Already the recently concluded Canada-Columbia FTA has adversely impacted the US wheat exports. The agreement has given Canada an immediate price advantage over the US wheat, which hitherto enjoyed a dominant market share in Columbia. The thaw in Columbia-Venezuela ties with a visit by Santos to Venezuela signals that the number of players in the Columbian marketplace is bound to rise rapidly in the coming days.

The business team is understood to have held meetings with the Bogota Chamber of Commerce and the Ministry of Commerce; and would proceed to Cali, Medellin, Barranquilla, the coffee region, and other key industrial areas of the country. The US commercial representative in Colombia, Margaret Hanson earlier had expressed a desire to see the stalled FTA between Colombia and the US ratified since the Latin American nation already had open access to the US market for almost all its products but the US did not have backwards – so in terms of common sense, it was hoped that the FTA should happen soon.

Likewise, Colombia’s new ambassador to the US Gabriel Silva said that one of his first tasks would be to kick-start the FTA talks, and added that his country regarded itself as an economic force in the medium term as Colombia’s exports were put at $40bn. The trade deal, which involves the reduction of customs duties and other obstacles to trade, was signed by the former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and the former US President George Bush in 2006. While Colombia’s Congress was quick to pass the treaty, the Obama administration has yet to ratify it.

During his presidential election campaign, Barack Obama opposed approving a trade deal with the Andean nation since crimes against the Colombian trade-union leaders remained unprosecuted. As president, Obama has expressed a willingness to push the deal through, provided that Colombia meets certain human rights conditions.

Colombia is believed to provide scope for investments in sectors including plastics, textiles and food stuff. According to Hanson, the delegation comprises of representatives from the security sector, construction, food, plastics, and also a financier who funds companies, particularly the SMEs.

Toboc Trade News

This development has given rise to the market forces to flex its muscles in pushing up wages, and eventually eating up the profit margins. In addition, the narrowing of gap on the outlay of wages with other competing markets has also reflected up on the product prices, which have become higher as compared to other markets.

Surprisingly, though the total labour force of China is about 800mn, very few workers have the required qualifications. It should be recalled, C.P. Lee, Asia-Pacific human resources chief at Motorola Inc. had observed “The skills base does not meet the demands of a rapidly growing (Chinese) market.”

In a rising wages scenario, the Chinese Companies cannot survive in the global market without providing cheap products to its clients, which was the core competency of most Chinese manufacturers hitherto. With that, majority of the Chinese firms will be compelled to shift from the earlier strategy of producing cheap products to quality ones as the market for the cheap products may not exist in future. The absence of cheap goods market will leave the Chinese companies with only one option of leveraging through tapping the available ‘quality’ over a quantity product market.

Hence, to grab new buyers whom seek quality products, the manufacturing companies while dishing out higher wages will also be forced to retain or recruit competent labour force to produce superior quality products. The higher wages which trigger job losses will equip the existing companies the liberty to choose the best from the competitive labour market to cater to the new quality-preferred clientele.

Incidentally, it goes without saying cheap labour often adversely affects the efficiency of the workforce, and the China growth story is an example to that premise. China’s strategy to garner market share was always been associated with manufacturing more quantity while often blowing to the wind the standards of quality.

So as former chief Asia economist at Citigroup Inc., Huang Yiping’s contention, China may be heading for the so-called Lewis turning point, but the silver lining would be that the country would also be in the process of becoming a “quality global factory”. Huang was referring to the economic theory by the late Nobel Prize-winning economist W. Arthur Lewis where manufacturing competitiveness and the pace of growth begin to turn down as labour costs rise.

Toboc Trade News

Interestingly, an internal Pentagon memo, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and mobile phones. It also reports that the country is home to previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and large deposits of niobium, a soft metal used in producing superconducting steel, besides lithium.

The memo compels to probe, what is Pentagon’s task in Afghanistan? Is it mining, peace-keeping or capturing the elusive terrorists? The timing of the announcement also induces the misgivings on the veracity of the study as well as the US interest in the country. Is the US trying to stay longer in Afghanistan on this pretext to thwart the increasing presence of the regional powers, China and India, by providing business options to the county?

In November, a 30-year lease, to start mining copper in the Aynak valley, southwest of Kabul, which holds one of the world’s biggest untapped copper deposits, was sold to the China Metallurgical Group for $3bn, making it the biggest foreign investment and private business venture in Afghanistan’s history. Likewise, post-Taliban, India is also heavily involved in the re-construction and development of Afghanistan’s infrastructure.

The retrospective chronicling of the events on the recent discovery compel to call for more queries. Why Russia did not show much interest in Afghanistan despite having the cognizance of country’s rare mineral wealth?

According to the study, while leaving Afghanistan in 1989 after nearly a decade-old occupation the Soviets left behind a horde of old charts and data hinting on the massive mineral deposits in the country. Incidentally, it says, it was with these data, the US Geological Survey began a series of aerial surveys of Afghanistan’s mineral resources in 2006.

Consequently, it establishes a fact that the US entered Afghanistan with prior knowledge of potential mineral wealth in the country. If there is truth in the find, then the Afghanistan’s new found fortune fuels the perception that any ‘offensive’ war includes an exploration agenda for natural resources or knowledge treasure trove behind it whenever any country initiates a war in a foreign land, especially a far-off one.

Toboc Trade News

Last week, Mehmet Simsek, Finance Minister of Turkey told that his country’s GDP would grow 12 percent in the first quarter of 2010. He had claimed that the economy was recovering quickly from the backlash of the global meltdown in view of country’s several internal crisis management programs.

The 2nd TWTB meet, which is expected to become a venue for 7bn of trade deals, is held between 14th and 20th June. According to sources, the meet has been able to attract nearly 2,200 businessmen from 135 countries and 1,200 Turkish traders as well. About 1,600 translators are interpreting the forums into 38 languages, and the participants would form delegations to visit 62 provinces of Turkey.

The primary objective of the meet would be to include and optimize small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) of Turkey to tide over the challenges from the monopolistic-oriented economies. Moreover, Turkey has no intention to endlessly wait for the EU membership to shape its economy to usher in growth particularly at a time when Europe is facing a volatile economic climate.

Through the TUSKON, a confederation with a strong base in Turkey and abroad, the country will be assisting entrepreneurs to overcome the language barrier by providing language courses, and in some cases even translations. The Turkish business confederation along with its affiliations across the world would be working together by simplifying and expediting business processes for country’s SMEs to make the export engine move forward rapidly.

The TUSKON has sister organizations in 135 countries across the world, and these institutions are set up by the Turkish entrepreneurs and volunteers to integrate its members to the international business environment. The Indo-Turkish Business Association, Thai-Turkish Business Association, South Africa Turkish Business Association and the Turkish and Cameroon Business Association are some of the business organizations affiliated to the parent confederation.

Turkey as an emerging export-oriented economy is paying vital importance for the TWTB meet as its trading history indicates those Turkish international business entities monetized significantly better than the domestic ones. A number of government agencies and companies including the Foreign Ministry, the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM), Turkish Airlines (THY) and Bank Asya are joining force with the TUSKON to make the meet successful.

Toboc Trade News

The report has clarified that though the term “infrastructure” could denote a wide range of facilities and systems including economic and financial infrastructure, social infrastructure and physical infrastructure, the study has centred on physical infrastructure. As per the report, the projections for the future infrastructural development have been drawn from a study by the consulting firm, Booz Allen Hamilton.

In a 2007 report, Booz Allen Hamilton has estimated that investment needed to “modernize obsolescent systems and meet expanding demand” for infrastructure worldwide between 2005 and 2030 was at about US$ 41 trillion. It said the North American (the US and the Canadian) share of the infrastructure needs alone would be around US$ 6.5 trillion through 2030.

While the PIR finds both involvement by public sector as in the case of China and a broad-based public private partnership (PPP) seen in India has country-specific successful models in the speedy development of infrastructural projects. The report highlights the Eleventh Five Year Plan for Energy development by the National Development and Reform Commission of the People’s Republic of China as an example of one such plan which sets specific goals for the development of energy infrastructure in China. The PPP-based National Highway Development Programme of India which aims to deliver about 55,000 kilometres of highways is cited as one good example with a clearly well-defined role for the private sector.

The Positive Infrastructure Initiative was launched in 2009 in response to a clear mandate provided to the Forum at the Annual Meeting 2009 in Davos by the CEOs of the leading infrastructural organizations to ensure that the massive fiscal spending on infrastructure not only generates the employment to restart the global economy but also creates infrastructure assets that foster long-term economic competitiveness, and are environmentally and socially sustainable.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships to shape global, regional and industry agendas. The official website of the WEF in its latest press release has made available details about the report.

Toboc Trade News

The world body should lay emphasis on reducing the growing divide between the rich and the poor rather than pushing for trade to please some of the business powerhouses. If increasing world trade through global action means prosperity for all, the WTO has to address problems of the workforces that comprise of about 70 percent excluding self employed involved directly or indirectly in global trade.

It has to press for regulations which will bring in all workforces under one umbrella of organized sector as majority, particularly in developing countries are forced to work incognito. The workers of unorganized sector are deprived of employment protection such as paid leave, sick leave, healthcare and other perks; and are almost enslaved by their employers.

Similarly, even workers of organized sector are exploited by overloading with work schedules that may go up to 20hrs per day without any rest or extra allowance. Especially the workforces from countries without minimum hourly wages have been largely put to this hardship by calibrating it as a day’s work.

At a glance, it may seem like how on earth the strengthening of organized sector of workforce will improve the living standards of the poor and marginalized workers without developing other key areas such as free right to education, healthcare and other civic amenities. But by elevating the dignity of workers by providing reasonable earnings for what they work is likely to boost their confidence, and thereby prod themselves to meet all immediate needs without any administrative influence.

As far as trade is concerned, the atrocities perpetrated on workforces should also be given equal care like that of other aspects of trade agreements to avoid social unrests stemming from socio-economic asymmetries. The absence of minimum wages for workers or potentially running unorganized workforces, perhaps even with the backing of governments, should be given serious re-look as it is implied in individual trade deals as grievous human rights violations.

Toboc Trade News

Whether the EU saves itself from present crisis or not, there are many things to be absorbed by the new unions in the making much before taking the plunge. Primarily the alert system, deliberated by the EU to give powers to the parent body to ‘semi-audit’ tasks to monitor budget discipline not only of national governments but also of regional and local bodies, would ensure better transparency. This could prevent governments from hiding grey areas of decentralised budget appropriations, which was partly the case with Greece that stands accused of having lied about its accounts for years.

Besides, periodical evaluation of state affairs including politics based on ground realities and pre-set stitch in time solutions should be in place to ward off the dangers of any of the member-state getting weakened beyond manageable proportions. Projections and goals have to be marked by success failing which should attract stringent punitive measures; something that Brussels is planning to impose on members whose public debt is running out of control.

Furthermore, the member-states should make constant efforts to bring down their debts, which have been proven possible by countries like Belgium and the UK in the past. Before the global meltdown, Belgium managed to reduce its debt to 84.2 percent of GDP in 2007, down from a peak of more than 130 percent in the early 1990s. Likewise, the UK had a debt peak of 300 percent of its GDP after the Second World War, which had been gradually reduced to 33 percent by 1990.

There is also much to be imbibed from the off-target response such as ‘Europe 2020′, which is looked at sceptically by the Eastern EU members and criticized by German Chancellor Angela Merkel for contrasting reasons. The objectives of ‘Europe 2020′ include fight against poverty, increase in education and employment rate.

The proposal unveiled by the European Commission in March highlighted on poverty alleviation calling for reduction in the number of Europeans living below the poverty line by 25 percent, lifting 20mn out of poverty from the current 80mn. However, such policies with progressive milestones should be included right from the beginning and should be modified time to time with ‘proper’ budgetary allocation.

The EU’s new strategy for sustainable growth and jobs, ‘Europe 2020′, comes in the midst of the worst economic crisis in decades. The new strategy replaces the Lisbon Agenda, adopted in 2000, which largely failed to turn the EU into “the world’s most dynamic knowledge-based economy by 2010.” Nonetheless, the new proposal puts innovation and green growth at the heart of its blueprint for competitiveness and proposes tighter monitoring of national reform programmes, one of the greatest weaknesses of the Lisbon Strategy.

Toboc Trade News

Mary Lascelles Relocation Director at Moving Links 4 You commented “My son recently went to Kashmir, India where he spent three months working on a project. So many folks advised against it as it was an unsafe place, and the newspapers certainly lead us to believe it was nuts for going. He has now returned and he said he never felt unsafe while there. Goes to show that a lot of times fear is instilled by media hype. Still, it’s important to use your intuition – while still living life and not shutting out important experiences.”

Barbara Holtzman, Executive Consultant & Management Coach said she would follow her intuition and did not avoid any place based on an alert alone, and also endorsed Lascelles’ view. While Sally Shiff Social Network Coordinator at Maoz Inc. opined “I live in the Middle East (Israel) and have learned to be aware of safety. What we don’t have here is the theft and harm that I used to see on the streets in the US or as a traveler abroad.” She later added that the places which were unsafe to travel were often found barricaded, and was glad rather to comply with such warnings.

However, some participants in the poll are of the opinion that it would be unwise to overlook these advisories. Similarly, those in the travel and transport industry are also found to be paying attention to the alerts as they feared it would hurt their businesses.

The poll clarification on as to why ask this question read – It is observed that advisories are used these days as foreign policy. Instead of pinpointing the terror strike areas, and helping those countries to nab the perpetrators before the event, most governments just release a terror alert to put that country/ies and administration/s in all kinds of trouble.

The recent terror advisories issued by the US, Britain, Australia and Canada on the Indian capital has forced the government to turn New Delhi into a fortress with heavy deployment of security forces and also increased security checks. Furthermore, some analysts believe operatives under the guise of crank callers could be involved in hoax calls (the recent series of anonymous calls about bombs being planted at various locations in New Delhi) to destabilize day to day business of the city.

It should be recalled that in February the Home Minister of India P Chidambaram had said about a US advisory then “I don’t think it was based on any new information nor do I think that it was intended to send any alarm signal. I think it was a routine advisory and it should be seen as such.”

Toboc Trade News

In 2007, Bush administration began negotiations on ACTA particularly to contain several developing countries engaged in piracy acts, and to protect the interests of leading US firms which lost their price competitiveness on account of counterfeiting. Incidentally, the ACTA effect will not be restricted to internet activities alone but extends to counterfeit pharmaceuticals, designer merchandise, music, movies, etc.

Surprisingly, the final draft will not have the endorsement of China, one of the largest counterfeit producers. Hence, looking back to past events on taking action against China in regards to infringements, the trade pact is expected to encounter similar stalemate while implementing a likely ratified deal. Participants in the negotiations included Australia, Canada, the European Union, represented by the European Commission, the European Union Presidency (Spain) and EU Member States, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and the US.

Many ACTA dissidents blame the secretive or undemocratic nature of reaching the agreement by not revealing the details for public discussion. On the other hand, WIPO provides scope for public scrutiny with an added advantage of the inclusion of major counterfeiting countries in negotiations.

Meanwhile, the tech firms are understood to be apprehensive about ACTA’s secondary liability clause, which recommends the responsibility of copyright infringement behaviour of the user on the online service provider. The clause will possibly affect social networking sites, video-sharing sites and several other user-generated content sites including the online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia.

Last month, a statement signed by senior trade-union officials from New Zealand, Australia, Singapore and the US raised the question of intellectual property rights becoming an element in the free-trade negotiations. However that fear is put to rest by officials at the eighth round of ACTA negotiations calling the deal as a ‘standalone’ one, and would not tinker with FTAs.

According to sources, the draft will leave out three-strikes provision that would require border agents to search the contents of electronic devices. Experts term three-strikes a preposterous idea as it would virtually bring every transit cell to a standstill.

Toboc Trade News

As per the latest updates on volcano, many of Europe’s busiest airline routes will remain closed until Saturday. Furthermore, if one goes by the volcanologists warnings, the eruptions could continue on-and-off for months, potentially meaning continued delays and closures. It is estimated just three days of air traffic closure alone will take months for the aviation industry to recover from the mammoth losses.

The Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation or CAPA figures show that some six million passengers could be affected world-wide if the closures continued for up to three days. The volcanic clouds spewed above 30,000 feet have forced air travel virtually impossible as the jet engines could be shut down if they sucked in volcanic debris.

High-flying volcanic ash consists of extremely fine silica particulates that could easily enter jet engines, which operate at temperatures of about 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit. Silica melts at about 2,000 degrees, and at that point it fuses to turbine blades, nozzles and other critical engine parts, causing the engine to clog, overheat and eventually shut down.

It is now evident that the losses to the aviation industry and auxiliary ones would run into billions of dollars. London’s Heathrow Airport, which is the worst affected due to the second Iceland’s volcanic eruption, itself clearly supports to that logic since one of the world’s busiest airport manages more than 1,200 flights and 180,000 travelers per day. And any delay to the resumption of air travel and cargo movement is bound to create grievous financial problems to the industry which is showing some signs of revival along with global trade after the meltdown.

Toboc Trade News

Bloomberg reported that Emaar Properties PJSC, the UAE’s largest developer is still collecting installments and fines from about 400 buyers for two non-existent towers called 29 Boulevard. According to Mehdi Nosratlu, who heads a group of investors negotiating with Emaar, most of them have paid 30-65 percent of the average purchase price of about half a million USD on this 45-storey twin towers. Proleads, a Dubai-based market researcher estimates builders in the emirate have delayed or cancelled projects worth about $330bn.

In addition to Emaar, several others including Union Properties and Nakheel are entangled in similar issues with their buyers. Sources say there are plenty of cases pending in law court related to real estate disputes. One of the recent decrees by Dubai government orders that property developers whose projects never got off the ground due to their “failure or negligence” are not allowed to keep any funds prepaid by individual investors.

The new laws carved out for this special purpose from hardly three years of Dubai realty contractual laws is believed to protect customer rights. Major feature is that it will help purchasers who entered boom-time sales contracts with developers, but came up empty-handed awaiting real estate projects that never started.

Sadly, during the realty windfall, many have entered into contracts without proper scrutiny of the deal providing undue advantages to the builders. Prima facie, it is not clear that the new laws will have any positive impact on those entered into deals in a hasty manner.

Deutsche Bank’s proprietary price index, which covers 13 main locations in Dubai, indicated that average housing prices for apartments declined 1.1 percent on a month-on-month basis, while villas slipped 1.7 percent on similar scale in March. Dubai’s real estate market saw a freefall for 18 months with property prices falling over 50 percent from their mid-2008 highs.

Toboc Trade News

Nevertheless, both Smith and NZ Prime Minister John Key, at different occasions reiterated that the ETS would take effect on the energy and transport sectors in July despite calls from business groups, farmers and Act, an agro-friendly and anti-ETS organization. The business groups fear NZ firms bearing the cost of the domestic ETS will be competitively disadvantaged compared with rivals from countries with no effective carbon pricing mechanism, a view that is shared by the Federated Farmers and Act.

According to latest reports, apart from the Federated Farmers and Act and nine other business groups including Major Electricity Users’ Group, the Employers and Manufacturers Association (EMA) has also joined the side in exerting pressure on the government to delay international commitment on carbon reduction. The EMA chief executive Alasdair Thompson said “Our financial situation is far too fragile to absorb the extra $255mn the government calculates the ETS will cost all of us.”

Though Smith claims an average NZ family could expect a meagre 165 NZ dollars (US$116) annual increase in expenses from July, it is estimated, particularly since the ETS would be covering transport and energy, the annual family expenditure would be manifold than his assumption. The ETS would be introduced in come July on the energy, transport and industrial sectors with a 50 percent obligation.

The NZ ETS legislation allows for a formal review of the scheme in 2011 along with an increase in obligations from Jan 1, 2013. The ETS is effective on forestry from 2008; and agriculture, which makes up the half of NZ’s emissions, will be included in the scheme in 2015. Some of the major reasons for growing opposition in NZ against the ETS are cited as the absence of consensus among many nations on paucity of time on implementation, trade disadvantages, cost escalation on essentials and stringent NZ ETS norms on all sectors.

Toboc Trade News

Agriculture Minister of India Sharad Pawar is reported to have informed his Russian counterpart Yelena Skrynnik that his country had the capability to meet those demands as and when they emerged. While both ministers met at the sidelines of the BRIC Agriculture Ministerial Meet, Skrynnik told that though abundant stocks of poultry products were available at the moment, we would turn to India whenever a requirement sprang up.

A sudden demand for poultry in Russia has resulted due to the ban imposed on the US and Brazilian poultry as imports from these countries did not meet Russian poultry standards. According to sources, Russian sanitary standards are quite stringent than internationally accepted ones. The Russian poultry imports from the US at some point of time had even risen up to 80 percent in the past but the new sanitary requirements enforced since Jan 1 have completely stopped all imports from the US.

It should be recalled that India too faced several import bans including the existing one from Russia on its meat and poultry products. Nevertheless, a Russian expert group is expected to visit India shortly to review this long-standing export ban.

Pawar said India was exporting bovine meat and poultry products to 60 countries, including Europe, and there was “enormous potential” for exports to Russia as well. Likewise, Skrynnik apprised that Russia last year had imported 600,000 tonnes of poultry and one million tonnes of meat.

However, it is not known that the good news to the poultry and meat industry of India would turn sour to domestic consumers like that of Turkey as it has been feared in Turkey that the export approval for 500,000 tonnes of white meat to Russia could jack up domestic poultry prices significantly. Besides, the Turkish consumers are worried that the new orders from Russia would even cause severe poultry shortage in the country even though Turkish Agriculture Minister, Mehdi Eker argues that production for exports and domestic needs are met separately.

Toboc Trade News

Starting from the arrest of 10 US missionaries who tried to kidnap children after the quake in Haiti down to the recent apprehension of another man linked to the US missionaries by the Dominican police are seen as a prelude to exploitation and predation yet to jolt the Haitian coast. The quake that has killed more than 200,000 people has left thousands of children orphaned, and consequently vulnerable to being preyed upon by child sex traffickers.

Although millions of dollars have flown into Haiti in Aid and another $11.5bn expected to be spent by the UN in the next three years for socio-economic reconstruction of the country, an Al Jazeera report shows there are widespread misgivings among the Haitians about the rich nations’ participation in the whole re-building process. In a feature presented by Sebastian Walker in Al Jazeera elaborates that many Haitians see the expansion of foreign companies as a way to take advantage of the rampant poverty plaguing the nation, where the unemployment rate is up to 80 percent.

Miguel Angel Torres, a factory manager of one of the largest garment factories of the famous American brand, the Levi Strauss & Co told Al Jazeera that Haiti’s competitive factor of growth was its lowest salary. In the feature, Walker said with the promise of economic incentives for Haiti many multi-national companies were exploiting the cheapest wages in the world to make extra bucks, or in other words, “profiting from poverty”.

Walker pointed out that the sale of just one pair of jeans could pay off two weeks of a Haitian garment worker’s salary, $4 per day. It has been noticed that these low wages would not bring needed change to the Haitian economy unless stricter rules to raise the wages were enforced. He blamed the US president Barack Obama and former presidents, Bill Clinton and George Bush for their plans of promoting the US clothing companies in Haiti which took all the profits back home.

Yannick Etienne, a garment worker said the clothing firms were helping themselves under the garb of shaping the future of Haiti. She added that she couldn’t see any improvement in the economy through these projects rather than reproduction of poverty.

Toboc Trade News

Furthermore, there was concerted effort from a broad-based coalition of organizations in Nova Scotia, a Canadian province, with similar demands urged its premier Darrell Dexter to immediately take actions to counter a number of water issues. The coalition with ‘Turn on the Tap and Ditch the Bottle’ slogan presented the provincial government, a costless three-pronged formula to protect water resources of the province.

The coalition head Danny Cavanagh lashed out at the commercialization of water by saying there is simply no excuse for using bottled water where perfectly good tap water is available. Likewise, Jocelyne Rankin of the Ecology Action Centre said Groundwater was inextricably linked to surface water and over-pumping could cause dramatic declines in water levels, affecting wildlife habitat and recreational and fishing opportunities.

Both groups have identified that water should be made as a human right which would empower citizens to contest on every abuse of this rare depleting resource. The recognition of water as a human right in international law would allow the United Nations (UN) to monitor the progress of states in realizing the right to water, and to hold governments accountable. The Canadian government has consistently opposed the recognition of water as a human right at various UN venues in the past.

According to sources, about 90 Canadians die every year from water-borne diseases, and it is feared if government continues to allow water exports citizens will be deprived of safe and clean water. Bulk water exports and diversions would leave Canada’s water vulnerable to environmental depletion and international trade challenges, which could permanently open the sluice gates to some of the parched US states. In water parlance, a country like Canada which is built on the myth of abundance of fresh water has in fact just one percent renewable water resources, and this seemed to have worked in favour to draw such a huge support for the cause.

Toboc Trade News

Along with changes in trade policies which would help exports from developing countries the Chinese manufacturers also will get incentives to maintain price competitiveness in the global markets. China’s exports, which experienced robust growth of more than 25 percent before 2008, dropped by 16 percent last year.

Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming at the sidelines of the meet stated all China’s financial policies, including its devalued status of yuan/renminbi, were part of China’s stimulus package comprehensively designed to counter global economic meltdown. He also defended the subsidies, claiming the stimulus incentives “abide by the rule of the World Trade Organisation and bear no protectionism.”

While announcing the policy statement, China admitted that it would “eliminate unreasonable restrictions” on the import front. A re-look at this policy comes after repeated complaints from India to its Chinese counterparts at every platform they met. The policy statement said “imports from developing countries will be expanded so as to satisfy domestic demand on the one hand, and promote mutual benefits and common development on the other.”

Zhang Zhigang, a member of the CPPCC said that if the country wanted to encourage consumption, exports were “vital”. Likewise, Chen said that export-related sectors provide at least 90mn jobs – about 7 percent of the national population – and therefore affect consumption.

Barring surprises, most members during the meet felt export was key to China’s economy indicating the most censured yuan’s low currency value that is tied to the Chinese export advantage would be moreover the same for the coming months until it gets even with its early 2008 export growth. Chen statement corroborates that fact as he said “although yuan faces appreciation pressure, China still plans to keep the exchange rate of yuan stable”.

Toboc Trade News

The US government is understood to have responded to the call by Google to include Internet Access Freedom (IAF) as an international trade policy of the country. Nicole Wong, Google Vice President and Deputy General Counsel had urged earlier an open internet should be part of the US trade agenda as economic impact of censorship was huge on e-commerce as well as other companies which used Web services.

In January, Google.cn, the China version of the Google search engine announced it was considering pulling out of China after its portal along with some other 20 tech companies including Adobe, Yahoo and Intel was attacked by allegedly state-sponsored hackers. Though China has denied any such interception, but some companies who were victims of these attacks claim they have ample evidence to prove the government’s hand in this deplorable crime.

Google felt betrayed by the attacks, which resulted in the firm losing some intellectual property, despite compromising on internet freedom during the time of launch by signing an agreement with China in 2006. Under the controversial bargain, Google agreed to censor search results by prompting the users at the bottom of censored pages that results were withheld at the request of the Chinese government.

However, approaching the WTO to settle the issues related to the Chinese internet policies does not ensure any speedy outcome as trade disputes before the global trade body normally takes two or more years to litigate and appeal. Incidentally, according to the China Internet Network Information Center, a government agency that registers online domain names, China is the world’s biggest Internet market, with 384mn Web users at the end of 2009.

Toboc Trade News

Germany’s non-committal on bailing out Greece after initially declaring support also signals that the EU would not hesitate to jettison its family member as there are already differences in using tax-payers money. On account of several polls and going by the words of Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the Eurogroup of ministers that oversee the Eurozone, Germany, Belgium or Luxembourg are not prepared to correct Greek fiscal policy mistakes.

The economic woes of Greece began after it hit upon a budget deficit of 12.7 percent of its GDP in 2009, four times more than the allowed EU limit. Though the government claims that it would slash 4 percent by the end of this year to eventually reach the EU limit of 3 percent by 2012, with current measures it seems insurmountable.

This year Greece needs about €54bn, and until now, it has raised around €13bn. The country has about €23bn in debt payments to be made in April and May. As counter measures, Greece has announced austerity initiatives and sale of another €3bn to €5bn debt.

However, in January, Greece sold five-year bonds amounting to €8bn, and within days the value of the bonds fell dimming hopes of future such offerings. Unless the government rolls out some tangible financial support mechanism, even this door will be perpetually shut.

Greece to avoid being outlawed and to tide over the crisis, it is learned that it has to shrug off its false pride and formally seek assistance from the EU or even the IMF without engaging in blame game. The Papandreou administration has accused the past regime’s mismanagement of finances and failed policies as major factors for the snowballing of the current crisis.

Starting from the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens to the previous government’s decision to dismantle its anti-fraud department were pointed out to be some of the areas send the country crashing with debt. Furthermore, the country’s defence outlay beyond threat perception and unnecessary expenditure on expensive eaves-dropping street cameras were also blamed.

Incidentally, though the Greek economy is not large enough to cause any damage to the EU economy, but it is feared any SOS response from the Union may set precedence to other countries including Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy which are in similar situations. It has been understood through recent turn of events, unless an effective, efficient and transparent roadmap to rescue Greece is not made available soon under the tutelage of the EU, not just the collapse of a nation but also the unity of the region and its currency would be at stake.

Toboc Trade News

Dr Charlotte Williams, head of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) said the search for greener plastics, especially for single use items such as food packaging, was the subject of significant research worldwide. The EPSRC says about seven percent of fossil fuels are used to manufacture plastics; with global production pegged at more than 150mn tons annually, almost 99 percent of plastics are made out of them.

The latest invention will seize the place of hitherto indispensable polluting plastics with its disposability and application quotient. The sugar-based polymer known as lignocellulosic biomass could be composted at home along with organic waste.

It is expected to be used in a variety of medical applications such as tissue regeneration, stitches and drug delivery as the polymer is supposed to have non-toxic properties which decompose in the body creating harmless by-products. The EPSRC is jointly making efforts with its commercial partner BioCeramic Therapeutics to make this a reality.

Currently, the largely used bio-degradable plastic, polylactide production requires high energy and large quantity of water and degraded in a high-temperature industrial facility. While the new polymer is produced through non-food crops including fast-growing trees and grasses, or renewable biomass from agricultural or food waste and has natural molecules to get absorbed with other organic waste.

As the production of the new packaging plastic would not cause any harm to the food crop resources, it is regarded as a relief from polluting petro-chemical ones. “Our key breakthrough was in finding a way of using a non-food crop to form a polymer, as there are ethical issues around using food sources in this way,” said Williams.

Toboc Trade News

The food imports have considerably risen in the last few years in view of the increase in population as well as water scarcity and hostile land conditions. The UAE and Saudi Arabia are already developing arable lands and food processing units in several Asian and African countries in a bid to overcome the snowballing global food shortages.

Harish Rupani, managing director of Equinox Trading, a food products trading company, told the Gulf News that growing food locally was not a viable option for the UAE as it costed three or four times more to grow local crops than it did to import. Dubai, the UAE’s commercial hub is one of the largest re-exporting centres in the world, and it traded in 2008 about $1.2bn worth of food-related items.

In the recent estimates by the Business Monitor International (BMI) indicate that food expenditure in the UAE reached $6.7bn in 2009. And it has been forecasted that it would grow by close to 3 percent in the current year.

The heavy dependence by the GCC on food imports also makes it the most vulnerable to not only price variations but also to increasingly changing food policies of the exporting countries such as blanket ban on exports of certain food commodities which are scarce in those markets.

The Standard Chartered’s most recent food report claims food prices are at a historic high and rising, around 80 percent higher than the low mid-2002 levels. Rupani said that prices of sugar and rice had tripled over the past five years.

The BMI is understood to have learned that the UAE government is making numerous efforts to increase the number of food processing plants in the country. The government has invested about $1.4bn into the food sector since 1994, and there are 150 food processing plants operational in the UAE today.

Toboc Trade News

The decree stipulated that any cash in excess of a certain limit would become invalid. This in turn forced citizens to convert the old won to goods including electronic items, kitchenware and so on to avoid losing their lifetime earnings. The Tribune News Service reported the price of rice last month in the North rose tenfold at private markets, and residents hoping to purchase food often had to wait in line for hours in subzero temperatures.

The North Koreans largely saved money in the physical form as they mistrusted state-run banks. Song Jung-su, a former railroad security official who defected from the North in 2006 but who is still in touch with his relatives apprised that the wresting of people’s life savings by the totalitarian government had made many to commit suicide.

The currency change is understood to have designed in a bid to check inflation as well as to re-establish Communist Kim Jong-Il regime’s control over the economy that was slipping from its hand for sometime from now to the increasing free market forces. As the direct fallout of the redenomination debacle, the dictatorial government has shown the door to the Workers’ Party finance and planning department chief Pak Nam Gi, the one who spearheaded the currency revamp. It is been rumoured that Pak has been made a whipping boy in an attempt to save the heir apparent to the Kim Il-sung dynasty, Kim Jong-Un, the third son of the current leader.

A diplomatic source is understood to have informed Chosun Ilbo newspaper that if the redenomination had been a success North Korea would have attributed it to the leadership of Jong-Un and used it to justify a third-generation succession. The situation is believed to have made worse by an order which permits shops to be opened only for four hours a day and operated by women above 40, and many have already downed shutters.

The North which is reeling under the pressure of hyperinflation has witnessed sporadic violence where any protest against the state is meted out with death penalties. Such incidences clearly indicate that people do not fear for their lives anymore as many feel they have already lost almost everything. The move which was supposed to curb rising prices backfired as the limited supply of goods in the public distribution system failed to keep up with the demand.

Ever since the formation of the North, it has largely suffered while yielding to be misused by failing states and emerging powers as a deterrent to the constantly intervening Western interests in the regional affairs. The Communist Korea has relied on the overseas essentials aid since the mid-1990s, when the economy crumpled owing to famine and mismanagement, which wiped out 2mn people. The absence of aid from the former and now defunct Soviet Union has also made it worse since then for the Stalinist state.

A state that used most of its revenues to build defense infrastructure is already facing the UN sanctions for its recent nuclear test. Prima facie, its economy looks frail with the country’s latest suicidal redenomination move. It is hoped that both the international community and the North Korean government would come to their senses to save the people of this failing economy.

Toboc Trade News

Consequently, several Latin American and Asian countries will be importing more rice to offset the resulting shortage. The South American countries such as Brazil, Venezuela, Columbia and Panama and the Asian countries like India and the Philippines are understood to have increased their import quotas as El Nino effect is likely to last till June.

The US Rice Producers Association President Dwight Roberts told Bloomberg that Brazil may start buying this month, a total of 1mn metric tons throughout the year, direct fallout of El Nino. In another statement, the Agriculture Undersecretary of the Philippines Bernardo Fondevilla said his country, the world’s biggest rice buyer could lose more than 0.8mn tons of paddy rice, from a severe dry spell caused by El Nino triggering renewed rice imports.

Brazil would be importing from Vietnam, the largest rice exporter behind Thailand after the latter fulfills its November and December tenders from the Philippines. As per the Philippines National Food Authority figures, the delivery of four tender amounting to 2.25mn tons mostly from Vietnam would start from January to June.

The Filipino government has set aside about $37mn to mitigate the impact of El Nino on crop and fishery production this year. The phenomenon is expected to devastate 453,204 hectares of rice, 227,843 hectares of corn fields and 14,160 hectares of the fishery industry in the Philippines alone.

Robert on a rice update to Bloomberg informed that Iraq, the fifth largest rice importer, might buy at least 120,000 tons by next week. El Nino effect is likely to peak this month causing speculative buying in the global rice market.

Robert told that the apparent decline in Mercosur production and increased demand in the South American and other Central American countries, supplies will be tight and some markets could pay considerably higher prices for imported rice. The data on rice stockpiles and production trickling in from almost all regions across the globe indicate world rice market is in for severe price rice which in a worst case scenario could even reach the all time high of 2008.

Toboc Trade News

According to sources, the department responsible for business registration and regulation of China is likely to charge a registration fee between $15 and $30 depending upon the area of business. Similarly, sales tax of 3 percent will be charged on total online sales.

Though Beijing province promulgated similar registration and taxation process back in 2008 none of the online firms got enrolled in the program till date due to non-enforcement of the rule. An official of the Beijing Bureau of Industry and Commerce, Wu Song stated that all internet business entities should be in accordance with any other businesses in the country.

However, there was no confirmation on how the department would tackle those who infringe on the law. It is been assumed that the penalties would range from onsite warning that could damage the reputation of the firm to complete shutting down of the access to the respective perpetrator’s portal.

A recent release by an online marketing research firm, iResearch says that the online revenue generated in the country from advertising, games and shopping totaled about $11bn last year, up by 30 percent. Besides, the company is upbeat on the prospect of online revenue generation to grow by 51 percent to reach $16.5bn this fiscal.

On the flipside, some fear that the new regulation on e-tailers would hamper the industry’s stupendous growth as startup cost and prices of the merchandise on offer would rise significantly. Currently, online stores offer lower prices than the physical ones.

Nevertheless, another school of thought feel the new regulation would substantially reduce online frauds, and would rather streamline the industry. Online stores have negligible or no inventory cost, and therefore, they are able to offer products for lower prices as compared to its brick and mortar counterparts.

The figures from the Beijing Bureau of Industry and Commerce show that around 4,700 complaints on e-tailers were investigated in Beijing alone in 2009, with 1,067 prosecuted. The county which has close to 400mn internet users has today more than 1mn online stores to shop from.

Lately, China has taken several initiatives to regulate internet activities including alleged disinformation campaigns; and the new proposal is largely designed to protect consumer rights. According to China Internet Network Information Center, combined retail sales amounted to only about 2 percent of total retail sales of consumer goods in 2009, and the online retail sales grew 94 percent in the year to total $36.6bn.

Toboc Trade News

Penelope Borland, CEO of the Screen Production and Development Association of NZ (SPADA) said the success of Avatar would resonate around the world and alongside NZ’s huge advances in intellectual property in the film industry. She added Criticism of Avatar’s box office success relative to the NZ Large Budget Screen Production Grant (LBSPG) it received was short sighted.

Since the inception of the LBSPG in 2003, overseas movie and television productions have spent more than $1bn in NZ, which has resulted in grant payments of $134mn. The industry has received total revenues of $384mn from overseas film companies in 2008, and makes NZ number 3 in the world for foreign exchange revenues behind Canada and the UK.

Under the LBSPG scheme, a 15 percent rebate on total qualifying production expenditure is allowed for movies crossing $10.6mn on expenditure in NZ. The Economic Development Minister Gerry Brownlee says “Attracting large budget film productions here offers wider benefits to the economy, including increased opportunities for citizens as well as tourism benefits from having NZ locations shown to an international audience.”

The NZ industry is agog with particularly Avatar’s success as many such projects will now move to the country not only for its locales but also to seek technical talents. NZ’s acclaimed visual effects company Weta Digital (WD) is behind the technology that has created the new generation 3D special effects for the movie which, according to the global film fraternity, is the biggest event in the history of film-making since colour film.

WD is already popular with their works in Hollywood blockbusters such as Lord of the Rings and King Kong. WD’s senior visual effects supervisor Joe Letteri claimed that Avatar was the first major international film came to NZ purely for the technological filmmaking knowledge built up there, rather than primarily because of country’s advantages as a location for shooting.

WD’s general manager Tom Greally said around 60 percent of the $218mn spent on Avatar in NZ would have gone on crew costs, with the rest going towards “technical infrastructure”. While Film NZ acting CEO Sue Thompson said for the Kiwi industry to continue growing it had to keep marketing itself as a destination for high quality filmmaking.

The success of Avatar and several other movies shot in NZ is expected to give a fillip to the country’s tourism industry too as its tourist destinations are showcased to the global audience in a very tempting manner. However, the NZ film industry feels that any attempt to withdraw grants will discourage overseas film projects coming to the country, and may go elsewhere as some countries offer 30 percent grant upfront whereas NZ paid after the project completion.

Brownlee feels “NZ’s connection to the success of Avatar will continue to deliver huge benefits to the country and will help to attract larger budget productions here in the future.” He adds “it is unlikely these productions would have decided to film in NZ if this grant had not been available as most locations offered an incentive to film in their territory or country”.

Recent PriceWaterhouseCoopers research: Economic Impact of the Film and Television Industry (2009) in NZ found that the film and television industry contributes $2.5bn to the New Zealand economy and contributes additional financial benefits to the country by enhancing international awareness and equity in the NZ brand.

Toboc Trade News

In 2004, based on a complaint from Australia, Brazil and Thailand, which argued the EU was dumping its excess sugar into the global market, the WTO enforced a ceiling of 1.374mn tonnes on the EU sugar exports. Then, the WTO’s directive was in line with the world sugar prices which was comparatively far lower than the EU prices. Last month, Brussels had rejected beet growers’ demands to allow more of Europe’s sugar surplus onto the global market.

According to Agrimoney, a website that informs on the agriculture markets, Mariann Fischer Boel, the EU agriculture commissioner has received legal advice on whether, “in these exceptional circumstances”, the region can breach its export limit. Ms Boel told a meeting of European farm ministers this week that she was likely to announce a decision on surplus sugar exports by this month end.

As the sugar producers in France and Germany, Europe’s top producers, reaped the biggest harvest since 2006 are reported to be in favour of surplus export. The CIBE in its latest press release stated while the world was crying for sugar, it was inexplicable why the sector was not allowed to obtain licenses to export more sugar now.

The EU sugar growers argue that since the world sugar prices are high the EU sugar injection to world market would not tantamount to dumping. They also feel the availability of sugar to the global market will remove shortage, help farmers an opportunity to earn more and provide consumers to get sugar at a lower cost.

Severe shortage and price spiraling of sugar has already created serious problems to consumers as well as the ruling party in India, the largest sugar consumer. The price of sugar in India has more than doubled in a period of 12 months.

There are clear indicators that in the coming quarters, several countries will line up for more sugar by increasing their import limits. An estimate from Moscow analysis group, Ikar that Russia will raise imports of raw sugar by 66 percent to 2.45 tonnes in 2010, and Pakistan for 50,000 tonnes of white sugar.

World sugar production is short of demand by over 14mn tonnes this year primarily due to vagaries of weather in Brazil and India, the largest sugar producers. Furthermore, the price of refined sugar is expected to reach a 20-year high of 30 cents per pound on the commodity market.

This year, India faced shortage after several years of excess sugar production due to monsoon failure and growers moving on to other crops. On the contrary, Brazil failed to produce enough owing to excess rain and increase in ethanol use.

Toboc Trade News