World Business Briefs

■ TECHNOLOGY
Gates aids Israeli firms
Microsoft CEO Bill Gates on Wednesday signed a US$1.4-million agreement with Israel to encourage Israeli start-up companies and pledged to connect tens of thousands of Israeli children to the Internet, Israeli media reported. "It's no exaggeration to say that the kind of innovation going on in Israel is critical to the future of the technology business," Gates, who is on a brief visit to Israel, told a news conference in Tel Aviv with Acting Israeli Finance Minister Ehud Olmert. "So many great companies have been started here," he said, adding Israel had been "fairly unique," along with the US, in creating new products, patents and copyrighted software. Gates also said the vibrant local high-tech sector will play an important role in the global marketplace and pledged to strengthen cooperation with the country.

■ TECHNOLOGY
Data transfer record set
A Japanese company has developed technology to transmit a two-hour movie in 0.5 seconds, the world's fastest speed achieved with fiber-optic cables in the field, it said yesterday. Kansai Electric used fiber-optic cables on power-transmitting steel towers to achieve the speed of one terabit per second, which is more than 100 times faster than inter-city data transmissions currently in use, a spokesman said. The company, Japan's second-largest power supplier, has not decided when to put the technology into practical use but said it was possible that it would come in 2010 or later, he said.

■ TECHNOLOGY
Volkswagen to sell IT unit
Volkswagen, Europe's biggest car maker, has put its IT services unit Gedas up for sale and entrusted French bank Lazard with the auction, the Financial Times Deutschland reported yesterday, quoting "well-informed sources." Already a number of potential buyers had expressed interest in Gedas and submitted non-binding offers, the newspaper said. Among the possible bidders were Deutsche Telekom's IT unit T-Systems, IBM, EDS, British private equity firm Apax, an unnamed Indian IT group and US services provider ACS, FT Deutschland said. The newspaper said bids ranged between 250 million and 500 million euros (US$302-605 million). Gedas had annual sales of 567 million euros last year and employed a workforce of 4,900.

■ REAL ESTATE
HK retail rents top in Asia
Hong Kong has the highest retail rents in Asia and the world's second-highest after New York, overtaking the prestigious Avenue des Champs-Elysees in Paris, a study said yesterday. Retail rents in the Causeway Bay shopping district on Hong Kong Island rose 90 percent to US$11,653 per square meter in the 12 months to June, according to a study by property consultant Cushman and Wakefield Healey and Baker. Fifth Avenue in New York, meanwhile, remained the world's most expensive retail district at US$13,993 per square meter, while Paris' Avenue des Champs Elysees came third at US$8,024, according to the study that looked at 237 shopping locations across 47 countries. New Bond Street in London remained in fourth place at US$6,753, while Ginza in Tokyo made a jump from its ninth place ranking last year to fifth, at US$5,578.