Search Results for: cars

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Beirut, and HELENA FLUSFELDER, in Jerusalem

THE DRINKS market in the Middle East continues to increase on the back of population growth, economic development, improvements in distribution and retail, and more aggressive advertising campaigns.

But like much of the rest of the world, younger and better educated market segments within the region are shifting away from carbonated soft drinks (CSD) towards fruit juices and bottled water as people become increasingly health conscious according to independent industry analysts and the drinks sector.…

BY CHRIS JONES, in Paris

SETTING a new pollution tax on all road vehicles that varies according to the way they were driven, and mandating clearer targets for reducing emissions, would lead to more efficient climate change policies: that was the view of experts from the US and Europe meeting at the International Transport Forum in Paris last month (NOTE: JANUARY) for a round-table debate on transport’s role in tackling climate change.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD Trade Organisation’s (WTO) seven-year-old Doha Development Round is planning the final phase of its negotiations, which may well lead to the elimination of most import duties on cars and vans, worldwide.

That is the ambition of a special automobile sectoral negotiation within the round’s market access for non-agricultural products (or NAMA) talks, which WTO members hope to write into a complete Doha agreement.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

LEASING companies providing fleets with cars and vans may not manipulate linked financial and insurance packages to avoid charging their customers VAT, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled. In a complex Italian case involving a company now in liquidation – Part Service, formerly Italservice – the court ruled that leasers cannot artificially split such supplementary services from their core leasing business, simply to avoid charging VAT on them, restricting sales taxes to leasing alone.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

INTERNATIONAL standards are crucial for the trade in goods, because they allow

importers to have confidence that the foreign product they are buying meets the

specifications they are familiar with at home. So, it may come as some surprise that no

such global standard currently exists as regards the technical definition of biofuels.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A EUROPEAN Union (EU) research project is trying to identify mechanical innovations that can make car and aeroplane engines not only run cleaner, but with more efficiency and power. The EU-funded ‘multi-core execution of hard real-time applications supporting analysability’ (MERASA) project has discovered that making clean cars helps "make them more economical as well as safer to run", said a project memorandum: "These benefits are not restricted the car industry alone, but extend to the airline industry."…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD Trade Organisation’s (WTO) seven-year-old Doha Development Round is planning the final phase of its negotiations, which may well lead to the elimination of most import duties on cars, trucks, vans and auto parts worldwide.

That is the ambition of a special automobile sectoral negotiation within the round’s market access for non-agricultural products (or NAMA) talks, which WTO member countries hope to write into a completed Doha agreement later this year.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

RUSSIA and eastern European countries will be eager consumers of car rental and company fleet leasing services in the next few years but would-be players in these markets should know that a slew of administrative problems, supply delays and tax complications may await them.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

VEHICLE manufacturers, and even leasing and rental companies, may have to grapple with the complexity of trading greenhouse gas emissions from 2013, should the European Commission conclude this year that road transport must operate under tradeable pollution permits.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE, in Kuwait City and Beirut

THE AUTO sector and market of the Middle East’s Gulf region experienced yet another boom year in 2007 on the back of high oil prices, a rising population and strong economic growth. But although sales were uniformly high among the six Gulf Arab states that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Kuwait had a noticeably slower year, particularly for American and European brands.…