APEC forum gets members

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.