World business quick take

■Labor
Australians are overworked
To outsiders Australia has always been an egalitarian paradise of decent living standards, easy work and time off at the beach. But according to a new survey, Australians are among the most overworked people in the developed world. The report, by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (Actu), found that a higher proportion worked 50-plus hours a week in Australia than in any of the other 29 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. It also found that half the workforce was in part-time or casual work, and half worked overtime but only two out of five were paid extra for it.

■ Tourism
Guangdong Tours collapses
One thousand travellers were hit Friday when a travel agency chain shut down its branches across Hong Kong after collapsing with debts of US$48 million. Guangdong (HK) Tours, which specializes in cross-border tours between Hong Kong and China, shut down its six offices around Hong Kong yesterday, affecting an estimated 1,000 tourists either on tours or booked onto tours with the company. The shutdown came after the 20-year-old chain was wound up by creditors in Hong Kong's High Court Thursday night for failing to repay its debts. Director Li Wen-yue said business had been hard hit since the central govern-ment eased restrictions and allowed the number of Chinese companies bringing tours to Hong Kong to be increased from four to nearly 70, triggering price wars and reduced profit margins.

■ Scandals
Zhou accused of laundering
Companies associated with reportedly detained Shanghai tycoon, Zhou Zhengyi (周正毅), acted as fundraising agents for Shanghai Nongkai Development, Zhou's flagship company, state press reported yesterday. Daying Modern Agriculture and property developer Shanghai Hainiao Enterprise Develop-ment Company allegedly transferred large amounts of money to the embattled tycoon's Nongkai Group via various restructuring and asset deals, the China Securities Journal claimed. There were also signs that Shanghai Nongkai was making use of the two listed firms to finance its property development projects, the report said, without providing further details. Daying admitted yesterday that it had been under the effective control of Shanghai Nongkai, backtracking on a previous public statement to the contrary.

■ Free trade
Americas FTA talks held
The Bush administration began discussions aimed at narrowing differences with 14 other Western Hemi-sphere countries involved in talks to create the world's largest free trade area. The two days of meetings were intended to take stock of the negotiations on a Free Trade Agreement of the Americas before a November meeting in Miami that will bring together all 34 participating countries. Anti-trade groups complained that more than half of the countries in the negotiations were excluded from this week's gathering. The groups also charged that the administration had picked a remote conference center 113km from Washing-ton, in Wye River, Maryland, as the meeting site in order to limit news coverage. The agreement "has become a real negotiation with other countries making demands on the US that are giving the administration political heartburn," said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch.

Agencies