Search Results for: International business

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE MAIN complaint of demonstrators with metal bars through their noses who harangue international organisations such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) is that they allow important decisions to be taken in secret that are binding on democratically elected parliaments.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
Significant economic gains, including a better deal for insurance companies and other long-term institutional investors, will follow from the creation of a single EU market in financial services according to a research study made for the European Commission by London Economics, in association with PricewaterhouseCoopers and Oxford Economic Forecasting, published today (Tuesday).…

BY PHILIP FINE

A CONSULTANT for the California wine industry thinks the US will be prepared to cut a deal at next September’s World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico over European demands for a mandatory wine and spirits register of geographical indications.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
IMAGINATIVE fraudsters have issued a fake insurance policy in the name of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), which claims to protect businesses against losses caused by an earlier false ICC insurance guarantee. ICC officials this summer warned businesses against accepting deals underwritten by a counterfeit ICC “4081 Letter of Insurance Guarantee.”…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INTERNATIONAL scientists coordinated by the Munich-based Max Planck Institute for chemistry has discovered evidence of environmentally damaging high pollution levels over the Mediterranean Sea. They believe high levels of sulphate and soot particles in the troposphere could reduce evaporation of the sea and reduce the amount of rainfall in the Middle East and north Africa.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Finance Corporation of the World Bank is lending Russian oil company Lukoil US$150 million to fund participation in the development of Kazakhstan’s oil, gas, and condensate field. The money will also help fund a 635-km connecting pipeline to the Caspian Pipeline Consortium’s infrastructure, which will transport the oil to the Black Sea.…

BY ALAN OSBORN, in London, PHILIP FINE, in Montreal, and MATTHEW BRACE, in Sydney

WITH a new crackdown on counterfeiting being prepared by the

European Commission, some industry watchers will be surprised to hear that soft drinks is one the sectors that Brussels thinks needs close attention.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL, ALAN OSBORN AND PHILIP FINE

THE EUROPEAN Union, the United States and their various allies seem to be moving towards a deal at the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) negotiations over the creation of a global register for protected geographical indications in the wine and spirit trade.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank is lending US$30 million to Brazilian footwear producer Sao Paulo Alpargatas S.A. (SPASA), to finance its on-going investment programme, modernising production facilities and increasing capacity. The company has been identified by the IFC as a company that would effectively use such finance; since 1997, it has improved performance and market position by upgrading product quality and lowering costs, notably through new manufacturing technologies and relocating production facilities to the impoverished north-east of Brazil, an area which the World Bank wants to help develop.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Finance Corporation of the World Bank is to invest US$35 million in Pakistan’s Dewan Salman Fibre Ltd, the largest producer of polyester staple fibre in the country. The money – a senior loan of US$30 million, a convertible loan of US$4 million, and a US$1million participation in a convertible preferred stock issue – will help the company expand its polyester staple fibre capacity by adding a specialty fibre line of 20,000 tonnes per annum, refinancing debt, and funding its need for permanent working capital.…