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With multilateral sanctions against Iran being eased as a result of its agreement over limiting its nuclear industry ambitions, the country is slated to invest up to USD10 billion on its airports, expecting a surge in tourists and passenger traffic. But while projects are being announced, no tenders have yet been inked, reflecting its government and potential bidders need for greater clarity in remaining sanctions regime.…

US prosecutors have secured their first conviction in a case involving widespread corruption at the United Nations. Last Thursday (January 14), Heidi Hong Piao, a Chinese-American national pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy, money laundering, bribery and failure to disclose foreign bank accounts to tax authorities.…

The European Union (EU) could ease strict conditions allowing tax and customs authorities to use reverse charge mechanisms to collect VAT, whereby liability for payments is switched from customer to supplier, to prevent fraud. The EU Council of Ministers for finance (Ecofin) has called on the European Commission to pay due attention to such anti-fraud measures in preparing a policy paper (communication) on the future of the EU’s VAT system, due for publication in March.…

Five years since the start of the Arab uprisings in 2011, instability is still impacting cosmetics sales in the Levant and north Africa. Last year saw a slight improvement on overall sales in 2014, the year the Islamic State spread through northern Iraq and Syria, but figures are down on 2013, and the growth projected in 2010, according to figures from market researcher Euromonitor International and estimates from cosmetics companies.…

It has taken more than half a decade for the cosmetics markets of eastern Europe to finally shrug off a long-running period stagnation that has characterised the regional market. Two underlying features – the financial crisis of 2008 and the completion of multinational takeovers in the noughties that saturated these post-communist markets – lay behind the extended period of slow, low or non-existent growth.…

PERSONAL care products expert are divided on the likely impact on the babycare and pregnancy market in China of the October decision by the Communist Party of China to replace the country’s 35-year-old one-child policy with a two-child policy.

The move effectively gives 90 million couples throughout the country the right to raise a second child, according to an estimation by the National Health and Family Planning Commission of the People’s Republic of China.…

OPPOSITION is growing within eastern and central Europe to the plan to expand the Nord Stream pipeline from Russia to Germany. Gazprom, E.ON, BASF/Wintershall, OMV, ENGIE and Royal Dutch Shell have formed a consortium that would double the capacity of the current Nord Stream 1 and 2 line to 55 billion additional cubic metres of gas a year (bcm/y).…

GAZPROM has agreed to drop gas prices charged to Lithuanian utility Lietuvos Dujos until the end of 2015 following European Commission charges of dominant position abuses in central and eastern European gas markets. The Russian giant is also now facing competition for cheaper liquid natural gas (LNG) supplies in Lithuania via the Klaipėda terminal on the Baltic Sea.…

A USD13 billion deal agreed by China to build two reactors for Argentina hinges entirely on the Chinese side putting up the financing, with a final arrangement on the cash deal to be inked in 2017. That’s according to sources in the Chinese nuclear industry.…

AN ORGANISATION for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) report has said that increasing alcohol prices through taxes and minimum prices may help “tackle the heavy cost of harmful drinking”. The OECD’s ‘Tackling Harmful Alcohol Use Economics and Public Health Policy’ report added that initiatives tackling alcohol abuse promoted by the drinks industry may also be useful, but more independent evidence is needed before the OECD can make recommendations about their use.…