Search Results for: South Africa

A new Transparency International (TI) survey has reported significant concern in 17 Asian countries (1) that corruption continues to be a problem or is getting worse, undermining equitable access to public services and trust in government. TI’s ‘Global Corruption Barometer – Asia’ (2) found 74% of the 20,000 people surveyed believe that government corruption is a major problem in their country, with 19% of citizens surveyed admitting to paying a bribe and 22% using personal connections when accessing public services in the previous year.…

A Shanghai-based startup confectioner LANDBASE (NOTE TO EDITOR – UPPER CASE SPELLING FOR COMPANY NAME IS CORRECT) has tapped China’s competitive chocolate market though selling sugar-free chocolate, sweetened with alternative flavouring inulin, targeted at health-focused consumers.

The two-year-old company’s brand CHOCDAY and product lines ‘Dark Milk’ and ‘Dark Premium’, have been developed in China, but manufactured in Switzerland for the Chinese market, a first in China.…

INDIAN garment exporters with manufacturing units based in the war-ravaged Tigray region of Ethiopia are hoping for an early revival of operations and in the interim say they are finding alternate production centres to honour their supply commitments.

“We are making the products [that were to be supplied from Ethiopian] in our Indian factories,” Arul Saravanan, chief marketing officer of SCM Garments Pvt Ltd, in Tirupur, south India, told just-style.…

China’s recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) materials market is heading for another distortion with repercussions for apparel and footwear brands. While the likes of Adidas, Nike and Decathlon continue shifting from virgin fibre to recycled fibre to improve their environmental impact standings, China’s PET market is heading for another distortion, raising the spectre for supply bottlenecks and price increases.  …

A new Mauritius government plan designed to pull the country’s manufacturing industry into rude health after being buffeted by Covid-19 has proposed that the clothing and textile sector invests in the latest technology and uses it to leverage local design talent.…

The Covid-19 pandemic has changed consumer behaviour as well as revenue streams for criminals, encouraging them to abandon certain laundering techniques in favour of others. Criminals have generated more money through cybercrime by attacking unwary computer users unused to using personal computers at home.…

The international gold trade is worth over USD6 trillion a year, according to the World Gold Council (WGC), but oversight of the supply chain is considered weak by many critics, relying on self-regulation, making it vulnerable to money laundering.

Gold remains scarce and hence valuable: from antiquity until 2019, just 197,576 tonnes has been mined – equivalent to a 21.7 metre cube, according to the World Gold Council.…

SOUTH Africa’s paints and coatings industry has been struggling though the particularly tough Covid-19 lockdown imposed by the country’s government, which saw its manufacturing plants and most paint retailers closed from March 26 until May 1.

What made this order worse was that from March 26 until May 1, homeowners were told to remain at home except for essential purchases, making it hard for them to help each other with renovations, swapping decoration equipment and more – preventing many from undertaking renovations during this enforced time off.…

IT is maybe not a common occurrence for the tobacco industry to find itself on the right side of judicial rulings, but in December, South Africa’s Western Cape High Court ruled that a four-and-a-half month national ban on sales of tobacco products, justified to prevent the spread of Covid-19, had been unconstitutional.…

CANADIAN auto sales experts have warned that aftermarket supply chains, including parts for repairs, must be guaranteed to boost consumer confidence about buying EVs in this vast unevenly populated country. With rural drivers maybe scores of miles from a repair shop, motorists fearing delays for EV parts to arrive, may be reluctant to switch from combustion engine vehicles, say marketing experts.…