World Business Quick Take

■ STEEL

China may block merger

China sanctioned state-owned companies to examine three possible strategies to block BHP Billiton's proposed takeover of mining giant Rio Tinto, the South China Morning Post reported yesterday. Citing unnamed sources, the daily said that strategies include forming a local consortium to bid for Rio Tinto, a joint bid by domestic and foreign firms, or purchasing Rio shares on the open market. "[Companies] have approval from the State Council to go ahead and get actively involved," one source was quoted as saying. China International Capital Corp and Bank of China International have been retained by the government in an overall advisory role, the report said.



■ BANKING

ECB to tackle inflation

European Central Bank (ECB) President Jean-Claude Trichet pledged, in an interview published yesterday, to focus on eurozone inflation and not let interest-rate cuts in the US and the UK distract the bank from tightening monetary policy. Speaking to the Financial Times in Frankfurt in an interview conducted on Dec. 13, Trichet said any evidence of "second-round effects" leading to an acceleration in inflation would be "decisive." The ECB's main interest rate currently stands at 4 percent. Eurozone inflation hit 3.1 percent last year, the highest level in six-and-a-half years owing to rising costs of energy and food products. ECB directors have a mandate to keep inflation slightly below 2 percent.



■ PHILIPPINES

Record remittances

More 1 million Filipinos left for short-term work abroad this year, the Philippine labor department said yesterday. At this rate of deployment, the labor migrants would most likely send home a record US$14 billion to their families this year, Philippine Labor Secretary Arturo Brion said in a statement. A total of 1,012,954 Filipinos left for more than 190 countries between Jan. 1 and Dec. 9, representing a 1.1 percent rise from the figure a year ago, he said. Brion said annual remittances should "continue to approach, if not reach, US$14 billion for the first time in history by year-end 2007."



■ FINANCE

Japan mulling reforms

Japanese have announced the largest financial market reforms in a decade in the face of hot competition to be Asia's financial hub. On Friday the Financial Services Agency unveiled a plan to enhance "the competitiveness of financial and capital markets" with deregulation and liberalization. The agency plans to submit the bills to parliament early next year to revise existing regulations, agency officials said. Under the latest package, Tokyo will remove ban on creating a comprehensive financial market to handle the trading of stocks, bonds and financial and commodity derivatives in two years.



■ SHIPBUILDING

Samsung wins huge orders

South Korea's Samsung Heavy Industries, the world's second-largest shipbuilder, said yesterday it had secured US$2.41 billion in new orders. The company said it won a US$1.15 billion contract to build two semi-submersible floating drilling rigs by September 2010 for an unidentified Russian client. Separately, clients in Africa and in the Americas ordered two oil drilling ships worth US$1.26 billion, which will be delivered by May 2011, it said.