APEC forum gets members
JAKARTA (JP): Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating has appointed the managing director of Pacific Dunlop, Philip Brass, and the managing director of Nutri-Metics International, Imelda Roche, as Australia's representatives to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) business forum.
The Australian embassy said here yesterday that Brass will represent large businesses and Roche small businesses.
The decision to establish the business forum, with representatives from each member economy of APEC was made at the APEC leadership meeting in Seattle last year.
The forum will play a vital role in providing leaders with a business view of constraints to the further development of trade and investment in the region and ways in which APEC can help in overcoming them.(10)
Bundesbank cuts rate
FRANKFURT (AFP): The Bundesbank provided repurchase funds to the banking system at 5.47 percent yesterday in a move representing a reduction of 11 basis points from the lowest rate set a week ago.
The bank said that it had provided a total of 55.1 billion marks (US$32.4 billion) for 13 days and that the lowest rate arranged was 5.47 percent.
The bank also provided 2.3 billion marks for one day. The funds replaced an expiring facility of 55.1 billion marks and represented a net injection of 2.3 billion marks.
Most of the funds for 13 days were provided at 5.47-5.49 percent compared with a range of 5.59-5.61 percent last week.
The bank satisfied all requests made at 5.47 percent which was the lowest rate accepted. Banks had requested a total of 77 billion marks.
The one-day arrangement was made mainly at 5.50-5.51 percent. The bank satisfied all requests at 5.47 percent which was the lowest rate accepted. Banks had requested a total of 14.9 billion marks.
RP gold exports up 32.6%
MANILA (AFP): Philippine gold exports surged 32.6 percent in volume to 1.505 tons in the first two months of 1994 due to an increase in world demand and improved international prices, the official National Statistics Office (NSO) said here yesterday.
Export earnings from gold contained in copper ores rose 65.98 percent to US$14.83 million during the same period, it added.
Belgium lowers rates
BRUSSELS (AFP): The Belgian central bank cut several of its interest rates by 0.10 points yesterday, reducing the central rate to 5.60 percent from 5.70 percent.
The rate for advances within a pre-set limit was reduced to 7.10 percent from 7.20 percent.
The rate for other creditor situations fell to 4.60 percent from 4.70 percent on an ordinary basis and to 3.60 percent from 3.70 percent for excess amounts.
The rate for advances beyond pre-set limits was held at 10.0 percent as was the discount rate at 4.75 percent.
The bank last reduced its rates on April 20. Since December 7 the central rate, charged to financial institutions handling the public debt, has been cut from 7.50 percent to 5.60 percent.
Japan industrial output falls
TOKYO (AFP): Japan's industrial production in the year to March shrank 4.1 percent from the previous year for the third consecutive annual decline, the international trade and industry ministry said yesterday.
The decline in the index of mining and manufacturing followed a 6.3 percent drop in the year to March 1993 and a 0.7 percent decline in the year to March 1992, the ministry said.
Production shipments in the year to March this year fell 3.7 percent from the previous year. Production inventories dropped 3.2 percent, while the ratio of inventories to shipments was up 1.2 percent.
In March alone, industrial production rose four percent from February but fell 3.1 percent from a year earlier, marking two years and six months of uninterrupted year-on-year declines.
E. Asia sets sample
WASHINGTON (AFP): Countries undergoing economic reform should follow East Asia's example and ensure they do not deviate from their goals, World Bank President Lewis Preston said here Tuesday.
Economic reforms are bearing fruit in a number of developing countries, and they can expect average growth of five percent a year in the next decade, up from 3.5 percent in the 1980s, Preston told the International Monetary Fund/World Bank development committee.
This forecast depends on sustained recovery and low inflation in the industrial countries, but also on developing countries maintaining the momentum of reform, Preston said.
"The East Asian nations, in particular, have demonstrated what can be achieved by persevering with the right policy fundamentals," he said.
Hyundai to build aircraft
SEOUL (AFP): South Korea's Hyundai Group said it has established a joint venture with Russia's Yak Co. to build passenger aircraft for export.
Hyundai official said the group's affiliate, Hyundai Technology and Development Co., held 51 percent of the joint venture and Yak the remaining 49 percent.
They said Yak would provide design and manufacturing technology while Hyundai would handle financing and sales.
The joint venture is based in Moscow, but details such as the location of its factory were not given.
The venture's start-up capital was set at US$620,000.
It will build 150-seat YAK 42H and smaller YAK 40H planes.
The joint venture is part of Hyundai's long-term program to manufacture aircraft independently, and officials said the conglomerate wants to build an aircraft factory here with the help of Russian engineers.
Hyundai engineers will be dispatched soon to oversee Yak's promised technology transfer, they said.
Mexico gets investment
MEXICO CITY (Reuter): Mexico Trade Minister Jaime Serra Puche said foreign investors poured US$5.2 billion into Mexico in the first quarter of 1994.
"This quarter (ending March 31), which is to say in one- fourth of the year, we have received $5.2 billion in foreign investment," Serra told reporters after a speech here.
He did not say how much of that money was direct investment and how much was investment in stocks and other financial instruments.
In all of 1993, foreign investment in Mexico was $15.6 billion, Serra said.
Mexico has been plagued by political violence since the beginning of the year, including a peasant rebellion in the southern state of Chiapas and the assassination of ruling party presidential candidate Luis Donaldo Colosio.
The violence and the uncertainty it has caused has resulted in a fall in the Mexican bolsa and the peso, both of which are well down in 1994 because of investor wariness.
Qatar to harness gas
DOHA (AFP): Qatar launched a project yesterday to harness giant offshore gas deposits in its North Field, set to become the small Gulf sheikhdom's main source of revenue.
Construction work will start on a US$1.4 billion gas liquefaction plant at Ras Laffan, in the northeast, officials said. It will have a capacity of four million tons annually.
The North Field contains 5,000 billion cubic metres (17,500 billion cubic feet) of gas reserves.
The plant, owned by Qatar-Gas, is part of a 3.5 billion-dollar petrochemical complex due to be completed by 1997, experts said.
The complex will include an offshore gas treatment plant to be linked to the Ras Laffan plant and gas storage tanks via an 80- kilometer (48 mile) underwater pipeline, Qatar-Gas chairman Jaber al-Marri said.
The state-run Qatar General Petroleum Corporation (QGPC) owns 65 percent of Qatar-Gas, while 10 percent is owned by Total of France and 10 percent by Mobil of the United States, with the remaining 15 percent equally divided between the Japanese companies Marubeni and Mitsui.
KL bans foreign labor
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Malaysia has extended by two months a ban imposed in January on the recruitment of unskilled foreign workers pending a study on their link with social and health problems, local newspapers reported yesterday.
The decision was taken by the cabinet committee on foreign workers, chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim on Tuesday, said Deputy Home Minister Megat Junid Megat Ayob.
The freeze, announced on Jan. 8, does not affect skilled workers, professionals or domestic maids, he said.
"The committee is awaiting a detailed report from the police, immigration and health authorities on the question of security, social ills and health implications before reviewing the situation," Megat Junid was quoted saying in local news reports.
The government had said in January the freeze was to allow the authorities to flush out some 200,000 illegal immigrants, mainly from neighboring Indonesia and the Philippines, who might be illegally hired to work on labor-hungry plantations and construction sites.
GM joins Toyota network
TOKYO (AFP): Three auto parts companies affiliated with General Motors Corp. (GM) joined yesterday the Toyota Motor Corp. auto parts association, making GM the first of the Detroit "Big Three" to achieve this status, it is announced yesterday.
A spokesman for the Kanto Kyohokai, an association of 66 companies providing Toyota with auto parts, confirmed a Nikkei report that GM had been admitted.
GM's move will enable the American group to further penetrate the Japanese auto market, where US makers enjoy a minimal share.
While other US independent car parts companies are already members of the association, GM has been waiting for an invitation since late 1992, the spokesman said.
Through its participation in the Toyota's network, the GM affiliates will benefit from Toyota's cooperation in quality control and cost reduction.
Toyota also plans to import 20,000 automobiles from GM to help ease ongoing trade tension between Japan and the United States, its spokesman said.