Sumitomo to import tires from Indonesian

Sumitomo to import tires from Indonesian

TOKYO: Japan's third largest tire maker Sumitomo Rubber
Industries Ltd. said Monday it would start importing tires for
minicars this month from a factory in Indonesia to cut costs.

"It is much cheaper to make tires at our Indonesian plant and
import them," said Sumitomo spokesman Mitsuru Igarishi, comparing
the cost with Japanese-produced tires.

The company, which has a tie-up with U.S. counterpart Goodyear
Tire Rubber Co. Ltd. in Japan, the United States and Europe,
would import 20,000 Goodyear-brand tires a month from PT Sumi
Rubber Indonesia, for minicars made by Mitsubishi Motors Corp, he
said.

Daily production capacity at the Indonesian plant would be
increased to 20,000 tires from 15,000 by the end of the year.

Sumitomo Rubber would reduce output from a domestic tire plant
in Nagoya, 160 kilometers (100 miles) southwest of Tokyo, to
compensate for the rise in Indonesian imports.-- AFP

Unocal plans gas pipeline for Vietnam fields

BANGKOK: U.S. energy giant Unocal Corp. (UCL) plans a pipeline
connecting its gas fields in Vietnam to markets in Thailand and
Malaysia as part of its 2004 investment strategy, The Nation
newspaper reported Monday.

Unocal is Thailand's largest natural gas producer and is also
active in Myanmar, Vietnam and Indonesia.

The Nation quoted a company official as saying that Unocal's
investment plans over the next five years would place importance
on the Arthit field in the Gulf of Thailand, in which the company
has minority interest, and adjacent blocks in Vietnamese
territory where it has a majority stake.

Company officials couldn't be immediately reached for comment.

The Thai and Vietnamese gas exploration blocks are estimated
to have gas reserves totaling about 10 to 14 trillion cubic feet.

Unocal is looking to purchase larger stakes in the Arthit
field from the Thai state-run PTT Exploration & Production PCL
(H.PTT), Randy Howard, Unocal's vice president for international
energy operations in the region, was quoted as saying.

For the Vietnamese blocks, Unocal would like to invest in a
350-kilometer gas pipeline to connect to a power plant in Vietnam
in 2004, Howard was quoted as saying.

"After that we would negotiate to connect our Vietnam pipeline
to PTT PCL's (H.PTX) third parallel gas pipeline in the gulf,
enabling us to sell our gas to Thai and Malaysian markets," he
was quoted as saying.

PTT's Thai gas grid would be connected to Malaysia in the next
two years, he said. --AP

Daihatsu to announce plan on Indonesia

TOKYO: Daihatsu Motor Co. a Japanese maker of minicars, will
soon announce its response to a request from Indonesia's Astra
International to contribute more capital to their existing
carmaking joint venture in Indonesia, Daihatsu said Monday.

"We will make an announcement very soon," a Daihatsu
spokeswoman said.

Daihatsu's comments follow a report in the Nihon Keizai
Shimbun's Monday morning edition that Daihatsu will boost its
stake in P.T. Astra Daihatsu Motor to around 60 percent, from 40
percent, by purchasing additional shares to be issued by the
joint venture.

The spokeswoman said Daihatsu will not comment on the
newspaper's "speculation" that it plans to hike the annual
production capacity of its Malaysian joint venture Perodua
Manufacturing Sdn. Bhd. to 150,000 units, from 130,000 units, by
2005.

She also called the part of the report that Daihatsu and
Toyota Motor Corp. are considering jointly entering the minicar
segment in China "speculation" and declined to elaborate on the
company's plans in the Chinese market. Toyota has a 51.1 percent
stake in Daihatsu.

During the midday break on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Monday,
Daihatsu shares were flat at 406 yen. By comparison, the auto-
sector subindex of the Nikkei 225 Stock Average was down 0.06
percent. --Dow Jones

Daimler-Chrysler to develop new model in Thailand

BANGKOK: Daimler-Chrysler has agreed in principle with its
Japanese partner Mitsubishi Motors to use Thailand as the
production base for the development of a new car, a newspaper
reported Monday.

The report by The Nation quoted Mitsubishi Motors officials as
saying that a new model will be assembled in Thailand in order to
be price competitive.

"What we will do here is build a new model that has never been
introduced anywhere in the world before," Vatchara Panchate,
executive vice president of MMC Siitipol, Mitsubishi Motors'
joint venture in Thailand, was quoted as saying.

He declined to reveal the project's timeframe or specify the
production site for the new model, The Nation said.

Company officials weren't immediately available for comment.

Vatchara said Daimler-Chrysler and Mitsubishi Motors, which
have a global alliance, would cooperate in Thailand in the same
way Ford and Mazda have done. Ford and Mazda formed a joint
venture in Thailand to produce pickup trucks. The operation uses
the same platform to produce both Ford and Mazda pickups.

The president and CEO of Daimler-Chrysler (Thailand), Karl
Heinz Heckhausen, had said earlier that the alliance with
Mitsubishi Motors would result in the introduction of a new small
car sometime in 2004.

Thailand is one of the biggest manufacturers of foreign cars
in Asia along with Malaysia and Indonesia. --DJ

SingTel mobile subscriber nearing 25 million

SINGAPORE: Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. (SingTel) said
Monday its Asia-Pacific mobile phone subscriber base is nearing
25 million.

Subscribers from its operations in Singapore, Australia,
Thailand, India, the Philippines and Indonesia totaled 24.8
million as at end June, up 11 percent compared to 22.3 million as
at end March.

SingTel shares were trading at S$1.34 (76 US cents) early
Monday afternoon, down one cent from Friday's close. --AFP

Indian cement maker ACC to cut 1,000 jobs

BOMBAY: India's leading cement maker, Associated Cement
Companies Ltd. (ACC), plans to cut its workforce by around 1,000
in the financial year to March 2003 as part of efforts to reduce
costs, a company official said Monday.

To offset the brunt of the economic slowdown seen in the past
two years, ACC has been implementing a series of cost cutting and
restructuring measures which also included exiting many non-core
operations.

"For the past few years we have been restructuring our
operations. One part of it has been manpower rationalizing," said
Nand Kumar, spokesman of ACC.

"ACC has been able to withstand falling cement prices and high
economic pressures only due to its ability to implement various
cost cutting measures. Job cuts is just one part of it."

After the job cuts, the company's workforce would be around
8,000.

ACC, with an annual cement capacity of over 10 million tones,
was badly affected by the economic slowdown.

It has however started seeing some increase in cement sales in
the past few months on the back of a revival in the economy.

The company's April-July 2003 cement dispatches were up at 4.7
million tones against 3.9 million tones a year earlier.

Profits however remained low due to prevailing poor cement
prices, with net profit during the first quarter to June at 198.4
million rupees (US$4.0 million) against 439.5 million rupees a
year earlier.

Sales during the quarter were 8.81 billion rupees against 8.30
billion rupees a year earlier. --AFP