Search Results for: food

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed that a series of unlimited duty free European Union (EU) import quotas are opened for 2005, because of a supply shortage in the EU. Assuming they receive formal approval from the EU Council of Ministers they will be deemed in force from New Years Day.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
A FORMAL complaint has been lodged with the European Commission by the Finnish Food Marketing Association about Finland’s alcohol sales monopoly system, which the group claims breaks European Union (EU) competition law. The association claims Finland’s Alko has moved away from its original role of limiting the sale of alcohol, instead becoming an effective marketing machine.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission is forecasting a “moderately positive” outlook for European Union (EU) meat and poultry markets, with the industry recovering from its recent BSE, bird flu and Food and Mouth Disease scares. Its ‘Prospects for agricultural markets in the European Union 2004-2011’ report says that the sector is also being helped by Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) reform, favourable world market conditions and an assumed future return to a stronger US dollar.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) is lending US$2.5 million to Kazakhstan’s Bericap Kazakhstan LLC to construct a new factory making plastic food container tops (or closures) for local and other central Asian markets. Part of the German plastic container company, the Bericap Holding Group, the Kazakhstan business plans to build purpose-built production facilities, allowing it to relocate its operations, optimising costs; providing space for future expansion; and improving environmental plus health and safety management.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE BIOHAZ panel of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has called for the speedy official validation of new diagnostic meat tests detecting the pathogen Taenia saginata cysticercosis. This is often missed by standard meat inspections, where existing incision tests can cause cross-contamination, said the panel.…

BY MARK ROWE AND PAUL COCHRANE

INTRODUCTION

JUST as chocolate sells well in cold countries, so do soft drinks flourish in hot countries, which would suggest that North Africa and the Levant presents an inviting face to the international drinks market.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INSURANCE industry will wait attentively for the responses due in May to formal requests made this week by the European Commission for its World Trade Organisation (WTO) partners to liberalise their financial sectors.

These notes were made within the WTO’s Doha Development Round’s talks on services, which are in technical terms more advanced than the other portions of the negotiations.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has called for in depth analysis of the health effects of using edible rice-bran oil or palm oil to soften jute and sisal for bags batching foodstuffs. The aim would be replacing mineral oils, which can in high quantities leach into food, affecting taste.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

TRADE ministers meeting at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) summit in Hong Kong last night (Sunday) set a tight timetable for agreeing of the Doha Development Round’s overall goals on agricultural liberalisation, saying these long discussed ‘modalities’ must be approved by April 30.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

TRADE ministers meeting at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) summit in Hong Kong have agreed the Doha Development Round’s overall goals on agricultural liberalisation must be negotiated by April 30. Ministers also agreed food export subsidies will be abolished by the end of 2013, with "a substantial part" being scrapped well before that.…