Search Results for: America

BY LEAH GERMAIN

THE USA’S Campaign for Safe Cosmetics has claimed 321 cosmetic and beauty product manufacturers selling in America have removed harmful chemicals from their products. The group has been pushing cosmetic manufacturers to avoid what it regards as harmful ingredients banned outside of the USA.…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

FROM fabrics that moisturise and kill bacteria to bizarre weather and media scandals, the global style sector in 2011 certainly had its share of unusual news and unpredictable developments.

The year started off with the backlash of December’s massive snowstorms disrupting post-Christmas shopping along the northern east coast in the US, causing an abrupt halt to a two-month spending spree which began at the beginning of November 2010.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

WINNERS

VF

In one of 2011’s biggest deals, US-based VF announced its plans to buy major footwear brand Timberland in a US$2bn takeover. As well as boosting earnings by US$700m a year, the purchase would leverage VF platforms in Europe, Asia and Latin America, and boost e-commerce operations.…

BY GERARD O’DWYER, IN HELSINKI

IMPROVED global commodity prices for metals on world markets has resulted in a new wave of investment in the Swedish mining sector, with part of the surge in the overall capital spend directed at the re-opening of old copper and zinc mines which were shutdown in the 1980s and 1990s due to low profitability rather than a depletion in ore reserve stocks.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

WINNERS

TUNISIA

Of all the countries disrupted by the Arab Spring revolts in 2011, Tunisia liberated itself in the swiftest and most business-friendly fashion. This key European supplier rid itself of despotic President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on January14, and one week later, its textile and clothing sector was back at work.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

RETAIL – WINNERS AND LOSERS

WINNERS

MARKS & SPENCER

Times may still be tough in its home British market, but M&S showed forward-thinking foresight in 2011- on sourcing transparency and the environment: potential key issues for future consumers.…

BY JULIAN RYALL

THERE is no single secret to creating the best soy sauce in the world, according to the head of the Japanese company that first produced the seasoning as far back as the 17th century. Rather, the secret is a combination of three things, Yuzaburo Mogi, honorary CEO and chairman of the board of directors of Kikkoman Corp.,…

BY MJ DESCHAMPS

WHILE the thought of bundling up in big knit sweater to brave the cold is how knitwear is usually marketed around the world, over in Canada – where winters are trite with snowstorms, and temperatures drop well below zero degrees Celsius – wearing a wool jumper in a blizzard to clean 10 centimetres of snow and ice off your car is not exactly practical.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has confirmed it is scrapping sugar production quotas across the European Union (EU) in 2015 when proposing a comprehensive reform of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). There have been calls from some member states and MEPs for the quota regime to be renewed, but the Commission has stuck to its guns and will continue with abolition.…

BY NADJA DROST

AMIDST a global gold rush spurred on by historically high prices, Colombia, with vast tracts of unexplored gold deposits, is emerging as a major source of the precious metal.

But Colombia’s gold boom is providing the country’s numerous illegal armed groups with sundry new ways to finance their wars as well as launder their ill-gotten profits.…