Search Results for: Brazil

BY PHILIP FINE

TRADE Ministers at recent Free Trade Area of the Americas meetings have failed to strike an agreement that slashes north and south American food tariffs and subsidies. No deadlines were set to solve this rancorous issue, with the United States and Brazil opting for a solution to be struck at the World Trade Organisation’s Doha Development Round.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
ALL but one of the commonly used forms of asbestos have been added to a United Nations blacklist, enabling countries to block further imports without being challenged in global tribunals such as the World Trade Organisation. Amosite, actinolite, anthophyllite and tremolite were added to the Rotterdam Convention Prior Informed Consent (PIC) list by an intergovernmental negotiating committee, meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.…

BY PHILIP FINE

THE GOVERNMENTS of 34 countries from the Americas will be struggling today (Wed19/11) to come to a draft trade agreement, much of which centres on agricultural subsidies. The Free Trade Area of the Americas meeting being held in Miami has seen two competing camps vying for control.…

BY RICHARD HURST
ANGOLA’S state diamond company Endiama has claimed a victory over De Beers in arbitration regarding a row that forced the South African diamond mining company to suspend Angolan operations since May 2001. De Beers had wanted its US$31 million investment in Angola returned with interest.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Commission’s (EC) proposals for the EU tobacco regime, published in detail last month (September), essentially recognise that subsidised tobacco growing in Europe on any significant scale is now coming to an end. If these plans are put in place it seems likely that in little more than three years’ time the only tobacco grown in the EU will be to serve small niche markets.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE BRAZILIAN government has requested that a World Trade Organisation disputes panel arbitrates over a row with the European Union regarding the customs classification of imported frozen boneless chicken cuts from Brazil. In the past, where they had a salt content over 1.2 per cent, they were classified as salted meat.…

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 DISPUTE proceedings panel has now been established at the World Trade Organisation to rule on the legality of the European Union’s sugar export subsidies. Australia, Brazil and Thailand allege the handouts break world trade laws. Barbados, Canada, China, Colombia, Jamaica, Mauritius, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago and the US reserved their right to participate.…

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.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE DOMINICAN Republic, Brazil and the Philippines are the key beneficiaries of the latest low tariff import quotas for sugar unveiled by the United States Trade Representative. Out of a total low duty quota for 2003-4 of 1,117,195 metric tonnes, the Dominican Republic commands 185,335 tonnes, Brazil 152,691 and the Philippines 142,160.…