Print

Mail

wiki links

World Business Quick Take

■ Internet
Yahoo to offer Internet calls
Yahoo Inc will upgrade its instant messenger service to let computer users make phone calls as competition heats up in the growing market for Internet calling. Calls in the US will cost US$0.01 a minute. Calls to 30 other countries will be priced at less than USS$0.02, Sunnyvale, California-based Yahoo said in a statement. Customers will be able to buy a phone number for US$2.99 a month that lets them receive calls on personal computers. Yahoo, the most-visited Internet site, is introducing the features within the next week.

■ Electronics
Sanyo to sell financial arm
Struggling Japanese electronics maker Sanyo Electric is in final stages of talks with Goldman Sachs to sell a bulk of its 52 percent stake in debt-ridden Sanyo Electric Credit, its key financial arm, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said yesterday without naming sources. As for the money-losing home appliances division, Sanyo is considering setting up a new joint venture with China's biggest home appliance maker Haier Group (海爾) to transfer production, the economic daily said. Sanyo would not confirm the report.

■ Development
Intel invests in Malaysia
Intel Corp will invest US$230 million in Malaysia to set up a test and assembly facility and a design and development center. The latest investment will add 2,000 jobs at Intel's operations in Malaysia, chairman Craig Barrett said in a press release. Barrett, 66, is in Malaysia on a trip to Asia this week that includes India, and Beijing and Chengdu in China. The company earlier this week pledged investments of more than US$1 billion in these two countries. Intel currently has 10,000 employees in Malaysia, the company's biggest operational site outside the US.

■ Mining
Gold soars to 24-year high
Gold galloped to a new 24-and-a-half-year high yesterday on continued fund buying as the yellow metal, backed by strong fundamentals, outperformed traditional assets such as stocks and bonds. But analysts said that gold remained very vulnerable to fund liquidation after it made steep gains in recent weeks on the back of inflation concerns, high oil prices and fund interest in gold and other commodities. Spot gold had risen to between US$518.00 and US$518.60 an ounce, against between US$513.90 and US$514.70 last quoted in New York on Wednesday. Earlier, gold hit US$518.50 an ounce, its highest since April 1981.

■ Oil
CNOOC eyes Yukos' assets
China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC) has expressed interest in acquiring US$10 billion of assets in dismembered Russian oil group Yukos, state press reported yesterday. "Cooperation with Yukos not only depends on the companies' intentions but it also needs a high degree of government policy and coordination," CNOOC chairman Fu Chengyu (傅成玉) was quoted as saying in the official Shanghai Securities News. Fu visited Russia in August following CNOOC's unsuccessful bid for California oil group Unocal, the newspaper said, but it was unclear if he had met with any Yukos officials. Neither did the report say whether negotiations between the two companies had begun, but alleged Fu was interested in non-core assets.

This story has been viewed 1504 times.