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World Business Quick Take

■ Semiconductors
Infineon to lift Asia sales
Infineon Technologies AG, Europe's second-biggest semiconductor maker, plans to increase sales in Asia by 20 percent a year and boost market share, German business daily Financial Times Deutschland said, citing an executive. "The Asian market is the fastest growing for the semiconductor industry," Loh Kin Wah, president of Munich-based Infineon's Asia Pacific operations, told the paper in an interview. The volume of semiconductor sales in Asia is growing by about 15 percent a year, while global sales are increasing by between 8 and 10 percent, the newspaper said. Infineon aims to boost its market share in Asia to 5 percent in the next five years from 3.2 percent now, Loh said.

■ Australia
Bank upbeat on economy
Australian business conditions hit nine-year highs in August and confidence also improved sharply on the strength of the domestic economy, according to a survey published by the country largest bank yesterday. The National Australia Bank monthly survey found business conditions in August rose to 18 points, the highest since the last quarter of 1994, as 84 percent of respondents said conditions over the month were better than in July. Business confidence edged up 0.1 points to a fresh 15-month high of 15.4 points. NAB chief economist Alan Oster said the survey indicated accelerating growth momentum in the Australian economy even though official GDP figures released last week showed the economy only expanded 0.1 percent in the June quarter.

■ Employment
US job market improving
The job search for unemployed Americans has improved since a year ago, but the job market is still much tougher than it was prior to the Sept. 11 attacks, according to a survey released Monday. Out-of-work Americans spent almost four months on average looking for a new position in the seven quarters since the attacks, up 32 percent from the equivalent pre-attacks period, the survey found. Additionally, 80 percent, or one out of five jobless Americans, failed to match, or beat, their previous salary over the same period, off 10 percent since the terror attacks on New York and Washington. The results were moderately more encouraging on both counts than a similar snapshot of the US jobs market published in August last year, by the consulting firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas Inc.

■ Software
Microsoft fix doesn't work
Microsoft Corp, whose software was hit by two major computer viruses last month, will have to re-issue a security fix the company provided in August for its Internet Explorer Web browser because it doesn't fix the flaw, a security-software maker said. The vulnerability, announced on Aug. 20, lets a hacker run programs on a user's computer. Even if customers apply the software update, a hacker can still exploit the flaw, said Marc Maiffret, co-founder of EEye Digital Security. Microsoft said in a statement that the company is investigating. Internet Explorer has more than 95 percent of the market for software used to view Web pages. More than 1.4 million computers running Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft's Windows were infected by the "Blaster" computer worm last month, and the "Sobig" worm became the fastest-spreading e-mail virus by attacking Windows systems.

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