Month: March 2011

EU sanctions imposed on the Ivory Coast on 14 January 2011 are now having a significant effect on the wood trade. The sanctions are designed to choke off funding to Ivory Coast’s president Laurent Gbagbo and pressure him to cede power. According to an EU spokesman quoted by the Bloomberg news agency last month, “an important consequence is the prohibition to make available, directly or indirectly, economic resources to or for the benefit of the persons or entities subject to sanctions. Therefore, payments and transfers to sanctioned entities become illegal.”