Search Results for: Morocco

THE EUROPEAN Commission dispatched on Friday (Aug 1) an emergency shipment of 1.1 million foot and mouth disease (FMD) vaccines in Algeria and Tunisia after the first cases in 15 years were detected in these countries. Industry spokesmen told the Meat Trades Journal they welcomed the move as there are worries the highly contagious virus might find a way of spreading to European cattle, sheep and goat farms.…

The Moroccan government has launched an investigation that could spark its imposition of temporary safeguard duties or quotas on imports of cold-rolled steel sheets and plated or coated sheets. Rabat has informed the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) safeguards committee of its plans, which will allow fellow member countries to comment.…

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.…

AFTER six years of financing some of the largest infrastructure projects across Africa, a groundbreaking multilateral development institution – the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) – has attained its investment grade international credit rating. Moody’s Investors Service assigned the corporation an A3 (long term) /P2 (short term) foreign currency debt rating, making the AFC, headquartered in Lagos, Nigeria the second highest investment grade rated financial institution based on the African continent, following the long-established Africa Development Bank (ADB).…

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.…

NEGOTIATIONS for a renewed International Agreement on Olive Oil are intensifying in Madrid. The agreement runs out at the end of this year and its member jurisdictions, of which the European Union (EU) is the biggest, are working to forge a new agreement by December.…

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.…

THE MOROCCO clothing and textile industry has called on its government to work with the sector to boost exports after the release of figures showing production fell in 2013 compared to 2012. The country’s foreign exchange department (l’Office des Changes) said that the sector’s exports fell from Moroccan Dirham MAD28.2 billion (USD3.4 billion) to MAD26.3 billion (USD3.2 billion) last year.…

Governments and global organisations such as the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) have participated in an emergency exercise in Morocco, responding to a simulated dirty radioactive bomb. With pretend attacks happening at the port of Tangier Med and Marrakech medina, ICAO worked with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and others on managing a hypothetical radioactive release into the atmosphere.…

THE EUROPEAN Parliament has voted to reduce the support the European Union (EU) gives to the traditional biofuel sector, backing European Commission proposals to amend the renewable energy directive (2009/28/EC). MEPs agreed that the law should insist that first-generation biofuels (from long-standing sources, notably food crops) should not exceed 6% of EU energy consumption in transport by 2020, compared to the 10% target for all biofuels in the existing legislation.…