World business quick take

■Electronics
Matsushita rebrands itself
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co, the world's largest consumer electronics maker, expects to spend as much as Japanese Yen 30 billion (US$253 million) to unify its products under the Panasonic brand in overseas markets, a company executive said. The Osaka-based company will replace its National brand on home appliances sold outside Japan by the end of next March. The company currently sells products such as washing machines, air conditioners and microwave ovens under the National name in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and China. "It will cost us about Japanese Yen 20 billion to Japanese Yen 30 billion to change sign boards and other advertising," Kazuo Toda, Matsushita's senior managing director, told reporters in Tokyo. Matsushita doesn't sell National-brand products in the US and Europe.

■ Automobiles
Mitsubishi plans expansion
Japan's largest automaker, Mitsubishi Motors plans to increase its dealerships in China to 300 in the next four years, about four times the current number, a report said Thursday. Through such measures as expanding its sales network in China, the company aims to sell 300,000 vehicles there in 2007, about four times last year's sales, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said. This would give the automaker a five percent share of the Chinese market, it said. A Mitsubishi spokesman said the company was aiming to beef up its sales network in China, though he declined to confirm the specific numerical targets in the news report. Mitsubishi Motors Corp currently has about 14 exclusive dealerships in China. It also has another 50 joint dealer-ships with its top share-holder, Daimler-Chrysler AG, the spokesman said.

■ Macroeconomics
IMF head pushes reforms
International Monetary Fund managing director Horst Koehler said on Wednesday restoring global confidence must be a priority if the world was to achieve stronger sustained economic growth. "The global economy is currently at a critical juncture," Koehler said in a speech to an Institute of International Finance conference in Berlin. "The balance of risks has improved lately. But in order for the world to seize the upside potential, the overriding priority must be to restore global confidence," he said. "This requires bold policy leadership in the major economies -- placing US fiscal policy back on a track that achieves balanced budgets over the business cycle; greater ambition to accelerate the process of structural change, in particular in Europe and Japan; and achieving a decisive breakthrough in removing barriers to international trade."

■ Media
Yahoo hires Marcom
Internet Yahoo said Wednesday it has hired John Marcom, former president of the Financial Times in North America, to be head of international operations. The move comes as Yahoo, facing more competition in the Internet search and portal market, seeks to ramp up global operations. Marcom, 45, has worked as a journalist and executive for publishing and Internet companies in all the world's major markets. He began his career as a journalist, for more than a decade covering media and technology subjects for the Wall Street Journal in Tokyo, New York, and London, and then with Forbes magazine as European bureau chief.

Agencies