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World Business Quick Take

■ Semiconductors
Japan props up chipmaker
The Japanese government-affiliated Development Bank of Japan has decided to invest ¥2 billion (US$18 million) in the nation's sole memory chip maker Elpida Memory, a report said yesterday. The move is aimed at helping reform the Japanese semiconductor industry, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said. Leading Japanese high-tech firms NEC Corp and Hitachi Ltd spun off their chip divisions to set up equally-owned Elpida Memory Inc but it is fighting a tough battle against US and South Korean rivals in the dynamic random access memory sector. With the government-backed bank buying into the company, Elpida Memory is expected to become able to raise funds more easily, the daily said without citing sources.

■ Media
BMG will use protected CDs
Music industry giant BMG intends to start delivering exclusively copy-protected versions of its cost-free advance copies of CDs for press and advertising. The firm, a subsidiary of Germany-based Bertelsmann and one of the five largest music labels in the world, also intends to copy-protect those CDs that are released to dealers and the press before the official release, according to the company sources. The music industry has been bringing copy-resistant CDs onto the market for almost half a year now. Copies of some individual hits have nevertheless surfaced on the various Internet-based music exchange bazaars before their official release.

■ Stocks
Most fund managers bullish
Almost two-thirds of money managers polled by Barron's say they remain bullish or very bullish on the US stock market during the next six months and expect the Standard & Poor's 500 Index to climb another 10 percent by then. The S&P 500 has risen 17 percent this year, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 14.8 percent and the NASDAQ Composite Index has soared 39.6 percent, Barron's said in its twice-yearly "Big Money" survey. US markets are likely to keep rising because of a stronger economy and improved corporate profits, the weekly newspaper reported. Not all fund managers were bullish, Barron's said. More than 12 percent described themselves as bearish or very bearish about the market in coming months. Fund managers chose drugmaker Pfizer Inc, cable-TV provider Comcast Corp and Newmont Mining Corp, among their favorite stocks right now.

■ Health
Suicide swells in Japan
A high number of suicides in Japan is causing economic losses of more than US$9 billion annually, newspapers said yesterday, citing a study by a state-run National Institute of Population and Social Security Research. Suicides eroded Japan's gross domestic product by ¥992.8 billion (US$9.1 billion) last year, up by more than 40 percent from an annual average for 1995 to 1997 before the number of people who killed themselves increased, they said. Such economic losses are expected to reach an average ¥1.2 trillion a year for 2006 to 2010 even on the assumption that the number of suicides will level off, as technological innovation is likely to raise productivity, the institute was quoted as saying. Police statistics have said 32,143 Japanese killed themselves last year, up 3.5 percent from a year earlier and maintaining a level above 30,000 deaths for the fifth-straight year.

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