Page 343 of articles about markets-economics

The European Commission has approved 16 programmes in 12 Member States (Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Luxembourg, Latvia, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom) to provide information on and to promote agricultural products in the European Union.

A Brazilian delegation is negotiating to remove an embargo on beef and pork exports to South Africa. South Africa suspended beef and pork purchases from Brazil in 2005 after cases of foot-and-mouth disease were discovered in the states of Mato Grosso do Sul and Parana.

The country’s total live pig production for the first half of this year could reach 390.5 million, a 6% increase over the same period of last year.

The European Commission has approved under the EU Merger Regulation the proposed acquisition of the US pharmaceutical and health care products company Wyeth by the US global pharmaceutical company Pfizer. The approval is conditional upon Pfizer's commitment to divest several types of animal health vaccines, pharmaceuticals and medicinal feed additives in the European Economic Area (EEA) or in specific Member States. The Commission had concerns that the transaction, as originally notified, would have raised competition issues in the field of animal health products on a number of national markets. In the light of the commitments offered by Pfizer, the Commission has now concluded that the proposed transaction would not significantly impede effective competition in the EEA or any substantial part of it.

Due to the decreasing production and increasing demand for pig meat in Poland, Polish imports of pig meat continue to rise. .

The decision affects Ontario pork products produced before May 15 and after July 18, 2009, and means that Russia no longer has any H1N1-related restrictions on Canadian products.

The second quarter of 2009 ended with both pork production and hog and pork prices below a year ago, which strongly suggests lower product demand. Lower production and lower prices are expected to persist for the balance of this year.

The Directorate General for Agriculture and Rural Development has published a comparative analysis of projections for agricultural commodity markets.

In the first three months of 2009, the sales of the Bulgarian meat industry registered an increase of 15.5% at current prices, according to the latest report from SFB Capital Market JSC.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack Thursday announced that $760 million from the Supplemental Appropriations Act signed by President Obama is available for approved but previously unfunded USDA direct farm ownership and operating loans throughout the country.

EU feed prices could skyrocket if importers follow through on plans to curtail U.S. soybean imports in the wake of a new fuss over traces of non-EU approved biotech corn that showed up in U.S. soybeans imported recently in Germany. EU Farm Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel expressed support for the feed processors' concerns, but there's no indication a solution will be found any time soon.

The EU remains the leading trader in the world. In terms of imports it far exceeds its nearest rival, the US and is also the world’s leading exporter since 2003. In 2006 the EU had turned into a small net exporter of agricultural products. However this proved short-lived (see MAP brief June 2008), with the EU once again showing a deficit in its agricultural trade balance for 2007 and the trend has continued in 2008. This MAP examines what lies behind the evolution in the trade balance.

Russian meat production including by-products of the first grade grew by 9.8% to 1.5m tons in he first half of 2009, if compared with the same period last year, Federal State Statistics Service (Rosstat) reports.