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World Business Quick Take

■ Aviation
Indonesia to ban older jets
Indonesia is planning to ban local carriers from operating jetliners more than 10 years old as part of a safety campaign following a string of crashes and accidents, the government said yesterday. The plan is likely to be unpopular with Indonesia's booming airline industry, which may raise questions over its effectiveness given that many experts say that good maintenance of a plane, not its age, is the most important factor in airline safety. "The main thing is we need a renewal of our fleet," Transport Minister Hatta Rajasa said after a Cabinet meeting held on board the presidential train -- a decision taken to highlight the government's concerns on transport safety.

■ Stocks
TSE reticent about Nikko
The Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) kept tight-lipped yesterday about a report that it was preparing to delist troubled brokerage house Nikko Cordial Group. The Nikkei newspaper said the bourse would delist the third-largest Japanese brokerage, which is partly owned by US financial empire Citigroup, citing a systematic accounting manipulation scandal. "With respect to the case, there is no truth that we have reached a concrete decision," the stock exchange said in a brief statement, issued before yesterday's trading started.

■ Automakers
Hyundai grows in Indonesia
South Korea's leading automaker Hyundai Motor said yesterday it would assemble trucks and buses at a plant in Indonesia from this month. Hyundai Motor said the plant, which has been built by Indonesia's Korindo Group with an investment of US$23 million, would have an annual production capacity of about 3,600 buses and 2,400 trucks. Korindo Group will be in charge of marketing and sales, it said. Demand for commercial vehicles in Indonesia is forecast to reach 400,000 vehicles this year on the back of an economic recovery, Hyundai said. Hyundai Motor already has an assembly plant for compact cars and mini-vans in Indonesia.

■ Retail
Macy's lifts Federated profit
Federated Department Stores Inc, the second-largest US department-store chain, said profit rose 4.9 percent on sales growth at its older Macy's locations. Results exceeded the company's forecast. Federated also said it planned to change the company's name to Macy's Group Inc and the board approved the repurchase of US$4 billion of company stock. Net income for the period ended Feb. 3 increased to US$733 million, or US$1.40 a share, from US$699 million, or US$1.26, a year earlier, the company said in a statement sent by Business Wire on Tuesday.

■ Macroeconomics
US reports sluggish growth
The US economy grew at a sluggish 2.2 percent pace in the final quarter of last year, much slower than initially thought as businesses tightened their belts amid fallout from the troubled housing and automotive industries. The fresh reading on GDP, released yesterday by the US Commerce Department, showed the economy in a considerably weaker state than the government first estimated, when it said the expansion in the last three months of last year was at a 3.5 percent pace. The new GDP figure for the October-to-December quarter was slightly slower than the 2.3 percent growth rate economists were forecasting and clearly less sunny than that original estimate.

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