■ Free tradeSeoul, EFTA to hold talks
South Korea and a bloc of four European countries have reached a tentative agreement to launch talks early next year on a bilateral free trade agreement, the foreign ministry here said yesterday. South Korea plans to hold the talks with the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), a free trade bloc made up of Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland. The association was launched in 1960. South Korean officials said a free trade agreement with the group would increase South Korean exports to that region by 26 percent annually and imports by 27 percent. South Korea signed its first free trade agreement with Chile last year. It is seeking to conclude similar agreement with Singapore and Japan.
■ Beverages
Soft drink labels revised
No more having to do the math to figure out exactly how many calories and carbs are in that 590ml bottle of soda. New nutritional information on labels of Coca-Cola, Pepsi and other popular soft drinks will soon break it down for you. Coca-Cola Co's North America division and PepsiCo Inc's Pepsi-Cola division made separate announcements on Friday that, starting next year, they will roll out new labels on bottles that will show nutritional information for the entire container as well as the traditional 236ml serving. The new labels will appear on all of the two soft drink giants' products. The move meets a recommendation from the US Food and Drug Administration for food and beverage companies to revise labeling for packages that can be consumed at one time, such as a 590ml bottle of Coca-Cola or Pepsi. Nutritional labels include information on calories, fat, sodium, carbohydrates, sugars and protein. Currently, in accordance with FDA regulations, Coca-Cola and Pepsi's labels carry nutrition information for a 236ml serving and indicate the total number of servings per package.
■ Electronics
Samsung earnings fall
The electronics maker Samsung Electronics said its profit rose 46 percent from the comparable period a year earlier on a 27 percent increase in sales, but its shares came under pressure because of falling prices for electronics components. Samsung said it earned 2.69 trillion won (US$2.37 billion) on sales of 14.34 trillion won in the period, but both figures were down from its results in the second quarter. Its share price fell 1.6 percent.
■ Telecoms
Sprint planning layoffs
The Sprint Corp said on Friday that it planned to lay off 700 sales representatives and write down the value of its long-distance network to reflect more accurately the erosion in the market for traditional phone services. The job cuts will affect workers who sell phone and data services to companies and come on top of the elimination of 7,500 positions this year. The company said that its focus on selling bundles of services rather than individual products had reduced the need for sales workers. The jobs will be entirely eliminated by July next year and will leave Sprint's business solutions division with 8,300 workers, or 7.7 percent fewer than now. Sprint employs a total of 60,000 workers. Sprint also said it would reduce the value of its long-distance network, a step that its larger rival, AT&T, took earlier this month. Sprint will announce the size of that reduction when it releases third-quarter earnings figures on Tuesday. AT&T said it would write off US$11.4 billion in assets.
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