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World Business Quick Take

■ Aviation
Cathay Pacific adds flights
Cathay Pacific Airways said yesterday it will resume 90 percent of its flight schedule by August and restore all of its services in September as it works to recover from the traffic slowdown caused by the SARS crisis. Cathay saw passenger traffic drop by 75 percent last month, com-pared with figures from a year earlier, and has been bleeding cash as it canceled thousands of flights, even though the outlook for air-lines has improved as Hong Kong emerges from the shadow of SARS. Cathay says it will continue to lose money in the near future and has not predicted when it can return to profitability.

■ Trade
US urges Middle East FTA
The World Economic Forum in Jordan drew to a close Monday with a US call for free between the US and the Middle East. Post-war reconstruction in Iraq and peace plan negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis dominated the talks. Underscoring pro-posals by President George W. Bush for a free-trade zone linking the US with the Mideast, US Trade Repre-sentative Ro-bert Zoellick called on Mideast countries to leave behind "military conflicts, misguided econo-mic poli-cies and brutal suppression of liberties." He said exports and investment in the region had declined because of the unstable situation. He said negotia-tions were underway to seal similar agreements with Morocco and Bahrain.

■ Biotechnology
Merger announced
Biogen and IDEC Pharma-ceuticals, two companies looking for cures for cancer and autoimmune disorders, announced plans Monday to merge in a US$6.4 billion stock swap, the latest con-solidation in the biotech industry. The new company, to be headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, would be called Biogen IDEC Inc and have more than 1,000 researchers, the companies said. Together, they had US$1.55 billion in pro forma revenue last year, they said. The deal would add 15 percent to cash earnings per share upon closing and result in US$300 million in operating expense savings through 2007.

■ Argentina
IMF in talks with officials
IMF managing director Horst Koehler on Monday began a two-day visit to Buenos Aires to start talks on renegotiating Argentina's debt to the institution. Koehler is to meet President Nestor Kirchner as well as other government leaders, many of whom have fiercely criticized the IMF's policies for Argentina. Koehler started his talks with Finance Minister Roberto Lavagna. The IMF's main concern is how Argentina will repay its public debt of some US$137 billion, which now represents about 119 percent of its GDP. The IMF is also reluctant to make a long-term accord until Argentina starts to settle about US$55 billion of debt to private bond holders.

■ Fraud
Ex-Microsoft staffer charged
A former Microsoft Corp employee accused of steal-ing US$17 million of soft-ware was charged with 62 counts of mail and compu-ter fraud. Richard Gregg, 43, a former project coordi-nator for Windows develop-ment, pleaded innocent to the charges on Monday. Washington prosecutors claim that Gregg ordered software valued at US$17 million from Microsoft's internal ordering system and resold it. He could face a maximum of 20 years in prison for each mail fraud count and five years for each computer fraud count.
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