Mon, Jan 26, 2009 page5

• Business Quick Take

  • AGENCIES
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  ■AVIATION

  Air Canada cutting jobs

  Air Canada has announced plans to cut another 345 jobs as it copes with decreased demand. Air Canada spokesman Peter Fitzpatrick said on Saturday that the cuts will mostly affect its 5,700 flight attendants, beginning on March 2. The latest job cuts are in addition to the 2,000 positions Air Canada said it was eliminating last June, when fuel prices were sky high.

  ■FINANCE

  Obama to tighten system

  US President Barack Obama plans to tighten the US financial regulatory system, introducing stricter rules for hedge funds, credit rating agencies and mortgage brokers, the New York Times reported yesterday. Citing administration officials, the newspaper said the new Democratic administration wants to eliminate conflicts of interest at credit rating agencies that gave top investment grades to new and unproven financial instruments that have been a source of market turmoil. The administration is likely to propose new federal standards for mortgage brokers and bolster the role of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the report said.

  ■BEVERAGES

  Starbucks jobs under threat

  Coffee chain Starbucks Corp could cut another 1,000 jobs in the coming weeks, a report in the Seattle Times on Saturday said. The latest cuts could include employees at its Seattle headquarters, district managers and field employees but not the so-called baristas, who serve customers, said the report, which cited a client note from an analyst at McAdams Wright Ragen. A Starbucks spokeswoman declined to comment. The coffee chain, which has been fighting to revive growth in the US, is closing 600 cafes and has already trimmed jobs in stores and at headquarters.

  ■AUTOMOBILES

  Ford says sales to be stable

  Ford Motor Co, the second-largest US automaker, said US sales for light trucks and cars this month are expected to be about the same as last month, when the annual sales rate was about 10.3 million. Tight credit and a weak economy means sales in the US are unlikely to increase, Ford’s chief executive officer Alan Mulally told reporters after a speech on Saturday at the National Automobile Dealers Association conference in New Orleans. “Everybody is struggling right now in the US economy,” Mulally said. “Things will start to get better in the second quarter” due to the government’s economic stimulus plans.”

  ■FOOD

  Inspectors find listeria

  The Canadian food maker linked to a bacteria outbreak that caused at least 20 deaths and the country’s largest meat recall last year has again tested positive for listeria. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency on Saturday inspected a subsidiary of Maple Leaf Foods after testing showed positive results for listeria bacterium. The subsidiary, Cappola Food Inc, makes deli meat for the Canadian and US markets. No illnesses have been reported. Listeriosis is a type of food poisoning.

  ■AUTOMOBILES

  Continental head to go

  Continental AG announced on Saturday that its chairman was stepping down, only weeks after the Schaeffler Group KG completed its purchase of the tire and auto parts maker. Schaeffler, which makes ball bearings, asked that Hubertus von Gruenberg resign as chairman of the board. Von Gruenberg will retain a seat on the board of the company.

  ■ BUILDING SUPPLIE

  Mitsubishi to stop shipments

  Mitsubishi Materials Corp, a Japanese producer of metals and building supplies, said it will stop shipping cement to the US from China amid falling construction demand. The company will halt shipments to the US for a year and deliver its Chinese cement production to local markets, spokesman Nobuyuki Suzuki said yesterday. The Nikkei newspaper reported the plan earlier yesterday.

  ■FOOD

  China seizes Irish pork

  Chinese quarantine authorities in the eastern city of Nanjing have seized more than 23 tonnes of frozen Irish pork that was found to be contaminated with dioxin and ordered it be returned, state media said yesterday. The pork was imported by a company in the nearby city of Suzhou in October, the official Xinhua news agency said. “Inspectors sealed the pork and ordered the company to send it back,” the report said. China banned the import of Irish pork last month following Dublin’s order to recall domestically produced pork products because of contamination with dioxin, which in some forms and concentrations, and with long exposure, can cause cancer.

  ■FOOD

  Malaysia tests peanut butter

  Malaysia is testing all American peanut butter products before allowing them into the country following a salmonella scare in the US, the Star Daily reported yesterday. Hundreds of people have fallen ill in the US, and a chain of cookie shops has recalled of one of its products here fearing it could be contaminated. “[We] raised the alert to level five at all ports to ensure that the incoming batches were free from salmonella contamination,” Malaysian Health Minister Liow Tiong Lai (廖中萊) told the paper. “It’s very specific. We are focusing on one product — peanut butter.”

  ■SINGAPORE

  PM promises decisive action

  Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) has assured Singaporeans that his government would respond to the economic crisis decisively, according to a Sunday Times report. By taking the unprecedented step of unlocking Singapore national reserves, the government was sending out a clear signal that it intends “to respond to the crisis decisively and with all means at our disposal,” said Lee in his traditional Lunar New Year message on Saturday night. Lee has also warned that the crisis could see Singapore’s economy contract for months and perhaps for the whole year. Lee’s government has projected a minus 5 percent to minus 2 percent contraction of the Singapore economy this year, the worst economic outlook for the city state since independence.

  ■THAILAND

  PM vows to boost taxes

  Newly appointed Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva vowed to boost property and inheritance taxes, although he acknowledged yesterday that the legislative process would require a year or more. “It will take a year of so but it is a process we are starting,” Abhisit said on his weekly television show. Abhisit, who was voted prime minister by parliament on Dec. 15, stirred up controversy last week by throwing his support behind higher taxes on property and inheritance as a means of boosting government revenues and creating a more equitable society. Supporters of the new taxes have noted that 90 percent of the Thai population own less that one rai (0.16 hectares) of land per person, while the remaining 10 percent own more than 100 rai.
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