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■ Trade
Machinery firms visit Europe
The Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA, 外貿協會) will head a trade delegation of machinery manufacturers to eastern Europe in May to help domestic manufacturers explore the market there, a council official said yesterday. The official said that as more east European countries had entered or were preparing to enter the WTO, trade information about these countries was becoming more transparent. Judging by the figures, there is a trend that more and more East European countries are shifting their purchase sources from western Europe to more competitive Asian countries, the official added. TAITRA is scheduled to hold three trade seminars in Poland, Ukraine and Russia, respectively, from May 15-27.

■ Stocks
HP to drop NASDAQ listing
Hewlett-Packard Co, the world's biggest maker of personal computers, will withdraw its shares from the NASDAQ Stock Market to reduce its listing fees. The common stock will still be listed on the New York Stock Exchange, Palo Alto, California-based Hewlett-Packard said on Friday in a statement. The move eliminates the administrative costs of having both listings and won't affect trading, the company said. A company the size of Hewlett-Packard would pay an annual listing fee of US$75,000 on NASDAQ, according to data on the exchange's Web site. The fee is higher on the NYSE.

■ Oil
Peruvian exploration panned
Indian leaders and activists criticized a decision to open up oil exploration in the Peruvian jungle, saying the move would pose health and environmental risks. State oil company Petroperu opened an auction last month for rights to 18 oil fields, seven of which are located in areas home to isolated jungle tribes. In a news conference on Friday, Indian leaders urged authorities not to offer rights to those seven fields, claiming exploration there could harm fragile ecosystems. They also said they feared that the tribes lack the immune systems to fight off illnesses that oil workers could bring to the area.

■ Trade secrets
Woman guilty in Coke case
A jury on Friday found former Coca-Cola administrative assistant Joya Williams guilty of trying to sell secret information on new Coke products to rival Pepsi, the Atlanta Attorney General's office said. In a verdict which could land her in jail for 10 years, Williams, 41, and two co-conspirators and ex-convicts, Edmund Duhaney and Ibrahim Dimson, were arrested in July for scheming to collect US$1.5 million from PepsiCo for Coca-Cola secrets. Duhaney and Dimson are awaiting sentencing and could also face 10 years in jail. "We are disappointed with the verdict," her court-appointed lawyer Janice Singer said, adding, "Ms. Williams will appeal."

■ Steel
Tata has no job guarantees
Indian tycoon Ratan Tata said yesterday he could give no guarantees over the safety of jobs, following his firm's successful bid for Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus Group Plc. In an interview with British business daily the Financial Times in Mumbai, Tata said he could give no assurances because his company had only researched Corus "on paper" and had yet to examine their plants in detail. Tata's comments come after Britain's largest steel trade union demanded a meeting with the tycoon seeking assurances he will remain committed to expanding Corus after his US$13.7 billion bid.

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