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.