June 2014 Edition
TEA
A machine with a US$13,000 price tag is said by its manufacturer to make the perfect cup of tea. It claims that the brewing process is far more complicated than simply dipping a tea-bag into some boiling water. Prototypes are being tested in US coffee shops and the device could be commercially available later this year. It uses a brewing chamber into which loose tea leaves and water are placed. The air is then drawn out to create a vacuum. This negative pressure in the chamber brings the tea leaves to the surface of the liquid and draws out flavour more precisely than simply adding boiling water. The process is repeated for between 60 and 90 seconds and different flavours need different numbers of infusion cycles. The machine can brew more than 60 cups of tea an hour.
INTERNET
Tablet computers are behind a swift rise in people aged 65 and over using the Internet in the UK. In the past 12 months the percentage of older people going online rose by more than a quarter to 42 per cent. In 2013, 17 per cent of people in the 65-or- over category had used a tablet for their web browsing. In 2012, tablet use in this group was just five percent. Despite the increase, the oldest group of people spend the least amount of time online of any adult age group with an average of nine hours 12 minutes per week. By contrast, those aged 16-24 devote about 24 hours each week to online activities.
DENMARK
Denmark is home to 1,500 mink farmers who together rear about 17.2-million of the mammals a year, about one-fifth of the world’s supply. It also produces smaller quantities of other furs such as white fox and chinchilla. Danish food companies make the world’s most nutritious mink food, a foul-smelling, fishy concoction and Danish design companies drive fur fashions. The Danish Fur Breeders Association is the world’s largest fur-auction house which sells fur from all over the world. Last year it auctioned 21-million pelts and had a turnover of US$2.8-billion.
INFRASTRUCTURE
Although US$91-billion is spent each year on American roads, that is nowhere enough to keep the country’s 4.1-million miles of public roadways in good shape. The Federal Highway authority estimates that $170-billion in capital investment is needed every year. Last year, a report from a civil engineering group said that 31 per cent of America’s major roads were in poor or mediocre condition. Main roads through cities were in worst shape with almost half the miles travelled over urban interstates in 2013 giving a bumpy ride.
With a workforce of just over 491,000 in 2013, the United States Postal Service is second only to Walmart among civilian employers in America. But it still employed more than 200,000 fewer people last year than it did just nine years earlier, when it handled nearly 500-million more pieces of mail and had almost 2,000 more retail offices. The rise of e-mail has left America’s massive postal service with far less to do and it has been scrambling to find ways to raise revenue. A new report suggests that post offices should begin offering financial services such as cheque-cashing, small loans, bill payments and international money transfers.
TOURISTS
Nearly one in ten international tourists worldwide is now Chinese, with 97.3-million outward-bound journeys from the country last year, of which around half were for pleasure. Most of those who travel go to Hong Kong, Maca or Taiwan Chinese tourists spent most in total, US$129-billion in 2013, followed by Americans at $86-billion. More than 80 per cent of Chinese tourists say shopping is vital to their plans and that they are expected to buy more luxury goods next year while abroad than tourists from all other countries combined. This growth is expected to continue. Currently, only about five per cent of the Chinese population have passports.
AID
Last year, developing countries received US$134.8-billion in aid, the highest ever according to the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee. Donations fell in 2011 and 2012 as rich countries adopted austerity budgets. Five DAC member countries, including Britain for the first time, met the UN target of 0.7 per cent for aid as a share of gross national income (GNI). The Netherlands missed the benchmark for the first time since 1974. The United Arab Emirates increased aid fourfold, chiefly to help Egypt. America gives less than 0.2 per cent of its GNI but remains the largest donor providing $32-billion in 2013.
AIRPORTS
For the fifth year in a row, Vancouver International Airport has been recognized as the Number One airport in the world. The Skytrax rankings are based on more than 12-million passenger surveys conducted in airports around the world on 39 elements of airport experience.
PUBLISHING
A decision by Canada’s Competition Bureau means retailers will now be able to lower the prices of e-books. The Bureau has reached a deal with the four major e-book publishers that forces them to drop their practice of stopping retailers from offering discounts on e-books. Similar settlements in the US over the past two years resulted in shaved prices for e-books there. Best selling e-books are now sold at discounts of 20 per cent or more south of the border.
SNACKS
Scottish potato chip maker Mackie’s has reported a six-fold leap in annual exports to Canada.. The company exported 279,000 packages in 2013, up from 46,000 in the previous year. The Canadian market now makes up about 40 per cent of Mackie’s export sales turnover.
HEALTH
A new report by the World Health Organization (WHO) says that resistance to antibiotics poses a major global threat to public health. It analysed data from 114 countries and said resistance was happening now in every region of the world. It described a post-antibiotic era when people die from simple infections that have been treatable for decades. The report focussed on seven different bacteria responsible for common serious diseases such as pneumonia, diarrhoea and blood infections.
MINING
Plans to open the world’s first mine in the deep ocean have moved closer to reality. A Canadian mining company has finalized an agreement with Papua New Guinea to digging up an area of seabed. The controversial project aims to extract ores of copper, gold and other valuable metals from a depth of 1,500 metres. Environmental campaigners say mining the ocean floor will prove devastating, causing lasting damage to marine life. Under the agreement, PNG will take a 15 per cent stake in the mine by contributing US$120-million towards the cost of operation.
GARLIC
A farmer who stumbled across an ancient Korean method for curing garlic is now supplying some of the UK’s top restaurants with so called “black garlic”. He wanted to find a way of preserving some of the 900,000 pungent bulbs of garlic he grows so they could be eaten all year round. The answer came when he chanced upon a 4,00-year-old Korean recipe giving a way of preserving garlic bulbs by exposing them to heat and moisture for more than a month. The closely-guarded process kickstarts a chemical reaction between the sugars and amino acids which transforms regular bulbs into sweet, sticky black garlic.
ATARI
Filmmakers digging in a New Mexico landfill have unearthed hundreds of E.T, The Extra Terrestrial cartridges, considered by some the worst made video game ever and blamed for contributing to the downfall of the video-game industry in the 1980s. Some speculate that thousands or even millions of the unwanted cartridges made by Atari were buried in the landfill. The game was a design and marketing failure after it was rushed out to coincide with the release of the movie.
CO2
Rising levels of CO2 around the world will significantly impact the nutrient content of crops, such as wheat, rice and soybeans, according to a new study. Experiments show levels of zinc, iron and protein are likely to be reduced by up to ten percent in wheat and rice by 2050. The scientists say this could have health implications for billions of people, especially in the developing world. Around a third of the global population are already suffering from iron and zinc shortages.
DOORKNOBS
Vancouver’s ban on doorknobs on all new buildings has set off a chain reaction across the country as other jurisdictions ponder whether to follow Vancouver’s lead. The war on doorknobs is part of a broader campaign to make buildings more accessible to the elderly and disabled, many of whom find levered doorhandles easier to operate than fiddly knobs. Vancouver’s code adds private homes to rules already in place in most of Canada for larger buildings, stipulating wider entry doors, lower thresholds and lever-operated taps in bathrooms and kitchens, In BC, bears have been known to scavenge for food inside cars whose doors have handles for this reason and one county in Colorado has banned door levers on buildings for this reason.
CONTAMINATION
Almost a fifth of China’s soil is contaminated an official government study has shown. Conducted between 2005 and 2013, it found that 16 per cent of China’s soil and 14.5 per cent of its arable land showed contamination. The report named cadmium, nickel and arsenic as the top pollutants. The study took samples across an area of 6.3-million square kilometres, two-thirds of China’s land mass. The contamination is notably higher than the previous survey between 1986 and 1990. Up to now, this report has been classified as a state secret because of its sensitivity. There is growing fear in China over the effect that modernization has had on the country’s air, soil and water.
FARMING
The Canadian government hopes changes will lead to a huge expansion of BC’s fish farms. Bureaucratic hurdles and legal uncertainty are being swept away as part of an attempt to help the Canadian industry, which has stagnated for years, to take advantage of rising global demand for seafood. It is believed that aquaculture could expand from C$2-billion in total annual economic activity to $5.6-billion in 10 years and to more than $8-billion in 15 years. BC has been compared unfavourably to Norway which has a coastline identical in length to BC and a population size similar to BC. Norway sold more than 1.2-million tonnes of farmed salmon in 2012. In 2013, BC produced 57,000 tonnes.
CHARGING
A battery that can charge in under 30 seconds has been shown at a technology conference in Tel Aviv. A Samsung S4 device went from a dead battery to full power in 26 seconds in the demonstration. The battery is currently only a prototype and it is predicted that it will take three years to become a commercially viable product. It is estimated that the batteries are likely to be 30- to 40 per cent more expensive to manufacture compared to traditional ones and the final product will be twice as expensive as those on the market today.
SPIDERS
Gasoline-sniffing spiders have forced Mazda to issue a voluntary recall notice so it can apply a software fix to its cars. The yellow sac spider is attracted to the smell of gasoline and the manufacturer fears it could weave its web inside engines causing a blockage and build-up of pressure increasing the risk of engine fires. 42,000 Mazda 6 vehicles from 2010 to 2012 are involved in the recall.
ATM's
A homeless man in Maine used the cash advance feature on a bank ATM to give him US$700 and he did it 53 times for a total of $37,000.
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
