Search Results for: japan

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A SENIOR official from Germany’s renowned Max Planck Institute has warned that Europe is "lagging behind" Japan and the United States regarding innovation, especially in the pharmaceutical sector. Ivan Baines, the institute’s head of technology transfer warned a Brussels conference that tough European Union "gold standard" health regulations were deterring research into new medicines.…

BY ESTRID STROLL, in Leingarten, Germany, and KEITH NUTHALL

JAPAN and Germany are maybe the world’s top ranking electrical engineering companies, so it is no surprise that the Baden-Württemburg-based and Japanese-owned Hosokawa Bepex GmbH has a solid reputation for producing confectionary manufacturing machines.…

BY MARK ROWE, in London; KARRYN CARTELLE, in TOKYO; RUSSELL BERMAN, in Washington DC; and MONICA DOBIE, in Ottawa

INNOVATION in drinks packaging is more intense today than it has been for decades, with cutting edge innovation in intelligent materials, microchip integration and nanomaterials allowing designers to create boxes, bottles, cans and sacks that they could not dream of before.…

BY MARK GODFREY

AUTOMOBILE sales are down slightly this year in Bangladesh, after a decade of dramatic growth in vehicle ownership. Fluctuating orders for the country’s export-dependent garments industry is depressing sales of vehicles, commented Shah Khaled Pavel, assistant manager for sales at Navana Ltd, Bangladesh’s largest dealership for new Toyota cars.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A SHOT in the arm has been provided for the European Union’s (EU) Nabucco pipeline project, with Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan signing an agreement with the EU backing the project. In return for promising to work towards bringing Caspian gas to western European markets by 2014, the EU has made pledges on ensuring there is demand for gas and oil reaching Europe through ‘southern corridor’ routes bypassing Russia and Ukraine.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL, ALAN OSBORN, DAVID HAWORTH, RUSSELL BERMAN, MARK GODFREY and GAVIN BLAIR

INTRODUCTION

WHILE the drinks industry is undoubtedly an important sector in the global economy, the honest truth is that there are bigger players in town: the IT sector, steel making, and food, to name a handful.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA

THE INDIAN paint and coating industry is currently passing through a significant transitional phase – being forced to shift its production from solvent-based to water-based products. The high crude oil prices in 2008 so increased the cost of raw materials that despite the fall in prices from last summer, many paint manufacturers have had little option but to move away from oil-based coatings.…

BY MARK GODFREY

WITH the global recession raging across most of the world, Bangladesh’s knitwear sector is maintaining a strong commercial position and looks better geared to survive the economic downturn than some of its regional competitors. Orders have only dipped marginally say local knitwear producers.…

BY MARK GODFREY

THE EMPTINESS of the Giordano store in the departures terminal at massive Baiyun International Airport outside the southern Chinese megapolis of Guangzhou suggests hard times for Hong Kong’s most vaunted and ambitious apparel retailer. This is the capital of wealthy Guangzhou province after all, the manufacturing base for most of Hong Kong’s garment firms.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE EUROPEAN Union (EU) consumer alert service RAPEX has warned consumer protection authorities about an the import into the EU of an Japan-made fast super glue, deemed breaking the EU chemical restrictions directive by containing 30% chloroform. The problem Osaka-manufactured glue was spotted by German consumer authorities.…