Search Results for: China

BY KEITH NUTHALL

POTATOES have become a lucrative cash crop for many developing countries, but this boom may shudder to a halt because of the credit crunch and its spawn, the global recession. UN Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) statistics in a report ‘New light on a hidden treasure’ claim the potato has become the world’s number one non-cereal food crop, with global production reaching a record 325 million tonnes in 2007: more than half in developing countries.…

BY MARK GODFREY

THOUGH its top trading partners continue to stick with the fair value or mark to market principle set by the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), China remains unwilling to embrace the principle. Though Beijing, keen to nurture its companies into global corporate champions, has been bringing its Accounting Standards for Business Enterprises (ASBE) closer to the IFRS it won’t require listed firms to use the fair value approach – “not for the foreseeable future,” Dickson Leung, partner at the Beijing offices of Lehman Brown has told Accountancy Age.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A GROUNDBREAKING starter motor-alternator, enabling cars to automatically and smoothly stop and start when in congested traffic, has been developed by European companies involved in the Eureka research network. The i-StARS (NOTE – SPELLING IS CORRECT) project, coordinated by France’s Valeo Electrical Systems, spent Euro 9.85 million on developing this second-generation technology, whose aim is to create significant environmental improvements to auto performance without forcing car makers to make radical changes to engine design.…

BY MARK ROWE

FOR the past 10 years, the message from the environmental movement has been "biofuels good, fossil fuels bad". And the search for alternatives has exercised many industries, not least the cosmetics sector, which widely uses mineral oils, but has increasingly been looking for ways to use bio-based oils and fats.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A GLOBAL reduction in cereal output is predicted in 2009 compared to 2008’s record levels, the UN’s Food & Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has predicted. Falling prices has led to smaller plantings in Europe and the United States, while drought has hit winter wheat production in China and India.…

BY MARK GODFREY

MURKY dealings in the China’s corporate world suggest that the country’s adherence to acceptable accounting standards may be more in word that practice. Huang Guangyu, China’s second richest man and founder of electric retailing giant Gome, was accused in December of "financial crimes" by the China’s ministry of public security, which oversees the police.…

BY JULIAN RYALL

WHILE other companies are suddenly looking to cut overheads, trim the fat from their operations or find other ways to batten down the hatches to survive the global economic turmoil, Japanese cosmetics giant Shiseido Co. claims it sees the downturn as an opportunity.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

STANDFIRST

Every country has its own food and drink regulatory body or bodies: in the first place to ensure that its citizens eat safely and in the second to help safeguard its position in the rapidly-growing world food trade.…

BY ALAN OSBORN, LUCY JONES and KEITH NUTHALL

INTRODUCTION

CLOTHING and textile production and trade subsidies are under pressure today, as they have not been for many years. There has been a steady trend towards liberalisation in the sector worldwide, stemming from the abolition of the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) in January 2005 and with it, then end of restrictive quotas for imports for the WTO’s 152 member countries.…

BY WANG FANGQING

THE GLOBAL recession has forced China, whose economy relies largely on exports, to turn to boosting its domestic economy with a budget as huge as four trillion Chinese Yuan – RMB (US$ 585 billion) being unveiled last November by the central government.…