■Automobiles
Nissan revamps sedan
Nissan Motor Co, Japan's third- largest automaker, plans to release a revamped version of its President luxury sedan next year, the English-language Mainichi Yomiuri said, citing unnamed company officials. The new version of the car will share a chassis with the Cima, another luxury model. Tokyo-based Nissan, which stopped selling the President last August when emission regulations were strength-ened, sold 312 of the cars in 2001, one-fourteenth of its 1991 peak, the paper said. Sales of luxury cars, which companies often use to chauffeur executives, have been falling in Japan because the country's major corpor-ations are forced to cut costs. Many Japanese consumers are buying cheaper cars, reluctant to part with cash in a stagnant economy.
■ Trade
India, China reach accord
India and China offered each other tariff concessions under a regional agreement as the Asian neighbors, the world's two most populous nations, seek to boost trade between each other. The concessions have been offered under the Bangkok Agreement of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, India said in a statement issued in the capital New Delhi today following a cabinet meeting. The accord was signed in 1975 and ratified by China in 2001 before its accession to the WTO. The UN comm-ission has described the treaty as the largest regional trade agreement "in the world in terms of market potential with a combined population of member countries of more than 2.5 billion," in a statement on its Web site.
■ Pensions
Firms project shortfall
Pension fund shortfalls at Japan's major corporations rose 13 percent during the previous fiscal year because of slumping stock prices and low interest rates, the Nihon Keizai newspaper said, citing its own survey of 1,280 companies nation-wide. The funds' combined pension shortages reached ?11.07 trillion (US$92.6 billion) as of late March. At Fujitsu Ltd, Japan's biggest maker of business computers, pension shortfalls rose 35 percent on the year to ?770 billion. KDDI Corp., Japan's second-largest mobile-phone operator, had a 50 percent increase in its pension shortfalls, it said. A 28 percent decline in the Nikkei 225 Stock Average in the past fiscal year has forced companies to set aside more money to cover pension shortfalls.
■ Computers
NEC makes PC fuel-cells
NEC Corp, Japan's biggest maker of personal computers, has developed a fuel-cell battery for laptops that lasts about 10 times longer than conventional batteries, the Nihon Keizai newspaper said. The batteries will enable notebook computers to run for 40 consecutive hours, the newspaper said. NEC will unveil a trial version on July 13 and plans to release a notebook PC with a built-in fuel cell within two years, the paper said. The cost of producing fuel-cell batteries will be about the same as making lithium-ion batteries currently used in notebook computers. The battery may also be used in mobile phones and digital video cameras, the paper reported, without saying where it obtained the information. The move would allow NEC to take the lead against US and South Korean rivals in commer-cializing the fuel cells, the paper said. Short battery life has been a major barrier to linking portable devices to data networks.
Agencies
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