■ MOBILE PHONES
Nokia mulls Foxconn orders
Nokia Oyj may place new orders with Foxconn International Holdings Ltd (富士康) to design and make handsets, a Chinese-language newspaper reported, citing Colin Giles, senior vice president of customer and market operations for Nokia China. Such orders would upgrade Nokia's ties with Foxconn, which has been assembling products for the European company, the Taipei-based paper said. Foxconn is a unit of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海), Taiwan's biggest electronics maker by sales.
■ PUBLISHING
`Rolling Stone' enters China
Rolling Stone magazine, founded in 1967 by Jann Wenner, licensed the title to Hong Kong-based publisher One Media Group, which plans a Chinese edition, Publisher Steve DeLuca said. The publication will be distributed in China and cover popular culture and music, DeLuca said in an interview yesterday. The magazine is published in 10 countries outside the US including Australia, Italy and Mexico. Closely held Wenner Media owns Rolling Stone. The magazine, with a circulation of 1.32 million, will be joining other US media brands such as the MTV cable-television network in seeking a foothold in China. More than half of the Chinese-language version will be articles picked up from the US magazine, with the rest written by local writers, DeLuca said.
■ AUTOMAKERS
GM sees bigger sales abroad
General Motors Corp expects to sell more cars and trucks in foreign markets than in the US this year, its top executive said in an interview published on Friday. "There's a lot of good things that happen if we're successful around the world," chairman and chief executive Rick Wagoner was quoted by the Detroit News as saying. "We're long past this idea that, gee, we should only be good in the US and shouldn't invest somewhere else," he said. Wagoner told the Detroit Free Press that he was surprised recently to learn from the automaker's marketing analyst, Paul Ballew, that GM likely will sell 4.5 million vehicles in the US and 4.6 million abroad this year. Last year, GM sold 4.7 million cars and trucks in its home market and 4.3 million in other countries, according to the newspaper. In 2003, GM sold 20 percent more vehicles at home than abroad.
■ Currency markets
Slovakia links to euro
Slovakia took a major step toward joining the euro zone on Friday by linking its currency, the koruna, to the euro in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. The decision was announced by the EU and is in line with Slovakia's plan to adopt the euro on Jan. 1, 2009. Slovakia joined the EU last May along with nine other new members. Under the mechanism, the koruna will be pegged to the euro within a 15 percent margin above or below a central rate of 38.4550 koruna to the euro. Six other new EU members -- Latvia, Malta, Cyprus, Slovenia, Estonia and Lithuania -- have already joined the system. Nations must be in the system for at least two years before they can join the euro zone. In order to join, nations must meet targets of low inflation, low budget deficits and low national debt, as well as limiting currency fluctuations against the euro. Slovakia was accepted into the system on the basis of its commitment "to achieving price stability in a sustainable manner, and to pursue sound fiscal policies which are essential for preserving macroeconomic stability, including low inflation," the EU said in a statement.
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