Governments from Austria to Australia have been combing more carefully through export licences.

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The UK government revoked more than 100 arms export licences to Bahrain, Libya and Egypt following unrest in those countries.

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Governments, they said, would do what they could to help by co-ordinating policies over export licences, secrecy and so on.

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Argentines hope it will be ended during the visit, giving way to the export licences that Britain uses for other countries.

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The latter are vastly cheaper and do not require export licences.

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That near monopoly would, when export licences were limited, mean that those companies that used the materials would have to locate themselves in China in order to get stocks.

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Another of Sir Richard's recommendations was that the decision on export licences should not be left to a kind of "wrangling" between the Foreign Office, the Department of Trade and Industry and the Ministry of Defence.

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The sanctions ban the companies from securing procurement contracts from US government agencies or obtaining new licences for the export of items controlled by export regulations.

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Besides Indonesia, one is Papua New Guinea, which said this month it would soon launch its first round of bidding for exploration licences in six years, and approve a proposed pipeline to export gas to Australia.

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