Print

Mail

wiki links

World Business Quick Take

■ ELECTRONICS
Fire damages battery plant
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co, the maker of Panasonic-brand products, has suspended production of lithium-ion batteries at a factory in western Japan following a fire, officials said yesterday. The fire broke out around noon on Sunday at a factory for Matsushita Battery Industrial Co in Osaka and was put out about seven hours later, said Akira Kadota, spokesman for Matsushita Electric. There were no injuries, and officials are investigating the cause of the fire and assessing the damage, he said. Matsushita Battery spokesman Yoshihide Sato said the fire damaged the third floor of a six-story building, part of the factory, and batteries were burned.

■ MULTINATIONALS
China targets bribery
China, faced with a continued rise in commercial bribery cases, has warned multinational companies they are among its targets as it seeks to weed out corruption, state media reported yesterday. The warning came as the Supreme People's Court announced the nation's courts had dealt with 4,406 commercial bribery cases in the first seven months of this year, up 8.2 percent from the same period last year, the China Daily said. "China will strengthen its cooperation with other countries to expose and punish multinationals who are engaged in commercial bribery in the country," the paper said, citing a Communist Party official.

■ ENGINEERING
Ex-Siemens boss grilled
Workers say former Siemens boss Heinrich von Pierer failed to root out corruption at the German engineering giant before listing shares on the New York Stock Exchange, possibly leaving him open to lawsuits, reports said yesterday. Board representatives of Siemens staff have questioned Pierer's management during an internal probe into suspicious transactions of around 1.6 billion euros (US$2.3 billion), several newspapers said. Von Pierer was head of Siemens from 1992 to 2005 and president of its supervisory board until April. The internal Siemens probe has focused on slush funds allegedly created to pay bribes for foreign orders going back to 1999.

■ RETAIL
Supermarket workers fired
India's Reliance Industries has sacked 150 grocery workers in communist-ruled West Bengal state, an official said yesterday, leaving its bid to revolutionize how Indians shop mired in difficulty. Plans by Reliance, India's top energy company, to invest US$6 billion to create a Western-style supermarket revolution have hit major opposition from small traders fearful of losing their livelihoods and politicians worried about losing votes. Reliance Retail, a unit of Reliance Industries Ltd led by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, was planning to launch around 145 grocery stores and other retail operations in West Bengal.

■ AUTOMAKERS
GM deal allows closures
The tentative contract between General Motors Corp (GM) and the United Auto Workers (UAW) would allow GM to close two US plants and possibly shut down several other facilities, to a detailed copy of the agreement showed. The moves are the downside of job security pledges that the UAW won in the negotiations, including commitments for new products at 16 plants. About 74,000 hourly GM workers will vote on the pact starting this week, with a final count to be done by Oct. 10.


This story has been viewed 997 times.