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Crops like transplanted and broadcast aman and aus paddy, vegetables and seedbed on some 3,84,261 hectares of land were totally damaged by the second spell of flood last month across the country.
   In its final report, Department of Agriculture Extension on Thursday found that crops on some 5.91 lakh hectares of land were submerged while transplanted aman on some 3.73 lakh hectares was damaged by the flood in 234 upazilas of 33 districts.
   Transplanted aman was cultivated on about 23.12 lakh hectares of land in the flooded districts.
   Vegetables on 6437 out of 40,078 hectares cultivated, aus paddy on 293 out of 13,845 hectares, t-aman seedbed on 1865 out of 23,650 hectares and other crops on 2,884 out of 9,398 hectares were damaged fully by the flood, said the report.
   Moreover, transplanted aman on 5.72 lakh hectares, vegetables on 8,596 hectares, aus on 3,675 hectares, t-aman seedbeds on 2795 hectares and others crops on 3,969 hectares were submerged, the report added.
   The worst affected districts are Sherpur, Gaibandha, Kurigram, Mymensingh, Sirajgonj, Sylhet, Jamalpur, Moulvibazar, Noakhali, Feni, Bogra, Netrokona, Chittagong and Tangail.
   Agriculture extension officials feared the output from high yielding variety of transplanted aman might decline severely due to second spell of flood.
   Though the post-flood rehabilitation programme has covered the affected areas with late variety transplanted aman, the output is less likely to offset the production loss due to floods that pounded double whammy on the farmers in a little over a month, they pointed out.
   After the first phase of flood on August, the government released some Tk 30 crore out of Tk 65 crore sought for the rehabilitation programme, but the damage from the latest spell would call for an upward revision of the allocation, said a DAE official.
   The government is going to start free distribution of seeds and fertilisers among affected farmers for the incoming boro season to help them minimise the loss of aman crops, said a high official of the agriculture ministry.

The price of gold surged Friday to the highest level since January 1980 as the precious metal was boosted by the sliding US dollar.
   On the London Bullion Market, gold prices leapt as high as 739.90 dollars per ounce.
   Analysts said that gold is winning support from the weak US currency, which makes dollar-denominated commodities cheaper for investors using other currencies.
   The metal is also boosted by record crude oil prices, which spark fears over inflation. Gold is seen as a store of value and a hedge against inflation.
   The dollar has plunged to a series of record lows against the euro over the past week, venturing deeper into uncharted territory after recent soft US economic data and a deep interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve.

The government has launched huge post-flood agro-rehabilitation and other activities through its various departments on priority basis in 10 flood-hit northern districts, Department of Agriculture Extension officials said in Rangpur on Friday.
   Under the programme, the government has allocated Tk 15.89 crore to the DAE and it started providing all possible assistance to the flood-affected small and marginal farmers in recovering huge losses they suffered during the recent floods in these districts.
   The departments concerned completed assessment of losses in all sectors including the agro-sector at union, upazila and district levels, DAE officials said and added committees had been formed and list of the affected farmers was prepared under the supervision of the Armed Forces.
   Each of the affected small and marginal farmers are getting T-aman saplings, seeds of various crops like Boro, maize, wheat, mustard and vegetables as well as fertilisers, pesticides and other agro-inputs free of costs for cultivating the crops in one bigha (33 decimals) of land each.
   The DAE has already completed distribution of T-aman seedlings among the affected farmers of 10 districts of greater Rangpur, Bogra, Pabna and Rajshahi.
   Distribution of the seeds and agro-inputs is expected to get further momentum from the first week of October and all varieties of rabi crops are expected to be cultivated on more lands than the fixed targets in every flood-hit district this time to recover the losses, deputy director of the DAE, Rangpur, Kamal Shariful Alam told the news agency.
   Special emphasis has been given on farming of other crops, including the rabi crops that began from the current mid-September and huge quantity of early variety vegetables that are being cultivated during the post-flood period have started appearing in the local markets, he added.
   He said special steps had been taken for utilising the government allocation at the field level for the affected farmers by preventing all sorts of corruption and irregularities to make the programme a success.
   Similarly, the Departments of Fisheries, Live-stocks and Animal Husbandry, Cottage Industries and Handloom, LGED and District Relief and Rehabilitation Departments have started conducting huge post-flood rehabilitation activities in the affected northern districts, officials said.
   BSS add from Natore: Authorities have unveiled an over Tk 2.5 crore post-flood agriculture rehabilitation programme to produce six different kinds of crops on 3,238 hectares of land in the district to cover the losses suffered due to the flood.
   A total of 24,287 small and marginal farmers will be given financial assistance and fertiliser by the government for boosting food and vegetable productions in the district.
   The farmers will cultivate boro paddy on 1,438 hectares of land, wheat on 750 hectares, corn on 400 hectors, rape seed 300 hectares, lentils on 250 hectares and vegetables on 100 hectares.
   Department of Agriculture Extension sources said a roadmap had been drawn for this purpose.
   The sources said 170 tonnes of different kinds of seeds, 1,485 tonnes of urea, TSP, potash and others type of fertilisers will be distributed among the farmers free of cost to boost production.
   The farmers of all upazilas of the district will get seeds and fertilisers and financial assistance in phases, the sources added.
   The ministry of agriculture has allocated Tk 2.51 crore to raise agriculture production to cope with the damage caused by recent flood.
   As part of the rehabilitation programme, the DAE has also distributed 10,000 pumpkin and brinjal plants among the farmers of Boraigram and Natore sadar upazilas for vegetable production.
   Crops on 19,341 hectares of land were fully damaged by the recent flood, the DAE sources added.

India’s inflation fell to near a five-year low, according to data on Friday, but economists said the central bank was unlikely to ease official interest rates.
   Annual inflation slowed to a better than expected 3.23 per cent for the week ended September 8 from 3.32 the previous week, according to the wholesale price index, India’s closest watched cost of living monitor.
   It was the lowest level since December 2002.
   The fall was driven by lower prices for food items like sugar, eggs and fish and a few manufactured goods. An acceleration in prices a year ago also helped make the fall look sharper.
   Inflation stood at 5.22 per cent in the same week a year earlier.
   But economists said they expect no early easing of interest rates, which are riding at five-year highs, amid worries that record global oil prices could trigger a rise in state-set domestic fuel prices that could nudge inflation upwards closer to five per cent.
   Economists said with the rupee trading at near nine-year highs against the dollar, the bank could move to suck out liquidity caused by massive foreign currency inflows by raising the cash reserve ratio — the amount of money lenders must keep on deposit with it.
   HDFC Bank chief economist Abheek Barua said the Reserve Bank of India, which will announce its latest monetary policy on October 30, is likely to keep a ‘neutral stance’ on interest rates but could hike the cash reserve ratio in a bid to stem credit growth that can fuel inflation.
   The annual rate marked the fifth straight week that inflation was below the bank’s medium-term target of 4.0 to 4.5 per cent. The rate is also below the bank’s current year target of close to 5.0 per cent.

China has raised mortgage interest rates and increased the down payment needed for loans to finance purchases of second homes, the central bank said in a notice seen Friday.
   The moves were widely expected due to official concerns over surging property prices.
   The mortgage lending rate for both commercial purchases and for second residential properties is being raised to 1.1 times benchmark lending rates. China’s benchmark one-year lending rate is now 7.29 per cent, so the new rate would be 8.019 per cent.
   Buyers of second residential properties are required to make minimum down payments of 40 per cent, up from the previous 30 per cent, according to the notice posted on the Web site of the People’s Bank of China.
   Mortgages for commercial properties will require a 50 per cent down payment and can be for a maximum of 10 years, the notice said.
   The rules were part of a package of restrictions announced by the central bank and the China Banking Regulatory Commission aimed at discouraging the property speculation that is helping to drive prices higher.

The International Monetary Fund, which once lent billions of dollars to help countries through financial crises, now faces questions of its relevance in a world that seems to need it less and less.
   The fund’s 24 executive directors were to meet Friday to choose a new managing director to begin trying to chart a different course for the 185-nation organisation that has been trying to give countries with fast-developing economies a greater role in IMF decisions.
   In addition, IMF member countries no longer are borrowing as often as they did, so funds for operations are down, staff cuts are imminent, and the agency may have to sell gold reserves to make ends meet.
   Countries with fast-developing economies and access to international capital markets, such as China and Brazil, no longer need the IMF, but it still runs lending programs for poorer nations, many of them in Africa.
   The inheritor of these problems is almost certain to be France’s Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a former Socialist finance minister. He has the support of the United States, the fund’s biggest shareholder, and the 27-nation European Union.
   If chosen, Strauss-Kahn would replace Spain’s Rodrigo de Rato, who announced in June he was retiring for personal reasons in the third year of a five-year term. De Rato will serve through the annual meetings of the IMF and its sister institution, the World Bank, October 20-23.
   Strauss-Kahn told the board last week: ‘It will be a hard task for all of us to rebuild the relevance and legitimacy of the organisation, but I am prepared to do that, and I ask you to be prepared as well.’
   He said it was ironic that both candidates for the IMF job were Europeans. The other candidate is Josef Tosovsky, a former Czech finance minister who now works for the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland.
   Tosovsky was nominated by Russia in an apparent attempt to challenge a selection process that goes back to the founding of the IMF and World Bank after World War II. In that tradition, a European gets the top IMF post and an American heads the bank.
   Early this year, the European Union supported the Bush administration’s choice of Robert Zoellick to take the helm at the bank.
   Some member governments and aid groups have criticized the process as outmoded and have said the positions should be open to the most qualified candidates. They say a good time to do this would be 2012 when Zoellick and Strauss-Khan would be leaving office.
   Tosovfsky also made a presentation to the board and praised its decision to give China, Brazil, Mexico and Turkey greater say in IMF operations.
   Strauss-Kahn said because the head of the IMF must have the backing of the entire organization, he undertook a 60,000-mile trip to visit member nations, both large and small, ‘listening and learning from them.’
   ‘That is why I am asking for broad support from the board,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to be the candidate of the north against the south or from the wealthy against the poor.’
   In his statement Strauss-Kahn expressed support for many of de Rato’s improvements at the IMF, including efforts to enhance representation of developing countries and more closely monitor trade imbalances and currency exchange rates.

The Bangladesh Krishi Bank will provide loan for farmers at a nominal interest rate to boost production of the crops like pulses, oil seeds and spices.
   According to a BKB press release, the bank will provide the loan for trained farmers only at only two per cent interest for boosting the production to reduce dependence on import and save hard earned foreign currencies.
   A tripartite agreement to this effect was signed at the BKB headquarters in the city on Tuesday.
   M Fazlul Haque, managing director of BKB, Abdus Sobhan Sikder, director general of the Bangladesh Rural Development Board, and Mohammad Shamsul Alam, director general of Department of Agriculture Extension, signed the agreement on behalf of their respective organisations.
   To make the special crop credit programme a success, the government has undertaken a project for production, preservation, processing and marketing of the crops.
   The BRDB and the DAE have taken measures to provide necessary training to the farmers concerned at 146 upazilas in 20 districts for the purpose.
   Under the agreement, the BRDB and the DAE will provide necessary help to the BKB in supervising, grating and realising the loan, the press release said.
   After signing of the agreement, the top executives of the organisations expressed the hope that the project would emerge as successful import alternative sector by increasing crop production.

Hong Kong gold prices closed higher Friday at 737.50-739.00 US dollars an ounce, up from Thursday’s close of 730.00-730.50 US dollars an ounce. The gold market opened at 737.50-738.00 US dollars an ounce.

Foreign and private investors now contribute more than half of China’s industrial output, the statistics bureau said on Thursday.
   Relaxed ownership rules in the manufacturing sector led to foreign and private factories contributing 53 per cent of last year’s industrial revenue, according to a National Bureau of Statistics report released on Thursday. The figure was 41 per cent in 2002.
   Industry is the backbone of China’s fast-paced economy, despite the government’s efforts to develop the country’s agricultural and service sectors. In 2006, 43 per cent of China’s gross domestic product came from industrial expansion.
   While it’s seen rapid and stable growth in the industrial sectors, China has restructured its economy to increase the weight of its service sector. By 2006, the service industry accounted for 40.1 per cent of the economy.
   Industrial companies with foreign backing accounted for 31.5 per cent of China’s industrial revenue last year, up from 29.3 per cent in 2002.
   Measures to encourage the development of the private economy in recent years have seen private firms’ industrial output increase at a faster pace. Private companies’ contribution to China’s industrial output increased from 10.7 per cent in 2002 to 21.2 per cent in 2006.
   But the NBS report said on Thursday that State-owned enterprises still play an important role in the sectors that are important to the country’s economic security. For example, SOEs accounted for nearly 99 per cent of economic output in the oil and natural gas exploration sectors, and the figure is 90 per cent for the electricity industry.
   Increased investment has also seen the number of companies with annual revenue higher than 2 million yuans increase from 120,000 in 2002 to 300,000 last year, according to the report. It said foreign and private investors own 70 per cent of the country’s 300,000 industrial firms.
   The number of SOEs affiliated to the central government has dropped to 155 from 196 since restructuring began in 2003.
   The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission plans to cut the number of major companies under its control from 155 to between 80 and 100 by 2010. But Xinhua quoted SASAC researcher Wang Zhigang as saying the goal will be met by the end of next year itself.
   The central government will also focus on developing 30 to 50 companies to better compete with foreign firms, Li Rongrong, minister of the SASAC, said recently.

India will open up its 330 billion dollars retail market to foreign investors. After convincing mom and pop store owners that their jobs are not at stake from big players, India’s finance minister P Chidambaram said that it is only a matter of time before the policy is tweaked to allow FDI in retail in India.
   ‘In course of time, their fears will be allayed and it is only a matter of time before the policy is tweaked to allow FDI in retail,’ he said during an interaction with students of Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia on Friday.
   While political opposition as regards allowing FDI in retail is well known, there has been a growing opposition from thousands of small retailers who employ millions of people to even entry of domestic corporate into the sector.
   ‘Experience tells us organised retail does not drive small retailers out. They will reorganise themselves and thrive. But there is a genuine fear that has to be allayed,’ Chidambaram told the students at a packed Dhirubhai Ambani auditorium at the school after delivering the Wharton Leadership Lecture.
   Earlier this week, India’s commerce and industry minister Kamal Nath had said that the issue was not about allowing FDI in retail but that of large versus small players. His ministry has asked economic think-tank ICRIER to study the situation and the report is expected in a month.
   Nath’s comments had an unsettling effect on big companies, which have presence in retail, as only last month some of the corporate-run food stores received orders to shut their shops in Uttar Pradesh. The state government, which cited law and order problems for the decision, has appointed its own commission to study the problem, but the report is yet to be tabled.
   Food products and groceries contribute about 55 per cent of the entire retail market, which has been growing at a CAGR of 10 per cent over the last five years, according to India Brand Equity Foundation.
   The finance minister said: ‘We will patiently educate them (mom and pop store owners) before they accept retail chains.’
   India allows 100 per cent FDI in cash-and-carry and wholesale operations, besides permitting 51 per cent FDI in single-brand retail. Some multinational players like Wal-Mart, who had waited long period for the sector to be opened up, have joined hands with domestic companies as their cash-and-carry partners.
   ‘Opening the retail sector to FDI will take a little time,’ Chidambaram said. India has been ranked World No 1 in the AT Kearney Global Retail Index 2006 and according to industry estimates, the organised and unorganised retail market will grow to 427 billion dollars by 2010 and 637 billion dollars by 2015.

EVA Airways, Taiwan’s leading international carrier, said Friday it will suspend Taipei-Paris passenger services from November 23 due to increased fees for over-fly routes and rising operating costs.
   EVA Air currently provides three Taipei-Paris passenger flights every week.
   ‘We blame the high expenses for the service suspension. After the suspension, EVA Air will shift the capacity to its Taipei-Los Angeles passenger services,’ an EVA Air spokeswoman said.
   At present, the carrier provides 17 Taipei-LA passenger flights a week and the number is expected to increase to 20 in the near future, the spokeswoman said.
   However, eyeing strong demand for air cargo services in Europe, EVA Air is scheduled to launch Taipei-Paris cargo services, flying twice a week from January 2008, the spokeswoman said.
   She said the average load factor of cargo flights to Europe for EVA Air reaches as high as 90 per cent.

German retail sales plummeted in August, official data showed Friday, another sign that a long-awaited contribution to the eurozone’s biggest economy was still some way off.
   Retail sales fell by 1.4 per cent from July, and by 2.2 per cent from August 2006, preliminary data from the national statistics office Destatis showed.
   Analysts had expected annualised sales to decrease by 1.4 per cent, and the figures backed up a survey published Tuesday by the Ifo research institute that showed business sentiment among retailers falling sharply.
   ‘There is not yet any indication for the generally expected strengthening of private consumption,’ Commerzbank analyst Matthias Rubisch said in a research note.
   Germany’s slowing economy is heavily reliant on exports, and the consumption pillar has traditionally provided less support owing to a German inclination to save rather than spend.
   Almost all retail categories showed significant drops over the year, and the losses hit both small and large retail outlets.
   Among non-food products, only sales of pharmaceuticals and cosmetics edged higher, while new clothes sat on the shelves owing to the country’s rainy summer.
   Rubisch nonetheless forecast that lower unemployment along with higher wages would boost disposable income and that as a result, ‘the figures for retail sales will probably be better in the coming months.’
   But, he warned: ‘The upswing will not be a strong as many analysts are expecting.’
   That, along with a likely increase in savings to provide for old age, meant that ‘stronger private consumption will not stop the economy losing further steam in 2008.’

The European Commission accused non-governmental organisations on Thursday of ‘playing poker’ with Europe’s former colonies by urging them to reject new trade pacts.
   The 78 African, Caribbean and Pacific rim countries making up the so-called ACP group and the European Union are struggling to clinch new agreements by the end of the year, when current preferential market access is due to expire.
   To mark the five years since the negotiations were launched, many pro-development pressure groups mobilised on Thursday to protest against the new so-called economic partnership agreements.
   NGOs such as ActionAid and Oxfam have accused the European Commission of threatening development of ACP countries by allegedly strong-arming them to sign the new trade pacts.
   In an open letter to NGOs, EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson and Development Commissioner Louis Michel said: ‘Calling for an end to ... negotiations when there is no credible alternative is playing poker with the livelihoods of those we are trying to help.’
   In a reaction to the letter, Oxfam said in a statement: ‘The Commission’s claim that they are being flexible is belied by their behaviour in the negotiations.’
   The NGO added that the EU ‘continues to insist on the deadline and reiterate demands in areas such as services, investment and government procurement that would have negative implications for development.’
   With the year-end deadline looming ever larger, the EU sought in April to boost the negotiations with an offer to scrap all tariffs and quotas on ACP countries’ exports with the exception of sugar and rice.
   The agreements are supposed to help ACP countries develop while they diversify their economies and meet WTO requirements that they allow for some opening of their markets to European goods and services.

The World Bank on Thursday pledged a record 3.5 billion dollars to aid the world’s poorest countries as it cut the interest rate on loans to big developing countries.
   The roughly quarter-point lowering of loan rates was a concession by the World Bank as it stepped up efforts to get some of its bigger borrowers such as China and Brazil to contribute themselves to poverty-fighting programs around the world.
   The compromise marks a major coup for the new president of the troubled bank, Robert Zoellick, a former US trade chief who took office in July after the ouster of Paul Wolfowitz over a favoritism scandal.
   Known as a sharp negotiator, Zoellick, who left the Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs to join the World Bank, apparently managed to quickly strike a win-win deal to find more money for poor countries and ease borrowing for middle-income clients.
   The bank said Thursday it was seeking to contribute more than double the 1.5 billion dollars it had pledged two years ago to the International Development Association, its arm which provides interest-free loans and grants to the poorest countries.
   ‘By boosting its IDA pledge by over 100 per cent, the World Bank Group is putting its money where its mouth is,’ Zoellick said.
   ‘This should help us gain momentum as we urge donor countries to increase their commitment to help the 81 poorest countries, especially in Africa,’ he said in a statement.
   Zoellick cited the example of South Africa, which had already pledged an increase of over 30 per cent in its support for IDA.
   The bank said its board of executive directors also took ‘a second important step’ Thursday: approval of the biggest simplification and reduction in loan charges in nine years for the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, another key World Bank lending loan unit.
   The move affects 79 creditworthy low and middle-income country borrowers and shareholders of the IBRD, and takes the controversial loan rates to levels last seen in 1998, before rates were raised in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis.
   In a teleconference with reporters, Zoellick said the World Bank executive board had decided to cut by about a quarter percentage point the rate the IBRD charges.
   ‘A number of middle-income countries have been raising this issue almost seven, eight, nine years,’ he said.
   Since the Asian crisis, a number of middle-income countries have amassed large foreign currency reserves and no longer see the need for significant financial support from IBRD.
   The current talks for the fundraising campaign for the group of poorest countries began in March and are expected to conclude in December.
   The previous IDA campaign raised 33 billion dollars in total from donor countries and the World Bank.
   Donor countries are asked every three years to replenish IDA coffers and review its policies.
   ‘I am very pleased that the board has agreed to help us put our money where our mouth is in terms of trying to get donors to support IDA,’ Zoellick said.

The European Union’s economy commissioner said in a newspaper interview Friday the bloc is worried about the low level of the dollar against the euro.
   However, in an interview with French daily Le Figaro, Joaquin Almunia said European economies are not responsible for the situation.
   ‘It is true that the loss of the value of the dollar worries us,’ he said, adding ‘economies of the eurozone are not responsible for the situation.’
   The euro has been going from record to record against the dollar, on the heels of a batch of soft US economic indicators and the crisis in the US home loan market.
   Almunia also said he had heard ‘the United States say that it was not in their interest to have a weak dollar.’
   But ‘from now on we expect a bit of coherence between words and action,’ he said, suggesting the dollar was perhaps being held at an artificially low level.

The Grameenphone Ltd has recently signed an agreement with the Meghna Life Insurance Company Ltd to provide communication facilities under its business solutions package.
   Under the agreement, Meghna Life Insurance is being provided communication solutions tailored to its needs, including voice, data and other services.
   Ekramul Amin, managing director of Meghna Life Insurance, and Khandaker Omar Farhan, deputy general manager, commercial division of Grameenphone, signed the agreement for their respective organisations in the city, said a press release.
   CN Rudra, senior executive director, DS Taiful Islam, executive director, administration, of Meghna Life Insurance, and Touhidul Islam, group manager, Rashed Uddin Ahmed, account manager, SM Musa, account manager, and Md Zakaria Ayub, customer manager, of Grameenphone were present at the signing ceremony.

Swedish investment bank Carnegie was Friday fined 50 million kronor ($7.7m) and its chief executive and board sacked after a trading scandal, Sweden’s Financial Supervisory Authority said.
   The bank, which is listed on the Stockholm stock exchange and has operations in eight countries, had ‘serious deficiencies in its governance and control of the firm’s operations,’ the authority said.
   The FSA said it came close to revoking Carnegie’s licence but settled on a fine and warning after the company presented an action plan to improve routines.
   This is the first time the FSA’s maximum fine of 50 million kronor has been handed down, Swedish financial daily Dagens Industry said.
   In May, the bank disclosed that it had overestimated its trading results by 630 million kronor ($97m) between 2005 and 2007, boosting profits and, in turn, executives’ and employees’ bonuses.
   Carnegie blamed the mistake on two employees, who were fired on the spot, and the head of trading who resigned just prior to the disclosure.
   The employees insisted however they acted in line with company regulations.
   The FSA said Carnegie’s ‘governance of the operations has been contradictory and the bank’s internal rules have been incomplete.’
   ‘The control functions have been significantly undersised in relation to the scope and risk of the operations. Allocation of responsibility has been unclear and important review assignments have been allocated to persons lacking sufficient competence to carry out the task,’ it added.
   The FSA also said it would report Carnegie’s auditors, KPMG, to the Supervisory Board of Public Accountants.

General Electric plans to move some of its operations to a special economic region being developed in Malaysia’s southern Johor state, company officials said Thursday.
   Stuart Dean, president of the conglomerate’s GE International Inc unit, said the move was tied to plans by a major customer to relocate to Nusajaya City in the Iskandar Development Region.
   ‘We will follow one of our major customers who may invest in Nusajaya and support them there, so that business has to be relocated here,’ he told reporters.
   ‘One of our businesses, GE Water probably will be the first one to move into Nusajaya,’ Dean said. He did not provide further details. GE Water and Process Technologies are involved in water and wastewater treatment and systems.
   GE, one of the world’s largest companies, may also seek investment opportunities in the development region, a special economic zone which will be 2.5 times the size of neighbouring Singapore when completed.
   The zone is part of Malaysia’s plan to turn Johor into a major metropolis to rival Singapore.
   ‘I think Southeast Asia is developing nicely, economies like Malaysia are flourishing and coexisting well with China and India,’ GE chief executive officer Jeff Immelt said.
   ‘The Malaysian infrastructure is supportive of having both regional and global investments. So I think the timing is good, right now, in Malaysia,’ he said.
   The GE executives were in Kuala Lumpur for the signing of a three-year agreement with Nusajaya City’s master developer UEM Land, a wholly-owned unit of Malaysian-listed UEM World.
   GE and UEM Land will jointly develop a blueprint for safety and security systems for Nusajaya City, which will serve as a guide for all current and future developers there.

The US economy carried strong momentum into the mid-year credit turmoil, expanding at a 3.8 per cent pace in the second quarter, the final estimate for gross domestic product showed Thursday.
   The April-June growth rate was reduced from last month’s estimate of 4.0 per cent, the Commerce Department said, but still robust after the sluggish 0.6 per cent pace of the first quarter.
   The figure was roughly in line with Wall Street estimates of a 3.9 per cent annualised growth rate, but analysts see the report as ‘old’ data that have minimal significance in view of the housing market and credit troubles that have emerged in the past few months.
   The Federal Reserve last week cut key interest rates by half a percentage point, saying the downside risks to the economy have increased.
   In more recent data, the Labour Department said US unemployment claims in the past week fell by 15,000 from the previous week to 298,000 and much better than expectations for a reading of around 320,000.
   ‘We know that things decelerated in the third quarter and we know we had a major negative world event, the credit crunch,’ said Andrew Busch at BMO Capital Markets.
   ‘The one piece of economic data that came out that isn’t old is the initial jobless claims. These are holding up and improving.’
   GDP growth accelerated from a weak 0.6 per cent pace in the first quarter, but analysts say both figures are statistical flukes and that the underlying pace of growth is somewhere between the two.
   ‘Today’s revisions don’t change our view for full-year 2007 GDP growth close to 1.9 per cent with a significant deceleration in the second part of the year,’ said Nathalie Dezeure at Natixis.
   The Commerce Department said the downward revision to growth reflected an increase in imports of both goods and services, which subtract from GDP growth. Imports fell a revised 2.7 per cent in the quarter, not as steep a decline as the 3.2 per cent decline estimated earlier. Exports rose 7.5 per cent in the second quarter.

The German bank IKB which was caught up in the US high-risk mortgage debacle, expects to post a loss of up to 700 million euros ($990m) for its 2007/2007 fiscal year, it said Friday.
   In its first quarter which ended June 30, the specialist in loans to small and medium sized businesses showed a net profit of 12 million euros, a fall of 66 per cent on an annual basis.
   But the effects of the US ‘sub-prime’ crisis had not yet taken their full effect, IKB acknowledged in a statement.
   It was saved from bankruptcy in August when the German bank KfW, the government’s financial arm, provided IKB with a line of credit worth 8.1 billion euros and other German banks agreed to add another 3.5 billion if needed.
   The distressed German bank now faces a wave of shareholder legal actions as a result of the losses, with 40 complaints filed this week against IKB and its former boss, Stefan Ortseifen, and another 40 possibly being prepared.
   They charged that shareholders were not warned of problems linked to the crisis in the US sub-prime market.
   The prosecutor office in Duesseldorf, western Germany, has also begun to investigate possible fraud and violations of business laws at the German bank.

World oil prices held close to historic peaks on Friday after London Brent crude rocketed to a record high 80.49 dollars per barrel on storm concerns in the rig-heavy Gulf of Mexico.
   Prices in London and New York spiked by more than two and a half dollars on Thursday as the market was electrified by stormy weather in the Gulf of Mexico region. Analysts fear this could further stretch global crude supplies.
   In Friday morning deals, the price of London’s Brent North Sea crude for November delivery gained 11 cents to 80.14 dollars per barrel, after hitting the historic peak in earlier Asian trade.
   New York’s main futures contract, light sweet crude for delivery in November, added 12 cents to 83.00 dollars per barrel. The contract earlier hit 83.38 dollars—not far off its record of 84.10 set last week.
   Tropical Storm Lorenzo strengthened into a hurricane and slammed ashore early Friday along one of Mexico’s oil producing regions, the US National Hurricane Center said.
   The Gulf of Mexico is a leading oil-producing region for the United States and Mexico and investors are worried that, during the long Atlantic hurricane season that ends in November, a storm will damage oil rigs and other infrastructure.
   The Category One hurricane—the lowest on the five-level Simpson-Saffir scale—was located just inland, and some 65 kilometers east-southeast of Tuxpan at 0600 GMT Friday, the Miami-based Hurricane Center reported.
   Scores of offshore oil rigs are located in the area off Tuxpan.
   This week, oil prices have surged higher against a background of tight supplies and keen demand.
   ‘The market is continuing to tighten with very strong demand coming through in most parts of the world,’ said Barclays Capital analyst Kevin Norrish.
   ‘The market looks very healthy right now,’ he added.
   ‘We have been warning that there is upside price risk and that is the way it seems.’

The euro surged above 1.42 dollars for the first time in its short history in London on Friday amid the prospect of further cuts to US interest rates, dealers said.
   The euro reached 1.4208 dollars in afternoon London trade, the highest level since creation of the European single currency in 1999.
   At about 1300 GMT, the euro was trading at 1.4203 dollars, compared with 1.4150 in New York late on Thursday.
   The dollar slumped to a fresh low despite US data out Friday showing that consumer spending rose 0.6 percent in August as Americans shrugged off credit and housing market turmoil.
   The Commerce Department report was better than the 0.4 per cent rise expected by Wall Street analysts and showed that a key driver of US economic activity remained strong.
   Personal income however rose a more modest 0.3 per cent, slightly below expectations of a 0.4 per cent gain.
   Weak US housing data appeared to offset any good news.
   ‘Dollar weakness remains a dominant theme after Thursday’s far worse than expected US new home sales data suggested once again that we would see further rate cuts from the Fed as the year progresses,’ said James Hughes, an analyst for CMC Markets.

Thai current account surplus jumps 74pc
Thailand’s current account surplus in August jumped 74 per cent from a year earlier, led by robust exports of hi-tech goods and vehicles, the central bank said Friday. The surplus in the current account, the broadest measure of trade in goods and services, hit 735 million dollars, with exports rising 18.4 per cent year-on-year to 13.8 billion dollars, it said in a monthly report. ‘We posted the surplus mainly due to strong exports. Foreign demand for our products remained very strong,’ said a Bank of Thailand official. Exports expanded particularly in the hi-tech goods and auto sectors, she said. Exports account for 60 per cent of the Thai economy, which has been hit by anemic consumer spending and depressed business confidence following last year’s bloodless coup. Imports in August increased 12.1 per cent year-on-year to 12.8 billion dollars, the central bank said. Thailand’s exports to the United States, the kingdom’s top trading partner, fell eight per cent from a year earlier to 1.69 billion dollars in August, but shipments to Japan rose 7.7 per cent to 1.55 billion dollars, it said.
— AFP

Vietnam to import 50,000 tonnes of urea
Vietnam needs to import some 50,000 metric tonnes of urea in the fourth quarter of this year, according to the trade information center under the country’s Ministry of Industry and Trade on Friday. Vietnam needs about 440,000 tonnes of urea in the quarter, when domestic fertilizer plants are estimated to produce 240,000 tonnes. Now, there are some 150,000 tons of urea in inventory in the country. The average price of Chinese urea imported to Vietnam via the Mong Cai border gate in northern Quang Ninh province in the first week of this month stood at 247 US dollars per tonne, compared with 240 dollars in the first week of last month, the center said, noting that Vietnam imports urea mainly from China, Indonesia, Russia and the Middle East.
— Xinhua