World Business Quick Take

■ Aviation
Lee to Singapore Air: Focus
Singapore Airlines must sell its catering and maintenance subsidiaries to help it stay focused in an increasingly competitive environment, the city-state's founding father Lee Kuan Yew said. The airline, one of Asia's biggest carriers, holds an 85 percent stake in SIA Engineering Company (SIAEC) and 83 percent in Singapore Airport Terminal Services (SATS), the Business Times said yesterday. The newspaper quoted Lee, a senior adviser to the government, as saying the government's responsibility is to safeguard Singapore's hub status and not necessarily to protect Singapore Airlines (SIA). At the same time, SIA must be given the resources to maintain its "leading position," which it can maintain if it remains nimble and management has flexibility to change practices and cut costs, Lee said.

■ Automobiles
Sales to sag in rich markets
Car will stall in most rich countries during the coming year while ongoing double-digit percentage growth in China will lead a surge in developing countries, according to an analysis by Canada's Bank of Nova Scotia. Volumes will be weaker in North America and flat in western Europe and Japan, but India, Mexico and Brazil will join China as high-performance markets, the bank's auto industry specialist Carlos Gomes said on Thursday. Gomes expects China will have an estimated growth of 18 percent to 2.7 million units and likely challenge Germany as the third largest national car market next year. He predicts Canadian sales of cars and light trucks to slip to 1.57 million next year from 1.59 million this year, while US sales will likely fall to 16.5 million next year after hitting 17 million this year, the third biggest year on record.

■ Music
Settlement deal mulled
A proposed settlement of lawsuits against Sony BMG Music Entertainment would let some consumers receive free music downloads to compensate them for Sony surreptitiously including spyware on millions of CDs, lawyers said on Thursday. Lawyers said the deal requires the company to stop manufacturing compact discs with MediaMaz software or with extended copy protection or XCP software that could leave computers vulnerable to hackers. According to terms of the settlement, Sony BMG will let consumers who bought the CDs receive replacement discs without the anti-piracy technology and will let them choose one of two incentive packages. The first package allows consumers to obtain a cash payment of US$7.50 and a promotion code allowing them to download one additional album from a list of more than 200 titles.

■ Shipping
Cosco to buy terminal stake
Ports Cosco Pacific Ltd said it has signed an agreement to buy a 20 percent stake in the Suez Canal Container Terminal in Egypt -- its first port investment in the Middle East. The Hong Kong-listed company will buy its stake from Egyptian International Container Terminal SA, a wholly owned unit of Danish shipping group A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S, which currently owns 60 percent of the terminal. It didn't disclose financial details of the deal in a statement released late Thursday. The terminal is located in Port Said and has been in operation since October last year. Other shareholders include the Danish Industrialization Fund for Developing Countries.