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September 26, 2000
TOKYO, SEPT 25 (UNB/AP) - Japan's domestic production of passenger cars, trucks and buses rose 7.1 percent in August from the same month last year amid continued demand on the global market, an industry association said Monday. A total of 695,620 vehicles were produced last month, the Japan Automobile Manufactures' Association said. The figures do not include production at Japanese factories overseas. August marked the seventh consecutive month of on-year gains, following a 0.9-percent rise in July, rises of 7.9 percent in June and 7.8 percent in May. Nearly 82 percent of the total production, or 568,328 vehicles, were passengers cars, up 8.0 percent from a year earlier. Production of trucks totaled 122,830, up 2.9 percent while bus production rose 15.8 percent to 4,462. Overall domestic vehicle demand in August totaled 361,931, up 2.0 percent from a year earlier, the association said. --- HONG KONG (AP) - China Petroleum and Chemical Corp., also known as Sinopec, said Monday it will cut 100,000 jobs, or about 20 percent of its total work force, in the next five years to slash costs and improve efficiency. The reduction in its current total of 511,000 employees will cost the company 1.8 billion yuan (U.S. dlrs 217 million) but will save 2 billion yuan (U.S. dlrs 241 million) over the next five years, said Chen Ge, deputy executive of the Beijing-based Sinopec's board. Sinopec, China's largest petrochemical and petroleum conglomerate, is among a number of major state-run enterprises that are turning to initial public offerings to finance corporate restructuring and upgrading. Chen rejected speculation in media reports that the measure is aimed at building confidence ahead of the company's U.S. dlrs 3 billion initial global public offering. --- BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) - U.N. officials and business leaders from the Greater Mekong subregion will meet here next month to discuss the experiences of investors in the area as part of an effort to increase trade, a U.N. agency said Monday. The Oct. 3-4 meeting is being organized by the Asian Development Bank and the U.N.'s Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific "to promote networking among business firms in the subregion," an ESCAP statement said. It said the Greater Mekong Subregion Business Forum will discuss economic and business outlook, experiences of investors in doing business and the support facilities available to private business development in the subregion. The Greater Mekong Subregion comprises Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and the Yunan province of China. Besides private sector representatives of the subregion, the meeting will also be attended by businessmen from outside the area who will discuss business opportunities. --- SINGAPORE (AP) - Asia must move faster in developing Internet standards in order to catch up with the global "new economy," officials meeting in Singapore said Monday. "Asia on the whole is relatively less pro-active in standards development compared to Europe and North America," said Lim Swee Say, Singapore's minister of state for communications and information technology. "In the early years of the e-revolution, the Internet was very much U.S.-centric and English-centric," Lim said. He added that the globalization of the Net will require other countries to be able use the latest industry standards for their own languages and applications. Lim made his remarks in an opening speech Monday at "itsAsia 2000," a three-day international seminar on information technology trends. Internet standards refer to "technology languages used to transmit and handle data" over the Net, said Chia Sher Ling, a spokeswoman for Singapore's Infocomm Development Authority, one of the organizers of the conference. |