Search Results for: Russia

BY ALAN OSBORN

DEFINING a niche drink is an arbitrary matter and what may pass as niche today may well be considered mainstream tomorrow. Flavoured vodka, for instance, had a relatively specialised following in Europe until a few years ago – now it is classified as an official spirit drink under European Union (EU) regulations.…

BY EMMA JACKSON, MAGGIE DESCHAMPS

THERE are many good reasons for fleets to use natural gas powered vans running on compressed or liquefied natural gas (CNG/LNG). However, so far, British fleets have yet to be convinced and the market is tiny.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

DIPLOMATS in Geneva hope Georgia will not block the hoped-for accession of Russia to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) at the WTO ministerial conference from December 15-17. Most technical work and informal agreements have been struck between Russia and other WTO members, but Georgia has threatened a veto unless foreign customs officials monitor trade between Russia and the breakaway territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.…

WINNERS

TURKEY

This was the year when Turkey really came into its own. With a well-established and successful clothing and textile industry, supping Europe, Russia and the Middle East, its industry this year laid claim to becoming a fashion centre. August’s Istanbul Fashion Week caught a lot of global attention with 21 catwalk shows, an audience of 40,000, and more than 500 overseas guests.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

RUSSIAN President Dmitry Medvedev’s call for his country to exploit the Kyoto Protocol’s clean development mechanism could lead Russia to issue142 million carbon credits for 2008-2012, researchers for French bank Caisse des Depots et Consignations have claimed. This would make Russia the second largest issuer of such credits after China, it said, possibly depressing global prices for purchasing emissions.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

INVESTMENT and introducing good practice in the Russian steelmaking sector so it matches European Union (EU) standards in natural resources consumption could save the industry up to US dollar USD3.3 billion annually, a World Bank group report has claimed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

SUGAR has been at the centre of continuing concern about fraud draining European Union (EU) budgets of duty revenue. The latest operational report from EU anti-fraud unit OLAF (which reviewed 2009) recalled how fraudsters made millions of Euros from exporting 3,400 tonnes of sugar from the EU to neighbouring non-member state Croatia via the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.…

BY EMMA JACKSON

THE TEXTILE and clothing industry maybe almost unrecognisable from its organisation today in 10 years’ time: Chinese-owned offshore production; unstoppable e-commerce, demand for eco-textiles, shifting luxury markets to Asia’s new middle class, and higher prices for everyone, are just some predictions.…

BY MARK GODFREY

GEORGIA’S wine industry took every opportunity to bask in the limelight when the 2010 International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) Congress was staged in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi. Opening the June congress, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili (NOTE – SPELLING IS CORRECT) even took the opportunity to praise local product as a "freedom wine", boasting that Russia’s four-year ban on Georgian wine has only improved its quality.…

BY EMMA JACKSON

THE TEXTILE and clothing industry maybe almost unrecognisable from its organisation today in 10 years’ time: Chinese-owned offshore production; unstoppable e-commerce, demand for eco-textiles, shifting luxury markets to Asia’s new middle class, and higher prices for everyone, are just some predictions.…