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World Business Quick Take

■BANKING
UBS needs time to recover
It will take around two to three years for embattled Swiss banking giant UBS to regain its reputation as one of the world’s most stable and trusted banks, its new chairman said in an interview published yesterday. “We shouldn’t fool ourselves,” Peter Kurer told the Financial Times. “We can’t pretend that there has been no reputational damage. Experience says it goes away after two to three years.” UBS has faced calls from a former chief executive for it to be broken up, after it announced new massive writedowns earlier this month, taking the total damage it has suffered so far from the US subprime mortgage crisis to US$37.4 billion.

■COMMODITIES
Asian giants driving growth<
Global miner Anglo American predicted on Tuesday that the booming Asian economies of China and India would drive strong demand growth for most commodities over the next 10 years. “Over the next 10 years, we anticipate strong demand growth of 4 to 5 percent annually for most key commodities, driven mainly by China, as well as by India and other developing countries,” said Anglo American chief executive Cynthia Carroll at an annual shareholder meeting in London. “This is likely to be bolstered by higher than historical real prices, tight supply and robust demand growth.”

■BANKING
JVC to drop flat-panel TVs
Japan’s JVC company has decided to pull out of the domestic market for flat-panel television production this summer and expects a net loss for the last fiscal year, the Nikkei Shimbun reported yesterday. JVC plans, instead, to maintain its production and sales of liquid-crystal-display televisions for the European and US markets, the business daily said. As the first Japanese home electronics company to withdraw from the local market, JVC has suffered a fourth straight net loss due to stiff competition in the flat-panel business with rivals such as Sharp Corp and Sony Corp.

■INTERNET
Ebay to end partnerships
EBay Inc said on Tuesday it will discontinue by year’s end the section of its site that allows users to participate in live auctions hosted by other companies. It said the move will not materially affect its business — though millions of users patronize eBay’s partner auction houses. EBay’s vice president of seller experience Jim Ambach said maintaining and improving the seven-year-old Live Auctions platform falls outside the company’s current focus on boosting listings, improving buyers’ experiences and making the site safer from fraud. “As we work to improve the buying and selling experiences ... we need to make sure our resources are aligned with our priorities,” Ambach said in a company statement on Tuesday.

■OIL
Venezuela ups windfall tax
Venezuela moved to take a greater cut of windfall oil profits, approving a 50 percent tax on foreign oil companies when crude tops US$70 a barrel. A bill approved on Tuesday by the National Assembly says the tax rate would rise to 60 percent when the average monthly price for benchmark Brent crude exceeds US$100. The legislation will take effect as soon as it is published in the official gazette. Revenues from the tax could reach US$9 billion annually, Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said. The new rules will let Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez extend state control over foreign oil firms.


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