KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's manufacturing sales in February fell

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's manufacturing sales in February fell
16.3 percent year-on-year to 22.1 billion ringgit (US$5.8
billion), the Department of Statistics said Tuesday.

Sales were down 7.5 percent from January.

The department said in a statement that the total number of
employees engaged in the manufacturing sector at the end of
February was down 8.9 percent year-on-year to 953,828 people, and
was down 0.8 percent from the end of January.

A total of 1.44 billion ringgit was paid out as salaries and
wages in February, down 7.1 percent from a year earlier and down
2.7 percent compared to January.

For the first two months of the year, manufacturing sales
totaled 46.0 billion ringgit, down 12.7 percent from the same
period a year earlier, while total salaries and wages paid
declined 5.2 percent to 2.93 billion ringgit. -- AFP

IMF extends US$1b credit to Turkey

WASHINGTON: The International Monetary Fund said Monday it
would extend a further US$1 billion in credit after a favorable
review of the country's economic performance.

The credit is part of a $16-billion loan approved in February
by the organization.

The IMF said Friday that Turkey's economic policies were on
the right track, despite a dramatic 9.4-percent contraction in
the economy last year.

"The Turkish authorities have made considerable progress in
implementing their ambitious economic reform program. In the
past, financial indiscipline and structural weaknesses had
prevented Turkey from realizing its economic potential, and
created an environment of highly volatile growth and inflation
over several decades," IMF First Deputy Managing Director Anne
Krueger said in a statement. -- AFP

German growth will only be "very modest" in 2002: Bundesbank

FRANKFURT: Growth in Germany, the biggest euro-zone economy,
will again be only "very modest" this year, but should be helped
by favorable prospects for inflation, the Bundesbank said on
Tuesday.

In its 2001 annual report, published Tuesday, the German
central bank said current indicators pointed to an increase in
production and orders in the course of the year, while business
confidence was also improving.

However the weak production at the start of this year would
mean that full-year growth would be little better than the growth
of 0.6 percent recorded in 2001, the report said.

"Economic growth will once again be very weak this year," the
Bundesbank said. -- AFP

Vietnam to privatize 432 more firms

HANOI: Communist Vietnam has selected 432 more state-owned
enterprises to be privatized this year in a boost for slow-moving
reform of its state economic sector, a government official said
Tuesday.

An additional group of state companies will be chosen later
this year to also be "equitized," the government's term for
privatization, the State Enterprise Reform Board official said.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the
government has set a target of reducing the number of state-owned
enterprises from about 5,600 currently to about 2,000 by the end
of 2005.

The 2,000 remaining state enterprises will include utilities
and major companies in key economic areas, he said.

Only 915 state-owned enterprises have been "equitized" since
the start of the reform program in 1992, including 254 last year,
the official said. -- AP

U.S. insurers book first ever loss

NEW YORK: U.S. car, home and business insurers' suffered their
first-ever annual loss last year, battered by claims from the
destruction of the World Trade Center and miserable investment
returns.

U.S. property-casualty insurers, including firms such as State
Farm, Allstate Corp. American International Group Inc. and
Travelers Property Casualty Corp., lost US$7.9 billion overall in
2001, compared with a $20.6 billion profit in 2000.

It was the industry's first loss since figures have been
recorded, almost a century ago, according to Insurance Services
Office, Inc. and the National Association of Independent
Insurers, which carry out an annual tally of insurers' results.

"The key forces that came together to form the 'perfect storm'
of 2001 were recession, underpricing, catastrophe losses, medical
cost inflation, Enron, abuse of the legal system and, of course,
the Sept. 11 terrorist attack," said Bob Hartwig, chief economist
at the Insurance Information Institute, reviewing the results. --
Reuters