July 2010 Edition
CRIME
Members and associates of the Transport Asset Protection Association (TAPA) reported 3,873 cargo crimes in Europe, the Middle East and Africa in 2009, costing manufacturers and logistic service providers losses of around US$150-million. Commodities such as tobacco products, non-electronics and sports goods saw higher levels of losses compared with the year before. There was a downward trend in other areas including metal, laptops, mobile phones, pharmaceutical and medical products. More than 200 security and transport specialists met in June in the UK to increase their joint efforts to combat cargo crime.
REFINING
Nigeria has signed a US$23-billion agreement with China to build three gasoline refineries and a fuel complex in the oil-rich, but gas-starved nation that imports much of its fuel. The deal comes as China's resource hungry economy manoeuvres its way into the African economy. The investment will add 750,000 barrels of oil a day to Nigeria's refining capability.
PANAMA
Canada has now signed a free trade agreement with Panama as well as side agreements on the environment and labour cooperation. The Agreement will lower tariffs on goods and remove other trade barriers giving new opportunities for the Canadian construction, manufacturing and agricultural sectors. It will also secure access to the Panamanian procurement market, including the US$5.4-billion expansion of the Panama Canal and other infrastructure projects. Canadian merchandise exports to Panama totalled C$91.4-million in 2009, a 52 per cent increase since 2005.
LUXURY
Abu Dhabi's Emirates Palace has become one of the first hotels to install a gold vending machine. The exterior of the machine is coated with a thin layer of gold and offers customers 320 items to choose from ranging from gold bars that can weigh up to 10 grams to customised gold coins. Gold rates are constantly updated inside the machine, courtesy of a built-in computer connected to a dealer which sells gold online.
TRANSPORT
A new bridge has been opened between Mozambique and Tanzania that will allow the first road traffic between the countries. The Unity Bridge crosses the Ruvuma River which up until now has only been passable by ferry or canoe. The two countries each paid half of the US$35-million cost of the 720-metre bridge. Mozambique's infrastructure was shattered during decades of civil war that ended in 1992. Over the past year, Mozambique has also opened a new bridge to Malawi and another over the Zambezi River.
SUBWAYS
China is to spend more than US$146-billion to triple the size of its subway system over the next five years. The country will increase the amount of track beneath its cities to more than 3,000 kilometres by 2015 from 940 kilometres at the end on 2009.
SUBSIDIES
More than 1,200 beneficiaries of European farm aid received payments worth at least US$1.2-million last year. Sugar processing companies topped the list of recipients, while producers in France were granted the highest total levels of support. All these payments were made through the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) which doles out about US$60-billion, or roughly 40 per cent of the EU's budget, each year to support farmers across the 27-nation bloc.
GAS
New data confirms that Canada has enough natural gas to maintain its current output for a full century. In a country that consumes 2.6-trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas a year, 4,000 tcf of the fuel are buried beneath Canada's foothills, plains and lowlands after a survey was conducted from coast-to-coast. Canada currently produces far more natural gas than it uses and exports the remainder to the U.S.
SPACE
It is estimated that in less than 18 months there will be no more big blocks of net addresses to give out. Predictions name 9 September 2011 as the date on which the last block will be released for net firms and others to use. Everything connected to the net needs an "IP address" to ensure data reaches the right person or device. Experts say that the net's entire existing address space will be exhausted about a year after that date. A newer scheme is being rolled out but many firms and countries are being slow to switch.
BIOMETRICS
A Polish bank is claiming to be the first in Europe to install a biometric ATM allowing its clients to use their fingertips rather than a bank card to withdraw money. The machine is based on the "finger vein" technology developed in Japan which scans the unique network of minute veins in fingertips. Although new to Europe, bank machines with this technology are already widely used in Japan.
WINE
A Chilean wine recently beat two of Bordeaux's Premier crus, two Californian wines and a Super Tuscan in a blind tasting by 100 of New York's top critics. A Napa Valley wine was ranked second.
INTERNET
Statistics Canada reports that the vast majority of Canadians are connected to the Web. In 2009, 80 per cent of Canadians aged 16 and older (21.7-million) used the Net for personal reasons. Internet usage in communities with more than 10,000 residents is now 83 per cent. Canada ranks 17th in the world among countries with the highest number of Internet users. Usage is 94 per cent in Canadian households where income is greater than C$85,000 a year and 56 per cent where income is less than $30,000 a year.
MUSIC
In 2009, sales of recorded music totalled US$17-billion globally. Overall sales were hit by the recession falling by 7.2 per cent from 2008. But sales of music in the form of digital files for use on computers, mobile phones and MP3 players grew by 9.2 per cent. Americans spent $4.6-billion on music last year, the most in the world. More than two-fifths of this was spent on digital files.
FISHING
Over-fishing now means that UK trawlers have to work 17 times as hard for the same catch as 120 years ago. Four times more fish were being landed in UK ports 100 years ago than today, and catches peaked in 1939. Over a century of intensive trawl fishing has severely depleted UK seas of bottom living fish like halibut, turbot, haddock and plaice. In the late 1880s, the government set up inspectorates in major fishing ports in an attempt to monitor what fish were being landed.
DUBAI
The long-awaited Al Maktoum International Airport opened its cargo operation in June with plans to receive passengers by the end of March next year. The US$10-billion airport is set to be the world's largest. It will have six runways and handle 120-million passengers a year when fully operational. The first phase will see the opening of a single A380-compatible runway and a cargo terminal with a capacity of 250,000 tonnes a year, with room to expand to 600,000 tonnes annually. The airport is part of the $33-billion Dubai World Central development, home to the regions largest port.
HOTELS
The hotel industry suffered one of its worst years in 2009 as investment evaporated and some hotel owners even opted to pave over properties rather than risk renting out rooms by the night. Already feeling the effects of the recession in 2008, Canada's hotel investment industry experienced another challenging year in 2009 as transaction volume plummeted by 61 per cent. The price-per-room average saw a decline of 12 per cent nationally.
CAPITAL
The Milken Institute recently ranked 122 countries in a annual exercise designed to capture the ease with which businesses can raise domestic and foreign capital, whether from banks, equity markets or other sources. Canada came first followed by Hong Kong, the UK, Singapore and the U.S. Of the bottom 20 countries, 17 were in Africa.
TIRES
The by-products of oil are the basis of many of the materials, such as plastics, from which cars are made. One of the by-products is isoprene which is used to make synthetic rubber in car tires. About a billion tires are made each year, each one requiring about 26 litres of oil. Now a way has been found to make greener tires by using genetically modified bugs to produce isoprene biologically. Around a quarter of each tire is made from isoprene and about 60 per cent of worldwide isoprene production is used by tiremakers, the rest goes into other products like glues, disposable diapers and surgical gloves.
SHIPS
Fresh orders for the world's shipyards are at a low ebb. Last year they were more than 80 per cent lower than in 2007, when sky-high freight rates and positive economic forecasts encouraged shipping companies to scramble for new vessels. Asia's shipyards, streamlined and efficient, concentrate on building large standardised ships. These are the sort in greatest oversupply. South Korea's shipyards won over half of the global orders for new ships in the first quarter of 2010, but they were worth just US$2.2-billion. In 2008, Korean yards won orders worth $32-billion.
BEES
Japanese bee-keepers have been warned to be on their guard following a spate of hive thefts. The price of honeybees has doubled in recent years after a ban on imports to try and prevent the spread of parasites. In central Shizuoka prefecture, eight hives of 60,000 bees were taken in a single night from five separate farms. Recently, the price of a swarm has more than doubled to US$400. In 2009, more than two million insects were stolen.
REMITTANCES
Migrants from developing countries sent home US$316-billion during 2009, or 6 per cent less than they did during the previous year. South Asia was the only part of the developing world to which migrants sent more money last year than in 2008. Indians abroad sent home $49-billion and Chinese $48-billion. Although remittances were small relative to the economies of India and China, they made up 50 per cent of Tajikistan's GDP in 2008.
DEVELOPMENT
The premiers of B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan have signed a deal designed to help the three western Canadian provinces remove barriers to economic development and function more as a single economic zone. Now, professional qualifications and business licenses obtained in one province will be recognized by each of the partners. This economic region is nine million people strong with a combined GDP of C$555-billion. The provinces also agreed to promote the region together and the three premiers recently travelled together to promote trade with Japan and China.
AUTOS
The UK is now the fourth largest automotive manufacturer in Europe, building two million engines and one million vehicles in 2009. The industry in the UK supports more than 180,000 manufacturing and 640,000 jobs in automotive supply, retail and servicing.
PROGRESS
The first modern antiperspirant, EverDry, hit the stores in 1903 and was so acidic that it regularly ate through clothing.
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
Members and associates of the Transport Asset Protection Association (TAPA) reported 3,873 cargo crimes in Europe, the Middle East and Africa in 2009, costing manufacturers and logistic service providers losses of around US$150-million. Commodities such as tobacco products, non-electronics and sports goods saw higher levels of losses compared with the year before. There was a downward trend in other areas including metal, laptops, mobile phones, pharmaceutical and medical products. More than 200 security and transport specialists met in June in the UK to increase their joint efforts to combat cargo crime.
REFINING
Nigeria has signed a US$23-billion agreement with China to build three gasoline refineries and a fuel complex in the oil-rich, but gas-starved nation that imports much of its fuel. The deal comes as China's resource hungry economy manoeuvres its way into the African economy. The investment will add 750,000 barrels of oil a day to Nigeria's refining capability.
PANAMA
Canada has now signed a free trade agreement with Panama as well as side agreements on the environment and labour cooperation. The Agreement will lower tariffs on goods and remove other trade barriers giving new opportunities for the Canadian construction, manufacturing and agricultural sectors. It will also secure access to the Panamanian procurement market, including the US$5.4-billion expansion of the Panama Canal and other infrastructure projects. Canadian merchandise exports to Panama totalled C$91.4-million in 2009, a 52 per cent increase since 2005.
LUXURY
Abu Dhabi's Emirates Palace has become one of the first hotels to install a gold vending machine. The exterior of the machine is coated with a thin layer of gold and offers customers 320 items to choose from ranging from gold bars that can weigh up to 10 grams to customised gold coins. Gold rates are constantly updated inside the machine, courtesy of a built-in computer connected to a dealer which sells gold online.
TRANSPORT
A new bridge has been opened between Mozambique and Tanzania that will allow the first road traffic between the countries. The Unity Bridge crosses the Ruvuma River which up until now has only been passable by ferry or canoe. The two countries each paid half of the US$35-million cost of the 720-metre bridge. Mozambique's infrastructure was shattered during decades of civil war that ended in 1992. Over the past year, Mozambique has also opened a new bridge to Malawi and another over the Zambezi River.
SUBWAYS
China is to spend more than US$146-billion to triple the size of its subway system over the next five years. The country will increase the amount of track beneath its cities to more than 3,000 kilometres by 2015 from 940 kilometres at the end on 2009.
SUBSIDIES
More than 1,200 beneficiaries of European farm aid received payments worth at least US$1.2-million last year. Sugar processing companies topped the list of recipients, while producers in France were granted the highest total levels of support. All these payments were made through the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) which doles out about US$60-billion, or roughly 40 per cent of the EU's budget, each year to support farmers across the 27-nation bloc.
GAS
New data confirms that Canada has enough natural gas to maintain its current output for a full century. In a country that consumes 2.6-trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas a year, 4,000 tcf of the fuel are buried beneath Canada's foothills, plains and lowlands after a survey was conducted from coast-to-coast. Canada currently produces far more natural gas than it uses and exports the remainder to the U.S.
SPACE
It is estimated that in less than 18 months there will be no more big blocks of net addresses to give out. Predictions name 9 September 2011 as the date on which the last block will be released for net firms and others to use. Everything connected to the net needs an "IP address" to ensure data reaches the right person or device. Experts say that the net's entire existing address space will be exhausted about a year after that date. A newer scheme is being rolled out but many firms and countries are being slow to switch.
BIOMETRICS
A Polish bank is claiming to be the first in Europe to install a biometric ATM allowing its clients to use their fingertips rather than a bank card to withdraw money. The machine is based on the "finger vein" technology developed in Japan which scans the unique network of minute veins in fingertips. Although new to Europe, bank machines with this technology are already widely used in Japan.
WINE
A Chilean wine recently beat two of Bordeaux's Premier crus, two Californian wines and a Super Tuscan in a blind tasting by 100 of New York's top critics. A Napa Valley wine was ranked second.
INTERNET
Statistics Canada reports that the vast majority of Canadians are connected to the Web. In 2009, 80 per cent of Canadians aged 16 and older (21.7-million) used the Net for personal reasons. Internet usage in communities with more than 10,000 residents is now 83 per cent. Canada ranks 17th in the world among countries with the highest number of Internet users. Usage is 94 per cent in Canadian households where income is greater than C$85,000 a year and 56 per cent where income is less than $30,000 a year.
MUSIC
In 2009, sales of recorded music totalled US$17-billion globally. Overall sales were hit by the recession falling by 7.2 per cent from 2008. But sales of music in the form of digital files for use on computers, mobile phones and MP3 players grew by 9.2 per cent. Americans spent $4.6-billion on music last year, the most in the world. More than two-fifths of this was spent on digital files.
FISHING
Over-fishing now means that UK trawlers have to work 17 times as hard for the same catch as 120 years ago. Four times more fish were being landed in UK ports 100 years ago than today, and catches peaked in 1939. Over a century of intensive trawl fishing has severely depleted UK seas of bottom living fish like halibut, turbot, haddock and plaice. In the late 1880s, the government set up inspectorates in major fishing ports in an attempt to monitor what fish were being landed.
DUBAI
The long-awaited Al Maktoum International Airport opened its cargo operation in June with plans to receive passengers by the end of March next year. The US$10-billion airport is set to be the world's largest. It will have six runways and handle 120-million passengers a year when fully operational. The first phase will see the opening of a single A380-compatible runway and a cargo terminal with a capacity of 250,000 tonnes a year, with room to expand to 600,000 tonnes annually. The airport is part of the $33-billion Dubai World Central development, home to the regions largest port.
HOTELS
The hotel industry suffered one of its worst years in 2009 as investment evaporated and some hotel owners even opted to pave over properties rather than risk renting out rooms by the night. Already feeling the effects of the recession in 2008, Canada's hotel investment industry experienced another challenging year in 2009 as transaction volume plummeted by 61 per cent. The price-per-room average saw a decline of 12 per cent nationally.
CAPITAL
The Milken Institute recently ranked 122 countries in a annual exercise designed to capture the ease with which businesses can raise domestic and foreign capital, whether from banks, equity markets or other sources. Canada came first followed by Hong Kong, the UK, Singapore and the U.S. Of the bottom 20 countries, 17 were in Africa.
TIRES
The by-products of oil are the basis of many of the materials, such as plastics, from which cars are made. One of the by-products is isoprene which is used to make synthetic rubber in car tires. About a billion tires are made each year, each one requiring about 26 litres of oil. Now a way has been found to make greener tires by using genetically modified bugs to produce isoprene biologically. Around a quarter of each tire is made from isoprene and about 60 per cent of worldwide isoprene production is used by tiremakers, the rest goes into other products like glues, disposable diapers and surgical gloves.
SHIPS
Fresh orders for the world's shipyards are at a low ebb. Last year they were more than 80 per cent lower than in 2007, when sky-high freight rates and positive economic forecasts encouraged shipping companies to scramble for new vessels. Asia's shipyards, streamlined and efficient, concentrate on building large standardised ships. These are the sort in greatest oversupply. South Korea's shipyards won over half of the global orders for new ships in the first quarter of 2010, but they were worth just US$2.2-billion. In 2008, Korean yards won orders worth $32-billion.
BEES
Japanese bee-keepers have been warned to be on their guard following a spate of hive thefts. The price of honeybees has doubled in recent years after a ban on imports to try and prevent the spread of parasites. In central Shizuoka prefecture, eight hives of 60,000 bees were taken in a single night from five separate farms. Recently, the price of a swarm has more than doubled to US$400. In 2009, more than two million insects were stolen.
REMITTANCES
Migrants from developing countries sent home US$316-billion during 2009, or 6 per cent less than they did during the previous year. South Asia was the only part of the developing world to which migrants sent more money last year than in 2008. Indians abroad sent home $49-billion and Chinese $48-billion. Although remittances were small relative to the economies of India and China, they made up 50 per cent of Tajikistan's GDP in 2008.
DEVELOPMENT
The premiers of B.C., Alberta and Saskatchewan have signed a deal designed to help the three western Canadian provinces remove barriers to economic development and function more as a single economic zone. Now, professional qualifications and business licenses obtained in one province will be recognized by each of the partners. This economic region is nine million people strong with a combined GDP of C$555-billion. The provinces also agreed to promote the region together and the three premiers recently travelled together to promote trade with Japan and China.
AUTOS
The UK is now the fourth largest automotive manufacturer in Europe, building two million engines and one million vehicles in 2009. The industry in the UK supports more than 180,000 manufacturing and 640,000 jobs in automotive supply, retail and servicing.
PROGRESS
The first modern antiperspirant, EverDry, hit the stores in 1903 and was so acidic that it regularly ate through clothing.
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
Posts
