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World Business Quick Take

■ Labor
Foxconn workers form union
Workers at a Chinese plant run by Taiwan-invested electronics maker Foxconn (富士康) have set up a union, state media said yesterday, following a push last year to organize labor at overseas companies. The union was set up on Sunday, enlisting 118 employees at a plant in Shenzhen where Foxconn assembles iPods for US-based Apple Inc, the official Xinhua news agency reported. The Chinese Communist Party-run All-China Federation of Trade Unions, the only legal trade union in the nation, has been pushing hard to have branches established within foreign-funded companies. Wal-Mart, the icon of US capitalism which had refrained from setting up the union branches, established one at its China headquarters in the city in November.

■ China
Tax revenue soars 22%
The nation's tax revenues soared 22 percent last year, the government said yesterday, amid surging economic growth and official efforts to increase tax collections from private industry. Revenues last year totaled 3.8 billion yuan (US$480 billion), the State Administration of Taxation said on its Web site. That increase came on top of a 20 percent surge in tax revenues in 2005, the official Xinhua news agency said. The tax boom has been driven by sizzling economic growth that was expected to top 10 percent last year and by efforts to collect more taxes from foreign and private Chinese businesses.

■ Automobiles
Hyundai targets 10% rise
South Korea's top automaker Hyundai Motor yesterday said it aims to raise annual vehicle sales by 10 percent this year as it raises production overseas, including in the US and China. The company missed its sales target of 2.69 million vehicles last year due to strikes and the South Korean won's gain against the US dollar, which made exports more expensive. It said in a regulatory filing it was targeting sales of 2.73 million vehicles at home and abroad this year, compared with 2.5 million last year, an increase of 9.4 percent. The revenue target is 42 trillion won (US$45 billion), 13.5 percent higher than an estimated 37 trillion won last year.

■ Gaming
Playtech makes a deal
Gambling software maker Playtech yesterday said it had struck a deal with PartyGaming to power gaming Web sites that PartyGaming has agreed to buy from Empire Online and Intercontinental Online. "Under the terms of the four-year agreement, the online gaming Web sites currently operated by Empire and Intercontinental will remain exclusively on the Playtech platform," it said in a statement. The deal between Playtech and PartyGaming is conditional on the successful acquisition of Empire by PartyGaming.

■ Equities
Hanoi to equitize SOEs
Vietnam will partially equitize its national airline next year and also sell shares in more than 50 major state-owned enterprises by 2010, the communist government said yesterday. Vietnam Airlines, one of the most profitable state-owned enterprises (SOEs), will be equitized in 2008 under a decision signed by Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung last week, the government said on its Web site. The Vietnam Textile and Apparel Group is also set to become part-equitized by next year, to be followed by the Paper Corp, Steel Corp and Northern Foodstuff Corp in 2009, it said.

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