Search Results for: World Trade Organisation

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Labour Organisation has released a report detailing how employment in the global oil and gas sectors has “shrunk dramatically” over the past 25 years. Citing “changing corporate structures and privatisation” as key reasons for the change, the Geneva based UN agency says that in the US alone, worker numbers slumped from a peak of 1.65 million workers in 1982 to roughly 640,000 by 2000.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Union Council of Ministers (general affairs) has extended the double-checking system on certain steel exports to the EU from Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic until this December 31. The regime is designed to detect any abuses of the trade preferences enjoyed by these countries under association agreements with the EU.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
BACK in the last century, it was easy to find economists who liked a little corruption, saying it oiled the wheels of government and commerce. Today, this complacency has gone, with most development specialists saying bribes weaken governments and shrink private investment.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EU’S anti-fraud organisation OLAF has held its annual Task Group Cigarettes meeting, in Seville, Spain, with European customs departments, to discuss the targeting of their collective fight against cigarette smuggling.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A HANDBOOK on ‘Safety and health in small-scale surface mines’ has been published by the International Labour Organisation, which wants to improve the working conditions of the 13 million miners it says work in smaller operations. It especially addresses countries where health and safety regimes are weak, setting out basic principles where there is a lack of regulation and stresses the important role of mines inspectorates.…

Keith Nuthall
WINES of SA, a non-profit organisation responsible for the promotion of South African wines, has reported that South African wine exporters are to begin targeting east Asian markets as a key to future growth.

The recent move will build on the industry’s existing successful penetration of the European markets coupled with the signing of the wine and spirits agreement between South African and the EU.…

BY MARK ROWE
A HUGE cleanup operation has been launched in Djibouti after a spillage at the port’s dockside of 10 containers full of toxic pesticides en route from the United Kingdom to Ethiopia. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) is overseeing a Pounds 70,000 emergency fund to tackle the contamination which occurred almost four weeks ago but details of which have only just emerged.…

Keith Nuthall
NEW World Trade Organisation member Taiwan has told the institution’s Textile Monitoring Body how it intends to implement the first three stages of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing, with which it must now comply. Taipei said that for the first stage, restrictive import quotas would be removed from product lines representing 16.05 per cent of its total textiles imports in 1990, 17.15 per cent for the second stage and 18.36 for the third stage.…

BY SWINEETHA DIAS WICKRAMANAYAKA
THE INDIAN government is planning to kick-start its shoe component leather industry, as part of a plan to boost the country’s share of the global leather trade to 10 per cent from its current level of around seven per cent.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE EUROPEAN Court of Justice has ruled that the Netherlands, and by precedent other Member States, has the right to prevent lawyers entering into multi-disciplinary partnerships with accountants, even though it accepts that this may restrict competition in legal services.…