Heavy import duties discouraged Belgians from buying French wine.
The Economist was founded in 1843 by James Wilson, a British businessman who objected to heavy import duties on foreign corn.
Imports made up only 1.9percentt of China's car market in the first four months of this year because of heavy import taxes.
AvtoVAZ was given a breathing space in 2002 when the government imposed heavy import duties on used cars coming from Japan and Europe, and was also helped by an 18% value-added tax levied on all used sales through dealers.
Mr. Farkas boasts of having five Hummers, a private jet, a Caribbean island getaway, a wristwatch designed for him by Cartier at the request of Prince Albert of Monaco, even a Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead convertible he says he paid $2.2 million for, thanks to heavy import duties and other fees.
Used vehicles are subjected to heavier import taxation depending on their EURO emission classification.
Increased heavy machinery imports for construction and oil and gas projects in Western Canada were responsible for much of the decline in the surplus, along with a 19percentt rise in oil imports.
Tony McCallum, a spokesman for the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, played down the impact of Keystone XL. "Most of the Canadian oil earmarked for the U.S. Gulf Coast is to replace declining heavy oil imports from Mexico and Venezuela that produces the same amount of petcoke, so it doesn't create a new issue," he wrote in an e-mail.
China's construction boom since 2009 has been heavy on imports of raw materials, equipment and so on, and almost eliminated its trade surplus - which had stood at 10% of economic output in 2007.
They're brought into the country by William Scanlan III under his Austin, Texas-based importing company Heavy Métl Premium Imports, métl being the Aztec word for agave.
