RI firms get contracts during expo
JAKARTA: Indonesian businesspeople clinched millions of dollars worth of deals during a recent trade exhibition in Sharjah, the United Arab Emirates.
The Indonesia Solo Exhibition (ISE), which was held between Sept. 16 and Sept. 20, displayed Indonesian products such as textiles, paper, chemicals, as well as leisure and banking services. The exhibition was aimed at potential buyers in the Gulf countries.
In the first three days of the exhibition, Indonesian businesspeople secured deals valued at US$5 million, the National Export Development Agency (BPEN), the exhibition's organizer, said in a statement.
BPEN chairwoman Diah Maulida said many of the exhibition participants had sold out all of their merchandise.
Diah said BPEN planned to hold another exhibition in Sharjah next year, with even more participants. Some 300 Indonesian businesspeople participated in the ISE this year.
The four-day exhibition attracted 20,712 visitors, according to BPEN. -- JP
Website for SMEs launched
JAKARTA: The Swiss Foundation for Technical Cooperation (Swisscontact) in cooperation with PT Dataindo Inti Swakarsa launched on Tuesday a website to help develop the country's small and medium enterprises.
The jasakami.com site allows the country's SMEs to speedily access information on business development service (BDS) providers, anytime and from anywhere, Swisscontact said in a statement.
The organization said, thus far, 100 BDS providers in 8 provinces had been listed on the website and the number was expected to increase to 250 over the next six months.
"SMEs in Indonesia often need professional assistance from a third party. But, often, they don't know what services are available or how to access them," Swisscontact Indonesia's representative Johannes Schwegler said.
"We hope the existence of jasakami.com -- as an information exchange forum -- enables SMEs to access the services they need," he said. -- JP
Unggul Indah offers Rp 600b bonds
JAKARTA: PT Unggul Indah Cahaya Tbk, the major supplier of alkylbenzene, the raw material for detergent in the Asia Pacific region, announced on Tuesday its plan to offer Rp 600 billion worth of bonds.
The company said in a statement that the five-year bonds will come in two series: Series A will have a fixed rate of between 12.375 percent and 12.875 percent, while Series B will have the Series A fixed rate for the first year, and floating rates of the average three months deposit rate, plus a premium of between 2 percent and 2.5 percent, in the remaining years.
The bonds were given an A rating with a stable outlook by local rating agency Pefindo.
The bond offering will be fully underwritten by PT Trimegah Securities Tbk and PT Danatama Makmur.
About 70 percent of the bond proceeds will be used to refinance the firm's debts -- JP
Dow Jones loses copyright suit
BEIJING: A Beijing court has ordered the American media company Dow Jones pay US$49,000 in compensation for copyright infringement and offer a written apology to a famous Chinese calligrapher, company officials said on Tuesday.
A Beijing intermediate court ruled Monday that Dow Jones should pay the compensation to calligrapher Guan Dongsheng and cease using the plaintiff's calligraphy as the company's China corporate symbol.
"Yesterday's ruling was a disappointment. We believe the facts of the case clearly show there was no violation of Mr. Guan's rights," Matt Roberts, chief representative of Dow Jones and Company in China, said in a statement to AFP.
Roberts said Dow Jones would reserve the right to appeal the ruling.
According to the court ruling, Guan had written the Chinese character "Dao" and offered it to a Dow Jones official as a gift, but never gave the company permission to use the piece of calligraphy as their company logo in China. -- AFP
Caltex to set up fuel terminal in RP
MANILA: Caltex Philippines, a subsidiary of Chevron Texaco Corp., said Tuesday it will spend US$13.6 million to convert its 49-year-old refinery into a regional supply and distribution terminal in a bid to improve profits.
The terminal will be able to store up to 2.7 million barrels of fuel and other oil products when it begins operating by the end of this year, the company said in a statement.
The decision to shut the refinery comes amid falling profits due to a glut of refining capacity in the region and will allow the company to take advantage of rising demand for imported oil products.
"The Batangas refinery has reached the end of its economic useful life and we must change the way we do business if we want to remain viable and competitive," Caltex Philippines Chairman Timothy D. Leveille said. "The way to get there is to adopt a product import strategy and thereby turn a competitive disadvantage into strength."
He said conversion of the refinery, located in Batangas province southeast of Manila, into a regional supply and distribution hub was "driven by competitive conditions" and the need to cut costs.
The Batangas refinery, built in 1954, was the country's first fuel processing plant and can refine 72,000 barrels of oil per day. -- AP
SK Group loses control of trading arm
SEOUL, Sept 23 (AFP) - South Korea's scandal-tainted conglomerate, the SK Group, has formally lost control of its trading affiliate SK Networks (SKN), formerly SK Global, officials said Tuesday.
SKN said in a statement that its shareholders agreed to remove the controlling stakes owned by the group flagship SK Corp., the country's largest oil refiner, and by SK Corp. chairman Chey Tae- Won.
The shareholders' agreement was to help speed up the restructuring of SKN under a bank receivership agreement following revelations of accounting fraud at the company, it said.
SKN officials said the stakes of 34.86 percent owned by SK Corp., 3.34 percent by Chey and smaller holdings by other SK Group units in the company will all be cancelled as a result of the shareholders' decision.
SKN, which changed its name from SK Global last week, was found in February to have inflated earnings by 1.56 trillion won in 2001 to hide losses.
Local creditors agreed in July to keep SKN afloat through a debt restructuring package which has yet to receive full support from foreign lenders.
SKN owes 830 billion won to its foreign creditors who are under pressure from the domestic creditors to accept the repayment of only 43 percent of their debt in cash. -- AFP
Swiss carrier to join OneWorld
ZURICH, Switzerland (AP) - Switzerland's struggling national airline said Tuesday that it has reached a deal to join British Airways and American Airlines in the OneWorld alliance.
Swiss International Air Lines - also known as Swiss - said it also had negotiated a separate agreement with British Airways for a "strategic alliance."
"Swiss' customers will benefit from this development in the form of a substantially expanded range of services. Swiss' passengers will also enjoy the benefits of the frequent flyer programs of all the OneWorld partners and of better connections and easier transfer service," the company said.
Trading in the airline's shares was suspended Monday, amid mounting speculation that the company would announce a lifesaving deal with another carrier. Lufthansa was also thought to be in the bidding.
The company's board met Monday afternoon, but Swiss spokesman Jean-Claude Donzel declined to give details. The board postponed its announcement until Tuesday.
Swiss has faced massive financial problems since it was created out of the defunct Swissair in March 2002, losing 980 million Swiss francs (then US$706 million) in its first year of business. Swiss brought together the remnants of Swissair, which collapsed in October 2001, and Swissair's profitable former subsidiary Crossair, a regional carrier. -- AP
Birla group buys mines in Australia
BOMBAY, Sept 23 (AFP) - The Aditya Birla group, one of India's leading industrial houses, said Tuesday it has acquired a copper mine in Australia for 651 million rupees (14.3 million US dollars).
The purchase of the Mount Gordon copper mine from Australia's Western Metals Copper was undertaken by Birla group's aluminium company, Hindalco Industries.
"The acquisition will be completed by end October," Hindalco's managing director-designate Debu Bhattacharya told reporters.
He said it was the second copper deal in Australia for the group, which in January bought the Straits Nifty operation for 2.5 billion rupees (54.7 million US dollars) from Straits Resources Ltd.
The Mount Gordon mines are located in the northeastern Australian state of Queensland, 125 kilometres (78 miles) north of Mount Isa.
The mine treats 600,000 tonnes of copper sulphide ore each year. jds/sct/bmm
India-Australia-mines AFP
GetAFP 2.10 -- SEP 23, 2003 18:28:31 ;AFP; ANPAf..u.. US-auto-unions UAW agrees to GM, Ford plant closings: report JP/US
UAW agrees to GM, Ford plant closings: report
NEW YORK, Sept 22 (AFP) - The union representing autoworkers agreed to let General Motors Corp. and the Ford Motor Company close three assembly plants and to sell or close five other facilities under the term of a new labour contract, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday. The UAW gave GM clearance to close a Baltimore assembly plant and an auto-parts factory in Saginaw, Michigan, and to sell a GM division that builds locomotive engines. The union also said that it will allow GM to close the Argonaut Building, a Detroit structure that once housed photographic and real-estate offices. In total, about 3,000 GM workers are affected.' Ford said it won UAW approval to close or sell four plants, affecting 4,500 people, according to the business news daily. Ford will close two assembly plants: a small pickup-truck factory in Edison, Illinois, which employs 863, and a full-size van plant in Lorain, Ohio, that has 1,640 workers. Ford will also close Vulcan Forge in Dearborn, Michigan, and Cleveland Aluminum Casting in Ohio. Previous UAW contracts had effectively imposed a moratorium on plant closings, but the union was forced to make more concessions in the just-finished round of talks because of the cut-throat competition in the US auto market. ld/mdl
US-auto-unions AFP
GetAFP 2.10 -- SEP 22, 2003 22:36:02