GHY Tradelines

span style=”font-size:85%;”(Minister of International Trade)br //spanbr /The Honourable Stockwell Day, Minister of International Trade and Minister for the Asia-Pacific Gateway, today tabled legislation in Parliament to implement Canada’s free trade agreement (FTA) with the states of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland). It is Canada’s first such agreement with European countries.br /br /“In a time of global economic instability, free trade is more important than ever. Canada already exports more than $5 billion per year to EFTA countries, and that figure will grow under this agreement,” said Minister Day. “The agreement demonstrates that our government is taking action to help create opportunities in the international marketplace. It will benefit Canadian businesses by reducing barriers to trade. At the same time, Canadian consumers will have access to a more affordable and diverse selection of goods from EFTA countries.”br /br /The Canada-EFTA FTA provides for the elimination of tariffs in all non-agricultural sectors including aluminum and cosmetics, prefabricated buildings, coldwater shrimp and apparel products.br /br /It will also provide for the elimination or reduction of tariffs on selected Canadian agricultural and agri-food products such as durum wheat, frozen blueberries, frozen french fries, beer and Canadian crude canola oil.br /br /The Government of Canada held extensive consultations with stakeholders throughout the negotiation of the agreement to ensure that their interests and concerns were taken into account.br /br /The Canada-EFTA FTA is part of Canada’s Global Commerce Strategy, which aims to advance Canada’s commercial interests in key markets through an ambitious free trade agenda. For more information on the strategy, please visit the International Trade website a href=”http://www.international.gc.ca/commerce/strategy-strategie/index.aspx?lang=en” target=”_blank”here/a.

span style=”font-size:85%;”(Government of Canada)/spanbr /br /The Government of Canada is seeking formal consultations with the United States under the World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement process on country-of-origin labelling (COOL) measures. The Honourable Stockwell Day, Minister of International Trade, and the Honourable Gerry Ritz, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, today announced the request for consultations as an important step in defending Canadian livestock producers.br /“While Canada is firmly committed to a cooperative trading relationship, we believe that the country-of-origin legislation is creating undue trade restrictions to the detriment of Canadian exporters,” said Minister Day. “Under these circumstances, Canada has no choice but to assert its WTO rights in the defence of our exporters.”br /br /“This government continues to take a strong stand for Canadian producers on the issue of country-of-origin legislation,” said Minister Ritz. “We are committed to a respectful working relationship with our American neighbours, but have always made it clear that these new regulations must not discriminate against Canadian producers. This consultation is a formal opportunity for us to work with the U.S. to resolve this issue, as well as a strong signal that we will stand up for Canadian producers and exert our rights if necessary.”br /br /The decision to request consultations follows discussions and representations to the United States on Canada’s concerns with COOL. WTO consultations provide the parties with an opportunity to resolve a dispute through formal discussions. If consultations fail to resolve the issue, the matter can be referred to a WTO dispute settlement panel.br /br /Minister Ritz also announced that a government-industry working group is monitoring the implementation of COOL to collect information on its economic impact on Canadian livestock and meat industries. Canadian producers have already indicated that COOL is having a negative impact on livestock and meat exports.br /br /Since implementation of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and its successor, the North American Free Trade Agreement, trade between Canada and the U.S. has tripled. Moreover, the U.S. and Canada are each other’s largest agricultural trading partners; in 2007, bilateral agricultural trade totalled $32.3 billion. Reducing obstacles to trade has contributed to mutually beneficial supply chains, making both countries more competitive domestically and internationally.

span style=”font-size:85%;”(Industry Week – Adrienne Selko)/spanbr /br /bKey demand drivers for manufacturing growth, exports and business investment, are weakening significantly/bbr /br /The Manufacturing ISM Report on Business disclosed that the manufacturing sector failed to grow in November for the fourth consecutive month, and the overall economy contracted for the second consecutive month. The PMI registered 36.2%, 2.7 percentage points lower than the 38.9% reported in October. This is the lowest reading since May 1982 when the PMI registered 35.5%.br /br /“The fall in the November Institute of Supply Management (ISM) Index to its lowest level since May 1982 indicates that the rapidly declining U.S. and global economies have created a deep and worrisome slump in the U.S. manufacturing sector,” said Cliff Waldman, Economist for the Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI. “The 12th consecutive decline in new orders to the lowest level since June 1980 reflects that fact that the key demand drivers for manufacturing growth, exports and business investment, are weakening significantly. And, even more disconcerting, the accelerated decline in the backlog of orders in all industries with the exception of apparel suggests that the near-term outlook for manufacturing production is growing weaker. Read more a href=”http://industryweek.com/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=17903″here/a.

span style=”font-size:85%;”(NextGov.com – Bob Brewin)/spanbr /br /The Food and Drug Administration has completed testing a system that relies on data mining technology to screen imported foods for contamination, and plans to deploy it for agencywide use, according to an annual report FDA released on Monday.br /br /In its iFood Protection Plan/i report, FDA said it successfully tested the Predictive Risk-based Evaluation for Dynamic Import Compliance Targeting system at five seaports in the Los Angeles area and has established a steering committee to deploy the system agencywide.br /br /The value of U.S. food imports total about $70 billion a year, but FDA inspected only 1% of imported food from 2002 through 2007, according to a Government Accountability Office report released in September. An outbreak of Salmonella Saint Paul this summer caused grocery stores nationwide to remove tomatoes from shelves before FDA identified jalapeno and serrano peppers grown in Mexico as the source of the illness.br /br /Full story a href=”http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20081201_9491.php?zone=ngtoday” target=”_blank”here/a. The Food Protection Plan is on the FDA website at a href=”http://www.fda.gov/oc/initiatives/advance/food/plan.html” target=”_blank”FDA website/a, and the One-Year Summary of Progress under the Food Protection Plan is at a href=”http://www.fda.gov/oc/initiatives/advance/food/progressreport1108.html” target=”_blank”here/a.

span style=”font-size:85%;”(European Commission)/spanbr /br /The European Commission welcomes the agreement by the EU Member States to align EU legislation on classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures to the United Nations Globally Harmonised System (GHS).br /br /This new system will ensure that the same hazards will be described and labelled in the same way all around the world. By using internationally agreed classification criteria and labelling elements, it is expected to facilitate trade and to contribute towards global efforts to protect humans and the environment from hazardous effects of chemicals. The new regulation will complement the REACH regulation on the registration, evaluation, authorisation and restriction of chemicals. The European Parliament already the 3rd of September this year approved the GHS regulation. The next step will be its publication in the Official Journal, thereby making the EU one of the international leaders in the actual uptake of the UN system.br /br /Commission Vice President Günter Verheugen, responsible for enterprise and industry, said: “In a global world, we need global rules. This agreement helps to remove trade barriers and enterprises will save costs. This kind of regulation at UN level will be a great help to European industry.”br /br /Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas, responsible for environment, said: ‘The use of the same pictograms and phrases to describe the same hazards throughout the world will benefit the protection of workers, consumers and the environment.”br /br /Chemicals are manufactured and traded globally and their hazards are the same around the world. Therefore the description of hazards should not differ between countries if the product is the same. Enterprises will save costs if they do not have to assess hazard information for their chemicals against different sets of criteria.br /br /The regulation will require companies to classify, label and package appropriately their hazardous chemicals before placing them on the market. It aims to protect workers, consumers and the environment by means of labelling which reflects possible hazardous effects of the chemical, while also taking over from REACH notification of classifications to the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) in Helsinki.br /br /The regulation will after a transitional period replace the current rules on classification, labelling and packaging of substances (Directive 67/548/EEC) and mixtures (Directive 1999/45/EC). After entry into force, the deadline for substance classification according to the new rules will be 1 December 2010 and for mixtures 1 June 2015.

span style=”font-size:85%;”(CBP)/spanbr /br /Under the U.S.-Canada softwood lumber agreement of 2006, CBP is charged with working with the Canadian government to reconcile the export permit data collected by Canada with the entry summary data collected by CBP. The results of the quarterly reconciliations are closely scrutinized by several trade groups and reviewed by other U.S. government agencies. Therefore, it is important that the reconciliations’ results show data that is as consistent as possible.br /br /As such, we are requesting that importers do not round the quantities reported on the 7501, but instead report out to two decimal places. This will ensure that, when U.S. quantities are converted into board feet, they will more closely match the quantities reported to Canada.br /br /We appreciate your attention to this matter.br /br /Questions regarding the softwood lumber agreement requirements can be directed to the International Coordination Branch, Office of International Trade attention Ms. Heather Sykes at 202-863-6099.

span style=”font-size:85%;”(CEP News – Sean McKibbon)/spanbr /br /Federal and provincial government employees make vastly better salaries than their private sector counterparts, a new study by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) says.br /br /Wages paid by Canada’s federal government are on average 17.3% higher than what the private sector pays for equivalent jobs, while provincial workers earn on average 7.9% more than their private sector counterparts, the study says.br /br /The wage gap was found using census data for more than 3.7 million full-time employees in 199 occupations. In the federal government, employees are earning an average $60,924 compared to $51,947 in the private sector, the CFIB said. Average annual pay for provincial employees is $52,863 while equivalent private sector workers make $49,002.br /br /The study found the biggest wage gap in Ontario, where there is a $7,000 spread between the average provincial employee wage of $60,656 and the average private sector wage of $53,682 – a difference of 13%.br /br /“We are concerned costs will only continue to be passed on to taxpayers and make it increasingly more difficult for smaller businesses to compete with the public sector in finding qualified staff,” CFIB president Catherine Swift said in a news release that warned the gap will likely widen as the Ontario government enters a new round of collective bargaining talks. The complete CFIB report is available a href=”http://www.cfib.ca/research/reports/rr3077.asp” target=”_blank”here/a.

span style=”font-size:85%;”(CBC News)/spanbr /br /Metro Vancouver’s port authority is steaming ahead with a multibillion-dollar expansion despite the triple threat of a global financial crisis, increased competition and a slowdown in shipping traffic.br /br /The port plans to spend about $4.5 billion over the next 10 years on a new terminal in Delta, and on the expansion of the existing container facilities and the possible expansion of the cruise ship terminal in Vancouver.br /br /Port Metro Vancouver CEO Gordon Houston said he expects business will be down through much of next year, but that won’t change the port’s long-term plans. “When we put a piece of infrastructure in place, it’s there 100 years. It’s not a short-term business and we have a lot of confidence in the long term,” he said.br /br /Houston said he doesn’t know how much business the port has lost, because the effects of the global economic slowdown are just starting to show up locally. “The shipping world is usually a few months behind economic events because it works on contract, but definitely the numbers are down,” said Houston.br /br /Vancouver is competing with Los Angeles, Seattle and even Prince Rupert for dwindling shipping traffic, he noted. In June there weren’t enough ships to meet demand, said Houston. Now demand and rates have plummeted.br /br /Port Metro Vancouver was created when the federal government amalgamated the three smaller local port authorities at the start of this year.