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World Business News Quick Take

■ MEDIA

Bertelsmann eyes stake sale

German media group Bertelsmann is in talks with Japanese partner Sony on the sale of Bertelsmann’s half in their jointly owned music company Sony BMG, a newspaper said yesterday. Each has owned half of the music publishing firm since 2004, and Sony has an option to buy should Bertelsmann decide to sell its stake, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper said, without identifying its source. The newspaper said Bertelsmann boss Hartmut Ostrowski has decided to get out of the music business owing to falling sales caused by Internet downloads. Bertelsmann and Sony have not yet agreed on a price for their deal, but it could nonetheless be finalized within a few months, the report said.



■ FAST FOOD

McDonald's pulls tomatoes

McDonalds pulled tomatoes from sandwiches served in the US on Monday amid a nationwide salmonella outbreak. The move came two days after the Food and Drug Administration warned restaurants and retailers not to serve round or Roma tomatoes unless they were grown in areas untouched by the outbreak. McDonald’s said it was imposing a total ban on those types of tomatoes as a precautionary measure. The chain said it had received no reports of illness among its customers. A number of other restaurant chains also pulled tomatoes from their menus, and retailers pulled fresh tomatoes from their shelves.



■ AUTOMAKERS

Toyota widens production

Toyota says it will start making the Camry hybrid in Australia and Thailand as part of the Japanese automaker’s efforts to step up production of such green cars around the world. Toyota Motor Corp said in a release yesteray that it would start making the Camry hybrid at its Samrong plant in Thailand next year, targeting annual production of 9,000 vehicles. Toyota said it plans annual production of 10,000 Camry hybrids at the Altona plant in southeastern Australia starting in early 2010.



■ OIL

Demand set to slow: IEA

World oil demand will rise at its slowest pace in six years during this year as a recent raft of subsidy cuts in several Asian countries cuts into oil demand, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said yesterday. The adviser to 27 industrialized economies said in its monthly Oil Market Report that global oil consumption would now rise by 800,000 barrels per day (bpd) this year, 230,000 bpd less than its previous forecast. The head of the IEA’s oil industry and markets division, Lawrence Eagles, said this year’s demand growth will be the slowest since 2002. Oil prices pared losses after the IEA’s report. US crude was down US$0.25 at US$134.10 a barrel by 8:20am GMT, off lows of US$133.41.



■ SEAFOOD

Malaysia faced with EU ban

The EU may ban seafood imports from Malaysia over health concerns, officials and a report said yesterday. The possible suspension follows a visit in April by EU health inspectors to Malaysia’s seafood processing companies and their facilities after earlier warning of shortcomings in the industry, said Geert Anckaert, a senior official at the European Commission office here. EU officials had in 2005 discovered shortfalls in the safety of Malaysian seafood exports but subsequently launched a program to help educate local officials about EU health regulations, he said. The Star daily, citing an EU draft on the matter, said two-thirds of Malaysian vessels and establishments visited didn’t comply with EU regulations on imports.


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