Search Results for: Caribbean

THE SECRETARY General of the World Customs Organisation (WCO) has detailed how the world is woefully unprepared to fight the scourge of counterfeit medicines that can harm or even kill patients. Kunio Mikuriya was speaking at the opening session of a Conference on the Illicit Trafficking of Fraudulent Medicines, held at the Vienna International Centre, Austria, on February 14.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

European Commission officials have warned that the European Union’s (EU) annual Euro EUR140 million meat and livestock market intervention budget is facing deep cuts. Heads of government will meet November 22-23 in Brussels to agree an overall 2014-20 EU spending deal.…

BY ROBERT STOKES

TIME was when hearing the British Virgin Islands (BVI) or Cayman Islands described as role models of watchfulness and legal retribution against money laundering and terrorist financing would have raised at least a snigger.

Yet these and other UK Overseas Territories (OTs) in the Caribbean have made "significant progress" in AML/CFT provisions, according to Calvin Wilson, executive director of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF).…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

European Commission officials have told just-food the European Union’s (EU) annual Euro EUR3.1 billion food production subsidy budget is facing deep cuts. Heads of government will meet November 22-23 in Brussels to agree a 2014-20 spending deal. And officials warn new proposals from European Council president Herman van Rompuy demand additional de facto cuts of 10.8% in all Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) spending – above an already planned 12% reduction.…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD

THE INTERNATIONAL Air Transport Authority’s (IATA) Americas airports chief has called on Mexico’s new incoming government to make progress on the long delayed proposals to build a new international airport for Mexico City, the capital.

Indeed, Mexico City International Airport (AICM) is no longer able to accommodate the growing demands of Mexican tourism and trade, and the capital city is in desperate need of a second airport.…

BY ALAN OSBORN

THE WORLD has been fighting money laundering in more or less the same way for a quarter of a century now and many of those in the thick of the battle are starting to wonder, frankly, whether the game is worth the candle any more.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

EUROPE’S confectionery industry is fighting rearguard moves at the European Parliament to delay the abolition of European Union (EU) quotas on EU sugar production. A report from French conservative MEP Michel Dantin on the new EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has proposed that the quotas stay until 2020 – they are currently to be phased out by 2015.…

BY ROBERT STOKES

CARIBBEAN jurisdictions are stereotypically seen as information black-holes whose minimal filing requirements for companies and trusts facilitate fraud.

Think Stanford International Bank and Westbond International Bank, two Antigua based vehicles for high-profile Ponzi schemes. Also, the Madoff scandal in the USA led to the liquidators of Fairfield Sentry – a British Virgin Islands (BVI) domiciled hedge fund that was among Madoff’s main victims – unsuccessfully trying to claim back money from investors who had legally withdrawn money from Sentry.…

BY MICHAEL KOSMIDES

The Caribbean rum industry will receive a multimillion Euro boost after the European Commission signed three financial agreements with the Caribbean Forum of African Caribbean and Pacific States, identifying the sector as a priority for assistance. Senior sources from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) told just-drinks the regional run industry will be supported with EUR7.7 million out of a EUR46.5 million agreement finalised on Wednesday (April 18) that will help, for instance, remove technical barriers to trading Caribbean rum.…

BY ROBERT STOKES, IN MÁLAGA

JUST like El Dorado, the never-was city of gold, Latin America’s 390 million Spanish speakers, are a siren call to Spanish publishers, whose domestic market numbers just 46 million souls. There is even a side bet on 190 million Portuguese speaking Brazilians

Some publishers, lured by these big numbers, have tried and failed in the past, foundering on the reefs of censorship, economic and currency volatility, and the local business culture, though taking forever to get paid – if at all – should not have come as a shock to Spanish firms.…