Search Results for: Singapore

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA

INDIA’S cosmetics industry appears to have taken the international economic downturn in its stride as the US$950 million market grew by more than 15% in 2008-09, according to the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII).

All the major brands speaking to Soap Perfumery & Cosmetics are registering a positive growth and companies remain confident about the future prospects.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE THUMBSCREWS are being turned on the world’s tax havens, preventing their banks hiding assets from tax investigators worldwide. A comprehensive communiqué from April 1 and 2s’ G20 meeting in London committed member governments "to take agreed action against those jurisdictions which do not meet international standards in relation to tax transparency."…

BY KARRYN MILLER

AUSTRALIA, as with the bulk of westernised nations, has classified butter as a staple food rather than a luxury item. Sales of the dairy spread have long reflected this and Aussie butter has enjoyed steady demand both locally and abroad.…

BY MARK ROWE and SUZANNE KOELEGA

THE ISSUE of decommissioning rigs is an increasingly pressing one. According to consultants Wood Mackenzie up to half of the North Sea’s 600 installations – first installed nearly 40 years ago – are scheduled for decommissioning by 2021, while more than 4,000 are scheduled for removal worldwide.…

BY LUCY JONES

KNITWEAR featuring Barack Obama’s image stole the limelight at the Paris fashion week last autumn but whether the love will be returned to the global knitwear industry has yet to be seen.

Indeed, there is cause for concern, because Obama used protectionist rhetoric on the campaign trail.…

BY JULIAN RYALL

THEY may be putting off the new car purchase and the long-haul holiday this year, but Japanese consumers are finding that they cannot do without all their little luxuries.

For the 25th consecutive month, confectionery sales increased in Japan in January.…

BY MARK GODFREY

THOUGH its top trading partners continue to stick with the fair value or mark to market principle set by the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), China remains unwilling to embrace the principle. Though Beijing, keen to nurture its companies into global corporate champions, has been bringing its Accounting Standards for Business Enterprises (ASBE) closer to the IFRS it won’t require listed firms to use the fair value approach – “not for the foreseeable future,” Dickson Leung, partner at the Beijing offices of Lehman Brown has told Accountancy Age.…

BY MARK ROWE

INDONESIA’S paint industry appears likely to weather the worst of the global economic downturn. Indeed, Indonesia may be one of the few major countries where sales of paint for industrial and domestic use will rise. In January 2009, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono forecast economic growth of 6.2% for the year in a budget that revealed capital spending plans that were 14.3% up on 2008.…

BY KARRYN MILLER

JAPAN’S 98th airport, Mt Fuji Shizuoka Airport, is set to open on June 4, 2009: despite the launch being delayed twice. The initial March opening was moved back because the owner of 150 nearby trees refused to chop them down or even shorten them.…

BY LEE ADENDORFF, in Lucca, Italy; PHILIPPA JONES, in Paris; DOMINIQUE PATTON, in Beijing; KARRYN CARTELLE, in Tokyo; and LUCY JONES, in Dallas

Where is the best cutting edge research for the textile and clothing industry? Which are the best design schools, the best fabric developers and the best industrial innovators in the sector?…