Search Results for: Russia

WITH the global hunt for new rare earth reserves intensifying, claims from North Korea that its prospectors have identified 20 million tonnes of rare earth metal reserves have raised more interest than most statements from this isolated communist state.

Such statistics are usually taken with a pinch of salt, but around the same time South Korea’s Bank of Korea released data suggestion its northern neighbour had mineral deposits – including rare earths – worth around USD6 trillion.…

DECLINING demand from the USA and European Union (EU) for Bangladesh knitwear has not dampened the world’s second largest clothing exporter from aiming high. Rather, Bangladesh is planning to more than double its current knitwear exports, to USD20 billion by 2020, seeking out new markets.…

BY MARK ROWE

TO describe recent times as difficult for the eastern European cosmetics industry would be something of an understatement. Since 2010, some countries have experienced dizzying declines in production and sales that indicated the industry was more or less in tune with the wider economic mood across the region.…

BY MARK ROWE, MICHAEL KOSMIDES, IN ATHENS, AND MOHAMMED YUSUF, IN NAIROBI

INTERNATIONAL civil aviation procedures are designed to create predictability. But they are not usually applicable for airports in territories that have declared independence, but have not achieved full international recognition, or a seat at the United Nations.…

BY MARK ROWE

For decades the car industry in the developed world has expanded remorselessly. But a recent flurry of academic papers has come to the conclusion that the West (and other rich countries such as Japan and Australia) may have hit a plateau known as ‘peak car’.…

BY MARK ROWE

ANYONE looking for straightforward conclusions about the impact of the recession on eastern Europe’s cosmetics market is likely to be disappointed. Some countries, such as Poland, fared relatively well in the crisis, while others such as Latvia faced punishing economic contraction, therefore signals coming from the region in these uncertain and ever-changing times, are hugely varied.…

UNTIL now, much of Russia’s exploitation of lucrative Siberian gas and oil deposits has targeted the western sectors of this vast region, rather than the central heartlands or the distant east. The reasons are clear enough, as the abundant fields of western Siberia have fed strong demand from Europe.…

Latin America’s robust economy and fascination with beauty has made it a very lucrative region for cosmetics and perfume companies.  However corruption, weak border control and smuggling networks are helping to make the piracy of cosmetics and perfumes into a pervasive problem, causing major loss of revenue to both governments and companies alike.…

BY GERARD O’DWYER, IN HELSINKI, AND CARMEN PAUN, IN BRUSSELS

THE SWEDISH government is using the publicity over the resignation of European Union (EU) health commissioner John Dalli in October over a snus lobbying scandal to restate its case that the EU should legalise the sale of snus in all member states, a market area that Sweden’s snus producers say is worth Euro EUR2 billion annually.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

THE EUROPEAN Union’s (EU) climate action Commissioner has reacted with a characteristic show of impudence on Twitter to US President Barack Obama’s signing into law of a bill barring US airlines from participating in the EU’s emissions-trading scheme (ETS).…