The International Organization for Standardization has published a new International Standard to support the inhalation toxicity testing of nanoparticles. ISO developed the standard to help address concerns about the increase in nanotechnology-based products and their safety and environmental impact. (See ITT's Online Archives or 08/17/10 news, 10081736, for BP summary of ISO issuing a report on classifying nanomaterials.)

China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) has released its preliminary ruling in its antidumping investigation of caprolactam (CPL) imports from EU and U.S. that dumping exists and has caused material injury to China’s CPL industry, and there exists a causal relationship between dumping and material injury. China decided to collect deposits for CPL imports from EU and the U.S. from January 25, 2011. MOFCOM will make its final ruling based on further investigation. (CPL is the raw material for Nylon-6, which is widely used in fibers and plastics.The China tariff number is 29337100.)

At preliminary meetings held on January 24--26, 2011, finance leaders stated that the major industrial and emerging-market nations are expected to focus on world food prices and currency stability during the 2011 G8 and G20 summits. They hope to address concerns that unstable food and commodity prices, together with international currency imbalances, could cause widespread hunger in poorer nations and stall global economic growth.

Mexico's Diario Oficial of January 27, 2011 lists notices from the Secretary of the Economy as follows:

The Chinese Government's official website has announced that more than 8,000 counterfeit electronic were destroyed on January 25, 2011 in China's Hunan Province, as part of Chinese efforts to protect intellectual property rights (IPR). Trucks rolled over piles of imitation Nokia, Motorola and Apple laptop computers, cell phones, etc. Pirated books and Gucci handbags were also incinerated.

The International Finance Corporation and the World Bank have issued their eighth annual report, Doing Business 2011, which provides rankings on the ease of doing business in 183 countries based on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with business regulations.

The Government of Canada issued the following trade-related notices on January 27, 2011:

The United Kingdom's Department for Business Innovation and Skills has posted a report by Foresight on the future of food and farming, which states that food demand and supply sustainability is best served by fair and fully functioning markets and by liberalized global trade arrangements, not by policies to promote self-sufficiency. The report notes the emergence and continued growth of new food superpowers, Brazil, China, and India, and states that Russia is likely to become even more significant in global export markets. Foresight report is available here.

The World Trade Organization posted the following notices for January 27, 2011 (may have to click twice on source documents for proper viewing):

In the January 28, 2011 edition of the Official Journal of the European Union, the following trade-related notices were posted :