GHY Tradelines

span style=”font-size:85%;”(CBC News)br //spanbr /Canada’s goods makers helped push the economy forward in March, according to new figures released by Statistics Canada Thursday. The indicator index rose one% in March compared to February, mainly because of a rise of 3.2% in new orders for manufactured goods, said Statistics Canada.br /br /“The composite leading index [matched] its average monthly increase since July 2009. However, the sources of growth continued to shift away from housing to other sectors of consumer demand and manufacturing,” the statistical agency said in a news release.br /br /Monthly new orders for Canadian goods have risen by 25% since October 2009. Furniture and appliance sales, up 1.3%, also helped drive the index higher in the third month of 2010, a showing that represented the largest gain since June 2006, the agency said.br /br /By contrast, Canada’s housing sector has begun to cool somewhat. Statistics Canada’s monthly measure for the industry inched higher by 0.2%. That showing was the smallest improvement since the economic recovery began in the spring of 2009. At its peak, Statistics Canada said, housing sector conditions improved by five per cent per month.br /br /Summary statistics and a link to the data file are on the Statistics Canada website a href=”http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/100422/dq100422b-eng.htm” target=”_blank”here/a.

span style=”font-size:85%;”(Bloomberg/Business Week)/spanbr /br /China, the world’s biggest exporter, started two anti-dumping investigations today and levied tariffs on some nylon products, as it escalated trade spats with the U.S. and the European Union.br /br /Probes were started on a type of optical fiber and caprolactam, a chemical compound, produced in the European Union and the U.S., the Ministry of Commerce said in two statements today. Dumping is the practice of selling goods at below costs.br /br /China is swapping complaints with its two largest trading partners for goods ranging from footwear to tires to poultry, with the U.S. Commerce Ministry yesterday starting a probe into Chinese aluminum products. U.S. and European manufacturers have said the nation is undervaluing its currency, a policy that acts as a subsidy for its producers. Read more a href=”http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-04-22/china-starts-dumping-probes-into-u-s-optical-fiber-chemical.html”here/a.br /br /strongRelated:/strong a href=”http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-04/23/c_13263526.htm”U.S. Sets Preliminary Penalties on Chinese Seamless Pipe/a span style=”font-size:85%;”(Xinhua)/span

span style=”font-size:85%;”(Reuters/Washington Post)/spanbr /br /U.S. digital rights advocates and a computer industry trade group on Wednesday criticized the newly released draft text of an international agreement to toughen penalties for copyright theft.br /br /“Substantively, we remain concerned that this proposal lacks the balance that we find in U.S. copyright law, while attempting to export a regulatory regime that favors big media companies at the expense of consumers and innovators,” Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a digital rights group, said in a statement.br /br /The European Union’s executive branch and the U.S. Trade Representative’s office on Wednesday both posted texts of the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) on their websites, years after groups first requested to view the language under negotiation. Read more a href=”http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/21/AR2010042104523.html”here/a.