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Prices of edible oil and chicken increased in the past week in city markets, traders said, because of supply shortage on the wholesale markets.
   Edible oil prices increased sharply after the millers, negotiating with the market monitoring authorities in the early week, had fixed rates higher than the prevailing rates.
   The prices of chicken and eggs shot up because of declining supply as many framers reduced or stopped raising chickens for the price hike of poultry feed.
   Severe outbreak of bird flu in the neighbouring West-Bengal also frightened the farmers, market sources said.
   Price oil non-packed soya bean oil increased by at least Tk 2 per kilogram over the week as on Friday the commodity was retailed between Tk 96 and Tk 100.
   On the wholesale market, non-packed or loose soya bean was traded between Tk 3380 and Tk 3400 per maund on Thursday against around Tk 3320 a week ago.
   In the early week, the edible oil millers fixed mill gate rate of loose soya bean at Tk 3400 per maund (37.3 kilogram) for a period of 15 days, suggesting that its wholesale price should be Tk 3420.
   Millers increased the rates and the wholesale and retail markets responded to it, Maulaviabzar traders said.
   The millers fixed mill gate rate of a 5-litre can of soya bean at Tk 494 but different brands of the products remained unchanged at Tk 495 and Tk 500.
   Price of broiler chicken increased by at least Tk 10 per kilogram as the firm-grown chicken was selling between Tk 85 and Tk 90 in different areas in the city.
   ‘Supply of chicken declined on the wholesale markets following sharply rise in poultry feed prices, discouraging many farmers to raise new stocks,’ said chicken traders at Karwanbazar.
   The prices of the coarse varieties of rice declined by Tk 1 per kilogram while that of the fine varieties remained unchanged at their high rate.
   Different verities of coarse rice were selling between Tk 29 and Tk 32 per kilogram on Friday against Tk 30 and Tk 32 in the previous week.
   Meantime sources at wholesale market told New Age rice prices might take turn in the coming weeks as some importers reduced importing new stocks of rice from Indian because of the presence of law enforcers in the market.
   Most of the major commodities including vegetables remained stable in the week.
   Among major items, onion were selling between Tk 14 to Tk 18 per kilogram, potato Tk 13 and Tk 15, packed coarse flour between Tk 42 and Tk 44, red lentil between Tk 68 and Tk 80, sugar between Tk 30 to Tk 32 beef between Tk 170 and Tk 180 while eggs were selling between Tk 48 to Tk 51 per dozen.

The price of iron rod has increased by Tk 10,000 per tonne on the local market in one month due to shortage of iron scraps, allegedly made by the members of the Bangladesh Ship Breakers Association.
   Market sources said, the price of 60-grade rod increased to Tk 64,000 per tonne from Tk 54,000 a month back while the price of 40-grade rod shot up to Tk 54,000 a tonne from Tk 44,000.
   Enamul Hoque Iqbal, organising secretary of the Re-rolling Mill Owners Association, said they had been purchasing iron scraps at Tk 47,000 per tonne against Tk 40,000 a month back.
   ‘We are even failing to purchase iron scraps at the increased price in the past three-four days,’ he said, adding that there was no reason for the price hike as there were enough scraps at the ship breaking yards.
   He said the owners of the most ship breaking yards own re-rolling mills and they were not supplying scraps to the other re-rolling mills owners with an ill motive to manipulate the price of iron rod.
   A general member of the BSBA said on November last the association introduced a new procedure to import ship scraps through a purchase committee and distribute them among the ship breaking agencies instead of importing individually.
   ‘The committee reduced ship scraps import after introducing the procedure,’ he said, adding it helped the committee members to realise at least Tk 10 crore extra from five ships broken during the past one month contributing to pushing up the price of scraps.
   Abul Kashem, a member of the purchase committee, said price of scrap iron increased because of the price hike of scrap ships on the international market.
   He, however, admitted that they had been realising some extra money from the ship breakers for different welfare activities conducted by the association.
   According to the sources, the country has a annual demand for 32 lakh tonnes of iron rod and the local re-rolling mills were furnishing 18 to 20 lakh tonnes through collecting scrap iron from the ship breaking yards at Sitakunda in the district when the rest were being imported directly.
   There are more than three hundred re-rolling mills at different parts of the country and many of them have been compelled to suspend their production because of scarcity of scrap iron during the past one month, the sources added.

Gold production ground to a halt in South Africa on Friday as the industry became the latest victim of a spiralling electricity crisis which the government labelled a national emergency.
   The three main companies operating in a country with a long record as the world’s biggest gold producer announced they had suspended production because of unreliable energy supplies.
   Gold Fields, Harmony and AngloGold Ashanti said in separate statements they had been notified by state energy utility Eskom that it could not guarantee supplies to their mines and could not say when they would resume operations.
   Tens of thousands of miners were told not to bother reporting for shifts in a move the companies said would cost hundreds of millions of dollars in production.
   A spokeswoman for Harmony, which operates 22 gold mines and employs 43,000 miners, estimated that around 300 kilogrammes of production would be lost after both the morning and afternoon shifts were cancelled.
   ‘That’s around 600 million rand ($85m) in today’s market,’ spokeswoman Amelia Soares told AFP.
   Ian Cockerill, chief executive of Gold Fields, which produces about 200 kilogrammes, acknowledged that it would ‘have a serious effect on the South African operations and will negatively affect our gold production.’
   While the mines had earlier been plagued by short-term power cuts, Soares said it was the first time they had to cease production for the day.
   Large parts of Africa’s economic powerhouse have been intermittently plunged into darkness in recent weeks as Eskom imposes planned blackouts to conserve dwindling electricity supplies.
   The commercial capital Johannesburg has been hardest hit, and analysts have warned of foreign investors taking flight as everything from factory production to traffic regulation has been affected.
   It is the view of cabinet that the unprecedented unplanned power outages must now be treated as a national electricity emergency,’ he said. This had been caused by poor planning and a sudden shortage of coal.
   Erwin said the government would introduce incentives and penalties to encourage consumers to switch to gas and solar energy, as well as energy savings measures.
   ‘It is a reality that there will be further significant increases in electricity prices,’ said Erwin. Approval has already been given for an above-inflation tariff hike of 14.2 per cent.
   Erwin said there was ‘no question of stopping’ large foreign investment projects and said the 2010 football World Cup should not be adversely affected.
   ‘There is no threat to the successful holding of the event as plans to ensure electricity security in that period are well advanced.’
   Meanwhile, plans to build new power stations and recommission others would be fast-tracked where possible.
   The main opposition Democratic Alliance said the government’s savings measures did not go far enough.
   ‘South Africans must now face the reality of power cuts becoming the norm at least until 2013,’ said leader Helen Zille.
   And the minority Freedom Front Plus condemned the effect on the mining industry, saying it ‘will deliver a devastating blow to the country’s economy, not to mention the damage to foreign investment that it will be causing.’

Mizuho Corporate Bank Ltd said Friday it has become the first Japanese lender to tie up with an Indian counterpart amid expectations of more Japanese investment in the fast-growing economy.
   The bank, part of Mizuho Financial Group Inc, said it signed an alliance agreement with the government-run State Bank of India, the country’s largest lender with 14,000 branches across the country.
   The tie-up will include cooperation on areas including syndicated lending and infrastructure finance, a Mizuho statement said. There will not be any capital tie-up.
   Mizuho said the first-of-a-kind tie-up would offer ‘support for its customers’ business development in India’ through access to the State Bank of India’s ‘expansive domestic branch network.’
   ‘In addition to the increase in Japanese companies establishing operations there in recent years, there are many promising business opportunities anticipated in India, including various large infrastructure-related projects,’ a Mizuho statement said.
   Japanese leaders have made a concerted effort to improve ties with India and pledged investment to develop an industrial corridor between New Delhi and Mumbai, the country’s two largest cities.
   But Japan’s trade with India remains dwarfed by that with China, with many Japanese finding more cultural linkeages with the communist nation despite sometimes uneasy political relations.
   However, a November survey of Japanese business leaders showed for the first time that India had topped China as their most attractive long-term manufacturing base.
   The Mizuho group has been expanding overseas since last year paying back the last public funds borrowed during Japan’s massive bailout in the 1990s of banks crushed by bad loans.
   Mizuho Corporate Bank said last week it was investing 1.2 billion dollars in Merrill Lynch as part of efforts to help the US financial giant overcome mounting losses over the US housing downturn.

India’s inflation edged upward, official data on Friday showed, but analysts said this week’s US interest rate cut made it more likely the Indian central bank could follow suit.
   Annual inflation quickened to 3.83 per cent for the week ended January 12 from 3.79 percent a week earlier, according to the wholesale price index, India’s main cost-of-living monitor.
   Inflation stood at 6.15 per cent in the same period the previous year.
   Inflation rose on the back of rises in manufactured goods and food prices such as rice and maize, the government data showed.
   But it remained below the Reserve Bank of India’s ceiling of close to five percent for the current fiscal year to March 31, 2008.
   Analysts had expected the Indian central bank — wary about the impact of sharp rises in global oil and commodity prices — to keep its interest rates on hold this year.
   But anxiety over a global slowdown triggered by a possible US recession and the sharp US rate cut had changed the picture, they said.
   The US Federal Reserve’s unprecedented three-fourths of a point cut in its base short-term interest rate to 3.50 per cent Tuesday was aimed at stimulating an ailing US economy, battered by a severe housing slump and tight credit.
   Concerns that Indian growth might slow further than expected due to a US slowdown fuelled expectations that a rate cut could come as early as next Tuesday’s central bank monetary policy meeting.
   Nine interest rate hikes since 2004 and steps by the central bank to force commercial lenders to put aside more reserve funds to brake lending growth have slowed consumer demand and dampened expansion.
   ‘The RBI has been focused on inflation for the last two years and looks set to give greater priority to its other objective — growth,’ said HSBC economist Robert Prior-Wandesforde in Singapore.
   ‘We now expect two 25 basis point rate cuts this year, possibly starting at next Tuesday’s monetary policy meeting,’ he said.

Asian shares closed up Friday as they continued to recover ground following an earlier plunge, shrugging off US recession fears and a shocking fraud at French bank Societe Generale.
   The rebound picked up steam in the wake of the US Federal Reserve’s emergency interest rate cut, with some key bourses recouping losses incurred when shares tumbled worldwide due to concerns about the ailing US economy.
   But US media began to ask if Societe Generale’s high-volume sales of tainted investments at the start of the week had contributed to the stocks rout at the time, and therefore helped to set the stage for the Fed’s 75 basis points cut.
   Societe Generale said a single rogue trader had carried out a 7.15-billion-dollar fraud. It said it had discovered the illegal activity last Saturday and Sunday and was selling off those positions by Monday.
   The bank revealed the fraud to the public Thursday, sending confidence in global banking to a new low, but by then the Fed had chopped rates Tuesday in a move some commentators argued smacked of near-panic amid the stocks meltdown.
   Analysts said the cut to 3.5 per cent and a plan to boost the US economy with an economic stimulus package appeared to have calmed investors for now.
   Record defaults among subprime US mortgages have led to huge banking losses, a global credit crunch, a housing market slowdown and the threat of an American recession.
   But investors set those concerns to one side, sending Tokyo up more than four percent, while Hong Kong and Mumbai both surged more than six percent. Nearly all the region’s major markets posted big gains.
   The Japanese share prices closed up 4.10 per cent, with a three-day rebound picking up steam after US political leaders reached a deal aimed at warding off recession, dealers said.
   The Hong Kong share prices closed up 6.7 per cent, Chinese share prices closed up 0.93 per cent, Taiwan share prices closed 2.96 per cent higher, South Korean share prices closed up 1.8 per cent, Singapore share prices closed 3.59 per cent higher, Malaysian share prices closed 1.6 per cent higher, Thai share prices closed 4.27 per cent higher, Indonesian share prices closed 4.1 per cent higher, Philippine share prices closed 2.9 per cent higher and Indian share prices surged 6.62 per cent.

World oil prices continued higher in Asian trade Friday as global stock markets firmed but underlying worries over the US economy remained, dealers said.
   In afternoon trade, New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in March, rose 57 cents to 89.98 dollars per barrel.
   The contract jumped 2.42 dollars to close at 89.41 dollars Thursday during floor trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
   Brent North Sea Crude for March delivery was 53 cents higher at 89.60 dollars per barrel, after shooting up 2.45 dollars to 89.07 dollars in London on Thursday.
   Key regional bourses continued their rebound Friday after a quick agreement by US leaders on a stimulus package for the US economy.
   ‘Everybody is still concerned about the US economy,’ said Tony Nunan from Mitsubishi Corp.’s international petroleum business in Tokyo.
   ‘Yes, there has been a rebound, but I think the factors that underlie the stock market are still bearish. The commodities market will continue to look for signs for health of the US economy from equities and that will affect prices.’
   Despite recent gains, oil prices are still well off their early January records of 100.09 dollars per barrel in New York and 98.50 dollars in London.
   Traders said rapid economic growth in China — the world’s second-largest importer of crude — helped to support crude prices on Thursday.
   China’s economy grew at 11.4 per cent in 2007, reaching the highest level in 13 years and marking the fifth straight year of double-digit growth, the government said.

Democratic White House hopeful Hillary Clinton Thursday savaged President George W Bush over the economy, saying his ‘bankrupt’ ideas sparked a downturn felt around the world.
   New York Senator Clinton sharpened her rhetoric two-days before the South Carolina primary, the next leg of the 2008 nominating marathon, which polls say her top party rival Barack Obama is poised to win.
   As she laid out how she would bring the US economy roaring back from a feared recession, Obama, an Illinois senator, took his own swipe at Clinton, saying her economic plan proved she would say anything to get elected.
   Clinton spoke as the White House and US lawmakers reached a tentative deal on a 140-billion-dollar stimulus.
   The Wall Street Journal reported the plan would feature tax rebates of at least 300 dollars for individuals who paid taxes in 2007, with additional cash for families with children with a maximum payout of 1,200 dollars for families.
   Clinton accused Bush of failing to throw himself into the hard work of daily management of the economy, arguing his decision to stay at a ‘comfortable cruising altitude’ has led to US finances going off the rails.
   ‘Our economic problems are complex, but there is one thing we know for sure: the problem with our economy is not the American people, instead, the problem is, in part the bankrupt ideas, of president George W Bush.
   ‘The American people don’t hire a president to talk about our problems but to solve them,’ she said, again laying out plans to tackle the mortgage crunch, high energy prices and make health care and education more affordable.
   ‘It’s time we had a president who believes that leading an economic comeback is a full-time, hands-on job,’ Clinton said, arguing that she was uniquely qualified to bring the staggering US economy bouncing back.
   Obama earlier accused Clinton of initially failing to realise that ‘workers and seniors’ needed immediate relief in her stimulus plan designed to head off reccession when she first laid out her economic plans on January 11.
   ‘Five days later, the economy didn’t really change, but the politics apparently did, because she changed her plan to look just like mine,’ Obama said in a written statement.
   ‘We can’t afford a president whose positions change with the politics of the moment,’ Obama said.
   ‘We need a President who knows that being ready on day one means getting it right from day one,’ he said, riffing on language frequently used by Clinton to portray what she says is her readiness to lead.
   Clinton’s campaign says she was the first major presidential candidate to call for a stimulus plan, last year, and unveiled details of the mammoth package now totalling 110 billion dollars on January 11.
   Obama followed up with a 75 billion dollar plan that includes tax cuts for low-income Americans, as well as help for the unemployed and relief from the housing crisis.
   Candidates from Bush’s Republican party, meanwhile, are preaching the classic conservative themes of low taxes and limited government spending.

Struggling Ford Motor Co has managed to substantially trim its losses but will have to make more cuts in the face of a slowing US economy, the automaker said Thursday.
   ‘Although our automotive operations are improving on a year-over-year basis, the US economy is slowing and the outlook for the auto industry remains challenging,’ said Alan Mulally, the company’s president and chief executive officer.
   ‘To help ensure we are able to deliver our commitments despite the difficult external environment, we will be taking further cost reduction actions in North America.’
   Those cost reductions include offering a new round of buyouts to union workers, cutting the salaried workforce, trimming operating costs, and continuing to ‘adjust production to the changing business environment.’
   Ford also plans to accelerate the introduction of new products to help stimulate flagging demand, but warned that its US market share could continue to slip to the ‘low-end” of 14 to 15 per cent from 14.8 per cent in 2007.
   Ford, which lost the number two spot in its home market for the first time since 1931 to Japan’s Toyota Motor Co last year, reported a fourth-quarter net loss of 2.8 billion dollars.
   For the full year, the loss amounted to 2.7 billion. That came after a record loss of 12.6 billion dollars in 2006 for the struggling automaker.
   The quarterly loss was in line with analyst forecasts, translating to a deficit of 20 cents per share. Ford closed down 0.63 percent at 6.26 dollars.
   Revenue totaled 44.1 billion dollars for the quarter, up from a year-ago total of 40.3 billion.
   Ford’s 2007 revenue, excluding special items, was 173.9 billion, up from 160.1 billion a year ago, helped by a weaker dollar and higher auto prices.
   For 2008, Ford said it sees a loss but it expects the loss to be ‘better’ than its 2007 performance and it remains committed to returning to profitability in 2009.
   Some 12,000 employees — or about 22 per cent of Ford’s remaining hourly workers — will be eligible for the early-retirement buyouts, officials said in a conference call.
   But officials would not indicate how many of those jobs would be lost for good and how many would be replaced with the lower cost workers it won the right to employ in the latest labor contract.
   Ford also expects to make further cuts to its salaried workforce, which has shrunk from 34,500 North American employees in 2005 to 23,700 people at the end of 2007. It will attempt to make most of the reductions through attrition, officials said.
   The Michigan-based automaker has already slashed unpopular models, eliminated some 38,500 workers since 2005 and is in the process of shuttering 16 plants in North America.
   When asked when further job cuts or plant closures were in the works, Mulally told reporters and analysts that there was nothing to announce at the moment but ‘there’s always the opportunity to continuously improve our productivity.’
   Ford is also in the process of selling its Jaguar and Land Rover nameplates. It is in negotiations with India’s Tata Motors.
   While it has managed to improve the results at both those brands, its remaining luxury European nameplate, Volvo, continues to drag on profits.

Homelessness and a housing shortage pose major threats to Canada’s economy, a national coalition of cities said Wednesday, setting out a 10-year plan to provide affordable homes.
   The Federation of Canadian Municipalities issued a national action plan urging federal and provincial governments to adopt policies to support middle-class housing and finance houses for the poor and homeless.
   ‘These are not just social issues; they are core economic issues,’ said the plan, released amid turmoil in world stock markets, triggered by the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the United States.
   The federation called for a five-step, 10-year program to eliminate ‘chronic homelessness’ and urged the federal government to continue financing housing programs due to expire this spring.
   ‘Problems of homelessness and housing affordability ... will undermine the economic well-being of Canadian cities, which are widely acknowledged as the engines of national economic growth, competitiveness and productivity,’ it said.
   ‘Too many Canadians are forced to choose between food and rent, clothes for the kids or making the mortgage payment,’ Vancouver mayor Sam Sullivan told reporters.
   The federation, a coalition of 1,600 towns and cities, released the plan in a plush city center hotel, where people slumped on sidewalks and in doorways under heaps of blankets can be seen day and night.
   Canada’s titular head of state, governor general Michaelle Jean was invited to the meeting to raise public awareness of the issue, after earlier touring Vancouver’s downtown eastside, the country’s poorest neighbourhood and an open drug and sex market.

Japan’s central bank chief on Friday dismissed a call for an interest rate cut in coordination with the US Federal Reserve, saying that current policies were enough to keep the economy firm.
   Central banks’ job is to ‘select appropriate policies by analysing outlooks of each country’s economy and prices even when there is a growing sense of crisis,’ Bank of Japan governor Toshihiko Fukui said in parliament.
   He made the remark in reply to a question by a ruling party lawmaker who argued that Japan’s central bank should immediately follow this week’s emergency US rate cut.
   On Tuesday, the Bank of Japan’s policy board unanimously kept the benchmark cost of borrowing at 0.50 per cent, already by far the lowest among the world’s major economies.
   Later Tuesday the US central bank took surprise action and cut its key rate by an unprecedented three quarters of a percentage point amid increasing fears of a recession.
   ‘The Bank of Japan should have gone for a rate cut in coordination, given this emergency, plunges in stock prices and a clear US economic slowdown which would affect Japan’s economy,’ lawmaker Kozo Yamamoto charged.
   Fukui refuted his charge, arguing there is a ‘high probability that the Japanese economy will continue its gradual expansion towards the next fiscal year from April with stable prices.’
   ‘We are carrying out financial policies strongly confident that we will be able to have a stable economy ... by continuing to provide the current accommodative financial environment for the time being,’ Fukui said.
   The Bank of Japan until 2006 kept the unusual policy of keeping interest rates effectively at zero.

Latin America is in a better position than in the past to weather the global impact of a US recession, analysts say, though they warned that some sectors would fare worse than others.
   After muscular intervention from the US Federal Reserve to slash its rates to dampen a worldwide stock market plunge, and a proposal from US president George W Bush to implement a 145 billion dollars stimulus package, analysts said they were optimistic the region would cope with a global economic slowdown.
   Latin America overall had growth of over five per cent last year, in large part thanks to the production of commodities such as oil, soybeans and wheat whose prices jumped to record levels.
   The region’s economies ‘are better prepared, including for a fall in commodity prices, that have been above the historic average for the past 10 years,’ said Brazilian economist Jason Vieira, of the consulting firm Uptrend.
   Jose Cesar Castahnar, of the Getulio Vargas Foundation, noted that Brazil’s economy was growing vigorously when the US crisis first broke, and predicted that investment would not fall.
   Carmen Aldivar, an analyst with Bursametrica, said Mexico’s economy had ‘big shock-absorbers’ in the form of a budget surplus and low levels of debt.
   ‘It’s likely that the sectors most linked to consumer activity in the United States, such as automobiles, could be more exposed to the recession,’ the director general of Moody’s in Mexico, Alberto Johns, told AFP.
   But, in contrast with previous years, now there is stron internal growth ‘mainly from the service sector and above all, construction activity,’ he said.
   Nevertheless, Jose Antonio Cerro at the Iberoamericana University said the fear of a US recession ‘will affect Mexico more than other Latin American countries’ because 40 per cent of its gross domestic product depends on exports to the US.
   Camila Perez, an analyst with Colombia’s stock market, said emerging economies ‘are in their own cycle of good economic growth, of confidence, of investment that should give them a degree of protection even if the international situation worsens.’
   Countries that had large resources still heavily sought on the international market, such as Chile’s copper, Venezuela’s oil or Argentina’s soybeans, were in advantageous positions.
   ‘Argentina is less vulnerable to a crisis today and one of its defenses is the price of crops, such as soya,’ said Daniel Marx, a former finance secretary.
   ‘What’s more, Argentina is protected thanks to a double surplus (budget and trade), but as long as commodity prices stay high, there won’t be any major problems,’ predicted Miguel Kiguel, of Consultora Ecoviews.

Tourist arrivals in Uganda have dropped by up to 30 per cent since post-election violence in neighbouring Kenya rocked the region, tourism officials said Friday.
   ‘Our numbers of tourists have gone down by 20, 30 per cent,’ Edwin Muzahura, spokesman for the Uganda Tourist Board, told AFP.
   According to the board, tourism is the fastest-growing sector in Uganda and
   more than half a million arrivals in 2007 injected 375 million dollars into the economy.
   The country is a popular tourist destination thanks to its gorillas, chimpanzee sanctuaries and waterfalls.
   ‘We have suffered a lot - Uganda is largely marketed through Kenya,’ Muzahura said.
   Foreign tour operators
   often organise holiday packages that include both countries, beginning on Kenya’s beaches and ending in Uganda’s gorilla-inhabited forests.
   But Kenya’s December 27 elections, which saw incumbent president Mwai Kibaki re-elected in a race opposition leader Raila Odinga alleged was rigged, broke into country-wide riots and tribal revenge killings.
   Images of hacked Kenyans and women and children burnt alive scared off visitors during east Africa’s peak tourism season.
   Close to 800 people have been killed and a quarter of a million uprooted by Kenya’s political crisis.

Morgan Stanley will slash more than 1,000 jobs in the coming week, trimming costs ahead of what it expects will be a tougher business environment, a person briefed on the moves said on Thursday.
   The investment bank, which posted $9.4 billion of fourth-quarter losses from mortgage trading and other assets, is cutting jobs mainly in wealth management and investment management, back-office operations and technology staff, the person said.
   With financial markets and investment banking expected to slow this year, Morgan Stanley will need to keep costs in line with lower revenue.
   Morgan Stanley confirmed it will eliminate jobs but declined to elaborate on where cuts will be made or expected cost savings.
   ‘The firm is engaged in an ongoing process of assessing its personnel needs in light of overall market conditions, business priorities and individual performance. This process will involve head-count reductions in some areas and additions in other areas,’ the bank said in a statement.
   There will not be ‘substantial’ cuts in its institutional securities division, which includes the trading and investment banking businesses that generated losses last year, the source said.
   The person noted Morgan will be adding staff in some businesses, including more financial advisors and expanding its investment management offerings.
   Overall, the net reduction of jobs represent a little more than 2 per cent of the 48,256 people employed by Morgan Stanley at the end of November.
   ‘We’re battening down the hatches a little bit. It’s not a significant deal,’ the person familiar said.
   Shares of Morgan Stanley fell $1.31, or 2.5 per cent, to $50.50 in early afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
   Morgan Stanley, which last month announced a fourth-quarter net loss driven by trading losses, sold a $5 billion equity stake to China and warned it expected business to decline in 2008.
   Chief Financial Officer Colm Kelleher told Reuters at the time the bank would suspend buybacks and ‘reallocate resources’ from areas that ‘don’t need it.’

Citigroup is slashing nearly 400 jobs in London, mostly in fixed income, a source familiar with the situation said on Thursday.
   The US bank, which employs 11,000 people in London, declined to comment.
   Citi said last week it would cut 4,200 jobs worldwide after losing $9.83 billion on write-downs for mortgages in the fourth quarter.
   The source told Reuters Citi planned to add equities jobs in London over the course of 2008.
   As the credit crisis deepens and banks continue to cull thousands of jobs, Britain’s Centre for Economics and Business Research expects the City of London financial hub to let go of about 8,000 workers by the end of the year, the Times said in its online edition.
   That is an increase on the 6,500 job losses CEBR forecast in October. The centre was not immediately available for comment.

The dollar edged up against the euro on Thursday but fell versus the yen as the market weighed up the outlook for global interest rates amid worries about a possible US recession.
   In European trade, the euro dipped to 1.4621 dollars from 1.4629 dollars in New York late on Wednesday. The dollar dropped to 106.11 yen from 106.76 yen late Wednesday.
   ‘The currencies will be trading in a pretty tight range’ until after the Federal Reserve’s official rate meeting next week, said David Mann, currency strategist at Standard Chartered Bank.
   ‘It needs more time to have a solid direction on currencies movement. We need to get more economic data to ascertain
   how bad the economy is.’
   The US central bank had Tuesday unexpectedly cut its base rate by 0.75 per centage points to 3.50 per cent to help ward off a recession.
   The market is rife with speculation that the Fed will carry out another cut when its policymakers meet on January 29-30.
   Meanwhile the Fed funds rate is now lower than the European Central Bank’s benchmark refi lending rate, which has stood at 4.0 per cent since June.
   ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet has appeared to pour cold water on the prospect of an interest rate cut in the eurozone.
   Trichet gave a strong hint Wednesday that a eurozone interest rate cut was not in the works as he vowed to fight inflation, despite a major stock market correction that sparked the surprise US interest rate cut on Tuesday.
   Elsewhere on Thursday, the market digested news that German business confidence rose unexpectedly in January, despite widespread fears that the US economy was heading into recession and could take the world with it.
   In the closely watched business climate index, calculated each month by the Munich-based economic research institute Ifo, January’s reading for the biggest eurozone economy edged up to 103.4 points from 103 points in December.
   Analysts had been expecting a fall to 102 points as the economy battles high oil and food prices, a strong euro and tight credit conditions following the meltdown of the US market for high-risk — subprime — mortgages.
   ‘The odds are rising that even a US recession cannot simply derail the German train,’ said Andreas Rees of UniCredit bank.
   In European trading on Thursday, the euro changed hands at 1.4621 dollars against 1.4629 late Wednesday, at 155.09 yen (156.12), 0.7467 pounds (0.7475) and 1.5938 Swiss francs (1.5965).
   The dollar stood at 106.11 yen (106.76) and 1.0903 Swiss francs (1.0913).
   The pound was at 1.9590 dollars (1.9553).
   On the London Bullion Market, the price of gold eased to 887.80 dollars an ounce from 888.25 dollars late on Wednesday.

World oil prices rebounded in Asian trade on Thursday after plunging over continued fears for the US economy despite an emergency interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve.
   The oil market has been dogged by fears in recent weeks that a US-led global economic slowdown could crimp world demand for energy.
   In afternoon trade, New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in March, rose 77 cents to 87.76 dollars per barrel.
   The contract closed down 2.22 dollars at 86.99 dollars on Wednesday, marking its lowest point in several weeks.
   Brent North Sea crude for March delivery rose 79 cents to 87.41 dollars per barrel after settling down 1.83 dollars at 86.62 dollars in London on Wednesday.
   New York oil prices have shed about 12 per cent since striking a record high of 100.09 dollars at the start of January.
   Steve Rowles, an analyst with CFC Seymour securities in Hong Kong, said any rebound would be limited as the market ‘will continue to sit on their hands’ awaiting further key United States economic data.
   ‘Everything else that affects sentiment will take a backseat till then,’ Rowles said.
   In an unexpected move Tuesday, the US Federal Reserve slashed its key interest rate by an unprecedented 75 basis points to 3.50 per cent in an effort to steady US stock markets, which have been badly spooked by recession fears.
   President George W. Bush last Friday also announced an economic stimulus package.
   ‘The stimulus package and interest rate cut will help spur consumer demand,’ Rowles said.

Transaction
   Uttara Bank
   Major General (retd) MA Mohaiemen, one of the directors of the bank, has reported his intention to buy 100 shares of the bank at prevailing market price through the stock exchange within next 30 working days. In this regard, SEC has given waiver to Mohaiemen from the requirement of regulation 4 (2) of the Securities and Exchange Commission (prohibition of beneficial trading) regulations, 1995 for this purchase.
   
   Monno Ceramic
   Harunar Rashid Khan, one of the sponsors/directors of the company, has reported his intention to buy 2,000 shares of the company at prevailing market price through the stock exchange within next 30 working days.
   
   Net Income
   ICB AMCL Islamic Mutual Fund
   As per un-audited half yearly accounts as on December 31, 2007, the fund has reported net income of Tk 16.71 m with income per unit of Tk 16.71.
   Source: DSE, CSE

S Korea posts 4.9pc growth in ’07
South Korea’s economy posted 4.9 per cent growth last year, slightly more than earlier forecast, the central bank said Friday in its advance estimate. The increase in gross domestic product compares with the Bank of Korea’s earlier projection of 4.8 per cent and actual growth of 5.0 per cent in 2006. The bank said the economy expanded 1.5 per cent in the fourth quarter from three months earlier, accelerating from 1.3 per cent growth in the preceding quarter, as exports and facility investments jumped. ‘While private consumption maintained its solid growth, facility investments and exports leaped,’ the central bank said in a report. In the fourth quarter, exports — which make up nearly 40 per cent of the economy — rose 7.3 per cent compared to the preceding quarter on brisk shipments of machinery and wireless communications equipment. This compared with a 1.5 per cent rise three months earlier. Facility investments, mainly in machinery, grew 4.4 per cent — a sharp turnaround from a 6.3 per cent dip in the previous quarter. Private spending advanced 1.1 per cent, down from 1.2 percent in the preceding quarter. GDP, the broadest measure of an economy’s performance, is the total value of goods and services it produces. Experts warned this week that growing overseas financial turmoil and inflationary pressures are threatening to cool the South Korean economy despite resilient exports and a recovery in consumption.
— AFP

S’pore factory
output shrinks
Singapore’s manufacturing output contracted for the second month in a row in December after a big drop in pharmaceuticals production, government data showed Friday. Industrial output fell 1.7 per cent last month compared with a year earlier, sharper than the revised 0.5 per cent shrinkage in November, figures from the Economic Development Board showed. On a seasonally adjusted month-on-month basis, production declined at a preliminary 4.7 per cent, after a gain of 6.4 per cent in November. Despite the year-end contraction, manufacturing output — a closely watched indicator for Singapore’s trade-reliant economy — was up 5.8 per cent for the whole of 2007 over the previous year.
— AFP