Trade Organisation (WTO) summit in Hong Kong means that the sacrifice forced upon the European Union’s (EU) well protected sugar sector the month before will – largely – be worth the pain. Unlike the previous big WTO meeting, in Cancun, Mexico, trade ministers did not leave in rancour having achieved little.…

BY TAMARA VANTROYEN, in Hong Kong

IT is not just a rumour anymore: China is officially upgrading its water quality, a move welcome to drinks manufacturers that rely on and control costs through guaranteed clean water supplies. China launched new drinking water standards in June, raising the number of forbidden water pollutants from 35 to 101.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AS trade ministers flew home from four days of gruelling talks at last week’s World Trade Organisation (WTO) summit in Hong Kong, they could be forgiven for feeling some satisfaction: the end of the Doha Development Round is nigh, probably.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

HIGHLY undiplomatic exchanges between the European Union (EU) and the United States over the vexed question of cotton subsidies have threatened to obstruct agreement at the already tough parallel talks on general agricultural liberalisation at the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Hong Kong summit.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

NON-DIOXIN LIKE PCB CONTAMINATION WARNING – EFSA

THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has called on the food industry to further minimise non-dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (NDL-PCBs) in food, because of health concerns about excess contamination. * http://www.efsa.eu.int/science/contam/contam_opinions/1229/contam_op_ej284_ndl-pcb_en1.pdf

ECJ SMOKED FLAVOURINGS CRISPS – BRITAIN APPEAL

A EUROPEAN Court of Justice (ECJ) has rejected a British government attempt to strike down a EU regulation controlling smoke flavourings in foods.…

BY TAMARA VANTROYEN, in Hong Kong

HONG Kong’s higher education system’s gradual move away from the British system of education to one that is more aligned with the US and mainland China models, is leading to a proliferation of associate degrees (ADs) springing up in Hong Kong.…