Yellen to lead Fed
WASHINGTON (Reuter): President Clinton has decided to name Alan Blinder and Janet Yellen to the Federal Reserve Board, a senior administration official said yesterday.
The announcement about filling the positions at the U.S. central bank was to be made later at the White House.
"The president has decided on both of them," the senior administration official said.
Blinder, a White House economist, will be nominated to serve as vice chairman for the Fed, replacing David Mullins. Yellen, from the University of California at Berkeley, would replace Wayne Angell.
Experts say Blinder, like Yellen, would be more of a centrist on inflation than the current makeup of the board, which recently has begun to push up interest rates before inflation appears in the hope that tighter credit will prevent price pressures emerging later.
Apartments built in Cilegon
JAKARTA (JP): PT Bonauli Real Estate, a division of the Bonauli Group, is constructing a US$15 million luxury housing project consisting of townhouses and apartments for expatriates working in the Cilegon, West Java, industrial area.
A company spokesman said yesterday that the construction of 73 townhouses, which began this month, will be completed in October next year.
The 176 apartments will be completed in 1995, he said.
The two housing projects are part of the company's Rp 1 trillion ($476 million) scheme to build a "new city" in Cilegon.
Bonauli Real Estate, which controls 100 hectares of land in Cilegon, last week began the construction of a $500,000 international school in the area. (04)
Indian mission due here
NEW DELHI (AFP): A team of top Indian industrialists will visit Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam later this month to explore investment prospects in the textile, cement, banking and oil sectors.
The 12-member team will tour the four countries between April 25 and May 3, a statement from the Assocham trade chamber said. It will be led by Assocham president and cement and textile tycoon Govind Hari Singhania.
Singhania said the delegation would examine the newly opened Vietnamese market for exports of Indian motor scooters, textiles, cement, mining equipment and consumer durables.
He said India should try to step up trade with Singapore from the current US$800 million to more than $5 billion in the next two years.
India is increasingly focusing on Southeast Asia for exports.
France cuts rates
PARIS (UPI): The Bank of France has cut its two key interest rates in what the bank's governor said was part of a policy to reduce the rates gradually as the economy recovers.
The central bank lowered the key money market intervention rate by just 10 basis points to 5.80 percent Thursday from 5.90 percent and chopped 25 points of its 5-10 day rate to 6.75 percent. It was the fourth 10-point reduction of the intervention rate since Feb. 24.
The moves had been largely anticipated after Germany's central Bundesbank on Wednesday announced a larger-than-expected reduction in its securities repurchase rate.
Analysts generally welcomed the French bank's decision, which they said would spur economic recovery and calm financial markets.
But the news caused a dip in the Cac 40 index on the Paris Bourse, which closed down 0.51 percent at 2,091.95 points. The French franc also weakened against the Deutchmark.
Bank of France Governor Jean-Claude Trichet said the bank is seeking a gradual reduction of interest rates as any severe cut could destabilize the franc.
RP coconut exports plunge
MANILA (Reuter): Philippine coconut exports, a leading dollar earner for the cash-strapped country, plunged over 55 percent in the first quarter of 1994 because of drought and typhoon damage, officials said yesterday.
Exports from January-March 1994 -- from the world's leading producer of coconut products -- fell to 191,170 tons against 450,129 tons last year, the private United Coconut Associations of the Philippines (UCAP) said in a briefing.
"The combination of the drought that struck in 1992, falling output and seasonally low production led to the drop in output," a trader with a major company said.
Up to two million of the 26 million people in the labor force depend on the coconut industry for their livelihood. The industry was once the leading export industry of the Philippines before electronic products took over.
German GDP to grow 1.5%
BONN (AFP): German gross domestic product (GDP) might grow by more than 1.5 percent in 1994, Economy Minister Guenter Rexrodt said yesterday.
He said that there was a "good chance that the high end of the range (of one percent to 1.5 percent) forecast in the annual report on the economy, would be achieved and even exceeded".
He told a press conference on the economic situation that "the sky is beginning to clear".
The decline of west German GDP which had been feared in the first quarter compared with the figure for the last quarter of last year because of an increase in fuel tax and social contributions had not apparently occurred.
On the basis of information available so far "GDP in the first quarter should exceed the figure recorded in the first quarter of 1993 by a marked amount", he said.
Rubber prices easier
SINGAPORE (AFP): Singapore rubber futures closed a shade easier in quiet trading yesterday, dealers said.
Dealers said trading was influenced by reports that labor unrest in Indonesia was receding.
"There were initial worries over the tight supply of rubber but traders are slowly coming back into the market," a dealer said.
Dealers said 425 tons of June RSS 1 were traded at 150.75 Singapore cents while 750 tons of August RSS 1 were traded at 151.00 Singapore cents.
According to dealers, 200 tons of June RSS 3 and 100 tons of July RSS 3 were traded at 94.50 U.S. cents and 94.00 U.S. cents.
At 0930 GMT, Basis June RSS 1 was quoted at 150.00 Singapore cents, RSS 3 at 94.00 U.S. cents and TSR 20 at 167.00 Singapore cents.
Japan reviews energy rule
TOKYO (Kyodo): Japan will review its long-standing policy of banning construction of oil-burning thermal power plants, a senior energy agency official said yesterday.
Elements of a revised policy will be included in a report forecasting Japan's long-term energy demand and supply toward the next century, set for release on June 21, said the official at the Natural Resources and Energy Agency, who declined to be named.
The official said the review is in response to requests by power firms to "fine-tune" the amount of energy supply during the peak energy usage time in summer.
Under the adjusted policy, the agency will allow renovation of outmoded oil-burning thermal power plants, the official said.
But building completely new facilities will still not be allowed under the terms of the June report, he said.
Construction of new oil-fired thermal power plants has been prohibited since 1980 as part of efforts to promote the development of alternative energy following the second oil crisis in the late 1970s.
Shell finds gas in Sabah
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Dutch oil giant Shell yesterday said it had found more natural gas off Malaysia's petroleum-rich eastern Sabah state on Borneo island.
Sabah Shell Petroleum Company Ltd. located the new well, called Kebabangan, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) northeast of the Kinabalu gas field it found in 1988, a company statement said.
It said tests had a fairly flow rate of up to 40 million cubic feet (1.2 million cubic metres).
"However, further appraisal will be necessary before an economically viable development can be confirmed," Shell said.
Sabah Shell Petroleum and another group subsidiary, Sabah Shell Selatan Sdn Bhd, each hold a 40 percent stake in the exploration of the new field.
Malaysian national oil corporation Petronas's exploration arm, Petronas Carigali, holds the remaining stake.
Current proven reserves of natural gas in Malaysia are estimated at 76.7 trillion cubic feet (2.31 trillion cubic meters), representing four times the size of the resource-rich country's oil reserves.