Search Results for: Caribbean

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) anti-fraud agency OLAF has helped uncover three rules-of-origin frauds costing EU coffers millions of Euros. In one case, an OLAF-German police inquiry has uncovered the loss of Euro 50 million in duties by the illicit rerouting of Chinese energy-saving lamps via Vietnam, Pakistan, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Sri Lanka and Tunisia to evade 66.1% anti-dumping duties on China-made lamps; Euro 7 million of avoided taxation has been recovered.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EUROPEAN Union (EU) anti-fraud unit OLAF has uncovered a rules-of-origin fraud, where 4,000 tonnes of raw cane sugar was illicitly imported into Britain and Malta duty free, using special rights available to African-Caribbean-Pacific (ACP) countries. The sugar was actually Brazilian and refined in Bulgaria, so Euro 2 million duties was evaded.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THINK of Latin American mines, and political and industrial
relations instability springs to mind. Pictures of poncho’d Bolivian Amerindians demonstrating against poor conditions,
hurling rocks at robocops armed to the teeth….

The truth is that the mining industry often gets a bad rap in Latin America and, to be honest, it has often been run poorly, especially in environmental terms.…

BY WESLEY GIBBINGS, in Port of Spain, Trinidad

THE WHITTLING away of preferential export markets for traditional Caribbean agricultural production has sparked economic pain in the region, but it has also generated innovation in the form of new confectionary and sweet baked products, available for export.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Parliament has voted that subsidies paid to banana producers in EU non-European territories – such as French Caribbean islands Guadeloupe and Martinique – remain linked to production.

ENDS…

BY JAMES FULLER, in Port of Spain

CRICKETERS and illegally-licensed drivers are two of the more unusual factors currently affecting the Caribbean paint market.

The impending Cricket World Cup, to be held in the West Indies during March and April 2007, has spawned a flurry of construction activity with resultant benefits for the paint industry.…

BY WESLEY GIBBINGS, in Port of Spain

TIME-WAS that food production in the Caribbean was dominated by commodities, with sugar and bananas being king and queen of island economies. Protected from the rigours of world markets by age-old ties to current or former colonial markets, these cash crop supplies remained largely unchanged for centuries.…

BY LIZ HALL

SIX years ago, government representatives from nine South American countries gathered in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, to sign a document of great importance to those concerned with fighting money-laundering (ML) and terrorism financing (TF).

On December 8, 2000, representatives of the governments of the following countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay, signed the Founding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) formally establishing GAFISUD, a regional body modelled on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE CARICOM Caribbean economic community has announced Haiti can access the Trinidad & Tobago Petroleum Fund, established in 2004 by the oil-exporting twin island nation to help neighbouring countries deal with high international oil prices.

ENDS…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE LATEST annual report from European Union (EU) anti-fraud agency OLAF has told how an unnamed Caribbean customs authority cancelled proof of origin certificates covering more than 21 million pieces of knitted textiles (mainly jerseys, pullovers and cardigans).…