Business news in briefs

Business news in briefs

NZ business mission here

JAKARTA (JP): Representatives from 25 New Zealand engineering
companies are currently in Jakarta to forge closer business ties
with Indonesian companies in the field.

The engineering companies cover a wide range of sectors.

Chris Burrows from the Bank of New Zealand said one of the
major obstacles to acquiring projects in Indonesia is that local
clients prefer long-term funding packages, which many New Zealand
companies do not have.

He further added that New Zealand companies are thus aiming to
attract smaller-scale contracts in the region of about US$10
million.

Under the coordination of the New Zealand Trade Development
Board, the mission coincides with today's arrival here of Prime
Minister Jim Bolger. (mds)

WB approves aid for India

WASHINGTON (AFP): The World Bank has approved loans for India
totaling US$6.5 billion to $7 billion for the next three years,
officials said.

The loans are less than the $9 billion approved for the
previous three-year period, but reflect the changing nature of
the aid and improvements in India's economy, said Heinz Vergin,
the bank official in charge of India.

Bank officials noted that Indian economic growth reached 13
percent in 1992 and 1993. Inflation was 13 percent in 1993 and
5.3 percent in 1992.

Both economic growth and inflation are expected to be 10
percent next year.

The World Bank loans are no longer aimed at propping up
India's currency reserves, but financing specific economic
projects, Vergin said.

In a related matter, the bank said its International
Development Association would provide a $117.8 million credit to
help fight blindness in India.

The funds will allow some eight million Indians to undergo
cataract surgery between now and the year 2000, the bank said.

China delays share issues

SHANGHAI (Reuter): China, trying to prop up its ailing stock
markets, announced on Saturday a postponement until next year of
most share issues due for this year.

In its top story, the Shanghai Securities News carried an
announcement from the State Council Securities Committee which
said China must develop its stock market cautiously and step by
step, whilst improving its legal and regulatory systems.

To ensure the quality of new stocks, firms must have a six-
month period of guidance from official departments to improve
their management and organization before they can be issued, the
committee announcement said.

This means the vast majority of the stock due to be issued
this year, on both the A and B lists, will only be issued next
year, it said.

In addition, issue prices must be strictly controlled and the
cost of issues must be reduced, it said.

It said institutional investors and investment funds should be
developed to increase long-term stable investment in the market.

IBM to double recruitment

TOKYO (AFP): IBM Japan Ltd. is to more than double its
recruitment in 1995 because it is expecting a recovery following
brisk sales of semiconductors and computers, news reports said
Saturday.

The Japanese subsidiary of International Business Machines
Corp. (IBM) is to hire about 300 university graduates next year,
compared with 140 this year, the Yomiuri newspaper said.

It is the first time in six years that the company is to boost
the number of new employees.

The company, facing severe business conditions in Japan, has
restructured itself, and it cut about 3,000 employees last year.

Japan's Fujitsu Ltd. also plans to boost recruitment next year
from 300 new graduates last year to 400 next year, the Yomiuri
said.

AfDB's row unsolved

NAIROBI (Reuter): The African Development Bank has ended its
annual meeting with a crucial reform of its lending policy left
up in the air and its soft loan fund bare.

Western countries declined at the three-day meeting to top up
the African Development Fund until the AfDB implements internal
reforms recommended by independent experts and adopts policies to
tackle mounting arrears on loans to member states.

"Certain steps have to be taken following the (independent
report) and certain policies adopted on resource allocation
before we can commit new funds," Britain's senior representative
Barry Hudson told the meeting.

Representatives of the African and non-African members agreed
to meet again, probably towards the end of June, according to
incoming AfDB chairman Kalu Idika Kalu, who is Nigeria's finance
minister.

In talks that ended late on Thursday, the two sides came close
to agreement on a replenishment worth around US$2.6 billion to
the Development Fund.

S. Africa woos investment

LONDON (AFP): South Africa offers many enticing opportunities
for the foreign investor in the wake of the country's first
multi-racial elections, despite warnings of a degree of political
uncertainty.

"South Africa presents a beguiling mixture of a sophisticated,
established market with the growth potential of an emerging
market," said Michael Spriggs, a leading specialist with S.G.
Warburg Securities.

"For those investors who can live with the uncertainty, the
investment case for South Africa is very appealing."

He said the country offered a "unique combination" of cyclical
economic recovery, growth prospects forecast at between three and
four percent annually, improving liquidity, and stable inflation
at around eight percent.

"After years of sanctions, the global investor is
significantly underweight in this large and sophisticated
stockmarket."

Compared with other markets of similar size and risk, such as
Mexico -- where overseas investment totaled US$10 billion last
year compared to South Africa's 650 million -- the country offers
"unusual value."

Trade-labor link opposed

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Southeast Asia's economically booming
nations will consider a common approach to fight efforts by the
West to link trade and workers' rights, a senior Malaysian
official said Saturday.

ASEAN labor ministers will discuss "the adoption of a common
approach to thwart international pressure to comply with rigid
labor standards," at a two-day meeting beginning Monday in
Singapore, Human Resources Minister Lim Ah Lek said here.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations comprises Brunei,
Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

"Malaysia would emphasize the need for developing countries to
oppose the rigid manner in which labor standards were likely to
be imposed on them on the basis of equality," Lim said in a
statement to the Bernama news agency.

At a GATT ministerial conference in Marrakesh, Morocco last
month, developing countries voiced fears that a bid to include
labor rights in the new World Trade Organization (WTO) could be
used by industrial nations as a pretext for new forms of
protectionism.