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Betel leaf appears to be the prime mover of the country’s striking growth in export of flowers and foliages category, industry sources said.
   Failing to compete globally in coveted global flower and foliage market, exporters bank on betel leaf targeting its niche market among Bangladeshis living abroad.
   Leading flower growers argued that Bangladeshi exporters lack capacity and are unable to compete in global market as flowers remain excluded from agro-products that are entitled to get cash insensitive against export.
   ‘Export of flowers from Bangladesh is quite insignificant while a section of exporters are sending betel leaf declaring those as cut-flowers and foliages,’ said president of the Bangladesh Flower Growers and Exporters Association, M Ahshan Ullah.
   Many people in Bangladesh and other South Asian countries are fond of chewing betel leaf out of habit. A sizeable number of Bangladeshis tend to maintain the habit even while living abroad. The export of the item is restricted in many countries, prompting the country’s agro-product exporters to send betel leaf declaring it as foliage, traders said.
   Records of the Export Promotion Bureau shows there was no export of flower and foliage, but in 2003-2004 the items emerged as primary products earning $0.67 million.
   The export earnings surged by more than 996 per cent to $7.34 million in fiscal 2004-2005 and 187 per cent to $21.07 million in 2005-2006.
   During the July-September of the current fiscal, exports of the items grew by 43 per cent to $8.4 million.
   New Age investigation found that foliages were exported to those countries which were traditional buyers of Bangladeshi betel leaf.
   Export of cut flower and foliage jumped over the fiscal to $3.3 million in FY2004-2005 in Saudi Arabia from only $7,000 in the previous fiscal.
   Exports of foliage in the fiscal stood $1. 8 million, $0.15 million and $0.14 million respectively in the UK, Philippines and Malaysia while record showed no exports of the items in these countries in the previous year.
   Industry sources alleged that a section of exporters had been exploiting the category declaring exported betel leaf as foliages as export of betel leaf is restricted in some countries.
   Mir Shahabuddin Mohammad, chairman of the Export Promotion Bureau, admitted that flowers export is insignificant but he said ‘exports of foliages defined as parts of plants were increasing sharply.’
   When asked about false declaration of exports, officials concerned at the commodity promotion department of the bureau, seeking anonymity, said, ‘The National Board of Revenue provide exports figure to the bureau. The customs authority is responsible to define and check the exported commodities.’
   Sharif Ud Daulah, director of Dipta Orchid, the country’s largest commercial farm of orchids and ornamental plants, said, ‘Months back we had sent mere samples of orchid to buyers in the USA, Canada and Middle East.’
   Buyers appraised their products well, but they did not see any business as their products failed to compete with those from Thailand and others, said Daulah. ‘Our competitors are advanced having fit-to-market flower processing and packaging facilities, convenient and cheaper air freight services, above all incentives from their governments.’
   Daulah lamented that despite repeated appeals from flower growers, the government was yet to include flowers in the list of agro-products those receive cash incentives. ‘We approached many times to the commerce ministry for arranging cash incentives and aviation ministry for easy and cheaper freights, but no feedback so far.’
   Exportable flowers require massive grading, preservatives and good packaging, which increase costs and make them less competitive with other competitors, Daula said, stressing the need for cash incentives.

Some 9,03,000 tonnes of fish or nearly 43 per cent of the country’s total fish production, come from closed water farming or aquaculture, according to the department of fisheries.
   Total fish production of the country at present is 2.1 million tonnes which needs to be raised to at least 6.3 million tonnes in next 10 years to meet the increasing nutritional demand of the population, experts said.
   The aquaculture fish production need to be increased to at least 12,60,000 tonnes by 2015 through applying scientific fisheries management, experts opined, adding that other two sectors—inland capture and marine—contribute 35 and 22 per cent respectively.
   According to the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper, per capita fish consumption that now stands at 14 kilograms has to be raised to 18 to 20 kilograms.
   Research-based fish farming management, quality fish breed, feed and extension of aquaculture technologies to the target groups like farmers and entrepreneurs are essential for achieving the target.
   But the chronic flooding, disease catastrophe in shrimp and fin fishes, water pollution, indiscriminate use of pesticides, use of hazardous chemicals like tetracycline, chloramphenical, nitrofurans and DDT in fish feed and fish or shrimp products, siltation and sedimentation of river beds and other ecosystems, introduction of alien invasive species like Piranha breeding and release in open waters might pose threat to aquatic biodiversity, experts pointed out.
   The ultimate goal of increasing aquaculture fish production is to increase fish production, improve nutrition of the people and earning foreign exchange by exporting fishes and shrimp, said Dr MG Hussain, deputy director of Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute. He added that Bangladesh has the opportunity to upgrade the aquaculture fish production up to 60 per cent from the present level of 43 per cent while China emphasised to make their production up to 70 per cent within next five years.
   As in many other countries in Asia including China, India, Thailand, Philippines and Vietnam, the aquaculture production in Bangladesh has also increased in recent years because of adoption of various improved aquaculture technologies, he observed

The Chinese president, Hu Jintao, on Friday urged business to do more to fight global poverty and said development aid should come with ‘no strings attached.’
   Hu made the call, which highlighted China’s greater emphasis on the non-state sector and its growing focus on ties to the developing world, while addressing several hundred business representatives gathered in Hanoi.
   ‘To narrow the development gap and promote common development requires active participation of the business community,’ Hu said.
   Enterprises could provide capital, technology and other help critical to accelerating growth in developing countries, said the president, in Vietnam for the annual summit of the 21-member Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum.
   ‘I call on you to give more priority to exploring business opportunities and expanding market share in developing countries,’ he said.
   ‘Both the Chinese government and other governments are ready to provide you with all necessary support and facilitation.’
   The call for greater business involvement was significant coming from the leader of a nation that has all but abandoned its past attachment to communist economic principles, according to observers.
   ‘The proposal does elevate even further the role of businesspeople in a country which is supposedly still communist,’ said Ang Cheng Guan, a specialist on Sino-Vietnamese ties at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University.
   ‘Communist China is only notionally communist now,’ he said.
   China is boosting its profile among poor countries via attention-grabbing moves such as a decision to host a recent Beijing summit attended by leaders of over 40 African nations.
   China is also hastily becoming an important lender to impoverished nations, a trend that makes some western governments worry they are gradually losing influence in poverty-stricken economies in Africa and elsewhere.
   ‘We should increase official development assistance with no strings attached to developing countries,’ Hu said.
   Western criticism of China’s role in Africa has typically zeroed in on a practice of allegedly extending loans without any
   conditions in terms of better governance or curbs against corruption.

Dhaka stocks finished a bullish week with the general index gaining 46.89 points.
   The index gained 3.18 per cent to close at 1522.44 on Thursday, last trading day of the week that had three working days to trade.
   The Dhaka Stock Exchange lost first two trading days of the week– Sunday and Monday– to the blockade enforced by the AL-led alliance.
   DSE all shares price index advanced by 31.85 points or 2.58 per cent to close at 1266.10 on Thursday, while DSE20, blue chips index, went up by 20.44 points or 1.59 per cent.
   Insiders said stock market started to get momentum on the hope of a peaceful solution of the longstanding political standoff.
   The daily average turnover on the bourse, however, decreased by 4.98 per cent due to the low turnout of investors. DSE daily average turnover was Tk 36.66 crore in the last week while the figure was Tk 38.58 crore in the previous week.
   The Power Grid Company Bangladesh, listed with the bourses under direct listing regulations, dominated the market last week.
   The share prices of the state-owned power transmission company gained 25 per cent during the last week and the company topped the turnover index with total sales of Tk 37.91 crore which was 34.48 per cent of the total turnover of the bourse in last week.
   EL Camellia, however, topped the gainers’ list with 25.80 per cent rise in its share prices.
   Rupali Bank ended as third biggest loser for the reports of delay in its divestment process. The state-owned lender lost 8.44 per cent in its share prices.

Gamers lined up by the thousands early on Friday, aiming to be one of the first in the United States to buy Sony Corp’s PlayStation 3, the multimedia and video game machine that is key to the future of the beleaguered electronics and media conglomerate.
   Several of the weary shoppers had queued for more than two days outside Sony’s midtown Manhattan store and had improvised creature comforts from street junk. They turned discarded bags of shredded office paper into billowy chairs and a lamp shade sheltered one man from the rain.
   The celebratory tone overshadowed what has so far been a tough year for Japan’s Sony, which has suffered through a recall of nearly 10 million of its computer batteries, delays in the PS3 and a growing price war in the flat screen TV market.
   Shrugging off his company’s woes, Sony Chief Executive Howard Stringer made light of himself before the crowd of gamers, most of whom were dressed in sweatshirts, jeans and T-shirts.
   ‘I know I’m standing here in a stupid suit, but I’m actually happy,’ he told the crowd.
   Sony is sure to rake in millions of dollars in revenue on Friday alone, with some 400,000 units expected to be available one week after an initial launch in Japan. Depending on the size of its hard drive, each PlayStation will sell for $500 or $600.

Reader’s Digest Association, publisher of the pocket-sized magazine read by 80 million people around the world, agreed to be bought by an investor group led by Ripplewood Holdings for $2.4 billion, reports India Times.
   The India-based newspaper said Reader’s Digest investors would receive $17 a share, 9.6 per cent more than Wednesday’s closing price, the Pleasantville, New York-based company said in a statement on Thursday.
   J Rothschild Group and Merrill Lynch Capital are among the group of six buyers that will also take on $800 million in debt.
   The group will gain Reader’s Digest magazine, in print for more than 80 years, as well as Every Day With Rachael Ray and a book-fair business.
   Reader’s Digest CEO Eric Schrier is selling the company after stumbles in the fair division led to two years of losses.
   Ripplewood will add to its ownership of World Almanac and Weekly Reader.
   ‘The offer price is in the range,’ said Leon Cooperman, chairman of Omega Advisors, whose investment firm owns a 4.2 per cent stake in the company. ‘But if there’s someone who would pay more than $17 a share in cash I don’t think management would stand in the way.’
   The Reader’s Digest stock had advanced 28 per cent in the past three months as the company’s largest institutional investors increased their stakes.
   Started in 1922 from a Greenwich Village apartment, Reader’s Digest is the world’s largest magazine by circulation, selling 18 million copies a month. The company has had to confront sustained drops in advertising and newsstand revenue at the US edition of the publication.
   Moody’s Investor Service said in September it may lower its credit rating on Reader’s Digest, citing mounting debt and deteriorating sales.
   Reader’s Digest lost $26.7 million in the three months ended September 30 on writedowns at its Books Are Fun fair unit. Revenue was little changed at $517.1 million.

Ruling Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi on Friday said she was ‘proud’ of India’s economic performance, with gross domestic product growing at more than eight per cent a year.
   But the Congress leader underlined the ‘painful contrasts’ in a land of ‘dazzling prosperity ... and dehumanising poverty.’
   ‘We have large sections of our society that have yet to enjoy even the basics of a decent quality of life,’ she said.
   ‘The successes that we have recorded must not lead to false illusions of grandeur and power ... India’s standing in the world will be determined by the extent to which the weaker sections of our society lead a life of security and dignity.’
   And she warned that if ‘tangible benefits do not improve soon enough to our people from the changes that are occurring, they will reject our policies.’
   In a country of ‘such deprivation’, Gandhi also called for ‘a little less conspicuous consumption’ among the wealthy and ‘those of us in public life’.
   Since India liberalised its economy from 1991, some of the growing numbers of rich have adopted a very public millionaire’s lifestyle.
   Gandhi noted that fewer than 80,000 Indians out of a population of 1.1 billion declared annual income of more than 800,000 rupees ($18,000).
   The Italian-born Congress leader, who spurned the premiership after her party scored an upset election victory in 2004, urged the rich to be more philanthropic and cited the example of Microsoft founder Bill Gates.

The World Bank has offered to set up a 40 million dollar fund to encourage firms to invest in Sri Lanka’s embattled north and east, officials said Thursday.
   Initiated under the World Bank’s Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency or MIGA, the fund can be used to underwrite new investments by way of debt and equity and bail out companies if the event of trouble.
   Sri Lanka’s Secretariat for Coordinating the Peace Process said in a statement that talks with the World Bank and a few local businesses were already underway.
   MIGA has worked and extended credit for investors in high risk locations such as Afghanistan, the West Bank and Gaza, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, MIGA official Srilal Perera said.
   However, MIGA can only guarantee loans against political risks, Perera said.
   Investment in conflict zones began to trickle when Colombo and Tiger rebels entered a truce in February 2002.
   However, confidence has plummeted since both sides resumed hostilities in December leaving over 3,300 people killed.
   SCOPP Chief Palitha Kohona said private investment had not taken off due to the absence of security for their investments.
   Investors could also be grouped together in special zones which will enjoy tax and duty concessions and credit facilities to help start up businesses in troubled areas, Board of Investment Chief Lakshman Watawala said.
   Peace talks between the government and the Tamil Tigers collapsed last month, sparking fears the country could slip back to full-scale civil war.

Dutch-Bangla Bank Ltd has recently signed a bill collection agreement with mobile phone operator Teletalk Bangladesh Ltd.
   The additional managing director of the bank, AHM Nazmul Quadir, and the general manager (finance) of Teletalk, Golam Fakhruddin A Chowdhury, signed the agreement in the city on behalf of their respective organisations.
   Under the agreement, the account-holders of DBBL who are the subscribers of Teletalk, can pay their mobile phone bills (post-paid) through DBBL branches, ATM network, POS terminals and internet banking facilities.
   The DBBL senior executive vice president and head of IT division, Abul Kashem Md Shirin, executive vice president and head of card division, Md. Omar Faruque Bhuiyan, and the Teletalk general manager of human resources, Kabir Hasan, general manager of external coordination, Aminul Hasan, company secretary of Teletalk, Nazmul Haider, and other senior executives of both the organisations were also present on the occasion.

The president of ASA and founder chairman of Catalyst Microfinance Investors, Md Shafiqual Haque Choudhury, recently inaugurated CMI Europe office in the Netherlands.
   CMI was jointly founded by ASA-Bangladesh, K-rep Group-Kenya and Sequoia of the Netherlands.
   CMI was established with the view to provide financial and technical assistance to the microfinance institutions of Asia and Africa for expanding their activities further. It has already mobilised $50 million and started to provide funds to the MFIs of India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Cambodia, Nigeria, Indonesia, Nepal and Ghana.

Sri Lanka is set to borrow heavily abroad and at home in a bid to finance a record 2.18 billion dollar budget deficit next year, official figures showed Friday.
   The overall budget deficit for 2007 was estimated at 7.2 per cent of gross domestic product while the government revised the 2006 deficit to 7.9 per cent of GDP from an earlier projection of 9.1 per cent.
   Cuts in expenditure and higher foreign grants and huge domestic borrowings brought the 2006 deficit down, according to budget estimates. Sri Lanka expects to borrow 1.06 billion dollars next year, up from 629 million in 2006.
   The annual budget for calendar 2007 unveiled in parliament by President Mahinda Rajapakse sets aside a record 1.29 billion dollars for defence, a 45 per cent jump compared to 2006.
   ‘Increased violence compelled the government to channel more resources for security and humanitarian relief operations,’ said the president who is also the minister of finance and defence.
   He urged the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to resume peace negotiations with the government and end the latest spiral of violence which has claimed over 3,300 lives since Rajapakse came to power a year ago.
   The budget was presented two days after International Monetary Fund warned that escalating violence could trigger an economic crisis with inflation galloping and foreign reserves set to come down.
   Rajapakse proposed expanding the tax net, slapped a 10-dollar visa tax on all tourists visiting the island and decreed that no Sri Lankan should be employed abroad for less than 250 dollars a month.
   Sri Lanka expects over half a million foreign holiday makers to visit the island this year despite the escalating violence.
   He said Sri Lankan workers will be offered better training to ensure that their minimum overseas wage reaches 500
   dollars.
   Sri Lanka expects about two billion dollars this year by way of remittances from Sri Lankans employed abroad, who are the main source foreign exchange for the island.
   The government hopes to maintain an economic growth rate in excess of seven per cent and reach a per capital income of 3,000 dollars in 10 years, from the current 1,000 dollars, the president said.
   ‘What is positive in the budget is taking away the VAT on electricity,’ a spokesman for the Chamber of Industries said. ‘But, the increase in port levies will mean that prices will rise across the board.’
   Sri Lanka currently has one of Asia’s highest electricity tariffs and the president said he wanted to bring it down to a more competitive level with the commissioning of cheaper coal-powered generating plants.

The WTO’s 149 members discussed stalled global commerce talks for the first time in four months on Thursday, spurred by a pledge from the United States, Japan and other Pacific Rim countries to break the impasse on farm trade that scuttled negotiations in July.
   Pascal Lamy, director-general of the World Trade Organisation, told ambassadors at WTO headquarters that they could resume informal meetings on lowering barriers to farm and manufactured goods trade.
   ‘We will have to see what comes out of them,’ Peter Allgeier, US ambassador to WTO, told The Associated Press.
   But Lamy, just returned from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Hanoi, Vietnam, stopped short of formally restarting the five-year-old Doha round of free trade talks.
   ‘Work should take place across all areas of the negotiations,’ Lamy said, but added that full-fledged talks will only be relaunched when countries are ready to give precise numbers for the tariff and subsidy cuts they have expressed in general terms.
   ‘It would be, in my view, premature to move on to ministerial negotiations,’ Lamy said.
   The round has been suspended since last July, when trade ministers from the United States, the European Union, Japan, Australia, India and Brazil said differences over farm subsidies and tariffs, as well as barriers to the import of manufactured goods, proved unbridgeable.
   The US and the EU, the world’s two biggest traders, blamed each other for the failure.
   Lamy said he was encouraged by the ‘general feeling of urgency’ he sensed in Hanoi, where ‘political and business leaders underlined that failure to conclude the (Doha round) would be a very negative development for both the regional and world economies.’
   While short on specifics, an APEC draft statement obtained by The Associated Press commits the forum’s 21 members to do what they can to put the WTO negotiations back on track. APEC does not include major trading powers Brazil, India and the European Union.
   ‘We are ready to break the current deadlock: Each of us is committed to move beyond our current positions,’ the draft read.
   However, a similar statement at last year’s APEC meeting in South Korea failed to spark new energy in the talks.
   ‘Talk is cheap — it is easy to beat the drums for a Doha jump-start without making the needed concessions to actually get talks back on track,’ said Philippe de Pontet, an analyst with the Eurasia Group in Washington. ‘These summits tend to provide a lot of rhetoric and precious little in terms of actual flexibility on positions.’
   The Doha round was launched in Qatar’s capital two months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States and during a wave of international cooperation that included the start of the US-led war on terror.
   The plan was to lower tariffs on a wide range of goods and services, while focusing specifically on needs of poorer countries, which have long clamoured for an end to the export subsidies and highly restrictive tariffs that were preventing them from selling their farm goods abroad.

Russia is committed to providing oil and gas to Asia but wants ‘fair’ deals, president Vladimir Putin said in remarks published Friday, amid growing concern about his attitude to foreign energy investors.
   ‘As a major supplier of energy to world markets, Russia is open to cooperation in this sphere,’ Putin said in a column in Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun ahead of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Hanoi.
   ‘We are going to propose and implement a number of specific infrastructural projects, specifically, the construction of oil and gas pipelines to supply Asia and the Pacific with hydrocarbons from eastern Russia,’ Putin wrote.
   But he added: ‘We are convinced that the terms should be beneficial for all partners.’
   ‘They should rest on the mutual responsibility of energy producers and consumers, a fair distribution of risks between them and an exchange of assets in the energy sector.’
   Russia, enjoying a windfall from recent high oil prices, has taken an increasingly hard-nosed approach to foreign investors and aroused suspicions it is using energy supply as a diplomatic card.
   The Russian government in September threatened to cancel the 20-billion-dollar Sakhalin oil and gas project, for which resource-poor Japan would be a major market. Russia alleged the project violated environmental regulations but foreign companies suspected Moscow may be trying to hand over at least part of the project to domestic firms.

Foreign banks said Friday they were looking forward to expanding their China operations following the release of new rules opening up the mainland’s banking sector to global competition.
   Standard Chartered, HSBC, Hang Seng and the Bank of East Asia all confirmed to AFP they intended to set up locally incorporated ventures in the mainland, as required by the new regulations.
   London-based Standard Chartered said it had submitted an application to China’s banking regulator to establish a locally incorporated subsidiary bank and another one for a retail yuan business license.
   The bank’s two applications were submitted Thursday morning, about the same time the new rules were formally announced at a government press conference.
   The new rules will allow foreign banks to access the local currency retail market and subject them to many of the same regulatory requirements as that of local banks, although there will be some tougher restrictions.
   They will take effect on December 11 — the fifth anniversary of China’s entry into the World Trade Organisation. As part of its entry, China committed to opening up its banking sector by the end of this year.
   HSBC also expressed its enthusiasm for expanding into the mainland market. ‘We believe that our local incorporation experience in other countries will enable us to be one of the first to incorporate in China,’ said Richard Yorke, China CEO of HSBC.
   The Hong Kong-based Hang Seng Bank said in a statement it had decided as early as in September to set up a mainland incorporated subsidiary bank and set up its China business headquarters in Shanghai.
    ‘The bank plans to invest more than one billion Hong Kong dollars (128 million US dollars) to expand its mainland network and service capabilities, including its number of outlets to 30 from 15 by the end of 2007.’

The United States called on China on Friday to allow its currency to trade more flexibly as the world’s biggest economic powers gathered for talks on global imbalances and a range of pressing economic concerns.
   The US deputy treasury secretary, Robert Kimmitt, in a briefing ahead of Group of 20 (G20) talks due to begin on Saturday, said the United States also needs to do its part to fix trade imbalances, saying it needed to raise savings rates.
   But Kimmitt painted an otherwise upbeat picture of the US economy at a time when officials from many other countries, which depend on the United States as a vital export market, have voiced increasing concern about a possible slowdown in growth.
   ‘Let me say this about the US economy, I think it is solid in the near and mid-term. There has been some slowdown because of the housing market but inflation is low and job creation is good,’ Kimmitt told reporters.
   Finance ministers and central bankers from the G20 countries were due to hold talks on a wide range of economic issues, including the Chinese yuan, energy and minerals security and the need for more progress on trade liberalization.

The dollar firmed against the euro and the yen on Friday, supported by receding concerns of an impending reduction in US interest rates, dealers said.
   The euro fell to 1.2774 dollars in European trading from 1.2793 dollars in New York late on Thursday.
   The dollar stood at 118.34 yen from 118.20 yen late on Thursday.
   Dealers were set later Friday to digest the release of US housing starts data for October, and speeches from US Federal Reserve officials Sandra Pianalto and Richard Fisher.
   ‘US housing data is likely to reflect the softening of that market and slightly weigh on the dollar, but won’t generate enough stimulus to trigger a break to the upside out of the 1.2750-1.2880 range in euro/dollar,’ said Commerzbank currency analyst Gavin Friend.
   The dollar had strengthened Thursday following a flurry of US economic data which buttressed traders’ opinions that the US economy would weather its current downturn.
   The US Labor Department had said consumer prices declined 0.5 per cent in October on a sharp drop in energy costs, news that drove Wall Street to a new record finish.
   While the data could boost the case for cutting interest rates, dealers were reassured by remarks by the Chicago and Saint Louis Federal Reserve presidents saying they were still concerned with underlying inflation.
   ‘It appears that momentum of opinion has shifted somewhat with the market now a bit more willing to believe the Fed is on hold for a long time,’ said analysts at Dutch bank ABN Amro.

Thai Airways International would not rule out the possibility of cancelling its order for six Airbus A380 superjumbos as delivery delays force it to alter its long-term business plan, an executive said on Friday.
   Wallop Bhukkanasut, Thai Airways executive vice president, commercial department, also told Reuters in an interview that the national carrier, 69 per cent owned by the government and state-run agencies, was in unofficial talks with struggling Italian airline Alitalia on a potential partnership.
   Airbus, the aircraft maker controlled by aerospace group EADS, said in October that problems with the A380 would lead to two-year delivery delays and a future profit shortfall of 4.8 billion euros ($6.1 billion).
   ‘The delay, we are looking at 22, 24 months now, so of course that’s going to affect our long-term plan,’ Wallop said at an airline industry conference.
   ‘We actually wanted this fleet of 380s in operation by the end of November ‘09, but then again now it doesn’t look like that, so we have to make some adjustments,’ he said.
   Asked if Thai Airways would cancel its A380 order, he said, ‘I would not rule anything out.’
   He said the airline would likely make a decision early next year after it names a new board of directors at the end of December. The company will also see how the government wants to deal with the situation, he said.
   If Thai Airways ditched its A380 order, the move would be another blow to troubled Airbus, whose major customer FedEx last week cancelled its order for 10 A380-800F freighter aircraft and switched to rival US planemaker Boeing.
   The charges relating to delays to the A380 pushed EADS into a third-quarter operating loss, well below the average analyst forecast for a profit.
   Franco-German EADS was also rocked by a decision by Britain’s BAE last month to sell back its 20 per cent stake in Airbus after balking at the $10 billion estimated total cost of its next model, the A350 mid-sized jet, leaving EADS with the full burden of future investments while recovering from A380 delays.

Georgia has renewed threats to block Russia’s bid to join the World Trade Organization, saying Moscow’s economic blockade of Georgia demonstrates it is unfit to be a member, a report said Friday.
   The WTO ‘is based on the principles of free trade and free transport of goods,’ Georgia’s speaker of parliament, Nino Burzhanadze, was quoted as saying by the Kommersant daily.
   ‘Russia is violating these principles in relationship to Georgia: introducing economic sanctions and a de facto blockade,’ he said.
   ‘Because of this, we cannot allow Russia to join this organization,’ Burzhanadze told the paper during a visit to the Russian city of Saint Petersburg.
   The comments came as the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the US president, George W Bush, were expected to sign a bilateral agreement this weekend, clearing what was previously thought to be the last major hurdle to Russia’s joining the WTO.
   Russia cut off transport and postal links with Georgia and expelled hundreds of ethnic Georgians in October after Georgian authorities briefly detained four Russians it accused of being military spies.
   ‘If Russia turns away from this kind of policy, then Georgia will not oppose’ its WTO bid, Burzhanadze said.
   Georgia, which is already a member of the WTO, has the ability to stop Moscow’s lengthy attempt to join the trade body by blocking multilateral negotiations within the organisation.
   Russia’s WTO bid has dragged on since 1995, leaving it the only major world economy not yet a part of the 149-member group.

US beverage giant Coca-Cola Company, in a long-term plan to diversify from soft drinks, will serve coffee and tea-making expertise from its first Asian specialty outlet, company executives said Friday.
   The Atlanta-based firm, whose flagship drink is Coke, launched its Far Coast brand of premium brewed beverages at its Singapore ‘concept store’, two months after unveiling the product globally in Toronto.
   A third Far Coast outlet will open in Oslo in the first quarter of next year.
   IB Bopanna, Coca-Cola’s regional director for premium brewed beverage, said the concept differs from Starbucks and other specialty coffee retail chains.
   He said Far Coast is directed at restaurants, cinema operators, convenience stores and other business customers who want to offer gourmet coffee and tea but lack experience in this area.
   The Far Coast facility offers prospective clients a look at the range of beverages and drink machines on offer by the company.
   ‘It’s a cafe in a box... this is truly a sort of a lab if you will, for us to test our whole concept and it is also a live presentation to our customers,’ said Bopanna.
   ‘So we bring them here, show them what the product is, show them how the system works and then help them to recreate this,’ he said at the outlet on Singapore’s Orchard Road shopping and tourist strip.
   ‘So from that point of view, we don’t see ourselves as a competitor to Starbucks.’
   But he said consumers seeking a taste of Far Coast are welcome to stop by the 1,800 square foot (162 square metre) Singapore outlet for a caffeine fix or a cuppa.
   Boppana said Coca-Cola is always looking at new opportunities to complete its beverage portfolio.
   ‘We have juices, we have waters, we have energy drinks and so on... this is our first foray into the fresh brewed category,’ he told AFP on the sidelines of the launch.
   The Singapore concept store is the launchpad for the beverage giant to expand in the Asia Pacific region where rising affluence, driven by rapid economic growth, has increased consumers’ thirst for cappuccinos, lattes, chai teas and other specialty hot drinks.

Global crude prices plunged in Asian trade to their lowest level in 17 months Friday before recovering slightly in a market worried about oversupply, dealers said.
   At 2:06 pm (0606 GMT) New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in December, was three cents lower at 56.23 dollars a barrel, recovering from 56.05 in morning trade.
   The contract sunk 2.50 dollars to 56.26 dollars a barrel in late US trade Thursday as the markets reviewed conflicting reports on OPEC’s exports.
   Brent North Sea crude for January delivery gained one cent to 58.55 dollars a barrel after dropping 2.07 dollars in London trade. The December contract expired at 59.46 dollars on Wednesday.
   ‘The sentiment in the market is getting worse,’ Tetsu Emori, chief commodities strategist with Mitsui Bussan Futures in Tokyo, said.
   He said production cuts announced by OPEC have had little impact on the market because of high global inventories.
   Dave Ersnberger, Asia director of global energy information provider Platts, agreed OPEC’s cut ‘really hasn’t had any impact on the stocks... and that’s what’s concerning the traders in this market.’
   The 11-member Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries cartel decided last month to slash output by 1.2 million bpd to 26.3 million bpd, to put a floor under prices which have tumbled from above 78 dollars in July.
   But according to an analysis by ‘Petrologistics,’ OPEC’s exports have fallen 1.1 million barrels per day in November, while a separate report by ‘Oil Movements’ estimated the cartel’s exports actually rose by 210,000 barrels per day starting November 4 and were likely to remain at such a level through to December 2.
   Ernsberger said the December contract expires at the close of New York trade later Friday, which has also prompted selling because traders do not want to get stuck with expiring contracts in a market whose key question is: ‘How large are these stockpiles of crude oil and refined products, and how is the market going to absorb these?’
   Emori cited a number of other bearish factors including the outflow of speculative money from the oil market into stocks, which are making a record run on Wall Street.
   He said demand could pick up in the United States, where winter is approaching, but the market is not yet reflecting that impact.
   US weather forecaster AccuWeather predicted the US northeastern region would experience slightly colder than normal temperatures this year.
   Demand for heating fuel traditionally rockets during the northern hemisphere winter and puts crude oil prices under strain.
   Emori and other traders say a further OPEC production cut is expected in December, but he said it was not certain prices would rise as a result.
   The US Department of Energy said on Wednesday that levels of distillate products including heating oil and diesel fuel dived 3.6 million barrels to 135.0 million barrels in the week ended November 10.
   That was more than seven times market expectations of a fall of 500,000 barrels.
   Stocks of US distillates remain about six per cent above year-ago levels.
   US gasoline reserves were also down heavily, falling 3.7 million barrels to 200.3 million, against forecasts for a decline of just 100,000 barrels.

A decline in electronic shipments helped slow Singapore’s export growth to 3.8 per cent in October compared with the same period last year, the government said Friday.
   The figure came in below the expectations of economists, who forecast growth of between five and eight per cent for the month.
   October non-oil domestic exports grew 3.8 per cent to 14.80 billion Singapore dollars (9.50 billion US) compared with a revised 8.2 per cent gain to 14.34 billion dollars for September, International Enterprise Singapore said in a statement.
   On a month-on-month seasonally adjusted basis, NODX grew by a slower 2.1 per cent in October after expanding 4.5 per cent the previous month.
   Total trade reached 67.47 billion dollars on a mild contraction of 0.4 per cent compared with the same month a year earlier, the trade promotion agency said.
   ‘The lower NODX growth can be attributed to a decline in electronic NODX and slower growth of non-electronic NODX,’ it said.
   Declines in shipments of computer parts and disk drives pulled down exports of electronic goods by 2.6 per cent in October after a mild 0.3 per cent growth in September, IE Singapore said.
   Electronic exports were valued at 7.15 billion dollars last month, compared with 6.83 billion dollars in September.
   It said non-electronic exports grew by 11 per cent last month, slower than the 17 per cent expansion a month earlier.
   The expansion came from increased exports of pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, chemicals for electronics and non-electric engines and motors, it said.
   Pharmaceutical shipments increased 37.2 per cent over the same month a year earlier, to 1.59 billion dollars, compared with a rise of 59.6 per cent worth 1.54 billion dollars in September.
   Petrochemical exports increased 6.9 per cent to 1.06 billion dollars compared with a 12.6 per cent expansion to 1.07 billion dollars a month earlier, IE Singapore said.

The last time Gap Inc. suffered through a 2 ½-year sales slump, the clothing retailer dumped its chief executive officer. Now its current CEO, Paul Pressler, is hoping he’ll get more time to fix the problems that have led to nine consecutive quarters of sales erosion with more trouble looming in the holiday shopping season.
   The latest signs of Gap’s deterioration emerged late Thursday with a fiscal third-quarter report that included an 11 per cent drop in profit and a sober forecast for the remainder of the fiscal year ending in January. It marked the second time in three months that the San Francisco-based company has dimmed its earnings outlook.
   Gap’s net income of $189 million, or 23 cents per share, for the three months ended Oct. 28 fell from a profit of $212 million, or 24 cents per share, at the same time last year.
   Sales for the period totaled $3.86 billion, unchanged from a year ago.

US auto giant Ford Motor Co. predicted Friday that the retail sales of all its affiliated brands in China, which include Jaguar and Volvo, would this year grow more than one-third to 300,000 units.
   ‘Ford, Lincoln, Mazda, Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo products are capturing the hearts of Chinese consumers,’ Ford Motor China chief executive Cheng Meiwei told a press conference.
   The projected sales figure, a 36 per cent increase over the 220,000 units sold in 2005, would make Ford Motor ‘one of the top global auto players in China,’ he said ahead of the high-profile Auto China show here.
   Retail sales for the Ford brand alone in the first 10 months of this year were over 118,000 units, a 106 per cent jump from the year-earlier period, he said.
   Despite its success in China, the US car maker is struggling after posting a 5.2-billion-dollar third quarter loss.
   Ford China said its operations would not be affected by the result.
   ‘Our strategy... is not impacted by challenges in the North American market,’ Cheng said.
   ‘We plan to continue with our commitment of bringing one new product, at least, a year to the Chinese market.’ To show its commitment, the company plans to invest 27.5 million dollars in the initial phase of setting up a research and engineering center in the eastern city of Nanjing, he said.

Indian annual inflation at 5.30pc
India’s wholesale price index rose 5.30 per cent in the 12 months to Nov. 4, higher than the previous week’s 5.09 per cent due to an increase in the prices of food articles and manufactured products, data showed on Friday. The figure was higher than a forecast of 5.20 per cent from a Reuters poll of analysts. The annual inflation rate was at 4.04 per cent during the corresponding week of the previous year. The wholesale price index is more closely watched than the consumer price index, which is published monthly, because it has a higher number of products in its basket and is published weekly.
— Reuters

US housing starts
fall sharply
US housing starts fell much more heavily than expected last month, confirming a sharp slowdown in what had been one of the key pillars of the economy, according to a government report Friday. Housing starts fell 14.2 percent in October to a seasonally adjusted rate of 1.486 million units. Most Wall Street analysts had expected housing starts to decline to around 1.680 million units. The pronounced drop in the October number came after starts had risen in the prior month.
— AFP

Eurozone back to trade surplus
The eurozone’s trade balance bounced back to a 2.0-billion-euro (2.6-billion-dollar) surplus in September after posting a 5.4-billion-euro deficit the previous month, official data showed Friday. The trade surplus in September last year in the 12 states that use the single European currency was 1.3 billion euros, as lower oil prices helped to keep import costs down. The picture for the 25-nation European Union as a whole was much less rosy, with initial estimates showing a deficit of 13.4 billion euros, according to the figures from the EU’s Eurostat data agency. But that was an improvement on the 21.3 billion deficit posted in August. The September data are encouraging, said Global Insight economist Howard Archer.
— AFP