On the eve of the opening of the Gothenburg Book Fair, which runs September 24-28, fair director Frida Edman, along with Frankfurt Book Fair director Juergen Boos, co-signed an editorial in Dagens Nyheter, Sweden’s largest newspaper, called “Why we need book fairs more than ever.” The piece offers their perspective on the role of book fairs in fostering the literary community and asserting the need to for live, in-person fairs to persist.
Edman supplied PW with a translation of the editorial, which reads as follows:
Today, the Nordic region’s largest cultural event, the Book Fair in Gothenburg, begins, and in a few weeks, the Frankfurter Buchmesse, the world’s most important book fair for the industry will launch its virtual Special Edition and its festivals BOOKFEST city and digital. By writing these words, we want to emphasize how important book fairs are – not only for publishers, authors and readers, but also for our communities.
Book fairs nourish our communities because they put stories and storytelling in the spotlight. They bring together authors, spark debates and literary conversations, they organize readings and provide first-hand information on book markets. Moreover, they are an immense tribute to free speech, a concrete manifestation of literature and public discourse. And, of course, our fairs are big festivals for the publishing industry and for all book lovers.
In 2020, the coronavirus has forced many book fairs to cancel or go completely digital. In doing this, we embrace a new experience: we learn a lot and develop, make new collaborations and reach new (and broader) target groups. But we also hear questions about the book fairs’ future existence. Has the physical meeting played its role now that everything is going digital?
Our answer is crystal clear: absolutely not. The physical encounter between people will always be a cornerstone of a democratic society – it is essential for driving one’s business and for maintaining successful business relations. Plus, book fairs around the world are a strong engine for the international literary economy.
Every year, more than a hundred Nordic and international agents participate in the Book Fair in Gothenburg, and a few thousand exhibitors from around 100 countries attend Frankfurter Buchmesse. It is not possible to describe in numbers the value that is lost by agents not meeting and negotiating international rights – often the first bids are placed in Gothenburg, stressed during intensive negotiations in Germany and then sold in the world.
Göran Wiberg, Sales Manager, Bonnierförlagen, believes that 50% of book sales at the Gothenburg Book Fair are dependent on the meeting between authors and readers. At Frankfurter Buchmesse last year, for the first time, publishers were allowed to sell their books to the public on Saturday and Sunday of the fair, making a significant amount of revenue. This is indicative of the importance of book fairs for publishers’ financial position in the future.
A prerequisite for this to remain the case is that book fairs take place and that publishers, agents, readers and not least politicians realize how important the book fairs are, and that in the future they secure their participation, visit or support. This year, their participation shows by each group taking part in and getting involved in supporting these book fairs.
Book fairs around the world remind us every year of the importance of literature, reading, and free speech. Book fairs are a prerequisite for the story’s survival and future. Without book fairs, there will be fewer publishers and authors. With fewer authors, we lose readers. Without readers, there is no strong democracy.
The world would be poorer without book fairs. This year we try to cater to the needs of publishers, authors, the industry and the audience with as many formats and offers as we possibly can. But in the uncertain future, we think that for us, as organizers of book fairs, it’s absolutely crucial that we take additional responsibility to create conditions for physical meeting. Together with the industry. And with the support of politics.
Artificial intelligence (AI) affects our lives more and more. Learn about the opportunities and threats for security, democracy, businesses and jobs.
Europe’s growth and wealth are closely connected to how it will make use of data and connected technologies. AI can make a big difference to our lives – for better or worse – and the European Parliament established a committee on artificial intelligence in digital age that examined the impact of the technology and proposed a long-term EU Roadmap to AI. MEPs have also called for a future-proof AI regulation. Below are some key opportunities and threats connected to future applications of AI.
175 zettabytes The volume of data produced in the world is expected to grow from 33 zettabytes in 2018 to 175 zettabytes in 2025 (one zettabyte is a thousand billion gigabytes)
EU countries are already strong in digital industry and business-to-business applications. With a high-quality digital infrastructure and a regulatory framework that protects privacy and freedom of speech, the EU could become a global leader in the data economy and its applications.
Benefits of AI for people
AI could help people with improved health care, safer cars and other transport systems, tailored, cheaper and longer-lasting products and services. It can also facilitate access to information, education and training. The need for distance learning became more important because of the Covid-19 pandemic. AI can also make workplace safer as robots can be used for dangerous parts of jobs, and open new job positions as AI-driven industries grow and change.
Opportunities of artificial intelligence for businesses
For businesses, AI can enable the development of a new generation of products and services, including in sectors where European companies already have strong positions: green and circular economy, machinery, farming, healthcare, fashion, tourism. It can boost sales, improve machine maintenance, increase production output and quality, improve customer service, as well as save energy.
11-37% Estimated increase of labour productivity related to AI by 2035 (Parliament’s Think Tank 2020)
AI opportunities in public services
AI used in public services can reduce costs and offer new possibilities in public transport, education, energy and waste management and could also improve the sustainability of products. In this way AI could contribute to achieving the goals of the EU Green Deal.
1.5-4% Estimate of how much AI could help reduce global greenhouse emissions by 2030 (Parliament’s Think Tank 2020)
Strengthening democracy
Democracy could be made stronger by using data-based scrutiny, preventing disinformation and cyber attacks and ensuring access to quality information . AI could also support diversity and openness, for example by mitigating the possibility of prejudice in hiring decisions and using analytical data instead.
AI, security and safety
AI is predicted to be used more in crime prevention and the criminal justice system, as massive data sets could be processed faster, prisoner flight risks assessed more accurately, crime or even terrorist attacks predicted and prevented. It is already used by online platforms to detect and react to unlawful and inappropriate online behaviour.
In military matters, AI could be used for defence and attack strategies in hacking and phishing or to target key systems in cyberwarfare.
Threats and challenges of AI
The increasing reliance on AI systems also poses potential risks.
Underuse and overuse of AI
Underuse of AI is considered as a major threat: missed opportunities for the EU could mean poor implementation of major programmes, such as the EU Green Deal, losing competitive advantage towards other parts of the world, economic stagnation and poorer possibilities for people. Underuse could derive from public and business’ mistrust in AI, poor infrastructure, lack of initiative, low investments, or, since AI’s machine learning is dependent on data, from fragmented digital markets.
Overuse can also be problematic: investing in AI applications that prove not to be useful or applying AI to tasks for which it is not suited, for example using it to explain complex societal issues.
Liability: who is responsible for damage caused by AI?
An important challenge is to determine who is responsible for damage caused by an AI-operated device or service: in an accident involving a self-driving car. Should the damage be covered by the owner, the car manufacturer or the programmer?
If the producer was absolutely free of accountability, there might be no incentive to provide good product or service and it could damage people’s trust in the technology; but regulations could also be too strict and stifle innovation.
Threats of AI to fundamental rights and democracy
The results that AI produces depend on how it is designed and what data it uses. Both design and data can be intentionally or unintentionally biased. For example, some important aspects of an issue might not be programmed into the algorithm or might be programmed to reflect and replicate structural biases. In adcition, the use of numbers to represent complex social reality could make the AI seem factual and precise when it isn’t . This is sometimes referred to as mathwashing.
If not done properly, AI could lead to decisions influenced by data on ethnicity, sex, age when hiring or firing, offering loans, or even in criminal proceedings.
AI could severely affect the right to privacy and data protection. It can be for example used in face recognition equipment or for online tracking and profiling of individuals. In addition, AI enables merging pieces of information a person has given into new data, which can lead to results the person would not expect.
It can also present a threat to democracy; AI has already been blamed for creating online echo chambers based on a person’s previous online behaviour, displaying only content a person would like, instead of creating an environment for pluralistic, equally accessible and inclusive public debate. It can even be used to create extremely realistic fake video, audio and images, known as deepfakes, which can present financial risks, harm reputation, and challenge decision making. All of this could lead to separation and polarisation in the public sphere and manipulate elections.
AI could also play a role in harming freedom of assembly and protest as it could track and profile individuals linked to certain beliefs or actions.
AI impact on jobs
Use of AI in the workplace is expected to result in the elimination of a large number of jobs. Though AI is also expected to create and make better jobs, education and training will have a crucial role in preventing long-term unemployment and ensure a skilled workforce.
14% of jobs in OECD countries are highly automatable and another 32% could face substantial changes (estimate by Parliament’s Think Tank 2020).
Competition
Amassing information could also lead to distortion of competition as companies with more information could gain an advantage and effectively eliminate competitors.
Safety and security risks
AI applications that are in physical contact with humans or integrated into the human body could pose safety risks as they may be poorly designed, misused or hacked. Poorly regulated use of AI in weapons could lead to loss of human control over dangerous weapons.
Transparency challenges
Imbalances of access to information could be exploited. For example, based on a person’s online behaviour or other data and without their knowledge, an online vendor can use AI to predict someone is willing to pay, or a political campaign can adapt their message. Another transparency issue is that sometimes it can be unclear to people whether they are interacting with AI or a person.
A national public health campaign promoting the flu vaccine is urgently needed to avoid stretched healthcare services being overwhelmed this winter as the US faces cold season while still struggling to gain control of the coronavirus pandemic, scientists have warned.
Influenza or seasonal flu is a perennial public health burden that, like Covid-19, causes most severe problems among elderly people and those with underlying health conditions.
During the winter of 2018-2019, about 35.5 million people in the US got sick with flu, almost half a million were hospitalized and 34,200 died, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):
That’s it from me, Jessica Murray, today, thanks to everyone for reading along – I’ll now hand over to my colleague Helen Sullivan in Australia.
The British prime minister, Boris Johnson, called for the UK population to come together for “collective health” in a televised address in which he announced “perhaps six months” of new restrictions to slow the spread of coronavirus.
Johnson said the country must “reserve the right to go further” with coronavirus restrictions. He does not want to impose a second total lockdown, but said there have been “too many breaches” of the rules.
‘We must take action now’: Boris Johnson calls for ‘resolve’ amid new Covid-19 rules – video
Hundreds of students in Dundee, Scotland have been told to isolate after a suspected Covid-19 outbreak in halls of residence.
NHS Tayside is investigating a single positive case and a small number of suspected cases of coronavirus linked to private student accommodation, Parker House in Dundee.
Close contacts of the positive case, who is a student of Abertay University, are being contacted.
All 500 residents at the accommodation have been asked to self-isolate until further contact tracing has been completed.
Dr Daniel Chandler, associate director of public health, said:
We know from outbreaks in other university settings across Scotland that the virus can spread very quickly in student accommodation.
Therefore, as a precautionary measure, we are contacting all residents of Parker House and advising them to self-isolate immediately.
Further investigation and contact tracing are continuing and we will review this advice in the coming days.
Prof Nigel Seaton, principal of Abertay University, said:
Our students in Parker House are being supported to self-isolate safely and we will remain in regular daily contact with them.
The university already has enhanced cleaning and safety measures in place on campus, in line with national guidance, and the campus will remain open.
We have contacted students and staff to remind them of their personal responsibilities in relation to Covid safety and to inform them of today’s changes in Scottish government guidance.
Saudi Arabia will gradually resume the year-round umrah pilgrimage from 4 October, the interior ministry said on Tuesday, seven months after it was suspended because of the coronavirus pandemic.
In the first stage, “6,000 citizens and residents within the kingdom will be allowed to perform the umrah per day from October 4,” the ministry said in a statement published by the official Saudi press agency.
Visitors from outside the kingdom will be permitted from 1 November, when the capacity will be raised to 20,000 pilgrims per day, the ministry said.
Umrah, the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca that can be undertaken at any time of the year, attracts millions of Muslims from across the globe each year.
Muslim worshippers at the Grand Mosque during umrah in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, in 2019. Photograph: Amr Nabil/AP
The ministry said umrah would be allowed to resume at full capacity once the threat of the pandemic is eliminated.
Saudi Arabia suspended umrah in March and scaled back the annual hajj over fears that the coronavirus could spread to Islam’s holiest cities.
The pilgrimages are a massive logistical challenge, with colossal crowds cramming into relatively small holy sites, making them vulnerable to contagion.
The decision to resume umrah was in response to the “aspirations of Muslims home and abroad” to perform the ritual and visit the holy sites, the interior ministry said.
Saudi Arabia’s custodianship of Mecca and Medina – Islam’s two holiest sites – is seen as the kingdom’s most powerful source of political legitimacy.
The sites draw millions of pilgrims every year and are a key revenue earner for Saudi Arabia.
The government hopes to welcome 30 million pilgrims to the kingdom annually by 2030.
A “no-deal” Brexit could be three times more costly to Britain’s economy in the long term than the coronavirus outbreak, a new study published on Tuesday has warned.
The thinktank UK in a Changing Europe said the political and economic effects of the pandemic were likely to mitigate or hide that of failing to secure a trade agreement with the EU.
But in the short term, the lack of a new formal trading relationship with Brussels would be bad news for economic recovery, and its impact larger than that of the health crisis in the long term.
The thinktank, which collaborated with the London School of Economics (LSE), said Brexit would hit growth in the coming years more than if the UK had opted to remain in the bloc. Its authors wrote:
The claim that the economic impacts of Covid-19 dwarf those of Brexit is almost certainly correct in the short term.
Not even the most pessimistic scenarios suggest that a no-deal Brexit would lead to a fall in output comparable to that seen in the second quarter of 2020.
However – assuming a reasonably strong recovery, and that government policies succeed in avoiding persistent mass unemployment – in the long run, Brexit is likely to be more significant.
Our modelling with LSE of the impact of a no-deal Brexit suggests that the total cost to the UK economy over the longer term will be two to three times as large as that implied by the Bank of England’s forecast for the impact of Covid-19.
The study estimated that the negative impact on gross domestic product would be 5.7% over the next 15 years compared with the current level, while GDP was forecast to take a 2.1% hit from Covid-19.
The projections come despite a lack of clarity about the overall repercussions from the pandemic, and as a second wave of infections hits Europe.
French pharmaceutical firm Sanofi and Britain’s GSK have promised up to 72m doses of their Covid-19 vaccine candidate to the Canadian government, which has already signed similar agreements with several American companies.
The two groups, which plan to seek regulatory approval for the vaccine in the first half of 2021, launched human clinical trials in early September, for which 440 participants are being recruited.
Canada already signed in August agreements in principle for candidate vaccines with American firms Novavax, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer and Moderna.
Ottawa has requested from Moderna an additional 14m additional doses, procurement minister Anita Anand said on Monday.
In total, “Canada has now ensured guaranteed access to a minimum of 154m doses and up to a maximum of 262m potential vaccines to protect Canadians and save lives,” she told a news conference.
As of Monday, Canada, which has a population of nearly 38 million, had recorded more than 146,000 cases of Covid-19 and 9,269 deaths.
Several countries have already reserved doses of the vaccine candidate from Sanofi and GSK – 60m doses have been promised to the British government, the European Commission has reserved 300m, and the US 100m with an option for up to 500m additional doses over the longer term.
Wisconsin governor Tony Evers declared a new public health emergency and extended a face coverings mandate into November to fight a flare-up of coronavirus cases, as the United States surpassed the grim milestone of 200,000 Covid-19 deaths.
In-person social gatherings led to cases skyrocketing among people aged 18 to 24, Evers said, as he pleaded with students who returned to colleges for the fall semester to stay out of bars and wear masks.
“We are seeing an alarming increase in cases across our state, especially on campus,” the governor said in a statement.
Evers’ previous mask mandate, part of a second public health emergency he issued in late July, was due to expire on Monday and has been challenged in court by a conservative group arguing the governor, a Democrat, violated state law in using emergency powers more than once.
Wisconsin has experienced one of the highest percentage increases of coronavirus cases nationwide over the past two weeks, and has the second-highest rate of positive coronavirus tests in the nation at 17%, according to a Reuters tally.
The US continues to have world’s highest number of Covid-19 deaths. On a weekly average, it is losing about 800 lives each day to the virus, according to a Reuters tally. That is down from a peak of 2,806 daily deaths recorded on 15 April.
Neogen Corporation (NASDAQ:NEOG) Q1 2021 Earnings Conference Call September 22, 2020 11:00 AM ET
Company Participants
John Adent – Chief Executive Officer and President
Steve Quinlan – Chief Financial Officer
Conference Call Participants
David Westenberg – Guggenheim Securities
John Kreger – William Blair
Mark Connelly – Stephens, Inc
Jon Braatz – Kansas City Capital
Operator
Good day, and welcome to the NEOGEN First Quarter Fiscal Year 2021 Earnings Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded.
I would now like to turn the conference over to John Adent, President and CEO. Please go ahead.
John Adent
Thank you, Matt. Good morning and welcome to our regular quarterly conference call for investors and analysts. Today, we will be reporting on the first quarter of our 2021 fiscal year which ended on August 31.
As usual, some of the statements made here today could be termed as forward-looking statements. These statements of course are subject to certain risks and uncertainties. The actual results may differ from those that we discuss today. The risks associated with our business are covered in part in the company’s Form 10-K as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In addition to those of you who are joining us by live telephone conference, I also welcome those of you joining us via the Internet. Following our prepared comments this morning, we will entertain questions from participants who’ve joined this live conference. I’m joined this morning in an appropriate social distance by Steve Quinlan, our Chief Financial Officer who will provide financial detail on our results for our quarter.
We’re pleased to report increased revenues and net income compared to our prior year’s first quarter in a very difficult operating environment. While we are developing and marketing products and services to help protect and enhance the global food supply, we continue to take extraordinary measures to protect our business and employees. We remain vigilant with our COVID-19 safety measures, but we continue to see cases around the world affect our business. Through it all our employees have done an outstanding job of adapting to these constant challenges to deliver these excellent results for the quarter. They worked extremely hard, and I’m very proud of them.
But this is far from over. And it’s not time to let up. We will continue to implement safety measures we’ve had in place since the beginning of the pandemic and refine and develop new best practices. We are constantly adding to our list of alternate suppliers of essential raw materials as well as seeking even more efficiencies with our production facilities. Everyone is feeling the effects of COVID-19. We’ve had numerous customers go out of business, while others have dramatically cut staff and output. Adaptability is vital now as customer demands and raw material supplies are impacted daily. The food and livestock industries continue to be adversely affected by the supply chain disruption that started months ago.
Let me give an example. The National Restaurant Association recently did a survey of its members after six months of the pandemic and found one in six restaurants in the US were either closed for an extended period or closed permanently. That means more than 100,000 restaurants in the US alone that will close at least temporarily with an associated estimate that the domestic restaurant industry will lose $240 billion in sales by the end of 2020. Just think about those 100,000 closed restaurants and the $240 billion in lost sales and their effects on our pre pandemic food chain. Then add the countless food service, catering and similar businesses that have been devastated by the pandemic and the restaurant shift to customers eating a far greater percentage of their meals at home. Economic Recovery to pre pandemic levels is going to take many months, if not years.
The immediate future is further clouded as the northern hemisphere begins to enter its flu season. As we face these challenges, we will continue to develop contingency plans across our businesses to prepare for what may come and while the future is unclear due to COVID-19 what is clear is the future of NEOGEN. We will find opportunities for growth and development in all of our markets. Later on, we’ll address some of those opportunities that have arisen for NEOGEN due to the pandemic, as well as some of the very encouraging developments from a global R&D groups. But before I do, I’m going to pass it over to Steve to run down the numbers for you.
Steve Quinlan
Well, thanks, John, and welcome to everyone listening this morning. Before I talked about the numbers, I’d like to echo John’s comments about how proud we are of our global team for how seriously they’re taking the responsibilities to keep their fellow employees safe during this pandemic, and for the results they’ve been able to produce in this very difficult operating environment. Earlier today, we issued a press release announcing the results for our first quarter, which ended on August 31. Revenues for the quarter were $109.3 million, compared to $101.4 million in the same quarter a year ago. Net income for the quarter was $15.9 million, or $0.30 a share, compared to $14.7 million or $0.28 a share a year ago.
In the next few minutes, I’ll give you some color around the numbers. And I’ll start by talking about the currency impacts to the business in the first quarter, which were mixed. The pound and the euro were each up 3% against the dollar compared to the first quarter of fiscal 2020, which provided a bit of tailwind for our European results. The Brazilian real and the Mexican peso, on the other hand, were 27% and 14% lower on average than in last year’s first quarter. Revenues would have been $2.1 million higher for the first quarter in a neutral currency environment. Almost all of that impact was felt in the food safety segment as the majority of our international businesses report in through this segment.
Revenues for the Food Safety segment were $54.2 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2021, an increase of 6% compared to $51 million even in last year’s first quarter. The revenue gains in the segment were driven by a $2.4 million increase in our England based manufacturer of cleaners and disinfectants on sales of hand sanitizer products to the UK National Health Service and a $1.2 million increase in sales in China with gains across the product portfolio and particularly in cleaners and disinfectants to combat the African swine fever and COVID-19. At our Brazilian operations, 2021 first quarter sales increased 38% in local currency, and included a large non recurring insecticide sale to a government health organization in Nicaragua.
Additionally, sales were strong across our entire portfolio of products, including a 16% increase in dairy drug residue test kits, continued market penetration in aflatoxin test kits and growth in rodenticides and genomic services. However, negative currency translation resulting from the real devaluation lowered the growth reported from Brazil to 1% in US dollars. At NEOGEN Latino America 13% growth in revenues in local currency in the first quarter, resulted primarily from increased sales of cleaners, disinfectants and sanitizers mostly in Mexico. Adjusting for the devaluation of the peso relative to the dollar resulted in a revenue decline of 2% in US dollars compared to last year’s first quarter. Combined revenues at our UK operations increased 21% primarily resulting from a large order of hand sanitizers to the UK government’s health organization, and strong cleaner and disinfectant sales to Asia Pacific, Africa and the Middle East. Histamine test kit sales also contributed to the growth due to increased business from tuna producers, as did our Raptor test system for mycotoxin.
Our domestic Food Safety business grew 2% for the quarter. As we discussed on our year end call there is still significant amount of disruption in the food processing and food production markets, with certain of our customers serving the grocery markets doing very well, while other customers serving bars, restaurants and other commercial food service are struggling. But there were areas of growth within the business. We introduced our next generation Soleris system in late July to US markets and had strong positive reactions and great initial demand for the system, which is used to detect spoilage organisms such as yeast and mold in processed foods.
On a worldwide basis, our test to quickly detect environmental Listeria in food processing plant Listeria right now continues to gain acceptance in the market with revenues up 9% in the quarter. Revenues for our industry leading product line to detect allergen contamination in foods were down 3% in the quarter, and our AccuPoint line which is used to detect general sanitation and cleanliness in food processing environments declined 7%. Each the result of lower end market demand reflected as a continued disruption in our customers and in our markets.
Natural toxin product sales increased 1% compared to last year’s first quarter, as continued market share gains on aflatoxin kit sales in Brazil were largely erased by the real to dollar currency conversion. Higher DON sales in the prior year in Europe from an outbreak did not repeat. And similarly domestic sales were flat due to clean crops so far this year. Revenues for our test to detect the presence of antibiotics in milk declined by 33% in the quarter as customers in Europe work through distributor inventory. Recall that in January, we announced that we terminated the exclusive rights to distribute these products with our European distributor, and we’re now ramping up our direct sales force for that product line.
The animal safety segment recorded revenues of $55.1 million for the quarter, up 9% over the $50.4 million achieved in last year’s first quarter. The growth was led by a $3 million increase in sales of rodenticides resulting from rodent pressures across the US particularly in the Pacific Northwest. Revenues at our Australian operations rose $1.2 million on the strength of increases in sheep and cattle genomic testing, and the incremental revenues resulting from our acquisition of Cell BioSciences in March of this year.
Revenues at our domestic genomics testing and bioinformatics business located in Lincoln, Nebraska increased $1 million and continued market share gains in the companion animal parentage and wellness testing space and sales from our recent launch of a chip for shrimp testing, which offset lower sales to a large poultry customer as it moves to one of our lower density, lower cost chips. Domestic commercial beef and dairy sales were also sluggish in the quarter the result of the COVID outbreaks in our customer supply chains and continued poor economic conditions in dairy markets. Worldwide, our genomics revenues increased 11%, with some additional growth in China and increased testing in the swine market.
Animal Care Products sold out of our Lexington, Kentucky based manufacturing and distributing center, such as vitamin injectables, equine and small animal supplements, wound care and antibiotic products were up 8%. These increases were somewhat offset by a 25% decrease in sales of dairy supplies, which we’ve distributed for a number of years for a large manufacturer of dairy equipment. Our distribution agreement with that manufacturer ended in June of this year.
Sales of veterinary instruments and disposables such as needles and syringes declined 8% for the quarter, and lower sales to our larger Animal Health distributors. Life Science product revenues declined by $400,000 the result of lower forensic kits sales to commercial labs, as they process fewer samples due to Covid related slow downs.
Our Domestic Cleaner and Disinfecting business benefited from a 31% increase in hand sanitizers and wipes resulting from COVID-19 demand somewhat offset by lower sales of water treatment products. And our insecticides revenues in the US rose 6% boosted by our purchase in July of the StandGuard product line. Gross margins were 46% for the quarter compared to 47.5% in last year’s first quarter. The lower margins are primarily the result of the shift in product mix and the food safety segment toward products which have lower gross margins. The impact of the stronger dollar on our product costs in Mexico and Brazil and increased duties, freight in and other overhead costs in our Lansing operations, partially offset by the increased sales rodenticides, a higher margin product and increased efficiencies that are Australian operations due to increased throughput in the animal safety segment.
Overall, our operating expenses drop 2% compared to last year’s first quarter, primarily the result of a 6% reduction in our sales and marketing spend. Lower global travel, trade show and other on site customer facing activities caused by travel restrictions from the COVID pandemic drove the decrease in expense here.
General administrative expenses rose 3% for the quarter, due primarily to increased compensation and legal and professional fees. Our R&D expenses increased 5% over the prior year quarter on outside services related to the launch of the next generation Soleris product, which as I said was launched in July and has been receiving very positive reviews.
Operating income for the first quarter was $18.9 million, compared to $16.3 million in last year’s first quarter, with the increase the result of the higher sales and gross margins and reduced operating expenses, expressed as a percent of revenues operating income was 17.3% compared to 16% even in last year’s first quarter. We recorded $722,000 in interest income for the quarter and this compares to $1.5 million last year. The lower amount recorded despite increased cash balance reflects the tremendous decline in yield in fixed income investments. As an example, the rate on one year treasury bills which was 1.8% in last year’s first quarter declined to 12 basis points this year, as the financial markets reacted to the pandemic.
Our effective tax rate for the first quarter was 19.9% compared to 17%, even in last year’s first quarter. Last year’s effective rate was low due in large part to $769,000 in tax benefits recognized from the exercise of stock options. This year that comparable number was $421,000. I’ve mentioned on previous calls that the volume of option exercises and the gain on those exercises can result in significant fluctuations in the effective tax rate for the comparative period. Another factor impacting the higher tax rate for this year’s first quarter was a lower benefit recognized from foreign derived income due to the timing of full year estimated income from our international operations.
On the balance sheet, our net receivable balances declined by $7 million compared to year end, and our collection period dropped from 68 days at year end to 61 days for the first quarter. And we feel good about those strong collections, particularly in this environment. Inventory increased by $2.5 million or 3% primarily due to increases in the UK for long lead time items. As discussed on a year end call, given the uncertainty around the supply chain caused by COVID, and potential Brexit disruptions, we believe it’s prudent to carry a little bit more inventory than we normally might. We continue to generate cash nicely, and produce $25 million in cash from operations during the quarter.
Our strong cash position gives us the flexibility to pursue just about any of the many growth opportunities that we have in front of us.
I’ll stop here and again emphasize that we’re proud of the team and their overall performance of what continues to be a very challenging operating environment. We capitalized on a number of market opportunities during the quarter. And we continue to be excited about both our current business and the new products that we’re launching this year. And as always, we appreciate the support of our shareholders, and all those listening on the call today.
At this point, I’ll turn it back to John for the moment.
John Adent
Thanks, Steve. As I’ve previously said, our mission matters today more than ever, as the world fights through this crisis to eventually recovery. There are few things more important than a continuing safe and plentiful food supply. NEOGEN was built to respond in times of crisis and may have responded. We’ve done our best again to assist the broader civic efforts to combat COVID-19 making by our sanitizers and disinfectants available outside of our traditional agriculture and veterinary markets. Another example of an opportunity for NEOGEN that was created by the pandemic is sales of our test to detect histamine that Steve talked about. It’s a spoilage indicator and some fish and especially used in tuna. Sales of canned tuna have spiked as consumers have sought less expensive sources of protein to consume at home, and sales of our test kits for histamine increased by 20% compared to the prior year quarter. We’ve also benefited from the now well documented increase of spending on pets, especially dogs and cats during the COVID era.
Our genomic operations recently marked the 2 million tests performed on companion animal samples, mostly for dog breed identification, but now expanding into canine wellness tests. As we respond to the pandemic, we’ve also recently launched some significant new products from our R&D pipeline.
As mentioned before, in July, we launched our new Soleris next generation, which is an automatic test system that detects micro organisms such as yeast and mold in a fraction of the time of traditional test methods. As Steve mentioned, we’ve had a tremendously positive market reaction to this product launch, especially to the nutraceutical and cosmetic industries. Just last week, we launched an improved test for gluten, which has been one of our major food allergen tests. The improved test rapidly detects gluten in food products, raw ingredients and environmental samples. What that means is companies can now use the same method to test for allergens and food and environmental samples, as opposed to using different methods for different sample types. We believe that this is a major advancement from one of our core product lines. And we’re in the final stages of development for similar improvements to more of our food allergen tests.
We also expect that other major product launches in the coming months are going to be very successful. We’re encouraged by many of our other developments in the quarter; for example, our revenues in China more than doubled for the quarter. Our management team there is experienced and is working under an improved operating structure and growing our revenues across all of our product lines.
Our Animal Safety and Genomics revenues have more than doubled in China. And we’ve had really solid broad base gains in the food safety side. We’re also encouraged by the initial performance of the companies we acquired within the past year that are now under NEOGEN management.
In Australia, we added our food safety line to our animal safety genomics offerings, and are providing very promising results.
In Italy, we’re starting to see the benefits of NEOGEN’s ownership of our previous distributor there, as we are in Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile. Through it all, we’ve made gains where we can as we work to protect our employees and business. And once again, I’m extremely proud of how our team has acted and reacted to this unprecedented business and social environment. I’m sure that a lot of you have questions. So at this point, I’m going to stop and open it up to those of you who have joined the call.
Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from David Westenberg with Guggenheim Securities.
DavidWestenberg
Hi and thanks for taking my question. Good job executing on a — in a really challenging environment. So I’m going to start with the rodenticides sales. I know we’re getting news articles about rodents taking over New York City. I’m just trying to kind of understand whether or not this pickup in sales is something that you think can increase. And if you can maybe quantify what the rodenticides were versus — because we also kind of want to figure out that disinfectants and sanitizers and rodenticides did very well in the quarter. So we are trying to understand contribution from rodenticides, if that could be recurring? And then if there’s a way to quantify that in order to understand also in terms of what the sanitation products that might be a COVID lift are? I get that’s a long question. Sorry about that.
JohnAdent
That’s all right. Yes, well, the big lift for us on the rodenticides was really as Steve talked about in the Pacific Northwest and the Ag market. So we had a really — there was a really strong outbreak kind of out there. We are seeing in our worldwide markets a lift in our PCO, which is to the more metropolitan areas. But that’s a market that is relatively new to NEOGEN. But it’s one that we’re pretty excited about and see some long term growth opportunities in. In the cleaners and disinfectants, as Steve mentioned, you saw we had increases in hand sanitizers in the UK where we were working with the UK Government. We continue to look for opportunities there. I think when we stepped up at the beginning of the outbreak and provided sanitizers outside the market there’s a lot of new customers we picked up, everybody else have kind of gotten their supply chain in order.
So there’s a lot of sanitizer pressure, there’s not a run on it like there was but we’re seeing pretty good retention rate for the customers that we picked up early in the year.
DavidWestenberg
Got it. Okay. And then another — asking to kind of quantify. You got contribution in StandGuard, but it was only about a month. And I know you give an organic revenue number, and it’s — we could subtract what the top line is and kind of figure out what acquisitions did. But if there’s a couple of pieces; I can probably just try to get at for — in terms of trying to model out. Would you be able to call out StandGuard and if one month — just times that by 12 to get kind of the run rate for StandGuard? And then kind of the distributor acquisition contributions, if you can’t give a specific, if you can maybe give us a qualitative kind of way to think about it, so our models next year look correct?
JohnAdent
Okay, Steve will handle that one.
SteveQuinlan
Thanks, John.
JohnAdent
You’re welcome, Steve.
SteveQuinlan
So David, on the StandGuard product, we had about $160,000 of revenue for that product. Remember, we just bought it right near the end of July; we just kind of launched it into our market. So it’s just starting off. But we’re really encouraged about the prospects for the product line. And the distributors that we purchased, I think it’s important to note that we were doing business with a number of those distributors already – and those numbers were already somewhat in our food safety numbers. So you’re really seeing incremental revenues there. So it’s really tough to call out and say, well, Chile was x, because it was already — we’re doing the incremental margin there. But as John said, we’re excited about the opportunities in those markets. We’re staffing them up, we’re kind of putting that NEOGEN infrastructure in, and we’re just excited about the future of those businesses. I think I’d probably stop there on that.
DavidWestenberg
Got it. And just further on that question, is it responsible to times that $160,000 by 12 to get the year run rate? Or is there just too much kind of noise and you just got the asset and —
JohnAdent
Yes, it’s a little early. There’s seasonality in that product. And that’s a little early. I wouldn’t do that as a straight run rate. W will have a little bit more clarity after next quarter, probably. But we [are] [ph] happy with it so.
DavidWestenberg
Got it. All right. I’m going to ask just one more question before I hop into queue. I don’t want to hog all the questions here. Just lastly on competition are you see anything differently from maybe some of the players in the life science tools, traditional ones, like Waters or PerkinElmer? I know PerkinElmer I think they launched a micro toxin test. Are you seeing that in your — in kind of impact on the market, and then as a follow up to that, when do you see competitor products is that kind of one of the things where you step on the gas in terms of R&D or is that one of the things where you maybe step on the gas in terms of acquisitions?
JohnAdent
So the answer is yes. So we have seen competitors and they continue to launch, right, you saw Hygiena launch a new ATP reader, you saw PerkinElmer buy the business in China before the COVID. And you see others that are buying up smaller, maybe a small portfolio of allergen testing or others. So there’s continued competition. And that’s why our strategy is like we’ve talked about; we continue to invest in R&D. So I think that goes right hand-in-hand with what we just launched with the gluten test, where before you were having to do a test to test for raw materials for gluten and then a separate test to test environmental samples, two separate test on two separate ways. And now we have one test, that’s going to be much simpler for the customer when they want to buy one gluten test, and they can do it across the markets. So yes, we’re continuing to invest in R&D to stay ahead. We do think there are opportunities for acquisitions. We’ve got a very nice pipeline that we’re looking at. We’ve got things that were in different stages of the pipeline, and we’re going to keep executing on that strategy.
Operator
Our next question comes from John Kreger from William Blair.
JohnKreger
Can you hear me, John?
JohnAdent
Yes, I can hear you now, John.
JohnKreger
Okay, great. So my question was trying to get at your view of how the markets are going to play out in the coming months. You talked about the fact that there’s still a lot of uncertainty. But you guys were able to really show some nice, sequential improvements in the momentum of your business as we move into the colder season. From your perspective, can the momentum continue, particularly in the food service side? Or are you thinking that maybe things may even slow down a little bit as restaurants have to deal with the fact that they can’t just rely on outdoor seating anymore?
JohnAdent
Yes, I think I think it’s going to be tough. I mean, it seems like every quarter is a year, right? I mean, the way that the team has to react in, and change to the adapting environment, and it’s from a standpoint of not only what’s happening with the customers, but raw materials, supplies, I mean, there are many cases where we have something that is a minuscule raw material to us, where all of a sudden, they have an COVID outbreak, and they’re shut down for two months. And then it’s we didn’t realize that was that critical because it’s so far down the list. But we’ve done a really good job of quantifying alternative suppliers. So no, I’m optimistic. And I’m not optimistic on the market. I’m optimistic on NEOGEN. I think the market is going to continue to be tough, I think we’re going to continue to see some challenges. I don’t know what’s going to happen in a flu season, but I’m nervous about it. Oddly enough, we’ve seen a bigger impact in this quarter on employees COVID related than last quarter. And you wouldn’t think that because with all the news and the talk at around the world, I just think it’s a couple of things that the weather was nice, and people want to get outside and I’m like everybody else I am worn out of COVID. I’m worn out of being by myself in my office and all the video conferences. But we have to stay vigilant because that social distancing is going to protect our employees and protect the business. So we’re really doing everything we can to make sure everybody’s still on point here. We think there are opportunities to help customers; we think that we’ve got things that are going to help them run their business better. So as they are approaching opportunities and they can’t be in the plants. That’s a great opportunity for NEOGEN analytics to be able to show them what they need without physically being in the facility and show them what they need across multiple sites.
So we think we’ve got a technology platform that’s going to allow us to only accelerate in this type of environment, and I think that goes to a lot of things that are happening. I don’t know if you guys saw that Frank Yiannas just put out the FDA rule to advance traceability on certain foods under the new Smarter Food Act. So that plays into what we’re doing. I mean, I’m so glad we started down that path over a year ago and developing out our analytics and our blockchain because now the industry is coming to where we’re going. And I think it’s going to be a real opportunity for us.
JohnKreger
That’s helpful. Thank you. Can you give us an update on African swine fever and how it’s impacting your swine business and your customers in that species?
JohnAdent
Yes, so John, that’s something everybody seems to be forgetting about with COVID. But it is still a major issue. And if COVID wasn’t around, this is what we’d be talking about. You saw the out — they found one dead boar on the border of Germany and Poland and China banned German imports of pork. And that’s $867 million of exports for Germany, which why you saw our kind of pork futures bump. The hog guys were getting killed in April and May; they were losing, the producers were losing almost $50 a head. Now that coincides with record profits for the processors at the same time because the raw materials are so cheap. But that’s been paradigm and they’re still losing money, but it’s only down to $10 a head. So I’m hopeful that those markets are going to strengthen. And we saw that across a lot of the markets, John, the boiler price, the boiler prices have come off their lows in April.
In May, they’re making about $0.52 cents a pound. And now it’s up to about $0.63. And the five year average is $0.88. So we’d like to see them get back to historical averages, the layer guys are making money today. Class III milk has come off its lows, it was $12. And now it’s you know, it was up to $21 in July is now at about $17 in August. But that’s enough of that group to make money. The beef guys were losing money about $10 a head through April, May, June; they’re now at breakeven or a little better. So I think the initial shock on the food supplies kind of worked its way through. So I’m pretty optimistic. It’s not — let me put it this, it’s nice to see the majority of our customers on the animal safety side making money rather than losing money.
JohnKreger
Great, thank you. One last one, Soleris, is you still in a backorder position? Or have you been able to catch up with the initial orders?
JohnAdent
We are still in a backorder for a few products. But we’ve been able to trim that tremendously. But we’ve had great demand on our new product launch.
Operator
Our next question comes from Mark Connelly from Stephens.
MarkConnelly
Thanks. What part of the appeal of the Listeria right now was that — was a huge gap between what the old test could do and the new one, which not only increased demand, but it changed the incentive, some users had to begin testing where they didn’t before. Is there anything in this gluten test that has the kind of characteristics that could actually change the audience for your testing the way that one did?
JohnAdent
I think, Mark, a better analogy might be Soleris, or Solaris next gen, traditional methods for Soleris is to test for that yeast and mold is five to seven days. And we can do it in 28, or 24 to 48 hours. So just like you’re talking about with LRN, where it — that was a traditional tests that took five days, and we did it in less than 24. It kind of changed the way that they looked at it and moved it more to an environmental test. And it could, I see that same type of opportunity for Soleris, right, so that it’s fundamentally different.
MarkConnelly
So we should think about Soleris that way but the gluten test, we really then should probably just think of as building out the reveal portfolio then.
JohnAdent
I do. And I think it is a major convenience for the customer to not have to have two separate tests, whether they’re going to do environmental or ingredient or environmental ingredient or finished product; they just have to put one test off the shelf for all their needs.
MarkConnelly
Okay, that makes sense. So just one — well, two related questions. Are you starting to see any COVID-19 changes that your customers that you think are going to be permanent in terms of protocols that maybe they’ve learned a little bit in this process? And on a related note, has COVID-19 driven any change in your thinking about what you want to acquire?
JohnAdent
Yes and yes. So not only with our customers but also with us, like we — what we — we talked about this earlier and Steve, what was the number? What percent of our kind of back office group went remote?
SteveQuinlan
70%.
JohnAdent
And if you think about that and how many are still remote?
SteveQuinlan
30% -40%
JohnAdent
Yes. And we didn’t come back to pre Covid looking, we’re looking at saying; there are certain jobs within our business that they were here that can work remotely. And they’ve been very successful working remotely. So we really challenged the team and say, what have we learned, or what’s the best practice coming out of COVID that we can take forward, and some of it is the remote workforce. The other is how we interact with the customers, I think, like I’ve talked about customers have changed in the way we interact, you’re going to have less face-to-face meetings going forward, right for a while. And we’ve been able to really develop an adapt because if you think about even our new Soleris equipment installs, a lot of those we’re doing remote, we have set up our virtual labs, we’ve got virtual installations, we have training materials; YouTube based training materials, it’s really changed the way we’ve talked about interacting with the customers. And it’s made us very efficient, and I think made us better, right?
And so I think that’s going to continue to be a positive. Now on the acquisition side; I think we have to look at those types of opportunities. We’ve talked about the FDA rule on traceability; I think that’s going to continue the USDA just put out a plan, Mindy Brashears, put out a plan yesterday, the day before about how to reduce salmonella in the food chain. And we’re getting ready to launch our salmonella test. So I think we’re heading down the right path. We’re moving in sync with the industry in the government. And I think we’ll continue to find new ways to address customer needs that we haven’t done in the past. That’s going to keep us on the front end of things.
Operator
Our next question comes from David Westenberg from Guggenheim Securities.
DavidWestenberg
Hi. Thanks for taking the follow up. So can you just talk about potential additional government contracts? I believe that you called out some in the prepared remarks. Should we be expecting more maybe contract wins if they’re in the hopper for this year? And I don’t know if you can quantify or give us a ballpark on what kind of a contribution from that kind of thing could look like.
JohnAdent
Yes, a lot of those tenders are international tenders. And what’s challenging with some of those, David, is they may be a three year tender and you win the tender, but they don’t take the product for six months, or seven months, depending on the government they have any money or not. So even though we win the tender, we don’t get to recognize any revenue for a time period after we win the tender. So they’re a little bit, they are great when you get them, they’re hard to forecast. But we do see it as an opportunity. Because as a large player in the marketplace, we’re able to efficiently supply those customers in a way that they really appreciate. So we continue to push on those types of opportunities around the world. I can’t really do a good job. And I don’t think, Steve, can do it either forecasting what that’s going to look like just because the way that they pay in the way that they come in.
DavidWestenberg
Got it. Okay. And then can you just maybe comment on what might be a little bit more color on the drags on margin. You called out a little bit of stuff, but I think you called out the rodenticides are a higher-margin product, and they did really well in the quarter. Maybe I heard that wrong. And then I traditionally have thought of genomics as being a higher-margin product, so — but that was the only account that did miss me in the quarter. So I was thinking if there’s anything to call out that I need to worry about.
JohnAdent
No, I mean, I think Steve called on genomics, we had one big customer and it was really an internal product mix that changed the way that they were using our product to a lower density chip, which was unfortunately for us it’s higher volume, lower margin, but it’s a lower density chip. So it really was a change by the large poultry customer that affected the margins in genomics. No, I mean, we just saw that. I think the big challenge is you got people that are tightening their belts, like everybody else; business is tough, environment is tough, and but we’re going to continue to grow and find opportunities and keep pushing forward.
DavidWestenberg
Perfect. Okay. So just to clarify, genomics is not necessarily a margin benefit. I know I’m sorry; I had that wrong because I thought it was a margin benefit.
JohnAdent
So within genomics there was a switch; genomics is a margin benefit within the total mix of the company.
DavidWestenberg
Got it. Okay. And then just lastly in terms of growth rate expectations, maybe next year, or you still see yourself as traditional — in Neogen, where you guys kind of say we’re a high single-digit growing business. Is it that still the expectation for the business maybe near term and long term? Put another way, we’re past COVID and —
JohnAdent
Yes, look, I’d love to get a little help from the industry. I think like we talked about last year; the market, last quarter the market was down 11 and we were relatively flat. I think the market was down 2 to 3 on food safety and we were up 8. So we’re outperforming the market. I’d love to get a little tailwind from the market, but I don’t think that’s going to happen for the next couple quarters, but that doesn’t stop us from growing.
Operator
Our next question comes from Jon Braatz from Kansas City Capital.
JonBraatz
Good morning. John, if there was a significant outbreak of African swine fever in Europe, how might that compare to the impact the African swine flu fever had on in China in terms of maybe sales of just your disinfectant products and cleaning products? I’m sort of trying to get an idea what — how Europe might be same or different than China?
JohnAdent
Yes. I think the — thanks, Jon. Thanks for the question. The difference is the type of farming, swine farming between the two regions. So when you think of China; there — even though there’s large industrial farms there’s so many backyard farms that when the disease spreads it’s just spread like wildfire because it was all those backyard hogs nose to nose touching the fences just spread through the whole country. Europe is going to have much better biosecurity measures, so while the outbreak will be could be severe and devastating for the industry; I don’t think it will be as big a ramification from an economic standpoint as it did in Asia. Now that still benefits us from a standpoint of increased hygiene protocols and increased cleaning and frequency, right? So if you were — if your process was you’re going to clean out that barn between lots of hogs and you may clean it disinfect it and then bring the next load. I can see very easily where they would clean it disinfect it; clean it disinfect and use our APT test to make sure there was nothing left over, clean it again and then bringing hogs.
JonBraatz
Okay. Is the biosecurity protocol in the hog farms in Europe as you know up to the U.S standards? I’ve been to a couple of them.
JohnAdent
Oh, yes.
JonBraatz
Okay.
JohnAdent
Yes, especially in Western Europe. I mean they’re very sophisticated, yes.
Operator
This concludes our question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to John Adent, President and CEO for any closing remarks.
John Adent
Great. Thank you, Matt. And thank you all for joining us today. And if you haven’t already, please make sure that you return your proxy votes via mail and whether you vote via mail or not you’re certainly welcome to attend our Virtual Annual meeting which is going to be Thursday, October 8th. So if you’d like to attend, please contact Rod Poland, if you have any questions on how to participate. So thank you all very much. We appreciate your support.
Operator
The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect.
“The pandemic caught the world at a time when it was having difficulties in coping with various challenges” in globalization, rules-based international system and multilateralism, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said, encouraging the delegates to look at both “the full and empty parts of the glass”.
The Turkish President underscored the need to reform multilateral organizations, particularly the UN.
Drawing attention to how “ineffective the existing global mechanisms have been” during the pandemic, he pointed out that “it took weeks, even months for the Security Council…to include the pandemic on its agenda”.
“Effective multilateralism requires effective multilateral institutions”, stressed Mr. Erdoğan.
“The fate of humanity cannot be left at the mercy of a limited number of countries”, he continued advocating for “comprehensive and meaningful reforms, starting with the restructuring of the Security Council”.
The upside
Looking at the glass as half-full, the Head of State maintained that the UN can be “the turning point in humanity’s quest for peace, justice and prosperity”.
International solidarity is essential for long-term solutions — President of Turkey
And against the backdrop of the coronavirus, advised using multilateral institutions and mechanisms to cooperate “in the most effective way”.
“International solidarity is essential for long-term solutions”, Mr. Erdoğan upheld.
Global pandemic
The President maintained Turkey’s support in fighting the virus, citing the early days of the outbreak, when his country called for “cooperation in all international platforms” and was at the forefront of efforts in the G-20 richest States, Turkic Council, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and others.
Moreover, Turkey reached out to 146 countries and seven international organizations that requested medical equipment assistance; repatriated a hundred thousand Turkish citizens from 141 countries; and carried more than 5,500 foreigners from 47 countries to their homes.
Mr. Erdoğan echoed his call that the supply of medical equipment, drugs and vaccine development efforts “not to be made an issue of competition”.
No matter which country they are produced in, vaccines should be offered to the “common benefit of humanity”.
Regional stability
Turning to the war in Syria, Mr. Erdoğan said that it “continues to pose a threat” to regional security and stability.
He remined that Turkey “struck the first and most serious blow” against ISIL terrorists in the region and continues to fight against the Kurdish militant PKK-YPG terrorist organization – while hosting some four million Syrian refugees
“As the international community, we cannot find a permanent solution to the Syrian issue without adopting the same principled attitude and decisive stance against all terrorist organizations”, the President of Turkey stressed, which he maintained is “also essential for ensuring safe and voluntary returns to Syria”.
“It should be a priority for all of us to resolve the conflict in Syria on the basis of the roadmap endorsed in the United Nations Security Council resolution 2254”, he spelled out.
Mr. Erdoğan asserted that the Syrian-owned and -led political process, initiated under UN auspices, “should be brought to a successful conclusion”.
“This is the only way that Syria can achieve a lasting peace, while preserving its territorial integrity and political unity”, the President underscored.
The Turkish president congratulated his compatriot, General Assembly President Volkan Bozkır, as the first Turkish citizen to undertake the high-ranking position, saying he believed Mr. Bozkir “will be the voice and conscience of the international community”.
BRUSSELS: Weary EU officials prepared for another round of urgent Brexit negotiations on Tuesday, with time running out and some European capitals beginning to doubt that London even wants a trade deal.
“But please, dear friends in London: Stop the games. Time is running out,” Germany’s European affairs minister Michael Roth warned as he met colleagues in Brussels ahead of a summit of EU leaders on Thursday.
Brussels’ chief negotiator Michel Barnier will be in London on Wednesday for informal talks with his UK opposite number David Frost on slow-moving efforts to agree a trade deal – full negotiations resume next week.
EU Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic will meet his British counterpart Michel Gove in Brussels on Monday, just ahead of Brussels’ end-of-the-month deadline for London to drop a bill designed to rewrite the deal.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that he is ready to walk away from the trade talks if there’s no progress by mid-October, and Brussels argues a deal must be done by then if it is to be implemented this year.
But – after Johnson launched British legislation to overwrite parts of the withdrawal treaty in open defiance of international law – some EU capitals think he is trying to sabotage the talks.
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney, whose country has more to lose than most if talks break down, said the mood at the foreign ministers’ meeting was pessimistic.
“What has been concerning over the last couple of days for me,” he said, “from speaking to other EU foreign ministers, is that there’s a growing sense that perhaps the UK doesn’t want to deal. And that this is more about managing the blame game as the negotiations fail.
“And I have reassured them very clearly that, in my view, that is not the case.”
Britain left the European Union on Jan 31, and will leave the bloc’s single market and customs union at the end of the year. Experts fear economic chaos if no new trade deal can be agreed by then.
But Johnson’s decision to push an Internal Markets Bill in his own parliament that his own government admits would break international law by overwriting the withdrawal treaty has infuriated EU capitals.
Brussels intends to launch legal action against the measure, but will continue to negotiate a possible trade treaty in parallel to this in the weeks to come as the bill passes through the Commons and House of Lords.
“The so-called Internal Market Bill worries us extremely, because it violates the guiding principles of the withdrawal agreement, and this is totally unacceptable for us,” Roth said.
Sefcovic said he would meet Gove as joint chair of the EU-UK Joint Coordination Committee overseeing the divorce agreement, which Johnson signed last year and hailed as an “oven-ready” deal to get Britain out of Europe.
However, he warned, “we will not be renegotiating, but we are dedicated to its full and timely implementation – nothing more and nothing less.”
France’s minister for European Affairs, Clement Beaune, said Paris still hopes there will be a trade deal to head off the danger of a breakdown in trade ties on Jan 1, but that Europe would not compromise on the treaty.
“We are not going to ratify an agreement on the future relationship if there are knife wounds all over the previous chapter,” he said, referring to a withdrawal deal that Brussels and Dublin see as vital to maintaining an open border in Ireland.
Johnson has argued that his bill will instead provide a “safety net” against what he has claimed are EU threats to impose tariffs on UK internal trade and even stop food going from mainland Britain to Northern Ireland.
The EU leaders will receive a “point of information” on progress in the trade talks at their summit on Thursday, but for the moment have left the protracted wranglings in the hands of their negotiator, Barnier.
The two sides are still divided on rules for a “level-playing field” of fair competition between companies, on state aid or subsidies for EU and UK firms and on access for EU boats to British fishing waters. – AFP
European Council President Charles Michel has gone into quarantine after a security officer tested positive for COVID-19.
Yves Herman/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
A key European Union summit planned for later this week has been postponed after European Council President Charles Michel went into quarantine.</p> <p>The president’s spokesman Barend Leyts tweeted that Michel had gone into isolation after a security officer, with whom he was in close contact early last week, tested positive for COVID-19.
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“The President is tested regularly and tested negative yesterday,” Leyts said in the tweet, adding, “Respecting Belgian rules, he has gone into quarantine as of today.”
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The meeting of EU leaders was scheduled to take place on Thursday and Friday but has now been postponed until Oct. 1 and 2.</p> <p>Among the issues due to be discussed at the gathering in Brussels were relations with Turkey and progress in the Brexit talks, with the next formal round set to take place between Sept. 28 and Oct. 2.</p> <p>On Tuesday, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said Turkey and Greece were ready to resume exploratory talks amid a <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/showdown-in-the-mediterranean-11599780440" target="_blank" class="icon none" rel="noopener noreferrer">dispute over territorial waters</a> in the eastern Mediterranean, following a scheduled videoconference call with Michel and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.</p> <p>Cyprus’ veto of EU sanctions against Belarus was also on the agenda for the now postponed summit. EU foreign ministers failed to agree sanctions against Belarusian officials on Monday after Cyprus blocked the plan.
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