SingTel to link Asia, Mid-East, Europe

SingTel to link Asia, Mid-East, Europe

SINGAPORE: Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) said Wednesday it had joined 12 other carriers to plan and initiate the construction of a new submarine cable linking Asia, the Middle East and Western Europe.

The proposed network will provide much needed bandwidth as existing cables along the same route are becoming increasingly saturated, SingTel said in a statement.

"Though the current market situation might not seem conducive to embark on this project, this is the opportune time... to plan and build a network to ease the expected bandwidth bottleneck between Asia and Europe," SingTel's global business vice president, Lim Shyong, said.

Details on price and configuration would not be available until negotiations with suppliers were completed, a spokesman told AFP. -- AFP

;Agencies; ANPAf..r.. Corporatebrief-Merpati-Philippine Merpati to fly to Philippine weekly JP/14/brief

Merpati to fly to Philippine weekly

DAVAO, Philippines: Indonesia's Merpati Nusantara Airlines will begin weekly flights between Davao in the southern Philippines and Indonesia's Manado, the Indonesian vice-consul said here Wednesday.

Vice Consul Johannes Manginsela said the inaugural flight would arrive in Davao on Sept. 12 and will fly the route every Thursday thereafter, using a 75-seat Fokker-28 jet.

This would complement a weekly flight between the two cities by Bouraq Airlines of Indonesia and will hopefully boost economic ties between the two countries, Manginsela said.

A Philippine airline previously flew the same route but later stopped because it could not get enough passengers. -- AFP

;Agencies; ANPAf..r.. Corporatebrief-Mitsui-Executives Executives of Mitsui step down JP/14/brief

Executives of Mitsui step down

TOKYO: Two top executives of major trading house Mitsui and Co. Ltd. resigned Wednesday over bribery allegations in overseas public works projects in the latest of a series of scandals plaguing Japanese corporations.

Mitsui president Shinjiro Shimizu and chairman Shigeji Ueshima will be officially replaced by vice president Nobuo Ohashi as chair and senior managing director Shoei Utsuda as president on Sept. 30.

Their decision to step down was approved at an extraordinary board meeting early Wednesday, a company spokesman said.

"I decided to resign as president to take responsibility and renew our management system," Shimuzu told a news conference at Mitsui's headquarters in central Tokyo. -- AFP

;Agencies; ANPAf..r.. Corporatebrief-Audi-U.S. Audi wants to double sales in U.S. JP/14/brief

Audi wants to double sales in U.S.

FRANKFURT: Audi, the top-of-the-range car maker belonging to Volkswagen, aims to double its sales in the United States within two or three years by strengthening its sales network there, Audi chairman Martin Winterkorn said in a newspaper interview on Wednesday.

Audi planned to increase by 20-30 percent the number of its U.S. dealers, which currently stands at 300, Winterkorn told the Financial Times Deutschland.

The car maker is to take market share from competitors Mercedes and BMW, which are much more established in the U.S. than Audi is, the newspaper said.

"We expect to sell 90,000 cars in the U.S. this year," compared with 83,300 in 2001, Winterkorn said. -- AFP