Search Results for: International business

BY KEITH NUTHALL
VIETNAM has launched an ambitious reform of its judiciary, which it wants to make more efficient and independent to underpin its drive towards doubling its gross domestic product in the next 10 years through a thriving private business sector.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
TOURISM once was regarded as a key to the developing world’s ills, allowing poor countries to make money out of their natural landscape and cultural attractions, but as with most success stories, there is a downside. In some countries, tourism has boomed so suddenly and aggressively, the development it has sparked has threatened to go out of control, spoiling the delights that lured tourists in the first place and creating a host of new environmental problems for governments to deal with.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A COMPREHENSIVE scheme to boost the efficiency and fairness of the Philippines’ judicial system is to receive a US$21.9 million World Bank loan. The money will help finance a Filipino Supreme Court’s judicial reform programme, improving a judiciary that has, said the bank, suffered from caseload “delays, corruption, weak administrative structures, outdated technology and deficient facilities, and underdeveloped human resources.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A BROAD competition inquiry has been launched by the European Commission into the sale of audiovisual sports rights to Internet companies and third generation (3G) of mobile phone services, because of concerns that tightly restricting access to such material could stifle growth.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKE
THE INCREASED international availability of cashews and a consequent price slump reduced Indian exports by more than INDRupees 500 million (US$10.9 million) this year. Total exports of the nut April-June 2003 were 21,192 tonnes, compared with 23,770 tonnes the same period in 2002.…

Keith Nuthall
THE NEW Montreal Convention on compensation for international air accidents is to come into force on November 4, following its ratification by the USA, bringing the number of countries implementing the treaty to the 30 required for it to become enforceable worldwide.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
SMALLER EU pharmaceutical (and bulk chemical) companies are failing to use e-commerce, while larger firms are benefiting from the new technology, a new European Commission report claims. It said of companies employing less than 50 people, 19 per cent did not even use e-mail and 31 per cent did not use the Internet for marketing.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A WORLD Health Organisation (WHO) agency has concluded that chewing betel quid causes oral cancer, whether or not tobacco is included in ‘pan’ mixes especially popular with ethnic south Asians. The problem is of particular concern in the UK, which imports more betel than any country outside of Asia, (imports have doubled since the early 80’s).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A EUROPEAN Commission report has shed some light on the pervasive gloom that has shrouded e-commerce since the bursting of the Internet bubble in 2001. Its new e-Business W@tch survey shows that European Union businesses are still increasing their use of the Internet and – crucially – are steadily moving onto broadband networks; the proportion of small and medium-sized enterprises, digital subscriber line (DSL) connections increased from 25 to 31 per cent between 2002-3.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IN 1995, when I visited the Laos capital Vientiane, it was a sleepy place; a quiet low rise French colonial town on the banks of the Mekong, a listless, aimless, but charming mix of Soviet-style socialist monuments, Buddhist temples and Provencal town houses.…