July 2004 Edition
SIZE
On May 1st, eight former Soviet client states, plus Malta and Cyprus, joined the European Union. The so-called EU-25 has a population of 450 million people, and a gross domestic product of US$15.5 trillion.
STATIONS
There are approximately 50,000 legitimate radio stations worldwide. More than 14,000 are in the United States, and 5,000 in Brazil alone. Europe has about 3,000 stations.
ENTRAILS
Though animal brains, intestines, hearts and other "variety meats" as they are known have generally been assigned to the scrap heap in American butchers shops, there is a tradition of dining on them in Europe. In the last few years they have become more fashionable in North America. It is Fergus Henderson, author of The Whole Beast, who is responsible for bringing entrails out of the abattoir and onto white table cloths. He is a London chef whose prosletytzing has earned him cult status among chefs on both sides of the Atlantic.
SOUND
A British student recently invented a digital music player that works underwater allowing swimmers to listen to their favourite music. Called Soundwaves, the device is a bit bigger than an eraser and clips on to a pair of regular goggles. Once the goggles are in place, a swimmer can hear the music inside his or her head.
HEALTH
According to a new survey, Canadian employees value their health benefits so much they wouldn't trade them for cash. Seventy-two per cent of the 1,503 Canadians polled, all members of employee benefit plans, said they would choose their plan over annual payments of up to $8,0000.
CONTROL
About 20 per cent of mineral wealth of the American West is owned by foreign companies, most of them Canadian. A report produced by the Environmental Working Group also shows that of all the uses of federal lands, hard-rock mining returns the least to the federal Treasury: 2.3 per cent of sales, compared with 13.2 per cent for oil and gas development, 14 per cent for grazing and 66 per cent for timber sales. For as little as $0.84 an acre, 28,000 companies and individuals have gained control of precious metals and minerals on 25.6 million acres of public land.
ONLINE
Canadian spending on-line rose 20 per cent in the final quarter of 2003 from a year earlier, driven almost entirely by people booking holidays and getaways. On-line consumption patterns remained relatively flat elsewhere while spending at travel related sites grew by more than 50 per cent. Travel spending totalled $349-million for the three months. Non-travel spendi or the period was $408-million.
SATISFACTION
In a study of 571 working men and women in the United States, the three primary concerns were money, time and staffing. Nearly 48 per cent of the respondents said what they desired at work was more pay, 24 per cent said they wanted more time off and 17 per cent said they wanted their firms to hire additional workers to help shoulder increased workloads.
OFFSHORING
While the issue of exporting jobs abroad is becoming an election issue in the U.S., a new study finds that American companies are favouring Canada. The study also suggests that cost was not a major factor when companies consider exporting business processes, but the availability of qualified professionals.When asked to rank 10 factors for selecting a service provider, more than 46 per cent of respondents said the most important was the availability of experienced professionals, followed by specific technical skills and a high quality of English competence. A shared business culture was also considered to be important.
SKILLS
According to the Washington-based National Science Board, there is a troubling decline in the number of U.S. students training to be scientists. The number of 18- to 24-year- olds who receive science degrees has fallen to 17th in the world, whereas it ranked third three decades ago. The trend could result in a shortage of trained scientists and engineers to meet rising demand for such skills and ultimately threaten the economic welfare and security of the U.S.
LOGS
The B.C. Supreme Court has rejected a bid by a coalition of unions and conservation groups to stop the export of raw logs. The coalition says the logs being sent out of the province to the U.S., Japan and China represent lost jobs in B.C. The provincial government has allowed forest companies to export the equivalent of 28,000 truckloads of raw logs from Crown land in northern B.C.
WALL STREET
It was a good year for the stock market, but it was a very, very good year for the executives of Wall Street financial houses. Combined pay for 10 top executives at New York City's brokerage and financial firms was up a striking 68.3 per cent in 2003 over the previous year as the leading men--yes, they are all men--took home more than US$231-million. This comes as Wall Street continues to limit hiring and pursue layoffs. Wall Street employs about 158,000 people in New York.
BOYS
China faces a major threat from a growing gender imbalance that could leave millions of men without wives. This highlights concern about the impact of the one-child policy that led to rampant female infanticide. China has about 117 boys for every 100 girls, with nearly 13 million more boys that girls under the age of nine. If that trend continues, by 2020 China could have as many as 40 million men who cannot find a spouse. Officials say that the one-child-per-couple rule has resulted in 300 million fewer births over the last decade.
NORWAY
This country has one of the world's strongest currencies and no national debt, yet it remains outside the European Union. Norwegians have twice turned down the chance to become members of the EU. Like the Swiss, another of Europe's richest nations, they have doubts about the usefulness in joining. For the past four or five years, Norway has been running a budget surplus of around US$15-billion with a population of only four and a half million.
PIZZA
Vending machines that deliver hot pizzas are to be placed in workplaces, rail stations and other public places around Britain. For about seven dollars, the machine selects a customer's choice of topping on a vacuum-packed nine-inch pizza, unwraps it, cooks it and dispatches it on a cardboard plate. When the first one was tested, it sold 200 pizzas in four days. The machines were launched in the U.S. last year.
MALARIA
After years of hesitation, world health agencies are racing to acquire 100 million doses of a Chinese herbal drug that has proved strikingly effective against malaria, one of the leading killers of the poor. The drug, artemisinin, is a compound based on qinghaosu, or sweet wormwood. First isolated by Chinese military researchers, it cut the death rate by 97 per cent in a malaria epidemic in Vietnam in the early 1990s.
GAP
Apparel retailer Gap Inc has issued a report listing work-force violations at many factories worldwide that make clothing for its Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic chains. The 2003 social responsibility report, Gap's first, attempts to highlight the company's efforts to improve garment factory conditions and labour standards. Gap uses 3,000 factories in 50 countries. In 2003, Gap terminated business with 136 factories for serious or excessive breaches of the code. Greater China and southeast Asia each had 42 of those terminated factories. The Indian subcontinent had 31 and Europe, including Russia, had nine.
MILK
Some landlocked Canadian cows are enjoying a little seafood with their hay and grain so they can produce a new kind of milk being touted for its benefits for the brain, eyes and nerves. The milk, which does not taste fishy, is produced by herring-fed cows in Ontario and provides a fatty acid also common in salmon, trout and mackerel to diets of people who don't eat enough fish.
FUNERALS
Women make up more than half the students at mortuary colleges in the U.S. today compared with five per cent in 1970. While the funeral industry is often believed to be a family business, that is not always the case. Two- thirds of 2003 graduates had no prior family relationship with funeral homes.
INSURANCE
Canada's insurance companies are coming off a record year, with C$2.63-billion in profit in 2003, a significant increase over the previous year. The profits were spread across more than 200 companies and result from fire, home, life, auto and other policies sold. The previous profit record of C$2-billion was set in 1997.
CARDBOARD
In Japan, China's insatiable demand for raw materials is now endangering the most vital commodity in retailing: the cardboard box. Once blamed for exporting deflation to Japan, China is now charged with causing the recent surge in the prices of nickel, plywood and other commodities. The cardboard-box industry now finds used cardboard is in short supply. Recyclers, who go around collecting used cardboard are doing a fine business. Waste-paper merchants now offer 15 times more for the stuff than two years ago yet are currently exporting a third more than in 2001
STUDENTS
Last year, the number of international students in U.S. colleges and universities did not grow. It remained at 586,000. The U.S. is losing its central role as the preferred destination for students and scholars from all over the world. The number of Graduate Record Examinations taken are down 50 per cent in China, 37 per cent in India, 15 per cent in South Korea and 43 per cent in Taiwan. These countries traditionally send the largest number of students to the U.S. About two million students worldwide study outside their home countries.
PACKAGING
When milk in boxes first showed up on supermarket shelves 20 years ago American shoppers were suspicious. Unlike Europeans, they were slow to embrace aseptically packaged food which keep fresh without refrigeration for at least six months. Now, buying liquid foods in a box is common. Today, there are aseptic soups and broths; soy, grain and nut beverages; sports and nutrition drinks; tomato sauces and much more. Puddings, syrups, flavoured milks and savory sauces, even liquid eggs, now come in boxes.
BIRDS
An English supermarket manager who wrote a bedtime story for his sons has sold the film rights to Disney Corp. for US$1-million. His novel, "One for Sorrow, Two for Joy" concerns a robin's fight to save a world called Birddom from evil magpies. The author has been writing for over 11 years and has had more than 30 rejection slips from publishers.
WALKING
A major fast-foot chain in England is to include pedometers with its meals later this year. The devices, which measure the number of steps a wearer has taken are to shake the company's image as providers of unhealthy food. However, experts say the fat and sugar content of some food is so great, it will take five hours of walking to burn off a meal.
Thank you for reading the A & A Economic News Digest. For more information visit our website www.aacb.com or contact A & A Contract Customs Brokers Ltd. at strehler@aacb.com.
Past issues of the A&A Economic News Digest can be found at http://www.aacb.com/publications/ed/index.asp
On May 1st, eight former Soviet client states, plus Malta and Cyprus, joined the European Union. The so-called EU-25 has a population of 450 million people, and a gross domestic product of US$15.5 trillion.
STATIONS
There are approximately 50,000 legitimate radio stations worldwide. More than 14,000 are in the United States, and 5,000 in Brazil alone. Europe has about 3,000 stations.
ENTRAILS
Though animal brains, intestines, hearts and other "variety meats" as they are known have generally been assigned to the scrap heap in American butchers shops, there is a tradition of dining on them in Europe. In the last few years they have become more fashionable in North America. It is Fergus Henderson, author of The Whole Beast, who is responsible for bringing entrails out of the abattoir and onto white table cloths. He is a London chef whose prosletytzing has earned him cult status among chefs on both sides of the Atlantic.
SOUND
A British student recently invented a digital music player that works underwater allowing swimmers to listen to their favourite music. Called Soundwaves, the device is a bit bigger than an eraser and clips on to a pair of regular goggles. Once the goggles are in place, a swimmer can hear the music inside his or her head.
HEALTH
According to a new survey, Canadian employees value their health benefits so much they wouldn't trade them for cash. Seventy-two per cent of the 1,503 Canadians polled, all members of employee benefit plans, said they would choose their plan over annual payments of up to $8,0000.
CONTROL
About 20 per cent of mineral wealth of the American West is owned by foreign companies, most of them Canadian. A report produced by the Environmental Working Group also shows that of all the uses of federal lands, hard-rock mining returns the least to the federal Treasury: 2.3 per cent of sales, compared with 13.2 per cent for oil and gas development, 14 per cent for grazing and 66 per cent for timber sales. For as little as $0.84 an acre, 28,000 companies and individuals have gained control of precious metals and minerals on 25.6 million acres of public land.
ONLINE
Canadian spending on-line rose 20 per cent in the final quarter of 2003 from a year earlier, driven almost entirely by people booking holidays and getaways. On-line consumption patterns remained relatively flat elsewhere while spending at travel related sites grew by more than 50 per cent. Travel spending totalled $349-million for the three months. Non-travel spendi or the period was $408-million.
SATISFACTION
In a study of 571 working men and women in the United States, the three primary concerns were money, time and staffing. Nearly 48 per cent of the respondents said what they desired at work was more pay, 24 per cent said they wanted more time off and 17 per cent said they wanted their firms to hire additional workers to help shoulder increased workloads.
OFFSHORING
While the issue of exporting jobs abroad is becoming an election issue in the U.S., a new study finds that American companies are favouring Canada. The study also suggests that cost was not a major factor when companies consider exporting business processes, but the availability of qualified professionals.When asked to rank 10 factors for selecting a service provider, more than 46 per cent of respondents said the most important was the availability of experienced professionals, followed by specific technical skills and a high quality of English competence. A shared business culture was also considered to be important.
SKILLS
According to the Washington-based National Science Board, there is a troubling decline in the number of U.S. students training to be scientists. The number of 18- to 24-year- olds who receive science degrees has fallen to 17th in the world, whereas it ranked third three decades ago. The trend could result in a shortage of trained scientists and engineers to meet rising demand for such skills and ultimately threaten the economic welfare and security of the U.S.
LOGS
The B.C. Supreme Court has rejected a bid by a coalition of unions and conservation groups to stop the export of raw logs. The coalition says the logs being sent out of the province to the U.S., Japan and China represent lost jobs in B.C. The provincial government has allowed forest companies to export the equivalent of 28,000 truckloads of raw logs from Crown land in northern B.C.
WALL STREET
It was a good year for the stock market, but it was a very, very good year for the executives of Wall Street financial houses. Combined pay for 10 top executives at New York City's brokerage and financial firms was up a striking 68.3 per cent in 2003 over the previous year as the leading men--yes, they are all men--took home more than US$231-million. This comes as Wall Street continues to limit hiring and pursue layoffs. Wall Street employs about 158,000 people in New York.
BOYS
China faces a major threat from a growing gender imbalance that could leave millions of men without wives. This highlights concern about the impact of the one-child policy that led to rampant female infanticide. China has about 117 boys for every 100 girls, with nearly 13 million more boys that girls under the age of nine. If that trend continues, by 2020 China could have as many as 40 million men who cannot find a spouse. Officials say that the one-child-per-couple rule has resulted in 300 million fewer births over the last decade.
NORWAY
This country has one of the world's strongest currencies and no national debt, yet it remains outside the European Union. Norwegians have twice turned down the chance to become members of the EU. Like the Swiss, another of Europe's richest nations, they have doubts about the usefulness in joining. For the past four or five years, Norway has been running a budget surplus of around US$15-billion with a population of only four and a half million.
PIZZA
Vending machines that deliver hot pizzas are to be placed in workplaces, rail stations and other public places around Britain. For about seven dollars, the machine selects a customer's choice of topping on a vacuum-packed nine-inch pizza, unwraps it, cooks it and dispatches it on a cardboard plate. When the first one was tested, it sold 200 pizzas in four days. The machines were launched in the U.S. last year.
MALARIA
After years of hesitation, world health agencies are racing to acquire 100 million doses of a Chinese herbal drug that has proved strikingly effective against malaria, one of the leading killers of the poor. The drug, artemisinin, is a compound based on qinghaosu, or sweet wormwood. First isolated by Chinese military researchers, it cut the death rate by 97 per cent in a malaria epidemic in Vietnam in the early 1990s.
GAP
Apparel retailer Gap Inc has issued a report listing work-force violations at many factories worldwide that make clothing for its Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic chains. The 2003 social responsibility report, Gap's first, attempts to highlight the company's efforts to improve garment factory conditions and labour standards. Gap uses 3,000 factories in 50 countries. In 2003, Gap terminated business with 136 factories for serious or excessive breaches of the code. Greater China and southeast Asia each had 42 of those terminated factories. The Indian subcontinent had 31 and Europe, including Russia, had nine.
MILK
Some landlocked Canadian cows are enjoying a little seafood with their hay and grain so they can produce a new kind of milk being touted for its benefits for the brain, eyes and nerves. The milk, which does not taste fishy, is produced by herring-fed cows in Ontario and provides a fatty acid also common in salmon, trout and mackerel to diets of people who don't eat enough fish.
FUNERALS
Women make up more than half the students at mortuary colleges in the U.S. today compared with five per cent in 1970. While the funeral industry is often believed to be a family business, that is not always the case. Two- thirds of 2003 graduates had no prior family relationship with funeral homes.
INSURANCE
Canada's insurance companies are coming off a record year, with C$2.63-billion in profit in 2003, a significant increase over the previous year. The profits were spread across more than 200 companies and result from fire, home, life, auto and other policies sold. The previous profit record of C$2-billion was set in 1997.
CARDBOARD
In Japan, China's insatiable demand for raw materials is now endangering the most vital commodity in retailing: the cardboard box. Once blamed for exporting deflation to Japan, China is now charged with causing the recent surge in the prices of nickel, plywood and other commodities. The cardboard-box industry now finds used cardboard is in short supply. Recyclers, who go around collecting used cardboard are doing a fine business. Waste-paper merchants now offer 15 times more for the stuff than two years ago yet are currently exporting a third more than in 2001
STUDENTS
Last year, the number of international students in U.S. colleges and universities did not grow. It remained at 586,000. The U.S. is losing its central role as the preferred destination for students and scholars from all over the world. The number of Graduate Record Examinations taken are down 50 per cent in China, 37 per cent in India, 15 per cent in South Korea and 43 per cent in Taiwan. These countries traditionally send the largest number of students to the U.S. About two million students worldwide study outside their home countries.
PACKAGING
When milk in boxes first showed up on supermarket shelves 20 years ago American shoppers were suspicious. Unlike Europeans, they were slow to embrace aseptically packaged food which keep fresh without refrigeration for at least six months. Now, buying liquid foods in a box is common. Today, there are aseptic soups and broths; soy, grain and nut beverages; sports and nutrition drinks; tomato sauces and much more. Puddings, syrups, flavoured milks and savory sauces, even liquid eggs, now come in boxes.
BIRDS
An English supermarket manager who wrote a bedtime story for his sons has sold the film rights to Disney Corp. for US$1-million. His novel, "One for Sorrow, Two for Joy" concerns a robin's fight to save a world called Birddom from evil magpies. The author has been writing for over 11 years and has had more than 30 rejection slips from publishers.
WALKING
A major fast-foot chain in England is to include pedometers with its meals later this year. The devices, which measure the number of steps a wearer has taken are to shake the company's image as providers of unhealthy food. However, experts say the fat and sugar content of some food is so great, it will take five hours of walking to burn off a meal.
Thank you for reading the A & A Economic News Digest. For more information visit our website www.aacb.com or contact A & A Contract Customs Brokers Ltd. at strehler@aacb.com.
Past issues of the A&A Economic News Digest can be found at http://www.aacb.com/publications/ed/index.asp
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