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Most of north India’s steel mills are running at less than 50% capacity due to poor power supply and rising input costs, according to a report by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Accenture management consultants.

The ‘Indian Steel Industry – An overview and growth prospects in north India’ report said the power outages “are resulting in production losses and forcing many mills to work only single shifts.”…

INCREASINGLY stringent regulations governing the cold chain transport of medicines for human use are tipped to become a major driver for the uptake of radio frequency identification (RFID) technology by pharmaceutical suppliers in the Asia-Pacific region.

According to a recent report published by industry analysts Frost & Sullivan, America and Europe currently divide the biggest slice of market share in the global market for cold chain RFID.…

AUSTRALIA’S livestock export traders have said they want to ensure that their lucrative export business with Indonesia is not damaged by fallout from a diplomatic row over spying.

This follows outrage from the Indonesian authorities over revelations that Australia had tapped the phones of its President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, his wife and close collaborators in 2009.…

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ASOS

Fashion retailer ASOS showed online convenience and price are still a winning combination with shoppers. The UK-based online retailer continued its impressive trajectory this year, announcing pre-tax profit had reached GBP54.7m (US$88.3m) for the year ending 31 August, compared to GBP40m in the same period of last year, with retail sales jumping 40% to GBP753.8m, up from GBP537.9m last year. …

THE LAST few years have brought significant changes to the apparel sourcing landscape in Asia. The era of Chinese low-cost apparel manufacturing is well behind us, and several countries have stepped up to claim their part of the manufacturing pie.

Apparel industry analysts say that although China’s dominance continues, a clear segmentation in Asia is now taking place.…

WHILE Australia’s healthy economy is the envy of most countries in the world, and obviously this boosts the personal care product industry in the country – there are concerns that retailers and brands are over-charging consumers. Indeed, Australian consumers are paying as much as 50% more for the same cosmetics as United States and European consumers, according to a recent investigation by Australia’s consumer organisation Choice.…

ZHU Jiandi and Gu Wenxian could be the two most travelled accountants in China. The frequent flying duo – chairman and managing director, respectively, at BDO China Shu Lun Pan – were in the southwesterly megalopolis of Chongqing recently to rally local staff to a company goal of making the office a bridgehead for expansion throughout the southwest and west of China.…

AN INTERNATIONAL higher education conference has underlined the major progress made in building links between the universities of neighbouring countries in Latin America. But it also highlighted the significant remaining challenges facing Latin American higher education if it wants to be truly integrated with tertiary institutions worldwide.…

WHILE American textile producers fear the potential impact of the planned Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) regional free trade agreement, it is smaller and medium-sized Vietnamese producers who really need to be worried. That is the view of

Chris Walker, marketing manager for Thai Son S.P.…

In Australia a pack of Marlboro costs Australian dollars AUD15.95 (USD15.02). For that smokers get 20 cigarettes in a drab olive-grey packet displaying large pictures of gangrenous feet or rotting teeth. In December 2012, the Tobacco Plain Packaging Act made Australia the first country worldwide to remove all branding and design from cigarette packets, dedicating 75% of the surface to health warnings.…