Search Results for: International business

BY ALAN OSBORN
TINY, mountainous and very very friendly to rich people with plenty of cash to stash away, Andorra ought to be a money launderer’s paradise. On balance, anti money laundering people say that it is not, though the relentless culture of secrecy about financial matters makes this impossible to say with certainty.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED States International Trade Commission (ITC) has been sharply criticised by a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) panel ruling on a sunset review of countervailing and anti-dumping duties on Canadian corrosion resistant steel exports. Washington’s conclusion that this American steel sub-sector required continued protection because it was in a “weakened state” considering its profits, “is unsupported by substantial evidence and not in accordance with law”, said the panel.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A NORTH American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) disputes panel is to consider the legality of USA plans to impose countervailing duties on Canadian exports of pure and alloy magnesium. The request was made by Canada’s Magnola Metallurgy Inc, owned by the country’s metal giant Noranda Minerals Inc.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INTERNATIONAL trade controls have been imposed on some plants and trees with medicinal properties, to guarantee their future abundance for the pharmaceutical industry. A conference of parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora Trade (CITES), in Bangkok, staged in Thailand, strengthened rules on trading medicinal plants, including hoodia, used in diet pills; the desert-living cistanche, a natural tonic; and the Chinese yew tree, which boasts cancer-fighting properties.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission under incoming energy Commissioner Lázló Kovács could look to Russia and the Ukraine as the key guarantors of Europe’s future gas and oil supplies. Kovács, a Hungarian, has told the European Parliament that he intends to establish “real cooperation” with these countries as a first priority.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE CHAMBER of Shipping has called for changes to a proposed European Union (EU) directive which would criminalise ship-source pollution, amidst industry concern about its extension of pollution damage liability to shipowners. Also, the legislation, that recently received political support at the EU Council of Ministers for justice and home affairs, would clash seriously with the International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO) key shipping insurance MARPOL convention, Donald Chard, the chamber’s head of legal affairs told Insurance Day.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has rejected European Union calls to allow countries to impose fuel taxes on all airlines operating within their territories. ICAO will allow taxes on local carriers, however.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ISSUES of commercial crime have been moving up the European Union’s (EU) policy agenda in recent years. With the arrival of a 25-member European Commission under Jose Barroso, the subject has even greater prominence and involves the responsibilities of three new Commissioners.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A MEETING of the AFI GNSS implementation task force of the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s (ICAO) eastern and southern Africa office has been told of difficulties “establishing reliable communications” between the European satellite navigation system EGNOS and reference and integrity monitoring stations (RIMS) at Addis Ababa – Ethiopia, Bria – the Central African Republic and Nairobi – Kenya.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE SUPPLY of air traffic control services to airlines will be permanently exempted from value added tax in the European Union (EU) under a new regulation formulated by the European Commission. Essentially what Brussels proposes is that certain VAT “guidelines” adopted by the EU’s VAT Committee over the past six years be made binding.…