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World Business Quick Take

■ Cellphones
Phone features 3-gig chip
South Korea's Samsung Electronics yesterday launched a cellular phone with a three-gigabyte memory, the world's largest data storage capacity ever applied to mobile handsets. The SPH-V7900 handset can hold up to three digital movies or 700 music files in its built-in memory chip, which also functions as a portable hard disc for computers, Samsung said in a statement. The new product, equipped with a two-megapixel camera and dual speakers, is a follow-up to Samsung's model, launched last month, with a 1.5-gigabyte memory. "The evolving of memory devices in handsets allows the mobile phones to become the center for multimedia such as movies and music," Lee Ki-tae, head of Samsung's mobile-phone business division, said in the statement.

■ Aviation
Superjumbo demand soars
The European aircraft manufacturer Airbus cannot produce enough of its A380 superjumbos to satisfy heavy demand, its commercial director said on Saturday. "I could sell another 30 A380s between now and 2010 if we had the production capacity," John Leahy told German Sunday newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Airbus said on Saturday. The European producer has taken 149 firm orders and 10 options from 16 clients for the A380, the largest commercial plane made yet. The superjumbo, which can seat between 555 and 840 passengers, made its successful maiden test flight on April 27 and will fly its first long-haul test run to Asia and Australia next month. In June, Airbus raised the aircraft's catalogue price by US$10 million to an average of US$292 million.

■ Banking
Wal-Mart plan alarms public
Wal-Mart Stores Inc's application to set up an industrial bank attracted 1,150 letters to a US regulator, some from bankers and labor groups concerned the retailer would use its charter for "anti-competitive powers." Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, applied in July to operate a bank in Utah to process the more than 1.6 million debit, credit and electronic check transactions it receives annually rather than pay third parties to handle them. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) submitted the application for public comment, drawing hundreds of letters from bankers and labor organizations during a two-month period that ended Sept. 23. The regulator usually receives "one or two letters, sometimes none and half a dozen at most" on new bank applications, said David Barr, FDIC spokesman.

■ Oil
China promotes alternatives
China, the second-largest oil user after the US, will adjust taxes, promote fuel-efficient cars and develop alternative energy sources to reduce the nation's dependence on oil imports, Finance Minister Jin Renqing (金人慶) said. "A demanding task we are facing now is to gradually rationalize oil prices in the markets," Jin said at a briefing yesterday as the Group of 20 nations meeting closed near Beijing. "We will adopt proper fiscal and taxation measures to encourage energy conservation and develop energy substitutes," he said. China will "cooperatively develop other renewable energies. In this way, we can make China's energy sector mainly reliant on our own resources while at the same time developing international cooperation," Jin said.

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