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World Business Quick Take

■ Aviation
FBI raids ANA office
The FBI raided the North American headquarters of All Nippon Airways (ANA), halting the Japanese carrier's ticket reservations for the region for several hours, a company spokeswoman said yesterday. Law enforcement agents searched the office in Los Angeles on Thursday but ANA "doesn't know the reason as the FBI's warrant for the raid did not state what kind of suspicions they have," she said. The US government said in February of last year that it was investigating possible price fixing by the air cargo industry in a joint probe with EU authorities. But ANA said it was unclear whether the search of its Los Angeles office was connected with the air cargo probe.

■ Currencies
Thai baht keeps rising
The Thai baht continued to hit new nine-year highs against the US dollar yesterday on sustained speculation that the government would soon end controversial currency rules, dealers said. The baht was quoted at 34.92-94 to the US dollar in late morning trading after breaking the 35 barrier on Thursday when the unit closed at 34.98-35.01. Last December the central bank introduced stringent currency rules aimed at halting gains in the baht, which has soared nearly 12 percent over the past year. The central bank and finance ministry have repeatedly said the government would keep the currency measures to rein in the rising baht, but dealers said market players believed the opposite.

■ Economy
No spillover: Greenspan
The troubles plaguing lenders of risky mortgages are not likely to spill over into the broader economy unless housing prices see another substantial dip, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said on Thursday. "I think it's important to recognize that what we're dealing with ... is more an issue of house prices than it is mortgage credit," Greenspan said at a Futures Industry Association conference in Boca Raton, Florida. Greenspan said that as home prices dipped, "sub-prime borrowers have not been able to build up enough equity." If home prices drop in a year, he said that could cause the problems to "spill over into other areas," At the moment, "we're not seeing this," he said.

■ Automobiles
Hyundai, Infineon team up
Hyundai Motor Co has formed a partnership with German chipmaker Infineon Technologies AG to jointly develop automotive electronics, South Korea's largest automaker said yesterday. Under the agreement, the two sides opened a joint research center at Hyundai's headquarters in Seoul to develop electronics parts for cars that Hyundai and its affiliate Kia Motors produce, the company said in a statement. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. The two firms expect their first jointly developed products to be used in Hyundai and Kia cars starting 2010, it said.

■ Steel
Krakow center planned
Steel giant Arcelor Mittal said yesterday it planned to build a new service center in the Polish city of Krakow as part of an expansion in central and eastern Europe. In a statement the company said the new center would have a processing capacity of 450,000 tonnes a year and would start operating late this year. Separately, the firm said it had signed a US$300 million deal with the US' Noble International Ltd to combine their laser-welded tailored blanks business.

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