JP/16/Money

JP/16/Money

Australia to host trade meeting

SYDNEY: Australia will host a major meeting of trade ministers in November in a bid to push along the latest round of global trade negotiations, Trade Minister Mark Vaile announced on Thursday.

Vaile said about 25 ministers from countries including the United States, European Union, Japan and Singapore would attend the meeting in Sydney on Nov. 14 and 15.

The gathering will come exactly a year after ministers from the 144-nation World Trade Organization (WTO) met in Doha to launch a new round of negotiations to lower global trade barriers.

Vaile said the meeting would be "critical" for addressing a number of sticky issues that have emerged ahead of the next full meeting of the Geneva-based WTO in Cancun, Mexico, in September 2003. -- AFP

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JP/16/Money

Taiwan may waive tax for tourists

TAIPEI: Taiwan's top economic planning agency has proposed exempting foreign visitors from the five percent sales tax in a bid to boost the tourism industry, officials said Thursday.

The measure proposed by cabinet-level Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD) was aimed at stimulating tourism to meet the government target of doubling the number of tourists to two million a year by 2007, CEPD officials said.

Taiwan also aims to increase visitor arrivals, which includes business travelers and other non-tourists, to five million in 2007 from some 2.6 million expected this year, they said.

The Tourism Bureau will study options for waiving the sales tax before making recommendations to the cabinet and parliament.

In the six months to June, visitor arrivals stood at 1.29 million, down 7.1 percent from the same period last year. Most visitors were from Japan, the United States, and Hong Kong.

Some 35.9 percent of the visitors were tourists. -- AFP

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JP/16/Money

Germany's economy grew 0.2% in Q2

FRANKFURT: Germany's economy grew an estimated 0.2 percent in the second quarter, the same modest pace as seen in the first quarter, the chief economist of the Bundesbank, the central bank, said in an interview published Thursday.

Hermann Remsperger told the financial daily Boersen-Zeitung: "Economic activity remained very subdued on the whole in the second quarter.

"According to our estimates, gross domestic product (GDP) grew at the same moderate pace as seen in the first quarter."

Official second-quarter GDP figures for the 12-state euro zone's biggest economy are scheduled to be published next week.

Remsperger said that not only was the export-orientated economy hit by global economic conditions, but strikes in key sectors, such as the electrical, engineering, metalworking and construction industries, also reduced output. -- AFP