Search Results for: World Trade Organisation

KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) is about to complete its own recommendations on safety improvements in long road tunnels. Its proposals include roadside checks on lorries to detect overheating and also rules on the amount of fuel carried through tunnels.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Trade Organisation has agreed at its ministerial meeting in Qatar, to intensify its ongoing agriculture talks, which cover meat and meat products. Ministers laid down a deadline of the next WTO summit, which must take place in 2003, for member governments to propose a complete list of formal concessions they are prepared to make on quotas, tariffs, subsidies and other trade barriers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has been authorised to open negotiations with Iran on forging a trade agreement, a deal that would inevitably focus on the country’s vast mineral resources; Brussels thinks that trade with Iran has enormous potential and has an interest in its government abiding by World Trade Organisation rules.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Trade Organisation has agreed to launch a new wide-ranging round of talks on liberalising global commerce, negotiations that will include the sale of pharmaceuticals.

Ministers at the summit in Doha, Qatar, also set deadlines for the new talks, which must be completed by 2005.…

BY MARK ROWE
SHIPPING live prawns in a hibernated state to Europe is being promoted in Thailand as a means of combating increased export competition from regional neighbours. Thai exporters are being encouraged to explore the possibility of shipping live tiger prawns to Europe by keeping the cargo in hibernation.…

KEITH NUTHALL
FROM the beginning of next year exporters of medicinal products will find it easier to sell in Japan following completion of a Mutual Recognition Agreement between that country and the EU.

The deal includes a Good Manufacturing Practice agreement under which both sides will agree to honour each other’s testing, certification and approval of products.…

BY JOHNATHAN THOMSON
DESPITE the general fears about air travel sparked by the World Trade Centre disaster, commercial aviation is not only incredibly safe, but is getting safer each decade despite the considerable rise in global traffic. Tens of thousands of passenger aircraft take to the skies every day across the world, yet during the 1990’s there were only 483 fatal air accidents globally.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has cleared the proposed merger between steel producers Usinor S.A. of France, Luxembourg-based Arbed S.A. and Aceralia Corporación Siderúrgica S.A. of Spain, a deal which would create the world’s biggest steel company. To secure regulatory approval, the companies have agreed to sell off steel production and distribution operations in France, Spain, Luxembourg, Belgium, Italy and Portugal.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
EASTERN Europe’s vast district heating systems could be converted from dirty solid fuels to cleaner oil and gas in future, because of a Euro 100 million investment in the region’s energy efficiency by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.…

Keith Nuthall
LITHUANIA has informed the WTO how it will undertake its liberalisaton commitments under the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing. Because the Baltic republic has recently joined the world trade body, it is to implement the ATC’s first three stages at the same time.…