Search Results for: Libya

Compliance experts believe the sanctions imposed thus far by the USA and European Union (EU) on Russia over the Ukraine crisis will have a mixed effect. One of the biggest criticisms is that the sanctions were publicly discussed before being implemented giving targeted individuals time to get their finances to a safe haven.…

EGYPT’S paint market is in flux due to the political and economic instability that has raged in the North African country since 2011. This 180 million litre paint market, valued at USD275 million, slumped 10% in 2011, according to paint major Jotun, following the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak, and has struggled to recover.…

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region ranks poorly in intellectual property rights protection and enforcement. While some countries, notably in the Gulf, are gradually improving, political and economic uncertainty in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings is hampering progress in much of the rest of the region.…

VETERINARY services in the Netherlands are investigating a fresh outbreak of the H5N2 strain of the avian flu, affecting poultry this month.

More than 10,000 susceptible birds have been killed as a result, according to the Office International des Épizooties (OIE), the world animal health organisation.…

EUROPEAN Union (EU) meat demand and production are expected to recover this year, after two years of decline in EU pork and beef supplies, the European Commission predicted yesterday (March 5). In its Winter 2014 Short-Term Agricultural Outlook, the Commission said: “Meat consumption is expected to increase in the short run, thanks to improvements in the economy and of meat availability.”…

THE NORTH African paint market has yet to rebound from the political and economic unrest in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt over the past three years. Demand remains sluggish compared to 2010, with many projects and government tenders on hold.

In Egypt, the 180 million litre paint market, valued at USD275 million, said Yasser Hassan, marketing and national retail sales manager, decorative department, at Jotun Paints in Cairo, dropped 10% in 2011 following the uprising against President Hosni Mubarak.…

TURKEY’S paints and coatings industry has set itself the target of becoming the third largest paints and coatings sector in Europe by 2023 as it seeks to become a key regional hub within the international industry as a whole.

According to data from Turkey’s Association of Paint Industry (Boya Sanayicileri Dernegi – BOSAD), the size of the Turkish paints and coatings market reached 840,000 tonnes in 2012, with a value of USD2 billion.…

PERSONAL care product market in the Middle East can be divided into two current trends: sales in the affluent Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries are booming, while on the other side of the region, in the Levant, markets are feeling the effects of the Syrian conflict, with the loss of tourists and low consumer confidence impacting bottom lines.…

By Kaci Racelma, in Tizi Ouzou, Algeria; and Paul Cochrane, in Beirut 

This article appeared last March (2012) in Commercial Crime International, a specialist title run by the International Chamber of Commerce. It foreshadowed the Islamist-related unrest and rebellion that actually occurred later in Mali and Algeria….

COMMERCIAL crime may not be as omnipresent in North Africa as in some other parts of the world, but companies operating in the region have risks to contend with. Corruption is rife, smuggling across the borders with Sub-Saharan countries is a major activity, and terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) are in the ascendancy. Kaci Racelma and Paul Cochrane take a detailed look at these problems.

 “CORRUPTION is systemic in all of the Maghreb, and not likely to change,” said Dr Geoff Porter, a political risk and security consultant specialising in North Africa. “We’ll have to see what happens in Tunisia. It was a cesspool of corruption under the previous government and while the new one seems to have a zero tolerance policy to corruption, it has not been in power long enough to gauge its effectiveness,” said Dr Porter, founder of US-based North Africa Risk Consulting.…

THE ARAB Spring may have increased short-term doubts about the political stability of Europe’s southern and eastern Mediterranean neighbours, but the long-term case for energy cooperation between these regions is surely unarguable.

Europe needs more energy than it can generate, and it has (for the time being at least) money to buy energy from north Africa and the Levant.…