MAIN HEADLINES FROM THIS ISSUE:

• Israel’s civil procurement: Obtuse finance minister is “Breaking the law on IP”

  War has broken out between Israel’s Minister of Industry, Trade and Labour, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, and Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz over the imposition of the mandatory industrial cooperation requirements for infrastructure projects.

• South Korea: Dapa to raise offset quota from late August

  Korea’s Defence Acquisition Programme Administration (DAPA) has settled on ‘late August’ for publication of revised offset guidelines that will increase the ……

• Algeria to manufacture defence equipment

  Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has established two companies that will manufacture equipment for the country’s military, a move aimed at building an indigenous defence industry to supply its armed forces and export to its neighbours.

• In Malaysia ‘Might Muscles in on the offset process – threshold rising

  Malaysia will double the offset/countertrade threshold from €10m to €20m and designate the value in Malaysian Ringgits instead of Euros, we are told. The Finance and Defence ministries have not yet approved the proposals.

• China’s creative trade finance for the third world upsets the world bank

  The Export Import Bank of China, known as Exim Bank, typically provides loans to support projects in third world countries at bargain interest rates, but with a catch: borrowing governments must contract China’s state-owned companies to complete the project.