Search Results for: China

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Cairo

FOREIGN investment in Egypt is on the rise, spurred on by new legislation, deregulation and a pro-business Cabinet under Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, although there are still plenty of pitfalls for the unwary and unprepared.

Indeed, the door has only recently opened wide to overseas investors, with Egypt in 1997 allowing foreign companies 100% ownership of Egyptian companies, the repatriation of dividends and tax exemptions.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE, in Sydney

IN the rapidly expanding world of nanotechnology (a nano is one billionth of a metre), more and more applications for the adhesives industry are being developed. Many of these inventions are sophisticated, even futuristic in scope, although bizarrely some advances are linked to natural phenomena, with the sector owing a lot of the latest groundbreaking research to the humble gecko.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WEST African countries that have spearheaded the call for reductions in cotton subsidies at the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) Doha Development Round have released a proposed formula guaranteeing these cuts are significant. If proposals tabled by the so-called Cotton-Four states Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali are accepted, cotton reductions would be deeper than cuts to agricultural subsidies in general.…

BY MATTHEW BRACE, in Sydney

NON-metallic minerals, long considered the poor relations in the extended family of industrial minerals, are suddenly popular again.

They have found favour once more because of their molecular structures and their usefulness in the rapidly advancing world of nanotechnology.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Environment Agency (EEA) has launched a research project aiming to document the effects of long-term, low exposure to toxic metals, such as mercury and lead, with the aim of influencing – probably tightening – future pollution controls.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INTRODUCTION

THE WORLD’S multilateral food trading system today stands at a crossroads: faced with the suspension of the World Trade Organisation’s Doha Development Round, it can either retreat to protectionism, leavened by a series of competitive bilateral trade deals, or it can grasp the nettle of liberal free trade, slash subsidies and tariffs, and then watch the economic rewards roll in.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed opening four confectionary-related European Union (EU) import quotas for China and American foodstuffs. These cover preserved pineapples, citrus fruit, pears, apricots, cherries, peaches and strawberries from China and the US; plus American raw cane sugar and chocolate.…

BY JANE MOIR, in Hong Kong

CONSTRUCTION is on the up, people are eagerly buying homes, cars are being churned out at a rapid pace and the 2008 Beijing Olympics are just around the corner. The demand for paint and coatings in China should never have been better.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

The Brussels plan to impose anti dumping duties on shoes imported into the EU from China and Vietnam has sharply divided EU governments with as many as ten of the 25 member states voting against it in the EU’s anti-dumping committee this week.…

BY MARK ROWE

THE ONWARD march of the Chinese economy and its cheap labour appears to be on the verge of claiming another high profile casualty: the Czech leather shoe manufacturing industry. The country that gave the world Bata shoes, and which in the inter-war years carved itself a proud niche as a highly respected manufacturer of shoes, has been overwhelmed by Asian shoe imports sold at prices with which venerable companies are unable to compete.…