RI firms get contracts during expo

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