Search Results for: Morocco

BY PAUL COCHRANE

MOROCCO’S US$1.37 billion tobacco market is undergoing a transformation following Altadis’ full buyout of the country’s tobacco monopoly earlier this year, with the distribution process to be overhauled and leaf production increased and diversified away from dark tobacco.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Beirut

CONTRARY to Islamic stereotyping, lingerie sales are extremely healthy in the Middle East, although the brand is not as important as the style.

Indeed, there is lingerie openly on display that in Europe would usually be confined to sex shops.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Beirut

CONTRARY to Islamic stereotyping, lingerie sales are extremely healthy in the Middle East, although the brand is not as important as the style.

Indeed, there is lingerie openly on display that in Europe would usually be confined to sex shops.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Commission has renewed its European Union (EU) fishing access deal with Mauritania, initialling a new six year deal that involves a two-year protocol, but which should be renewed twice automatically, unless serious political problems emerge.

Brussels is being bullish about the deal, claiming: "It is the most important fisheries agreement concluded by the EU with a third country both in financial terms and as regards fishing opportunities for EU vessels"

And the agreement does will provide fishing rights for about 200 EU vessels on crustaceans (mainly shrimps), hake and other demersal species), cepaholopods, small pelagics and tuna.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE REIMPOSITION of quota limits last year on some Chinese textile products has driven official overseas sales down, according to European Commission figures. During the first quarter of 2006, China saw an overall decrease in exports to the EU of minus 12% in volume, although unit prices increased by 9%.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Beirut

OVER the last five years the Middle East and North Africa region has firmly joined the global effort to fight money laundering and terrorist financing by setting up national financial intelligence units and a regional watchdog, the Middle East and North Africa Financial Action Task Force (MENA-FATF).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPEAN Union (EU) ministers and the European Parliament have approved a new fishing agreement with Morocco, despite controversy over its covering waters off the disputed territory of the Western Sahara. The Polisario Liberation Front has since 1975 been fighting Morocco for self-determination over the largely desert territory.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Cairo

WITH the fight against money laundering and counter terrorism financing relatively new to the Middle East (the first plenary session of the Middle East and North Africa Financial Action Task Force

– MENA-FATF – was only held last year), financial institutions from the US and MENA met in Cairo for a Private Sector Dialogue (PSD) conference to discuss the implementation of international regulations in the region.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE IMPLEMENTATION of the European Union’s (EU) new fishing agreement with Morocco will be delayed by at least one month after the European Parliament refused to fast track its scrutiny of the deal. Rejecting a call from the EU Council of Ministers for parliamentary committees to immediately wind-up their inquiries and for MEPs to vote on the agreement Thursday April 6, the parliament will now approve or reject its terms in May.…

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.…