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