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Modi vaunts India at world’s biggest trade fair

Chancellor Angela Merkel and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened this year's Hannover Messe (Hanover Trade Fair) on Monday, the world's biggest industry expo, which this year has a distinctly sub-continental flavour.

Published: 13 April 2015 14:39 CEST
Modi vaunts India at world's biggest trade fair
Modi and Merkel at the opening of the Hannover Messe industry trade show. Photo: DPA

India is the partner country for the 2015 trade show, which hosts 6,500 exhibitors from 70 different countries and expects 217,000 visitors over its five days.

Modi told guests that India's development programme was “a historic opportunity for German companies” as the government plans to upgrade housing, energy generation and transport infrastructure across the country.

“Indo-German partnership should and will flourish,” he added.

Across the exhibition floor, Indian lions and the motto “Make in India”, urging investors to take a fresh look at manufacturing in the country, dominated the scene.

“India is showing itself with a new strength,” Merkel said in her own speech. “We have an exciting time before us.”

The Chancellor noted that Germany is India's biggest trading partner in the European Union, with around €16 billion of annual trade between the two countries.

But she added that there was intense competition among European countries to snap up Indian custom.

Modi was fresh from a visit to France, where he made a surprise order for 36 Dassault Rafale fighter jets – potentially netting France €4 billion.

German industry running to keep up

Organizers hope that this year's theme, “Integrated Industry – Join the Network”, will help promote the tools and technologies underpinning the automated factories of the future – so-called “Industry 4.0”.

Robots that tell their human colleagues when they need maintenance – bearing in mind who's on shift or on holiday – or stop gently at the slightest unexpected contact are just some of the innovations on show.

One company, Festo, presented Merkel and Modi with a pair of robotic ants designed to work together to solve complex problems.

Three-quarters of German companies surveyed by IT federation Bitkom expected networked, intelligent production processes to make a big contribution to the country's future prosperity.

But 80 percent of companies thought their own industries were behind the curve in implementing such new technologies.

They named high up-front costs, lack of specialist workers and data protection concerns as factors holding them back.

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FARMING

WTO rules US tariffs on Spanish olives breach rules

A US decision to slap steep import duties on Spanish olives over claims they benefited from subsidies constituted a violation of international trade rules, the World Trade Organisation ruled Friday.

Published: 22 November 2021 11:34 CET
WTO rules US tariffs on Spanish olives breach rules
Farmers had just begun harvesting olives in southern Spain when former US President Donald Trump soured the mood with the tariffs' announcement. Photo: Jorge Guerrero/AFP

Former US president Donald Trump’s administration slapped extra tariffs on Spain’s iconic agricultural export in 2018, considering their olives were subsidised and being dumped on the US market at prices below their real value.

The combined rates of the anti-subsidy and anti-dumping duties go as high as 44 percent.

The European Commission, which handles trade policy for the 27 EU states, said the move was unacceptable and turned to the WTO, where a panel of experts was appointed to examine the case.

In Friday’s ruling, the WTO panel agreed with the EU’s argument that the anti-subsidy duties were illegal.

But it did not support its stance that the US anti-dumping duties violated international trade rules.

The panel said it “recommended that the United States bring its measures into conformity with its obligations”.

EU trade commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis hailed the ruling, pointing out that the US duties “severely hit Spanish olive producers.”

Demonstrators take part in a 2019 protest in Madrid, called by the olive sector
Demonstrators take part in a 2019 protest in Madrid called by the olive sector to denounce low prices of olive oil and the 25 percent tariff that Spanish olives and olive oil faced in the United States. (Photo by PIERRE-PHILIPPE MARCOU / AFP)
 

“We now expect the US to take the appropriate steps to implement the WTO ruling, so that exports of ripe olives from Spain to the US can resume under normal conditions,” he said.

The European Commission charges that Spain’s exports of ripe olives to the United States, which previously raked in €67 million ($75.6 million) annually, have shrunk by nearly 60 percent since the duties were imposed.

The office of the US Trade Representative in Washington did not immediately comment on the ruling.

According to WTO rules, the parties have 60 days to file for an appeal.

If the United States does file an appeal though, it would basically amount to a veto of the ruling.

That is because the WTO Appellate Body — also known as the supreme court of world trade — stopped functioning in late 2019 after Washington blocked the appointment of new judges.

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