Search Results for: World Trade Organisation

BY ALAN OSBORN
THE THREE important central European tobacco-growing countries of Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary will be able to claim production subsidies from Brussels when they join the European Union on the same basis as existing EU producers, European Commission officials have confirmed.…

KEITH NUTHALL
IT is common knowledge that the European Union is becoming increasingly involved in public water policy, legislating to control the environmental quality of water supplies and watercourses. Brussels ambitions to improve water services do not, however, end at the external borders of the EU.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has struck a trade deal with Pakistan that will reward its support for the west in the war in Afghanistan by scrapping EU import tariffs on Pakistani clothing exports and increasing import quotas by 15 per cent.…

BY MONICA DOBIE, in Montreal
THE INTERNATIONAL Civil Aviation Organisation is planning to reform global aviation security standards by thoroughly reviewing and strengthening the current standards in place in response to terrorist attacks, which occurred in the United States in September.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
MOST governments are keenly concerned about the quality of food their people eat, and quite rightly so. They pass laws to ensure food purity and safety and that’s all very commendable – but it can be overdone.

Regulations can, sometimes deliberately, be drawn up so tightly that they effectively bar the sale of food produced in other countries, thus constituting an impediment to free trade.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE APPELLATE body of the WTO has ruled that Mexico’s imposition of anti-dumping duties on imports of high fructose corn syrup from the US breaks world trade rules and so should be amended or scrapped.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE PROCESS of transforming the European Union’s anti-fraud office OLAF into a truly independent operator, with enough investigative muscle and legislative teeth to make an impact in Brussels’ fight against financial crime, has proved to be a slow and difficult task, its latest report admits.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Space Agency is to launch the world’s first giant space telescope in 2007. Its Herschel Space Observatory will command a primary mirror 3.5 metres in diameter, allowing, said the European Commission, the faintest objects to be observed.…

BY ALAN OSBORN
SIGNIFICANT opportunities for British and other ceramic exporters have opened up in China following Beijing’s agreement to the terms of its accession to the World Trade Organisation. Under the deal, China has agreed to reduce tariffs on 11 key ceramics products from between 24.5 and 35 per cent to between 10 and 15 per cent by 2005, including ceramic and porcelain tiles and ceramic tableware.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
INTERNATIONAL mining companies are to find it easier to work in China, following the approval of its membership of the World Trade Organisation, a decision that was achieved by China making a wide range of concessions that will liberalise its commercial laws.…