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World business quick take

■Macroeconomics
Americans borrow more
US consumers stepped up their installment borrowing in April by the most in three months as auto sales rose, according to Federal Reserve statistics released in Washington. Consumers took out US$10.7 billion more in debt such as auto loans and credit-card balances during the month, a 7.4 percent gain, following a revised increase of US$1.1 billion in March, the Fed said. The figures exclude real estate loans such as mortgages. With battlefield successes in the Iraq war, consumer confidence surged in April, and auto sales jumped 1.9 percent from March as carmakers offered discounts and zero percent financing. Since 2001, when a recession started, borrowing has expanded at an average of US$6.8 billion a month, according to Bloomberg statistics, down from US$12 billion monthly in 2000.

■ Currencies
UK delays decision on euro
Britain's Chancellor Gordon Brown has agreed with Prime Minister Tony Blair that he will take another look at the euro issue in next year's budget, The Sunday Times reported, ahead of an expected government verdict Monday that Britain is not yet ready to enter the single currency. Brown has also agreed to make an announcement if any significant economic change takes place to trigger another assessment of Britain's self-imposed five economic tests on the benefits of entry, The Sunday Times said. One pro-euro government minister told the paper that this amounted to a "running consideration of where we are" on the euro. But it fell short of a commitment that the five tests would be definitely reassessed in the current parliament, due to run until 2006 at the latest, the paper added. Brown would not rule out joining before the next election.

■ Development
Donors want control of ADB
Donor countries are pushing for greater transparency and accountability in the oper-ations of a multimillion-dollar poverty-busting fund under the Asian Develop-ment Bank (ADB). They want a key ADB department supervising the Asian Devel-opment Fund (ADF) to be made independent and have called for a revamp of the Manila-based bank's strategy to reduce poverty prevalent among 900 million people in Asia. The ADF is ADB's soft-loan-window for its borrow-ing members and has been replenished by 25 donor countries led by Japan, the US and Europe every four years since its launch in 1973. In a mid-term review of the eighth ADF worth US$5.6 billion for the 2001 to 2004 period, the donors said "stronger emphasis should be given to trans-parency in decision-making, account-ability, performance and clear and delegation of responsibilities and auth-ority," said an ADB official.

■ Airlines
Cathay's traffic rebounds
Cathay Pacific Airways is experiencing a rebound in passenger traffic as the territory's SARS outbreak comes under control, and it plans to resume more flights this month and in July, the company's chairman said. Hong Kong's leading airline now carries a daily average of 11,000 passengers, chairman James Hughes-Hallett said Saturday. Cathay's passenger numbers slipped to an average of 7,000 a day last month, compared to 32,000 a day in March before the outbreak of SARS struck, he said, adding that the airline needs to carry around 26,000 passengers a day to break even. "We are seeing a big bounce in forward-booking and we are confident that will continue," he said.

Agencies
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