Search Results for: japan

BY JULIAN RYALL

BEFORE September 8, few people anywhere had heard of Zhan Qixiong or his battered fishing boat. However, since the Chinese fisherman and his 14-strong crew were taken into custody by the Japan Coast Guard on September 8, Zhan has found himself at the centre of an escalating geopolitical row that has already put planned discussions over gas and oil deposits between Beijing and Tokyo on hold and is ratcheting up broader tensions in the region.…

BY ALAN OSBORN, KARRYN MILLER, FLORENCE LABEDAYS, GAVIN BLAIR

PRIVACY is the big bugbear for RFID tags. Sure they give retailers and manufacturers lots of excellent information, but there is a hint of Big Brother about how this automatic data collection.…

BY DAVID HAYHURST

THE NEW president of OICA (the International Association of Vehicle Manufacturers) has warned American auto-manufacturers that they risk being left behind in the global race for new technologies. Speaking at his Paris office with wardsauto, Patrick Blain, now six months into his new job, and after this month’s OICA general assembly in Bucharest (October 20 and 21), said it was European and Asian automakers who are setting the pace and working together with their governments to effectively tackle issues of emissions and rising fuel costs.…

BY WANG FANGQING

Japan’s leading dairy product manufacturer Megmilk Snow Brand is to merge with its two shareholders – Snow Brand Products (SBP) and Nippon Milk Company (NMC) – in April 2011. After the integration, the new company will still hold the name Megmilk Snow Brand, and continue to manufacture diary products such as milk, yoghurt, cheese and butter, said a Tokyo-based Megmilk spokesman.…

BY WANG FANGQING

JAPANESE snacks manufacturer Ezaki Glico has started to build a new factory on October 5 in Kitamoto city, Japan’s Saitama Prefecture, to serve Greater Tokyo and seven nearby prefectures – easily the country’s largest market. The new factory will manufacture snacks such biscuits, cookies and chocolate, and is scheduled to start operations in spring 2012.…

BY ROBERT STOKES

EXPORT development and digital trends dominated discussion at the 30th annual staging of Liber, Spain’s leading book fair, in Barcelona last week.

With Spain still gripped by recession, short-term hopes rest on exports and e-books. Government figures released at Liber showed book exports of all kinds rose 5.4% to EUR482 million (GBP402 million) in 2011.…

BY ALAN OSBORN, KARRYN MILLER, GAVIN BLAIR, KEITH NUTHALL

MOST drinks manufacturers would bridle at the accusation that they used anything unnatural to make their products: after all poisoning consumers is bad for business. But in the world of marketing, everything is relative, and some ingredients are so fresh and untainted with processing chemicals that they can, simply, be sold as being more ‘natural’ than standard inputs.…

BY MINI PANT ZACHARIAH, KEITH NUTHALL

TOBACCO is not just for smoking, or chewing. And with anti-smoking programmes becoming stronger worldwide, there is increasing pressure for government scientists to develop alternative uses of tobacco, helping justify continuing leaf production subsidies.

India is a case in point.…

BY WANG FANGQING

JAPAN’S largest frozen foods manufacturer Nichirei Foods Inc, is to invest about Japanese Yen JPY5 billion (US dollar USD59.7 million) in Shanghai to build a new Chinese factory in 2011. The plant will produce frozen foods such as pasta and rice pilaf, with an expected production capacity of 2,000 tonnes per month, almost the same as Nichirei’s largest factory in Chiba prefecture, Japan.…

BY ALAN OSBORN, KARRYN MILLER, GAVIN BLAIR, KEITH NUTHALL

MOST drinks manufacturers would bridle at the accusation that they used anything unnatural to make their products: after all poisoning consumers is bad for business. But in the world of marketing, everything is relative, and some ingredients are so fresh and untainted with processing chemicals that they can, simply, be sold as being more ‘natural’ than standard inputs.…