Mon, Jul 14, 2008 page10

• World Business Quick Take

  • AGENCIES
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  ■ENERGY

  OPEC head warns on prices

  Oil prices, which reached a new record last week, will keep rising if the dollar continues to fall and if oil producer Iran is attacked, the president of the OPEC said. “It’s not the supply and demand that is influencing oil prices now, prices go up with the falling dollar and the growing threat of war on Iran,” Chakib Khelil, who is also Algeria’s oil minister, told reporters on Saturday in Algiers. “If there is war and the dollar continues to slump, prices will go higher and higher.” Oil jumped as high as US$147.27 a barrel on Friday. Crude oil for delivery next month rose US$3.43 or 2.4 percent, to settle at US$145.08 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

  ■ENERGY

  Minister calls for cuts

  Japan must take steps to cut energy consumption and promote alternative resources to cope with rising oil prices, as it can’t regulate speculation in the oil market, Economic and Fiscal Policy Minister Hiroko Ota said yesterday. “It’s hard to take measures that could alleviate the pain temporarily,” Ota said during a talk show on NHK, Japan’s public broadcaster. She gave no specific ideas on what Japan could do to combat the rise in oil prices. The climb in oil’s price is being sustained by growth in demand from emerging economies, Ota said. To curb the rise, it’s necessary to improve market fundamentals, such as investment in the infrastructure of oil-producing countries, she said.

  ■AGRICULTURE

  Chinese trade deficit grows

  China registered a US$7.57 billion trade deficit in agricultural products during the first five months of this year, up by more than 14-fold over the same period last year, Xinhua news agency said yesterday. China imported US$23.75 billion in agricultural products in that period, up 59 percent over last year, Xinhua said, citing the agriculture ministry. The nation exported US$16.18 billion in agricultural products during the period, up 12 percent over the first five months of last year, it said.

  ■TECHNOLOGY

  Windows XP most common

  Windows XP remains the most common computer operating system among Internet users, a survey conducted by a German marketing firm showed. The survey by Fittkau & Maass found that 75.8 percent of Internet surfers use Windows XP while only 13 percent use Vista Online, which has been on the market since early last year. Next in popularity come Windows 2000 (4.6 percent), Mac OS (3.8 percent) and Windows 98 and ME (both at 1.3 percent). Only 1.2 percent of surfers use Linux. The results were based on an Internet user survey of more than 100,000 German-speaking computer users.

  ■HOUSING

  Broker urges rate hike end

  Australia’s slowing home-lending market signals the central bank should avoid raising interest rates from a 12-year high, the nation’s largest mortgage broker said. Home-loan approvals fell 7.9 percent in May, the biggest drop in eight years, a report said yesterday. The decline suggests the Reserve Bank of Australia may not need to raise interest rates any further, said Paul Lahiff, managing director of Sydney-based Mortgage Choice Ltd. “Are we close to the top of the interest rate cycle? I think we are,” Lahiff told Sky News Australia yesterday. Traders have reduced bets on the Reserve Bank raising rates after the home-loan approvals report, and after a second measure showed consumer confidence fell to the lowest since 1992.
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