World Business Quick Take

■ Textiles
EU trade chief to visit China
EU trade chief Peter Mandelson is to head to China tomorrow to try to reach an accord on surging Chinese textile imports into the EU before a time-limit for imposing limits starts, a diplomat said yesterday. The EU has requested formal WTO talks with China on the issue, citing figures showing a big jump in Chinese imports of T-shirts and flax yarn into the EU following the end of a global textile quota system on Jan. 1. Separately, European imports of six categories of Chinese footwear leapt by 681 percent in the first four months of this year compared to the same period of last year, the EU's executive said yesterday.

■ Internet
iTunes overtakes rivals
Apple's iTunes online service has overtaken many "peer-to-peer" Web sites offering free music-swapping among US Internet users, but millions are still downloading unauthorized songs, a survey showed on Tuesday. The NPD Group said iTunes's pay-per-download store was tied with the file-swapping site LimeWire as the second most popular digital music service in March, each used by 1.7 million households. The most popular digital music service that month was the P2P site WinMX, used by 2.1 million households to download music. Paid music services from Napster and RealNetworks also placed in the top 10 alongside P2P services like iMesh and Kazaa. "These digital download stores appear to have created a compelling and economically viable alternative to illegal file sharing," said Russ Crupnick, president of the NPD Group's music and movies division.

■ Trade
Japanese firms worried
A third of Japanese companies with operations in China expect business there to sag in the aftermath of anti-Japan riots two months ago, according to a government study. The Japan External Trade Organization, a government-run agency that promotes trade, found that 151, or 36.5 percent, of the 414 Japanese companies surveyed last month forecast a fall in sales in China this year because of boycotts and a "tarnished image" for Japanese products. Forty companies, or 9.7 percent, said their sales are already shrinking. Although more than half of the companies said the protests had no apparent effect on their sales, 13 percent said they would rethink plans to invest in China or even move their factories to other countries, according to the survey, which was posted on the agency's Web site.

■ Airlines
ANA hikes surcharges
Japan's second-largest carrier All Nippon Airways (ANA) said yesterday it has raised surcharges on its international flights for a third time this year to cover high jet fuel costs. "Despite pursuing other avenues to combat increasing fuel prices, ANA is reluctantly compelled to ask passengers to again share the increasing burden," the airline said in a statement. For one-way flights from Japan's Narita to Europe, North America, South America and the Middle East, passengers will have to pay an additional ?2,500 (US$23.6 dollars), ANA said. For one-way flights from Narita to Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia, ?1,800 was added to the cost, with Hong Kong flights having to pay ?700. The company said it would cancel the latest surcharges if the average monthly spot price of Singapore jet fuel fell below US$40 a barrel. Jet fuel currently trades at around US$65 dollars a barrel in Singapore.