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World Business Quick Take

■ Trademarks
Shaolin masters get tough
The kung fu masters of China's famed Shaolin Temple are flexing their legal muscles to defend the name, state media reported yesterday. The Buddhist temple, which dates back more than 1,500 years, has filed for trademarks for the Shaolin name in more than 80 countries, trying to fend off the threat of around 120 competing applications, the Xinhua news service said. It may prove an uphill battle. "In China, 54 Shaolin trademarks are in use, covering hotels, seafood hotpot, beer, cars, tires, furniture, wire, wine and cigarettes, but none of these has any connection with the Shaolin Temple," Xinhua said. Monks from the temple, in the central province of Henan, regularly embark on world tours to perform super-human feats of agility and balance. Ensuring the legality of those tours is another motivation for the trademark registration.

■ Airlines
No lifeline for United
The US government Monday refused for the third time in 18 months to throw United Airlines a financial lifeline, forcing the carrier to rethink its strategy for exiting bankruptcy protection this year. In a statement, the Air Transportation Stabilization Board said that it had reviewed United's latest loan guarantee petition, but that nothing in it had altered the panel's assessment. "Given these circumstances, all members of the board join in the decision to deny United's request for reconsideration," the panel said. "The board will not accept any further submissions from United with respect to the application." The move ends months of uncertainty over whether the number-two US carrier would be able to secure a federal loan guarantee to help ease its exit from bankruptcy later this year.

■ Banking
Citibank grows in Singapore
Citibank said it will invest US$880 million to set up a wholly owned subsidiary in Singapore, the first since the New York-based firm set up operations in the city-state more than a century ago, officials said Tuesday. The move -- which is expected to be completed by the end of the year -- will hand Citibank US tax advantages and allow it to open talks earlier than foreign rivals on trying to win access to local banks' cash-machine networks, Citibank spokeswoman Sophia Tong said. "After 102 years of serving our customers' banking needs in Singapore, we are finally taking up citizenship," Lee Ah Boon, manager of Citibank's consumer unit in Singapore, said in a statement.

■ Economy
Consumers gain confidence
Consumers in China, India, Japan and 10 other nations in the Asia-Pacific region have become more confident about their economic prospects, ACNielsen Corp said, citing a twice-yearly survey. "Consumer confidence is returning to the region," Esther Capistrano, managing director at ACNielsen's Philippine unit, said in a press briefing in Manila. "For the coming 12 months, most respondents in the region anticipate even better economic conditions." Forty-seven percent of 9,485 consumers polled through the Internet from April 28 to May 11 said they thought their local economy had improved in the past six months, Capistrano said. That's up from 43 percent in the previous survey in October. Consumer confidence was highest in India, China, Malaysia and Singapore, where at least 72 percent of those polled expect economic improvement.

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