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World Business Quick Take

■ Automobiles
Honda plans mini-hybrid
Honda Motor Co plans to introduce the world's first hybrid subcompact car as early as the next fiscal year, being April 1, 2007, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported yesterday. The Japanese automaker, which already sells three hybrid models, plans to market the subcompact for about ¥1.4 million (US$11,803) while most of the hybrids on the market go for at least ¥2 million, the business daily said. Honda's rival Toyota now offers five hybrid models since it introduced its Prius in 1997 and announced sales of 235,000 units last year, which made up 3.2 percent of its total car sales.

■ Electronics
Chinese GPS introduced
Pioneer Corp will next month begin sales in China of a car-navigation system that also plays music and movies, the Japanese electronics company said yesterday. The GPS system, which comes with a touch-sensitive display and voice-activated feature, will offer maps of 20 provinces and two autonomous regions for 19,800 yuan (US$2,460). The DVD-based navigator will also play CDs up to 480 minutes long and DVDs, which allows back-seat passengers to watch movies with a separately sold monitor. Pioneer said it expected sales of its GPS system to rise as automobile sales in China also grow by more than a projected 10 million units by 2014. The company first introduced its navigation systems in Japan in 1990, followed by Europe and North America in 1999.

■ Finance
Interest rates to get wilder
Federal Reserve policy-makers last month indicated that interest-rate decisions could become less predictable, relying more heavily on short-term economic prospects than on more sweeping monetary strategy. Minutes of the Fed's closed-door meeting on Jan. 31 -- Chairman Alan Greenspan's last -- were released on Tuesday and offered insight into policy-makers' thinking as they contemplated what might be the appropriate end point in the Fed's nearly two-year credit tightening campaign and as they prepared for the new chief, Ben Bernanke. "Although the stance of policy seemed close to where it needed to be given the current outlook, some future policy firming might be needed" to keep inflation and the economy on an even keel, according to the minutes.

■ Banking
Small banks look attractive
China's city commercial banks are becoming increasingly attractive to overseas investors as stepping stones into the country's huge financial sector, Moody's Investors Service said yesterday. "The banks are becoming hot targets for overseas investment because they are relatively small and provide an entry point for foreign banks to participate in China's growing banking sector," May Yan, senior analyst with Moody's, said in a teleconference. For China's smaller banks the benefits of foreign capital injections amounted to more than just a shot in the arm of liquidity, Yan said. "Foreign banks are also required to provide technical assistance in many areas, including risk management, product knowledge and maybe management personnel," Yan said. "Overall, in the intermediate term, we expect to see some positive effects by foreign investment. For example, transparency and information quality to improve under the influence of foreign partners," Yan said.

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