MANILA: Philippine exports continued to slip in August as

MANILA: Philippine exports continued to slip in August as
electronics shipments dropped sharply, the government said on
Friday, raising fears that a recovery in this key sector will
fail to materialize this year.

The National Statistics Office (NSO) said August 2003 exports
fell 2.2 percent from a year earlier to US$2.966 billion
following a 7.9 percent decline in July.

Total exports for the eight months to August this year of
$23.002 billion were only marginally higher than the $22.967
billion posted in the same period last year, an NSO statement
said.

The fall in August exports was attributed to a slump in the
dominant electronics sector, which was down 7.2 percent to $1.907
billion compared to last year, the NSO said.

Trade Secretary Manuel Roxas, however, remained optimistic
that export growth could still reach five percent by the end of
the year, remarking that there were signs of an impending
recovery in the last four months of 2003.

"Holiday consumer spending across all markets and the
(traditional) increases in year-end inventories ... will almost
certainly (enable) our electronics business to" get through this
patch, Roxas said in a statement. -- AFP

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Money-Singapore-economy
S'pore hopes electronics output to rise
JP/16/Money

S'pore hopes electronics output to rise

SINGAPORE: Electronics manufacturers in Singapore expect
production levels to rise by up to 15 percent on the year in the
September to November period ahead of the Christmas holidays, an
industry group said on Friday.

Apart from this seasonal factor, the gradual recovery in the
global economy is also helping to spur growth, the Singapore
Manufacturers' Federation said.

"Production levels for September to November are positive,"
federation president Lew Syn Pau told financial news service AFX
Asia.

Manufacturers expect growth of up to 15 percent, Lew said but
added that companies remain generally cautious as the pick-up is
not yet broad-based, with demand largely coming from the consumer
electronics segment.

The electronics sector, which accounts for the largest share
of Singapore's export-dependent economy, has been in the doldrums
for most of the year but is now on a gradual recovery.

Recently released data showed that output from electronics
industries rose 1.90 percent from a year earlier in August,
extending a modest 0.60 percent rise in July. -- AFP

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ANPAf..r..
Money-China-auto
China's auto imports up nearly 44%
JP/16/Money

China's auto imports up nearly 44%

BEIJING: China imported 117,024 motor vehicles in the first
eight months of 2003, up 43.7 percent over the same period last
year and largely due to the growing purchasing power of consumers
and falling automobile tariffs, state press reported on Friday.

In 2002, China imported 127,000 automobiles, Xinhua news
agency reported citing custom figures.

More than half of this year's vehicle imports were sedans, it
said.

Import tariffs on automobiles last year fell from 80 percent
to 50 percent on cars with engines bigger than 3.0 liters, while
tariffs on smaller engine vehicles fell from 70 percent to 44
percent in accordance with China's World Trade Organization (WTO)
commitments.

China committed to cut car import tariffs to around 25 percent
by 2006 when it joined the WTO in 2001.

Auto sales have boomed in China this year with 842,800 units
being sold in the first half of the year, up 82 percent from the
same period a year ago. -- AFP

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Japan-Russia-oil
Japan, Russia to hold oil pipe talks
JP/16/money
Japan, Russia to hold oil pipe talks

TOKYO: Japan and Russia plan in late October to hold a fourth
round of talks on a Japanese-proposed project to build an oil
pipeline spanning eastern Siberia and terminating on Russia's
Pacific coast.

A working group of Japanese and Russian government officials
meets in Moscow later this month to discuss issues related to the
feasibility study of the construction of the pipeline, financing,
and cooperation in oil exploration in eastern Siberia, a Japanese
government official said Friday.

"A series of the talks, so far, is going very smoothly...I
don't see any stumbling blocks," the official said.

Sept. 26, Kazumasa Kusaka, the newly appointed director
general of Japan's Agency for Natural Resources and Energy along
with the former director general, met his Russian counterparts
and agreed to continue talks on the pipeline project.

Both Japan and China have been lobbying Moscow intensively for
an agreement to get crude oil from the Siberian Angarsk field, in
an effort to diversify their oil import sources and reduce
reliance on oil from the Middle East. -- Dow Jones

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UAE-economy-GDP
UAE 2002 GDP grows 2.5%
JP/16/money
UAE 2002 GDP grows 2.5%

ABU DHABI: The gross domestic product (GDP) of the United Arab
Emirates (UAE) grew 2.5 percent to US$71 billion in 2002 despite
lower oil revenues, according to official figures released on
Friday by the planning ministry.

"The UAE's GDP totalled 260.6 billion dirhams ($71 billion) in
2002 compared to 254.2 billion dirhams in 2001 at a growth rate
of 2.5 percent," Planning Minister Sheikh Humaid bin Ahmed Al
Mualla said in a statement.

"The GDP growth was due to the impressive growth of the non-
oil sector whose revenues totalled 188.5 billion dirhams in 2002
compared to 179.2 billion dirhams in the previous year," he said.

Non-oil sectors accounted for 72.3 percent of GDP in 2002,
compared to 70.5 percent the previous year, while the oil sector
accounted for 27.7 percent.

Official figures also said investments in the UAE last year
totalled 16.8 billion dollars, up 2.6 percent on 2001. -- AFP

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Switzerland-banking-executives
Former executives at Swiss bank charged
JP/16/money
Former executives at Swiss bank charged

LAUSANNE, Switzerland: Eleven former executives of one
Switzerland's largest regional banks, the Banque Cantonale
Vaudoise (BCV), have been charged in connection with accounting
irregularities at the bank in recent years, a Swiss magistrate
said on Friday.

The charges include falsified company information, forgery and
unfair management, the chief investigating magistrate for the
Swiss canton of Vaud, Jacques Antenen said in a statement.

The move followed an independent inquiry earlier this year
into massive losses under previous management at BCV, which is
ranked in the top five in Switzerland behind commercial banks UBS
and Credit Suisse.

The report by former magistrate Paolo Bernasconi, which was
made public this week, found that BCV's accounts had been
manipulated since 1996 with the approval of former chief
executive Gilbert Duchoud and other executives.

Antenen declined to name those who had been indicted.

The independent inquiry had been ordered by the cantonal
government after it was forced to pump more than two billion
Swiss francs (US$1.5 billion) of public funds into BCV in three
successive capital hikes until last year. -- AFP