More than a dozen of the world's largest car makers have agreed on minimum human rights, environmental and business ethics standards for their global supply chains, according to the Automotive Industry Action Group (AIAG) in Michigan and CSR Europe in Brussels, which today jointly announced the "unprecedented agreement."

Two decades after its enactment, the North American Free Trade Agreement - better known as Nafta - remains a source of deep disagreement among economists - and unions.

Analyst Insight: Industrial manufacturing includes a broad range of sub-verticals. Given the current global uncertainties, these companies are focusing on manufacturing and supply chain excellence while trying to grow their top lines. This will not stop the leaders from looking at many exciting new technologies that are emerging. The "manufacturing renaissance" going on is as likely to be around new technologies adopted as around where the manufacturing takes place. - Robert Eastman, Senior Analyst, Technology Evaluation Centers

Following nearly 2,000 incident updates in 16 months, Portoverview.com's Africa's editor, Victor Shieh told attendees at the recent Cool Logistics Conference in Cape Town, South Africa, that shipping on the continent is likely to get worse before it begins to see improvements.

Oracle Corp. has introduced Oracle Global Trade Intelligence, a trade-analytics module designed to help companies make better use of global trade data.