by Andy Beharrell and John Sloman

Revaluing the Chinese currency

For the past 10 years, the Chinese currency, the yuan has been 'pegged' to the dollar at a rate of 8.28 yuan to the dollar. In recent years, the Chinese government has come under increasing pressure, particularly from the Americans, to float the yuan currency on international markets. Since China joined the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2004, this pressure has increased and in July this year the Chinese bowed to the pressure and revalued their currency.

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Bra wars

On January 1st 2005 the quotas that had bound trade in clothing and textiles were ended and free trade began. This global quota system was called the Multi-Fibre Agreement (MFA) and was introduced in the 1970s. However, following the ending of the quotas, Chinese exports of textiles and clothing grew rapidly and the EU agreed a deal with China in June to limit growth in imports of 10 categories of Chinese-made clothing and fabrics - including T-shirts and flax yarn - to 10% a year until 2008. Chaos ensued as 75 million items were held up in European ports as the quotas were exceeded very quickly. Peter Mandelson, the EU trade Commissioner, started urgent talks with the Chinese authorities and by the start of September had negotiated a deal with the Chinese. This deal was approved by the EU on September 6th.

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The G8 at Gleneagles

In July 2005, the leaders of the G8 countries met in Scotland at the Gleneagles Hotel in Perthshire. Expectations for the meeting were high and the G8 governments had been intensively lobbied in advance of the meeting to try to deliver progress on debt, aid, climate change and a range of other issues. The Live8 concert was timed to maximise the pressure on the leaders and try to change attitudes to development. So what did the summit achieve?

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Environmental policy - hotting up?

These three short news stories consider a range of topical issues for September 2005. The environment has been a key topic in recent months and each story is focused around a different aspect of the economic impact of the environment and environmental policy.

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