Iran offers block to Pertamina
Iran offers block to Pertamina
JAKARTA: Iran has offered an oil block to Indonesia's state-
owned oil and gas company Pertamina, an Indonesian government
official said on Monday.
Oil and gas director-general at Indonesia's Mines and Energy
Ministry, Iin Arifin Takhyan, told reporters the government
received a letter on the offer from Iran.
"We will forward the letter to Pertamina soon," he added.
He didn't name the Iranian block offered.
Pertamina has been looking to explore for oil outside the
country amid falling proven oil reserves in Indonesia, the only
Southeast Asian member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries, or OPEC.
Last year, Pertamina was awarded Iraq's Western Desert block,
which is estimated to contain 3 million barrels of crude oil. --
Dow Jones
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HK to host next WTO meet
CANCUN: Hong Kong will be the location for the next World Trade
Organization ministerial talks, the organization's members
announced on Sunday, the same day current talks in Cancun
collapsed among differences between rich and poor nations.
The 146 members of the WTO, the organization that sets rules
for international trade, confirmed that Hong Kong had been chosen
for a meeting to be held at an unspecified date.
Two years ago during a meeting in Doha, Qatar, WTO officials
agreed to launch negotiations aimed at creating a new treaty on
international trade by Jan. 1, 2005.
However, the failure of talks in Cancun have cast doubt on
whether that goal can be achieved, and some have wondered if
members can agree enough to continue.
No exact date was given for the Hong Kong meeting. If Cancun
had been successful, it would likely have been scheduled for late
2004.
But some believe the meeting could be called earlier to try to
jump-start the stalled negotiations. -- AP
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China's inflation rises in August
BEIJING: China's inflation rate rose 0.9 percent in August
compared with the same month a year ago as services and food
became more expensive, the government said on Monday.
Food prices in August rose 2.2 percent from a year earlier,
with meat and poultry prices up 3.5 percent, grain up 0.4 percent
and vegetables up 4.9 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics
said.
Services also cost more, jumping 2.6 percent from a year
earlier.
The August figures mark the eighth consecutive rise in Chinese
consumer prices, further strengthening suggestions that Asia's
second largest economy could be escaping from a vicious spiral of
falling prices affecting it since the late 1990s.
In July, inflation ran at 0.5 pct after 0.2 percent in June.
The Consumer Price Index for the first eight months of the
year was up 0.6 pct from a year earlier. -- AFP
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African tourism conference starts
ADDIS ABABA: A five-day conference of the World Tourism
Organisation (WTO) opens in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on
Monday and plans to launch an African tourism forum, an Ethiopian
tourism official said.
"Some 38 Africa member countries of WTO will attend the Addis
Ababa forum to evaluate Africa's tourism market under the current
political, economic and social situation of the world," tourism
commission official Matewos Gebermariam told reporters.
WTO Secretary General David Devilior will attend the forum of
the 140-member body, which includes 50 African states.
In the past year the number of tourists worldwide reached 715
million, of which only 28.7 million visited Africa, excluding
Egypt, Ethiopian tourism commissioner Yusuf Abdullah Suker said.
Ethipoia itself earned US$77.1 million in tourism revenue in
the past year, he said.
"Some 156,327 foreigners from all over the world visited
Ethiopia during the same period," he told reporters. -- AFP