Search Results for: China

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has warned of a boom in counterfeits of food and drink products entering the European Union, with more than 5 million fake items seized by customs officials last year. This is 118% more than the numbers of seizures in 2004, the first time the food/drink category has exceeded 5 million.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) anti-fraud unit OLAF is investigating China garlic smuggling, with low production costs and high EU duties generating high illegal profits. OLAF claims Euro 60 million in duties are being lost, with only meat (of all kinds) and sugar subject to more food-fraud inquiries – 17 are ongoing into garlic.…

BY MARK ROWE

A T-SHIRT that that dramatically reduces the impact of body odours with the aid of nanotechnology has been produced by the Thai company United Textile Mills. Silver nanoparticles are embedded in the fabric of the garment and are so small that they allow silver atoms to penetrate the fabric and attach strongly to the fibres, whereupon they suppress the ability of microbial cells to transfer odours.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE INTERNATIONAL Finance Corporation (IFC), of the World Bank, is lending 320 million Chinese Yuan – RMB (US$40.8 million) to leading China pharmaceutical manufacturer and distributor the Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceuticals Company. The IFC said the loan would support Chinese pharmaceutical sector reforms, while enabling Fosun Pharma to expand production of its anti-malaria products, build capacity and standardise environmental, health and safety management systems throughout its subsidiaries.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has warned of a continued surge in counterfeits of cigarettes entering the European Union (EU), with more than 32.6 million fake packets seized by customs officials last year. That said, this actually represents a fall in numbers from 2004, being 78% of the 41 million seized in that year.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has warned of a continued surge in counterfeits of perfumes and cosmetics entering the European Union (EU), with 694,633 fake products seized by customs officials last year. That said, this actually represents a fall in numbers from 2004, being 89% of the number seized in that year.…

BY MONICA DOBIE

TECHNOLOGY developed by Nazi Germany and Apartheid era South Africa to turn coal into oil could guarantee solid fuels markets well into the future, an American geological expert has claimed.

University of Washington Professor Emeritus Eric Cheney said making oil from coal by reacting it with water known as Fischer-Tropsch process could become commercially successful given sustained high oil prices.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

MORE than 30% of all confectionary sold in China are counterfeits of global brands, a new European Commission intellectual property survey says. Businesses, industrial federations and diplomatic missions stressed the difficulty of preventing such offences through legal action.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Beirut

IRAN’S US$1 billion paint sector is going through a boom period: it is expected to grow by up to 20% this year on the back of strong decorative paint growth, an expanding automotive sector, and surging demand for specialised paints in the shipping and energy sectors.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has announced it will spend Euro 28.3 million on research to fight bird flu, which remains a threat to European Union (EU) environmental health. The studies will examine the flu’s microbiological mode of attack, human and livestock vaccine development, better diagnosis and early warning systems.…