Search Results for: Sri Lankan

BY POORNA RODRIGO AND MUNZA MUSTAQ, IN COLOMBO

Of course the BRICs countries are far from being the only emerging market suppliers for the global apparel sector – and a knot of competitors such as Bangladesh and Vietnam have long been vying for business.…

BY POORNA RODRIGO

A WAVE of high profile corruption cases and a growing range of commercial crimes have swept the South Asian archipelago of Maldives. Some cases have prompted Interpol red notices while others have run into long-drawn court battles, hurting investor confidence.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A WORLD Bank assessment has concluded the abolition of the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) multi-fibre agreement (MFA) on textile trade quotas failed to deliver wealth to Cambodian and Sri Lankan textile and clothing workers. In fact, by most measures, the analysis concludes the 2005 liberalisation left these employees worse off, especially women.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

The European Union’s (EU) anti-fraud unit has hailed the breaking of an international conspiracy to export China-made iron and steel tube and pipe fittings via other Asian countries to evade 58.6% EU anti-dumping duties usually levied on these products.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

A RESTRICTIVE open skies agreement has been negotiated between the European Commission and Sri Lanka that incorporates existing bilateral civil aviation agreements struck with individual European Union (EU) member states. The agreement includes deals previously struck by Sri Lanka with Austria, Belgium, Britain, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania and Sweden.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

RETAIL – WINNERS AND LOSERS

WINNERS

MARKS & SPENCER

Times may still be tough in its home British market, but M&S showed forward-thinking foresight in 2011- on sourcing transparency and the environment: potential key issues for future consumers.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE WORLD Bank has publicly praised Timor-Leste for being the first Asia-Pacific country to formally comply with the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) on disclosing oil and gas revenues. Speaking in the capital Dili, bank managing director Sri Mulyani Indrawati said it allowed the country to "manage its precious oil revenues for…future security and prosperity…"

ENDS…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA

INDIA is known for its rich history of garment making traditions; however, its knitwear manufacturing centres have been facing serious labour shortages of late – leading to the underutilisation of capacity, spiralling costs and even relocation of some factories to more rural areas.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL, DAVE YIN and WANG FANGQING

A GOOD deal of excitement has been created by the announcement this week in the UK academic journal Nature Geoscience that significant deposits of rare earths have been found in the Pacific Ocean floor.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

BRAZIL and Argentina are among almost 100 countries expected to lose tariff breaks for their knitwear exports to the European Union (EU), under a planned reform of the EU’s Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) system.

The European Commission announced yesterday (May 10) it wanted to focus import duty concessions on poorer countries and so henceforth those regarded by the World Bank as high or upper middle income states would no longer qualify from January 2014.…