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The government is going to enact a new law to regulate the country’s freight business and bring it under licensing system to streamline freight charges and check money laundering, officials said.
   An inter-ministerial meeting on Thursday finalised the draft of the regulation that requires approval of the Prime Minister Office to come into effect, they said.
   ‘Now the draft regulation is waiting for the approval of the PM office. Once approved, the regulation will guide the country’s freight business,’ the National Board of Revenue chairman, Khairuzzaman Chowdhury, told New Age Sunday.
   Following allegations of charging higher freights and money laundering against a section of freight forwarders, the government decided to bring the freight trade under licensing system in 2001. The National Board of Revenue was asked to take necessary measurers in this regard.
   Earlier, the Ministry of Commerce had decided to register all the freight forwarders on the basis of approval from the NBR and Bangladesh Bank. The government also published a gazette notification on October 24, 2001, effecting the decision.
   But the decisions were put on hold for the years as the authorities concerned failed to finalise the guidelines for regulating the freight businesses.
   Meanwhile, leaders of the International Freight Forwarders Association of Bangladesh. (IFFAB) expressed resentment over the process of framing regulation and alleged that they were kept out of the entire process.
   ‘Representation of the freight traders in the procedure was essential to make the regulation effective,’ the IFFAB president, Amirul Islam Chowdhury, told New Age, adding that if the law fails to serve the purpose they would straightway reject and resist it through movement.
   He also regretted that it was the IFFAB that first brought the demand for bringing the freight trading under regulatory system, but unfortunately the association has been left out of the process of drafting the law.
   ‘If most of the persons involved in the process lack basic knowledge about freight trading, it would very tough to make a perfect law,’ the IFFAB president said.
   Officials of the revenue authority, which was entrusted with the task of drafting the law, said they had talks several times with different trade bodies including the IFFAB before preparing the draft, but they saw no necessity of involving all in the enactment process.
   ‘There are a number of organisations (which have a stake in it). It’s not possible to hold talks with all of them,’ the NBR chairman said. On behalf of the private sector, the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry was represented in the process, he added.
   The NBR chief said that he himself sat with the IFFAB twice to discuss the issue.
   IFFAB leaders alleged that despite the formation of a nine-member committee and completion of necessary formalities, the NBR unnecessarily prolonged the procedure, giving money launderers a leeway to continue their illegal activities.
   ‘Absence of any regulatory system is depriving the government of a huge amount of revenue in addition to increasing the risk of money laundering,’ the IFFAB president said.
   He said that a vested quarter was involved in money laundering by ‘managing’ NBR officials through underhand dealings.
   Recently the incidence of money laundering has increased among the foreign nationals, especially Sri Lankans, due to absence of any law in freight business, the IFFAB leaders said.
   Sources said that in absence of a licensing system, more than 1,000 freight forwarders were doing business in the country presently and only 225 of them are registered with the association.
   A section of the unregistered freight forwarding companies might be involved in various illegal acts like money laundering and charging higher freight rates from exporters and importers, sources said.

Trade financing has gobbled up three-fourth of the disbursed Tk 1.54 billion from the Bangladesh Bank’s SME refinancing scheme, which experts say, will hinder the aim of promoting real economic growth.
   ‘The aim of the refinancing will be completely lost if the lion’s share goes to the trading sector,’ Zaid Bakht, the research director of the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, told the news agency.
   Under the scheme, banks and non-banking financial institutions, eligible for availing refinancing, disbursed 78 per cent to trading enterprises, 14 per cent to the industrial sector and 8 per cent to the service sector out of the total disbursement worth of Tk 1.54 billion.
   Referring to the SMEs entrepreneurs’ hassles in getting financing from banks, Bakht said the fund was formed to secure financing to the SMEs, so that it could act as an alternative of collaterals and help growth of the sector.
   ‘Banks always lend to the traders from their own funds. There is no necessity to finance them under the scheme,’ he said.
   Bakht said the refinancing should be made to the enterprises engaged in production of goods and services. ‘The BB should completely elaborate that the fund is not for the trading sector.’
   The government, earlier, recognising the SMEs role in promoting industrial growth, employment creation and poverty alleviation, prioritised it in the industrial policy and introduced the scheme managed by the BB in July 2004 with a total fund of Tk 1.6 billion.
   Of the amount, Tk 600 million was provided by the World Bank under IDA (International Development Assistance) credit.
   Official sources said that BB had refinanced Tk 1.54 billion to various banks and non-banking financial institutions out of the total Tk 1.6 billion from September 2004 to September 2005.
   Seven banks and nine NBFIs were refinanced from the BB fund, while four banks and two NBFIs got refinancing from the IDA credit fund.

The Gulshan police in Dhaka arrested a businessman on Thursday on charge of forgery in taking loan from a private commercial bank.
   Police said they arrested Monirul Haq Chowdhury, owner of ‘Call N Shop’ in connection with a forgery case filed with Gulshan police station on December 22. M Shariful Hasan, senior principal officer of the Dhaka Mercantile Cooperative Bank Ltd, filed the case.
   According to the first information report, it was alleged that Monirul received Tk 48,64,725 as loan from the bank against his two applications submitted on April 19 and July 28 in 2004.
   He did not repay the money even after he was issued a legal notice.

Bangladeshi companies are still far from making a mark in the Muslim countries' corporate world that posted a 28.7 per cent earning growth in 2004 over the year before.
   A ranking of top 100 companies of the 57 member countries of Organisation of Islamic Conference does not include any company from Bangladesh.
   Saudi Aramco, the world's top oil producer, led the top 100 largest business enterprises of the Muslim world in 2004, showed the second annual Dinar Standard ranking released on Friday.
   Dinar Standard is an online business strategy publication that provides insights and resources for businesses in the Muslim world. Overall, the energy sector dominates the list with eight of the top 10 being state-owned integrated oil and gas companies in the OIC member countries.
   Two concerns of Egyptian Orascom Group, Orascom Telekom and Orascom Construction, were among the companies with higher growth recording 113pc and 98pc revenue growth respectively in 2004 over the past year.
   Turkish companies continued to lead the list with 25 enterprises, followed by 18 from Malaysia, 15 from Saudi Arabia, and 11 from Indonesia. Other countries that have their names in the list include the UAE, Pakistan, Iran, Nigeria, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Egypt, Bahrain, and Algeria.
   With $678 billion in total revenues, the Muslim world economy has made its strong presence felt in the global economic scenario, recording a 28.7 per cent growth in revenue in 2004.
   Listed companies made up more than half of the list (57 firms out of 100), mirroring the robust growth of public markets of the Muslim world.
   The ranking showed a diversity of industries coming up, led by diversified conglomerates (22 of 100) and service companies, challenging the dominance of the top placed energy sector enterprises (18 of 100).

The country’s mobile phone sector witnessed a 144 per cent growth in 2005, with the number of users rising to 9.4 million in December from 3.85 million a year ago, market sources said.
   The highest ever growth in cellphone users raised the mobile tele-density to 6.7 per cent from 2.75 per cent during the period.
   As most leading cell phone companies have expanded their network, amid stiff competition, to the remotest parts of the country, bringing 90 per cent of the population under network coverage, officials of the mobile phone companies predicted that the market would double to around 18 million next year.
   The GrameenPhone, which had a subscriber base of 2.4 million in December 2004, doubled the number to five million covering 60 per cent of the market, said Syed Yamin Bakht, general manager of the company.
   The AKTEL maintained its second position by raising its subscriber base to 2.6 million from only 1.1 million in a year.
   Fazlur Rahman, director of AKTEL’s owning company TM International Bangladesh Ltd, told the news agency that although it had a target of reaching three million subscriber-base this year, it remained behind the target. However, it would be achieved within a short time, he added.
   Sheba Telecom, which was taken over by Egyptian company Orascom a year ago, managed to take the third position, by aggressively marketing its service in a new brand name, Banglalink.
   The Banglalink began with a subscriber base of 30,000 and raised the number to 1.1 million in the current month, a Banglalink official told the news agency Sunday.
   The Pacific Bangladesh Telecom Ltd, operator of the CityCell, fell behind in the race and was placed in fourth position from the third place a year ago.
   Intekhab Mahmud, senior vice president (marketing) of the CityCell, told the news agency that CityCell’s subscriber base rose to 5,00,000 from 350,000 a year ago.
   The smallest operator so far is the state-run Teletalk Bangladesh Ltd, which after launching its service in March managed to create a subscriber base of 2,00,000.
   Growth in the country of 140 million population will remain explosive, Aminul Hassan, general manager of the Teletalk, said, adding there was potential for growth of the market and the subscriber base of mobile phones can easily be raised to 70 million.
   The Warid Telecom of the United Arab Emirates is going to launch its service in Bangladesh as the sixth mobile phone company soon.
   Officials in the telecom sector said it would make the market more competitive and facilitate further reduction in the call charges and improvement in services.

Bangladeshi vegetables, frozen fish and dry foods are witnessing robust growth in the British market, as demand for these products is growing in the Bangladeshi-owned restaurants and cash and carry retail shops across Britain, market sources said.
   Although marketing of these products still remained confined to the large South Asian expatriate communities in Britain, export of vegetables and dry food, including biscuit, chanachur, pickle and dry fish, to Britain witnessed a hundred per cent growth in the current year.
   The frozen fish is also witnessing almost eighty per cent growth in the current fiscal over the previous year, according to the official statistics available from the commercial wing of the Bangladesh high commission in London.
   Shrimp, another major export item of Bangladesh, is however witnessing a decline in export, market sources said.
   ‘Demand for food items including vegetable, frozen fish, shrimp and dry food is growing amid expansion of the Bangladeshis owned businesses in London,’ said Shahabuddin Patwari, the commercial counsellor of the Bangladesh high commission in London.
   In the FY 2004-05, export of Bangladeshi vegetables to Britain was worth $19 million with a hundred per cent growth, as the export was worth only $9.5 million in the FY 2003-04, according to the official statistics.
   The volume of retail sales in Britain during the September-November period of 2005 was 1.0 per cent higher than that of the previous three months. This follows a growth of 0.7 per cent in three months to October and 0.8 per cent during the same period of 2004, according to the official statistics of the British government.
   Euro Food, Sea Mark and Bangla Town cash and carry retail shops are the major importers of Bangladeshi frozen fish, vegetables, shrimp and dry food in Britain, said Patwari. ‘These companies have significantly raised their supplies in the local market in recent times.’
   Farukh Miah, an importer and owner of Kushiara Cash and Carry, one of the biggest Bangladeshi retail food shops in Britain, said: ‘The demand for fishes, with a selling price range of four to ten pounds, is growing among our fixed customers.’
   His annual import of Bangladeshi dry food and frozen fish is worth around £7,50,000.
   A significant number of Bangladeshis are running Cash and Carry retail shops in Britain, where Turkish and Pakistani business people are also playing major role.
   These shops, similar to a department store, are selling essential commodities like rice, pulses, Bangladeshi vegetables, shrimp and frozen fish.
   The main reason for expansion of the local food items in British market, is the 12,000 restaurants owned by Bangladeshis.
   ‘We raised the purchase of Bangladeshi vegetables in our restaurant six months ago,’ said an on-duty manager of the Bengal Clipper, a busy restaurant in Butlers Wharf in South East London.

Make Poverty History, the campaign that galvanised the political agenda in 2005, comes to an end next week hailing its own success, despite warnings that world leaders are backsliding on their pledges.
   When Nelson Mandela challenged the Group of Eight rich nations in London’s Trafalgar Square in February to eradicate the ‘obscene inequality’ of global poverty, his call acted as a clarion cry.
   The campaign’s white wristband became a must-have fashion accessory and millions of people took part in marches, vigils and events that reached a climax in Live 8 concerts around the globe on July 2. And politicians took heed.
   Britain, at the helm of the G8 this year, brokered a major increase in aid and debt cuts for some of the world’s poorest nations as well as winning a pledge to tackle the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
   ‘The Make Poverty History coalition came together for a special year of opportunity,’ campaign chairman Richard Bennett said. ‘The political decisions made would not have been made without their passionate commitment.’
   ‘If governments follow through on their promises, millions of lives that would have been lost could now be saved.’
   But ActionAid, one of the 540 organisations that made up Make Poverty History, warned that all was not what it might seem and that world leaders were already distancing themselves from some of their loftier declarations.
   ‘It is not enough for politicians to wear white bands,’ ActionAid director Richard Miller said. ‘They had the power to turn commitment into reality in 2005 and they failed to rise fully to the challenge.’
   ‘Pledges have been half-hearted, and recent backsliding on aid and debt commitments underscores the need for sustained pressure,’ he added. ‘This must come from the public.’
   While Make Poverty History trumpeted the progress on aid, debt and HIV, it lamented the lack of action on reforming world trade to benefit poorer nations.

Kuwait’s Public Warehouses company (PWC Logistics) has won a $2.85-billion logistics contract from a giant petrochemicals plant, the company said.
   The three-year contract covers shipment, transport and customs clearance services for the Equate-2 plant, a joint petrochemicals project between Kuwait and US Dow Chemical, the statement said.
   PWC Logistics is a global provider of integrated transport and logistics services. It has some 450 offices in more than 150 companies.
   During 2005, the company was awarded several contracts with the US military in the region worth several billion dollars.
   The Kuwait Stock Exchange, which has been reeling under correction pressures for the past three weeks, rebounded strongly on news of the contract.
   At close of trading Saturday, the opening trading day in Kuwait, the KSE index gained 1.6 per cent to reach 11,578.60 points.
   PWC Logistics was awarded a $3.27-billion deal in February to supply the US military in Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Emirates airline of the United Arab Emirates will begin flights from Dubai to Cambodia, becoming the first airline to open a direct route between the Middle East and the Southeast Asian kingdom, officials said Sunday.
   Cambodia’s Secretariat of Civil Aviation signed an agreement Friday with the airline to operate at least seven flights a week to the capital Phnom Penh, starting next year.
   The civil aviation secretary of state, Mao Havana, said the link-up would provide Cambodia with an important connection to Europe, and hoped it would boost the impoverished country’s tourism numbers.
   ‘Both our tourism figures and airline will benefit,’ he said.
   Emirates flies to more than 70 destinations worldwide, including more than a dozen Asian countries and regions.
   More than 10 foreign airlines operate flights to Cambodia, including Singapore-based Jetstar Asia, Malaysia’s low-cost carrier AirAsia and Shanghai Airlines.
   Tourism is one of the only sources of foreign exchange for Cambodia, which is one of the world’s poorest countries and is still clawing its way back to normalcy after nearly three decades of conflict that ended in 1998.
   The kingdom is aiming to lure three million tourist arrivals annually by 2010.

German economic growth is gaining pace and its manufacturing sector is optimistic about 2006, the head of the BDI industry association Ludolf von Wartenberg was quoted saying Saturday.
   In an interview with the Neue Ruhr Zeitung, von Wartenberg said he expected growth in the manufacturing sector to reach three per cent in 2006 and far exceed the country’s gross domestic product growth rate.
   ‘It’s impossible to overlook the fact that the economic growth is getting strong,’ he said. ‘The order books are well filled.’
   Private economic institutes are forecasting the German economy to grow by between 1.4 per cent and 1.7 per cent in 2006. The economy grew by 1.6 per cent in 2004 before slowing to an expected 0.8 per cent in 2005.
   A sharp rise in domestic corporate investment and strong demand for Germany’s exports are behind the recent upturn.
   Von Wartenberg said he was not expecting 2006 to be ‘a boom year’ but was confident German industry would expand strongly nevertheless.
   He said the economy would also be boosted by the 2006 World Cup finals that Germany is hosting in June and July.

The numbers are in and the verdict’s been rendered: 2005 was the best year for US deal-makers since 2000.
   The factors contributing to that performance were sundry, from aggressive buying by private equity firms to accommodating capital markets to optimism in corporate boardrooms.
   So what’s in store for 2006? Investment bankers are quick to say their crystal balls are no clearer than anyone else’s. But like most in the industry, James Glerum, a managing director of investment banking at UBS and co-head of the bank’s Chicago office and Midwestern region, says he’s optimistic.
   ‘We continue to be encouraged by the high level of strategic dialogue among our industrial clients,’ Glerum says. ‘Many of our clients are actively considering acquisitions.’ Steven Bernard, the director of M&A market analysis at Robert W Baird & Co Inc in Chicago, agrees.
   ‘Everything we saw in the beginning of 2005 is basically still in place as we approach 2006.’
   The news agency polled a dozen M&A practitioners and analysts here this week and asked them to tell us what trends they will be keeping an eye on next year and why. Here are four that came up repeatedly.
   Private equity firms were big players in 2005, helping drive both deal volume and prices. In the end, they accounted for $217.9 billion of the $1.1 trillion of deals announced in the United States this year, according to Dealogic. And there’s every reason to believe they’ll be a big factor in the marketplace in 2006.
   ‘There remains a lot of liquidity in the marketplace, with plenty of private equity capital available,’ says John Spence, a managing director at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and head of its Chicago office.
   The question is whether the firms will continue to push multiples higher still. Spence thinks not.
   ‘For financial sponsor transactions, the average debt level is around six times debt to EBITDA. While each transaction has to be evaluated on its own merits, I don’t believe the average can go much higher than that.’
   Steve Kaplan, an M&A watcher at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business, sees more activity from the private equity groups in 2006 - and a subsequent reckoning.
   ‘They’ve got a lot of money and they’ll put it to work and a lot of those deals will get into trouble down the road,’ he says. ‘Every time private equity’s been at a peak, it rarely ends well.’

Shell said it had resumed limited operations in southern Nigeria after the explosion of a pipeline but warned it was still not in a position to honour its commitments to clients.
   ‘We have started limited operations. One of our fields has partially reopened in Kolo Creek, and there is limited loading at Bonny,’ a spokesman said Saturday.
   ‘Force majeure is still in place, we don’t know for how long it will remain.’
   The Anglo-Dutch oil company declared Wednesday a state of ‘force majeure’, meaning it can legally breach the terms of its contracts.
   The company said Friday the fire at the pipeline had been brought under control, while a shadowy group claimed responsibility for the deadly blast that started it three days ago.
   The pipeline is located in the oil-rich Niger Delta region, which was put under a state of alert by President Olesegun Obasanjo after at least eight people were reported to have died in the blast.

Tanvir Ibrahim recently joined banglalink as the head of corporate sales, said a press release. Prior to the joining, he was the head of corporate sales of GrameenPhone.

India’s manufacturing sector is expanding too slowly, the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, said Saturday, warning his Communist allies that more reform and new labour laws were needed to stimulate job creation.
   Singh, who began India’s economic reforms as finance minister a decade and a half ago, said manufacturing was critical to moving from a farm-based economy to an advanced, richer one.
   ‘Manufacturing has to be the sponge which absorbs people who need to move out of agriculture in pursuit of higher incomes,’ he told a business conference in the capital.
   ‘I am concerned that the share of manufacturing in national income has shown only a marginal improvement from 15.8 per cent in 1991 to 17 per cent in 2003.’
   Singh said manufacturing’s contribution to gross domestic product must surge to 25-35 per cent, compared with China’s 40 per cent, which would need growth in the sector to jump to 12-14 per cent from about eight per cent.
   That eight per cent is already strong by global standards and manufacturing exports are growing by 20 per cent a year, the fastest ever. ‘A substantial manufacturing base is essential to absorb the workforce and ensure sustainable growth of the economy,’ Singh added.
   Analysts warn much faster manufacturing growth is vital for the economy, and for social and political stability, seeing it as the only way to create the extra jobs needed for a workforce growing by 12 million people—more than the entire population of Greece—every year and moving away from farms.
   Without it, Indian growth cannot make the jump from the current 8 per cent to the ten per cent the government wants, they say.
   ‘You can’t rely totally on services, you have to move into the manufacturing areas because otherwise there’s no way you can absorb the low-skilled labour that comes out of agriculture and which is becoming an issue now,’ D Joshi, an economist with the CRISIL ratings agency in New Delhi, said.
   ‘It is turning into a political issue also.’
   Singh’s coalition government relies on Communist allies to stay in power, and they are opposed to some economic reforms, including efforts to reform labour legislation to make it easier for companies to fire people.
   In a country where globalisation and open markets are bitterly opposed by some, Singh said India must make itself internationally competitive and see reform as an opportunity, not a threat.
   ‘I find that when we talk of integrating markets, many of our business and political leaders only look at the threat of competition from imports and not at the opportunity of accessing new markets through exports,’ he said.
   ‘If we look at new opportunities, the old threats become less daunting.’

The World Health Organisation’s regional director has called on China to change its farming practices as a long-term way to prevent outbreaks of deadly bird flu, state media reported Sunday.
   Shigeru Omi, director for the Western Pacific region, told the official Xinhua news agency that the common practice in China of raising different kinds of animals together and living in close proximity to animals must change.
   ‘We cannot kill all the chickens and ducks to prevent bird flu from spreading among them and to humans, therefore we have to make sure the chickens, ducks and humans do not mingle together,’ Omi was quoted as saying.
   Segregation is one of the most important ways to prevent the spread of the virus, Omi, who was visiting China, told Xinhua in an interview.
   ‘But we cannot do it overnight as China has a huge poultry population,’ he added.
   ‘That’s why we have to step up improvement of the primitive farming practice in China’s rural regions, especially the backyard feeding of chickens and ducks in many rural households,’ he said.
   China produces 14.2 billion poultry annually and most are raised in farmers’ yards or even inside their houses.
   Scientists fear the close proximity between poultry and other farm animals as well as humans can provide more opportunity for the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus to mutate into a more lethal strain.
   The virus is currently spread among animals and from animals to humans. If it becomes easily spread between humans, it could create a pandemic that would likely kill millions of people, experts say.
   Omi also stressed that China must strengthen the surveillance, timely reporting and diagnosis of bird flu outbreaks at grassroots level.
   The WHO has suggested the ministry of health and the ministry of agriculture train more health and agriculture personnel in the countryside to help monitor and detect new cases.
   Despite good intentions China’s infrastructure was lacking, Omi told reporters Friday, noting five of China’s six human cases were not forewarned by reports of poultry outbreaks in the area.

Federal employees helping Katrina victims charged more than $39 million on government credit cards for disaster relief items. Congressional investigators want to make sure the taxpayers got a good deal.
   Many of the goods, which included $60,639 for sleeping bags and $713 for four 27-inch televisions, were bought at retail rather than cheaper volume prices. The spending also included $1,50,000 worth of Jockey underwear, six nail clippers and $3,200 for golf carts.
   The Federal Emergency Management Agency says it needed some items quickly, such as the underwear for evacuees in temporary shelters.
   Federal officials responding to Katrina ‘were not going to spend days calling all across the country and haggling prices, the initial purchases were about saving lives,’ said Homeland Security Department spokesman Larry Orluskie.
   The lists of purchases provided by five government agencies show nothing outrageous, bottles of water, hundreds of maps of New Orleans and Texas, pizza dinners and lots of insect repellent. The Homeland Security Department also bought 50 automatic heart defibrillators for nearly $1.5 million for use at shelters.
   The credit card bills, which are directly payable by Uncle Sam, were vulnerable for abuse in the Katrina aftermath after agencies were given the power to raise the credit limit from $15,000 to $2,50,000. That authority was repealed on October 3.
   Senator Charles Grassley (news, bio, voting record), chairman of the finance committee, who successfully pushed for the credit limits to be lowered back to $15,000, said his office was going to make sure ‘hardworking Americans don’t pay for government employees’ Christmas shopping.’
   This time, the congressional audits—the first of which is due out early next year, will not only focus on any abuse, but on missed opportunities to get discounted rates for commonly purchased items. Based on prior audits, at least 10 per cent of the Katrina charges, or about $4 million, might have been saved, said Greg Kutz, managing director of special investigations at GAO.
   Only a thorough review will tell whether spending went notably awry.

The US retailers faced slower-than-expected traffic in stores on the last shopping day before Christmas as extended hours and steep discounts failed to draw a big crowd of shoppers.
   ‘I don’t think the day is the kind of day that retailers thought it would be,’ said Britt Beemer, head of America’s Research Group, which surveys consumer spending habits. ‘Christmas Eve is seldom the big day because of the fact that so many consumers ... want to be home.’
   The US retailers were counting on strong demand on Saturday to make up for solid but unspectacular sales so far this holiday season. The Saturday before Christmas has become the busiest shopping day of the year as consumers hold out for last-minute discounts.
   Many retailers had opened their stores before 7:00am to take advantage of Christmas Eve falling on a weekend.
   But most shoppers did not get an early start. The parking lot at Briarwood Mall in Ann Arbor, Michigan, was only about half full around noon, Hendrix said.
   Sales picked up as the day wore on but the stores were not filled with traditional holiday shoppers of mothers and children.
   ‘Our clientele has changed today to be more men,’ said Audrie Thompson, general manager of Northpark Mall in Ridgeland, Mississippi.
   Retailers said stores were jammed on Friday evening, with many people crossing the last items off their holiday shopping list before hitting the road for the weekend.
   Analysts said retailers cut prices more this year than they did last year in the hope of luring cost-conscious consumers, many of whom are grappling with steep gasoline prices and bracing for bigger winter heating bills.
   Wal-Mart Stores Inc, which set the tone for a fiercely competitive holiday shopping season with discounts including a laptop computer for under $400, said it was on pace to meet its December sales forecast.

When airline executives and IT specialists met in a pub in the English Midlands ten years ago to plan the first ever Internet flight booking service, few of them suspected that they would spawn a revolution for the industry.
   Electronic ticketing now accounts for 38 per cent of tickets sold worldwide and the top industry body wants the 265 airlines under its wing to achieve 100 per cent paperless ticketing within two years.
   ‘The target date is a must. Every year, we are printing roughly 350 million tickets. We will not print any more paper tickets by 2007,’ said Giovanni Bisignani, director general of the International Air Transport Association.
   At stake, IATA says, is a three-billion-dollar annual cost saving for the industry, while wider use of new electronic technologies for self service check-in, luggage handling and freight could offer even more in years to come.
   ‘It’s not revolutionary technology, it’s not something that we have to invent, it’s existing technology,’ Bisignani explained.
   ‘This will save the industry $6.5 billion a year, and would make the travelling experience for our passengers more pleasant,’ he added. Aviation experts promise savings and improved convenience all the way down the line to the passenger.
   ‘The arrival of the Internet booking engine was the start of the online fares revolution, but it also triggered something else, it gave self service centre stage in the travel industry,’ said Denis McClean, a spokesman for SITA, an IT company devoted to air transport.
   In 1995, a subsidiary of the Geneva-based group began working on how to harness the Internet for airlines and canvassing customers.
   British Midland (BMI) said it was interested to cut distribution costs and sell direct instead of passing through travel agents or sales offices. ‘In October 1995 there was a meeting in a pub between our software development engineers and the IT people from BMI,’ said SITA senior vice president Richard Stokes.
   ‘About V50,000 earmarked for marketing was used to provide a budget and see what we could come up with in time for the Christmas market.’
   On December 11, 1995 the site was launched, offering to post tickets to passengers or make them available for collection at the terminal.
   The first passenger booking a flight from Paris to London also collected a bottle of champagne.
   At the time just 40 million people in the world used the Internet. Last year there were an estimated 870 million Internet users, according to the UN’s International Telecommunications Union.
   Bisignani admitted that some less developed areas of the world would face a tough challenge to meet the e-ticketing target.
   Europe and the United States are well ahead with more than half the tickets delivered online. Meanwhile Africa is managing this year’s target with 39 per cent—largely due to four airlines.
   In North Asia and the Middle East the proportion drops to 11 and two per cent respectively.
   ‘While each region and each airline has its own set of challenges, none are unique and none are insurmountable,’ said IATA’s Tom Murphy.
   Despite the bullish optimism about its advantages — 400 million travellers are expected to book online direct with airlines in 2005 — the Internet has also changed the operating environment for established airlines.
   Budget airlines like easyJet, RyanAir or Southwest in the United States were the first to rely entirely on e-ticketing, and their fresh start gave them an advantage over mainstream competitors.
   ‘The Internet has helped drive down airlines’ costs but it has also fuelled price competition, damaged yields, and exposed the weakness in legacy computer systems in supporting pricing and increasingly complex distribution channels,’ said SITA director Ian Ryder.

China’s parliament has announced plans to abolish the country’s long-standing agricultural tax at a time when social unrest and a deepening income divide are raising official fears about stagnant farm incomes.
   China’s economic development has been accompanied by widening income disparities, said Liu Jibin, a member of the National People’s Congress, China’s legislature.
   ‘The gap between agriculture and industry, and between the countryside and cities, is steadily growing and rural problems continue to constrain China’s economic and social development,’ he said, the official Xinhua News Agency reported on Sunday.
   The NPC rarely questions Communist Party policy, but it plays a role in drafting and refining legislation. It’s standing committee, or ruling inner-circle, began a five-day session on Saturday to discuss the agricultural tax, as well as amendments to China’s criminal law, and steps to protect workers from mistreatment.

The Swiss economics minister, Joseph Deiss, is trying to convene an informal meeting of WTO ministers on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland next month, his office confirmed Friday.
   ‘We are sounding out the ground. The idea has been put forward and we hope to know more at the end of the holidays,’ economics ministry spokeswoman Evelyne Kobelt told the news agency.
   Deiss said a mini-ministerial, which would occur just over a month after the WTO conference in Hong Kong narrowly kept teetering trade liberalisation talks on track, should try to map out an agenda for the final stages of the Doha Round.

The US president, George W Bush, and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, believe their two countries are close to completing talks for Russia to enter the World Trade Organisation, the White House said Friday.
   Russia needs to sign bilateral deals with just a handful of WTO members including the United States to open the way for entry after a decade of talks, but it has expressed mounting frustration with the pace of its bid.
   Bush and Putin spoke in a telephone call while Bush was taking a Christmas break at the Camp David presidential retreat, said National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones.
   ‘They agreed that we have made substantial progress in our bilateral negotiations over the past year, that we are close to completing them, and that we need to continue to work hard to complete them as soon as possible,’ Jones said.

Asian currencies ended the week mixed against the dollar with few leads in the Christmas and New Year holiday season.
   JAPANESE YEN: The yen fell back against the dollar from a seven- week high in Tokyo in the absence of market-moving news during the Christmas and year-end holiday season.
   The Japanese currency stood at 117.48-51 to the greenback late on Thursday, down from 116.01-04 at the previous week’s close. Trading was suspended on Friday for a public holiday.
   In Singapore, the yen fetched 116.59 to the dollar Friday afternoon, reflecting what UOB treasury economist Thomas Lam called a ‘sense of indecisiveness as to whether to push the dollar in one direction or another.’
   AUSTRALIAN DOLLAR: Analysts do not expect much movement out of the Australian dollar in the coming week after it closed lower Friday.
   The Australian dollar was trading at 73.08 US cents at 3:30pm Friday (0430 GMT), well down on the previous week’s 74.60 US cents.
   NEW ZEALAND DOLLAR: The New Zealand dollar ended the week at a five-year low of 67.25 US cents, down from 68.85 US cents the previous Friday.
   As sentiment turned more negative in the wake of disappointing current account and gross domestic product data during the week, forex dealers warned the kiwi could go into freefall in the New Year.
   CHINESE YUAN: The Chinese yuan closed at 8.0762 to the US dollar Friday, the central bank said in a statement on its website. That compared with a closing price of 8.0735 the previous week.
   HONG KONG DOLLAR: The US-pegged Hong Kong dollar closed Friday at 7.7525 from 7.753 the previous week.
   INDONESIAN RUPIAH: The rupiah closed Friday slightly stronger at 9,850-9,860 to the dollar compared to the previous week’s close of 9,890-9,900.
   PHILIPPINE PESO: The Philippine peso traded higher at 53.27 to the dollar on Friday afternoon compared with 53.45 a week earlier.
   SINGAPORE: The dollar was at 1.6683 Singapore $ on Friday compared with 1.6695 the previous week.
   SOUTH KOREAN WON: The won closed at 1,013.50 won to the dollar Friday, compared with 1,016.20 won a week earlier as the US currency weakened against the Japanese yen in overseas markets and exporters began their usual end-of-month selling of dollar earnings.
   TAIWAN DOLLAR: The Taiwan dollar was virtually unchanged against the dollar, closing at 33.178 compared with 33.174 a week earlier.
   THAI BAHT: The Thai baht was flat against the dollar over the past week as exporters and importers were absent from the market due to the Christmas and New Year holidays, dealers said.
   The Thai unit closed at 40.92-94 to the greenback on Friday, against 40.95-98 a week earlier.

Oil prices weakened last week as forecasts of warm weather in the northern hemisphere offset an oil pipeline fire in major producer Nigeria and a fall in US heating fuel stockpiles. The price of gold dropped after recently reaching a 25-year high.
   Trading was subdued across most commodities markets in the run-up to Christmas.
   On Friday in London, trading in gold, silver, platinum, palladium, cocoa, coffee and sugar finished at lunchtime ahead of the festive weekend.
   The Commodities Research Bureau’s index of 17 commodities slid to 325.20 points on Friday from 328.60 points the previous week.
   GOLD: Gold prices fell after recently posting record highs but remained above 500 dollars per ounce.
   Gold had reached a 25-year high point of 540 dollars in mid-December on strong buying by investment funds, looking for safe-havens amid rising inflation.
   Gold’s fall was ‘exaggerated by the thin trading conditions’ before Christmas, said Yingxi Yu, an analyst at Barclays Capital. On the London Bullion Market, gold prices fell to 503.60 dollars per ounce at the morning fixing on Friday.
   SILVER: On the London Bullion Market, silver prices fell to 8.50 dollars per ounce at the morning fixing Friday from 8.61 dollars the previous week.
   PLATINUM/PALLADIUM: On the London Platinum and Palladium Market, an ounce of platinum firmed to 961 dollars per ounce at the morning fixing Friday, from 959 dollars the previous week.
   Palladium eased to 253 dollars per ounce, from 261 dollars.
   BASE METALS: Base metals prices mostly took stock of recent gains.
   ‘Overall it seems as though the (base) metals are happy consolidating, awaiting fresh developments,’ said William Adams, an analyst for the specialist website BaseMetals.com, adding:
   ‘The view in the market is for the strong trends to continue into 2006.’
   By Friday, three-month copper prices on the London Metal Exchange firmed to 4,437 dollars per tonne from 4,436 dollars.
   Three-month aluminium prices gained to 2,252 dollars per tonne from 2,224.50 dollars.
   Three-month nickel prices fell to 13,450 dollars per tonne.
   Three-month lead prices rose to 1,110 dollars per tonne. Three-month zinc prices increased to 1,883 dollars per tonne.
   Three-month tin prices slid to 6,520 dollars per tonne.
   OIL: A barrel of Brent North Sea crude for delivery in February fell to 56.09 dollars late Friday, from 57.13 dollars the previous week.
   In New York, a barrel of crude for delivery in February sank to 57.83 dollars from 58.06 dollars.
   RUBBER: Singapore’s RSS 3 January contract gained to 168.75 cents on Friday.
   COCOA: On the New York Board of Trade (NYBoT), the March contract gained to 1,469 dollars per tonne on Friday.
   COFFEE: On LIFFE, Robusta quality for March rose to 1,158 dollars per tonne on Friday, compared with 1,151 dollars.
   SUGAR: In New York prices reached 14.53 cents per pound on Thursday, the highest point since March 1995. In London the same day sugar futures reached 348 dollars per tonne for the first time since January 1997.
   GRAINS AND SOYA: On the LIFFE, the price of a tonne of wheat for January delivery gained to 69 pounds late Friday.
   COTTON: The Cotton Outlook Index of physical cotton stood at 56.71 cents on Thursday.
   WOOL: The British Wooltops index, meanwhile, stood at 393 pence on Thursday.

Indian shares were expected to cool next week as investors restrain purchases during the Christmas and New Year holiday week, dealers said.
   On Friday, the Mumbai stock exchange’s 30-share Sensex closed at 9,256.91, down 27.95 points from the previous week’s close.
   ‘There will be some cooling off next year considering that prices have galloped tremendously and investors pause for a while, given the Christmas and New Year holidays,’ said Hemen Kapadia, partner at investment advisory firm Morpheus Inc.
   ‘The Sensex is pressured at 9,400 points level, indicating that investors are waiting for every opportunity to sell at higher levels.’
   Indian shares have soared since January, with the Senex 40 per cent higher on the back of strong foreign fund inflows that topped $10 billion.
   Analysts said despite the expected bout of selling, the undertone will remain firm.
   ‘It will be a choppy pattern ... with some days the market rising and on some days falling,’ said another dealer.
   Dealers said buying in sectors such as software is expected ahead of the third quarter to December earnings.
   Software companies such as Infosys, Tata Consultancy, Wipro and Satyam Computer will announce their earnings from the second week of January 2006.
   ‘Software firms are expected to show steady growth and their profits are seen boosted by the fall in the rupee in the last two months against the US dollar,’ added the dealer.

It looks like a charity. But who’s really benefiting?
   That’s the question some analysts are asking about a foundation that MasterCard Inc is establishing as part of its initial public offering next year.
   MasterCard, the No 2 credit card association, insists the charity’s beneficiaries will be kids and entrepreneurs in disadvantaged areas around the globe.
   But some analysts worry the set-up is a costly ruse, an effort by the 1,400 banks that own MasterCard to protect a clubby governance structure that has merchants up in arms—a structure the $2.45 billion IPO was supposed to eliminate.
   The charity, known as The MasterCard Foundation, will start well-endowed: In filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, MasterCard has said it plans to give the charity 10 per cent of its equity and up to 18 per cent of general voting power.
   MasterCard will also donate at least another $40 million to the charity over four years. Together, the stock and cash outlays will force the company to ‘record a significant net loss for the first quarter and full year of 2006,’ according to SEC filings.
   A MasterCard spokeswoman declined to comment on the charity or how losses tied to its establishment might mar the company’s debut. But in a letter to shareholders sent shortly after the IPO was announced, MasterCard said the charity would serve two purposes that made the extraordinary outlays worthwhile: underscoring a commitment to communities where MasterCard operates and creating a big shareholder with a vested interest in the company’s long-term success.

Italian luxury sports car maker Lamborghini is all set to drive in its best selling model ‘Gallardo’ to India within the first quarter of next year.
   ‘The plan is to bring the Lamborghini Gallardo within the first quarter of next year,’ Exclusive Motors Manager (Sales) Rahul Grover (the distributor of Lamborghini in India) said.
   While the exact pricing could be known only next month, he said Lamborghini Gallardo could be tagged anything between Rs 1 crore and Rs 1.5 crore.
   Gallardo would be the latest in the series of crore-plus cars to hit the Indian roads after the likes of Maybach, Rolls Royce Phantom and Bentley Arnage in the recent past.
   Grover said the target was to sell about two to three units of Gallardo in the next year.
   Automobili Lamborghini Holding SPA, a part of Volkswagen’s Audi Group, had rolled out 3,000th Gallardo earlier this month.
   It remains to be seen though how Gallardo, which competes with the likes of Ferrari’s F30 and Porsche’s 911 Turbo, fare in India.

China’s economy will face a tough challenge as the country, in accordance with commitments made at its entry into the World Trade Organization in late 2001, will greatly cut tariffs and open its market still wider to foreign competition in the coming year.
   Currently, China’s state-owned banks are stepping up preparations for being listed by introducing overseas strategic investors or partners.
   Chinese economists interviewed by Xinhua hold that although opening the market wider to international competition will be a grave test of the nation’s economy, there is no reason to be pessimistic.
   The past four years show that the impact of China’s WTO admission on the economy is better than predicted, said Zhang Yansheng, director of the Foreign Economic Research Department of the Macro Economic Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission.
   Many of the dire predictions about the impact on the economy did not happen, he said.
   Besides, Zhang said, the adjustments made by Chinese enterprises and industries in catering to the entry to the global trade body were overestimated.
   For example, some industries that seemed in a poor position in terms of competition became more competitive in the international market after China joined the WTO, Zhang said.
   Dr. Mei Xinyu, a researcher with the Ministry of Commerce, also noted that the impact was ‘comprehensive and extensive’.

South Korean financial authorities said Sunday they had eased listing rules to allow foreign firms to hold initial public offerings on the country’s bourse.
   ‘Foreign companies which have never listed on overseas exchanges are allowed the primary listing in which they can list stocks on the local bourse,’ the Financial Supervisory Committee said.
   The rules were revised Friday ‘in line with the principle of treating domestic and foreign businesses equally’ to globalize the local bourse, it said.

Wal-Mart sales are up two to four per cent in the crucial holiday shopping month, year on year, the US retail giant said Saturday.
   ‘For the December reporting period, comparative sales for the US are estimated to be within our guidance of two to four per cent,’ said a statement on Wal-Mart’s website Saturday.
   Final results for the critical five-week period ending December 30 will be in by January 5.
   The results from Wal-Mart, with 3,600 stores in the United States, are often seen as a key to consumer spending, which represents about two-thirds of US economic activity.

India builds database to stop theft of lore
For thousands of years Indian villagers have used an extract from seeds of the neem tree as an insecticide. So when a US company patented a process for producing the substance in 1994, India reacted with outrage. After spending millions of dollars in legal fees to successfully overturn the patent, India's government now is creating a 30-million-page database of traditional knowledge to fend off entrepreneurs trying to patent the country's ancient lore. India is not alone in worrying about 'bioprospectors' profiting from the genetic resources of its plant life with no benefit to its people. It joined with China, Brazil and nine other nations a few years ago to begin pushing for international protections. The database project already has caught the interest of others. A South African team recently visited and a Mongolian mission is coming in January, said VK Gupta, chairman of India's National Institute for Science Communication and Information Resources. The database, called the Traditional Knowledge Data Library, will make information available to patent offices around the world to ensure that traditional remedies are not presented as new discoveries.
— AP

State Bank of Pakistan mops
up Rs 14b
The State Bank of Pakistan on Saturday finally picked up the left-over liquidity from the market, following the tight monetary policy it has been pursuing for more than six months. The SBP conducted Open Market Operation and raised Rs 14 billion out of Rs 19.3 billion offered by the banks. The surplus liquidity had hit the market rates sending these to the lowest level. The presence of higher liquidity in the market is one of the main reasons for inflation and experts were firm on Friday that the SBP would conduct OMO for siphoning off the excess liquidity. However, the SBP raised the money for a short period of time and at a lower rate. The outflow is just for four days at a rate of 7.64 per cent. Money dealers said that the SBP might continue to generate the liquidity pressure through the short term OMOs and finally gather a huge liquidity at the time of next T-bills auction. The SBP mopped up Rs 68 billion on Thursday through the T-bills auction and the amount was much higher than the target of Rs 45billion.
— Dawn

Pak exports of sports, surgical goods fall
Pakistan's export of sports and surgical goods recorded a decrease during the July-November period of the current fiscal year over the same period of the last year. Official figures released here on Saturday indicated that export of sports goods declined by 4.61pc and surgical goods (medical instruments) by 19.72pc during the period under review despite the fact that government announced blanket tax exemption on these sectors in the budget. In the sports group, the export of gloves and football registered a negative growth which provided employment to thousands of people. This indicated that the taxation measures did not help in increasing the exports from these sectors, which rather resulted in steadily declining trend following the announcement of the package in the budget. Analyst said in case the government did not take timely measures to arrest the decline in the export, it would be very difficult to re-capture the market for these products besides closing of many industries. Moreover, the overall export of engineering products registered a nominal growth of 2.80pc during the period under review over the last year. Of these, however, export of electric fans declined by 2.64pc, transport equipment 43.87pc during the same period. The export of auto parts increased by 17.58pc during the period under review.
— Dawn

S'pore MCL Land says cash offer to proceed
Mid-sized Singapore property group MCL Land said on Friday that Hong Kong Land Holdings' S$647 million ($387.7 million) cash offer for its shares would go ahead after securing an important approval. The Singapore-listed residential developer requested that its trading suspension should be lifted on Monday at 9:00am following the announcement. The takeover bid, announced this month, is part of a reorganisation by the Hong Kong-based Jardine group of its Asian property and auto businesses. The group wants to concentrate its real estate operations under Hong Kong Land. As part of the reorganisation, Jardine Cycle & Carriage, the Jardine group's auto distributor which has a 66 per cent stake in MCL Land, said on December 1 that it would distribute its MCL Land shares to its shareholders through a dividend. Shareholders have approved the decision, it said on Friday. If Hong Kong Land's voluntary cash offer of Singapore $1.75 per share for MCL Land is taken up, it could end up with 40.8 per cent of MCL Land.
— Reuters

Savings deposits in Shanghai banks
surge
With the cooling down of property market and a stagnant stock market, China's economy powerhouse Shanghai saw a surge of savings deposits in the past 11 months, according to statistics from the Shanghai Banking Regulatory Commission. Savings deposits increased by 131.164 billion yuan ($16.2 billion), 46.163 billion yuan ($5.7 billion) more than that in the corresponding period last year, statistics show. The surge means that every month 11.924 billion yuan ($1.47 billion) poured into financial institutions. The commission said the surge of savings deposits was due to 'higher interest rates, stagnant stock market, cooling down of property market and appreciation of renminbi.' Chinese commercial banks in Shanghai had provided loans of 408.874 billion yuan ($50.4 billion) to self-supporting companies doing real estate business as of the end of November, 29.08 billion yuan ($3.6 billion) less than that of the corresponding period last year. The property market in Shanghai cooled down after the government introduced various measures to prevent overheating in the real estate industry, which had attracted speculative funds.
— Xinhuanet