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July 2009 Economic Digest - Importing and Exporting

July 2009 Edition

WELLNESS

 
Grocery stores in the U.S. have become hunting grounds for healthy, functional foods and beverages that offer distinct wellness advantages beyond basic nutrition. This has boosted sales of such products by 6 per cent to almost US$31-billion in 2008. During the five year period from 2003 to 2008, many functionally oriented food and drink categories performed well including yogurt, energy drinks, nutritional snacks and trail mixes, milk substitutes, soymilk and blended fruit drinks. It is estimated that sales of these items will reach $43-billion by 2013.

TRADE

Brazilian exports to China grew 64.7 per cent in the first four months of this year compared to the same period last year. During March and April, for the first time, China became Brazil's biggest trading partner, displacing the U.S. Sales of soya and grain to China increased 70 per cent while iron went up 51 per cent in the first four months. Brazil's newly discovered oil fields also offer significant potential to satisfy the enormous Chinese appetite for resources.

STORAGE

A new optical recording method has been developed that could pave the way for data discs with 300 times the storage capacity of standard DVDs. This would see a whopping 1.6-terabytes of information fit on a DVD-sized disc. The technique employs nanometre-scale particles of gold as a recording medium.

MANUFACTURING

China's total manufacturing costs are now only 6 per cent below those of American factories. Shifts that pushed China costs up in recent months have put Mexico and India on top for cheap manufacturing. It is predicted that China's costs will improve later in the year as more moderate oil prices and the economic slowdown reduce sea shipping costs but it is unlikely that China will catch up with Mexico and India.

WIND

A Loblaws Ltd. store in Nova Scotia has installed a wind turbine which, once fully operational, will provide about a quarter of the superstore's power. This is part of a pilot project to reduce emissions associated with electricity consumption. Loblaw tested the wind patterns in the area for a year to confirm the winds would support a turbine.

WINE

Almost half of Australia's wine industry is facing disaster as a drought caused by climate change and the over-use of Australia's biggest river system threatens to turn vines to dust. Inflows to the Murray Darling River system are at their lowest in 117 years and the residents of Adelaide have been told their supply from the river, which the city relies on for 90 per cent of its water, can no longer be guaranteed. The chronic lack of water has already forced several winemakers, who could not afford to buy extra water, to sell up and a lot of crops have been left to die.

PHILIPPINES

The Philippines stands to earn US$3.5-billion more in exports in the next eight years if there is a free trade pact between Southeast and South Asian regions, together with Japan, China and South Korea. Consolidation of free trade agreements (FTAs) across both regions would translate to greater economic benefits compared to the existing web of bilateral trade deals. Trade between the nations of South and East Asia surged by over $114-billion in the seven years to 2007, but the benefits have spread unevenly.

FARMING

Britain's only chilli farm operates from huge greenhouses on a site which supplies 400,000 chillies a year to British supermarkets. Now, customers will be given a wheelbarrow to browse the three acre site packed with 10,000 chilli plants and pick as many spicy peppers as they wish for 35 cents each, including the world's hottest varieties the Dorset Naga and Bhut Jolokia which are more than 30 times hotter than Tabasco sauce and need to be eaten with goggles and gloves for safety.

LIGHT

Researchers have demonstrated white, organic light-emitting diode (OLED) sources with the same efficiency as fluorescent light bulbs. The result brings closer the prospect that OLEDs will be the flat-screen light sources of choice in the future. There has been significant work in OLEDs in recent years, so that small displays and even televisions based on the technology are beginning to come to the market.

AFRICA

A recent report finds that poor infrastructure conditions in the land transport, maritime transport and electricity sectors are significantly undermining the export competitiveness of many sub-Saharan African industries. Coffee, shay butter, pineapples, bananas, natural rubber and related downstream products, textiles and apparel, leather and tourism are all affected by these conditions. Poor infrastructure conditions in the region increase costs and export times can compromise product quality, rendering merchandise less competitive than global competitors.

ORGANS

Since the early 1980s, the Quebec company Casavant Freres, has been making organs. These hand crafted instruments used to be built mainly for North American churches but now they are about to be exported to China. At about C$2-million each, one will soon be housed in the National Theatre of Ordos in Mongolia. The company has 90 employees and has built about 4,000 organs in its history. Casavant makes just nine organs a year with prices ranging between one and five million dollars. Until now, the only Casavant organ in China has been in a museum.

ORGANIC

U.S. sales of organic products, both food and nonfood, reached US$24.6-billion in 2008 growing an impressive 17 per cent over 2007 sales. Organic food sales now account for approximately 3.5 per cent of all food product sales in the U.S. Nonfood categories which include items like organic fibres, personal care products and pet foods grew by an astonishing 39.4 per cent in 2008 to reach $1.65-billion.

COAL

China's construction of coal-fired power plants has raised worries around the world about the effect on climate change. China now uses more coal than the U.S., Europe and Japan combined making it the world's largest emitter of gases. But, China has emerged in the past two years as the world's leading builder of more efficient, less polluting coal power plants, mastering the technology, and driving down the costs. While the U.S. is still debating whether to build a more efficient kind of coal-fired power plant that uses extremely hot steam, China has begun building such plants at the rate of one a month.

RELATIONSHIPS

The U.S.-China relationship is the most important bilateral economic relationship in the world. Together, the U.S. and China accounted for more than 30 per cent of the worlds' GDP in 2007. In 2008, bilateral trade stood at US$409-billion, dwarfing the $206-billion worth of trade between the U.S. and Japan. Chinese exports to the U.S. amounted to approximately 7.7 per cent of China's GDP and at the end of 2008, Beijing was the largest holder of U.S. Treasuries, with over $700-billion in reserve.

ECONOMY

According to a recent survey in 18 countries around the world, consumers are more wary of trying new consumer products when they sense the economy is slowing down. In fact, more than half of global consumers shy away from new grocery, personal and household products during an economic turndown. Not surprisingly, new beauty products are especially vulnerable with 70 per cent of consumers saying they would not try a new beauty product.

POTASH

Brazil may hold the world's third-largest potash reserves, following discoveries in the northern and eastern parts of the country. The resources may help the country become self-sufficient in fertilizer within 10 years.

LABELLING

Food packaging in the UK is more likely to carry nutritional labelling than in almost every other European nation. More than 95 per cent of products in the UK and Ireland had nutritional information compared to an average of 85 per cent for the rest of Europe. A recent study compared more than 35,000 products in 50 retail outlets across five food and drink categories in the 27 EU member states and Turkey.

MEALS

An OECD study found that Canadians spend an average of 70 minutes eating and drinking every day. This is about half the time that the French devote to eating and drinking each day. The report investigated leisure time among 18 countries. Overall, Norwegians were the most leisurely people spending 26.5 per cent of their time engaged in activities defined as hobbies, games, TV viewing, computer use, recreational gardening, sports, socializing with friends and attending events. Mexico came in last with only 15 .8 per cent of every day spent on leisure.

CARS

Tata Motors the Indian truck maker that owns Jaguar and Land Rover has received 203,000 orders for its Nano, the world's cheapest car, more than double the initial expectation. The bookings total almost US$596-million and deliveries will start this month. Tata will choose the first 100,000 customers for the $2,500 Nano by lottery.

SPEED

Scientists have demonstrated the fastest imaging system ever devised. The camera's "shutter speed" is just half a billionth of a second and it can capture over six million images in a second continuously. Its "flashbulb" is a fast laser pulse dispersed in space and then stretched in time and detected electronically. It will be instrumental in imaging fast-moving or random events, such as communications between neurons.

TOLLS

In a concession to financially pressed shipping lines, the Panama Canal Authority has cut back some tolls and fees while giving carriers greater flexibility in reserving movements through the canal. The new fee schedule will reduce tolls on largely empty container ships and charges for transit reservations. Fees for late arrivals are also being reduced.

CAPACITY

Some experts predict that consumer demand for the Internet, already growing at 60 per cent a year, will start to exceed supply from as early as next year and will result in regular "brownouts" that will freeze computers as capacity runs out in cyberspace. The increase in demand is a result of people working from home and the soaring popularity of bandwidth-hungry websites such as YouTube.

BAUXITE

Vietnam is blessed with the world's third-largest reserves of bauxite, the raw material for aluminum and the government is keen to reap the benefits. It is seeking to attract US$15-billion or more of investments to develop bauxite mining and aluminum refining projects by 2025. Critics say the arrival of large -scale mining in a region that currently grows coffee and other crops could cause irreparable damage to the environment and displace ethnic-minority groups.

COOL

A beach near the Palazzo Versace hotel in Dubai is to have the first refrigerated beach so that hotel guests can comfortably walk across the sand on scorching hot days. The beach will have a network of pipes beneath the sand containing a coolant that will absorb heat.

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