Search Results for: World Trade Organisation⊂mit=Search

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD food standards organisation Codex Alimentarius has set new guidelines for food irradiation, accepting higher levels that it previously recommended to eliminate bacteria. It also approved general principles on the analysis and management of risks related to biotechnological foods, including pre-market safety evaluations, product tracing for recalls and post-market monitoring.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ISRAEL and the European Commission have struck a food trade deal, where the Israelis have agreed to widen import quotas for dairy products, apples, pears, rice, sugar and prepared fruit, reducing existing preferential duties to zero. The EU will liberalise its trade regime for Israeli exports of fresh fruit (melons and grapes) and processed citrus fruit.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ISRAEL and the European Commission have struck a food trade deal, where the Israelis have agreed to widen import quotas for meat, bovine animals and animal feed, reducing existing preferential duties to zero. The EU will liberalise its trade regime for Israeli exports of turkey and turkey preparations, assuming the deal is approved by Europe’s Council of Ministers.…

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 ALAN OSBORN and KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union ministers have agreed to a significant strengthening of EU regulations covering the counterfeiting of goods, a key move for many small businesses, given that insurance against losses caused by their receiving fake goods is hard to obtain, even though the cost of resulting seizures or losses in value may be significant.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is opposing the launch of a WTO case by Brazil, Australia and Thailand against EU sugar subsidies, claiming that the a successful challenge would undermine the trade preferences given to Europe’s sugar imports from poorer African, Pacific and Caribbean.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE REFORM of the world’s anti-money laundering campaign is continuing apace. Defying critics of its alliance with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the Financial Action Task Force of the OECD has issued a revised set of its key 40 Recommendations to fight the crime.…

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.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
The European Commission has launched a bid to protect the names of

several famous drinks originating in Europe like champagne, cognac,

chianti, sherry and port and is calling on the World Trade Organisation to

stop non-EU countries using them.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE MERGING of the EU’s Safety and Health Commission for the Mining and Other Extractive Industries with its outgoing health and safety advisory committee has been formally approved by the Council of Ministers. The resulting European Union Advisory Committee on Safety, Hygiene and Health Protection at Work will help the European Commission prepare health and safety initiatives and boost cooperation between regulators, trade unions and employers.…