■JAPAN
Unhealthy products targeted
Tokyo will follow a policy of increasing taxes on products it deems unhealthy, Vice Finance Minister Naoki Minezaki said. “We will stick to our policy to tax things that are bad for health,” including tobacco, Minezaki said on NHK’s Sunday Debate program. “We will seek ways to achieve this after discussions with tobacco farmers and Japan Tobacco Inc.” Lawmakers told a government tax panel on Friday that Japan could consider incremental increases in its tax on tobacco. The average price of a pack of cigarettes in Japan is ¥300 (US$3.30), including ¥174.9 in tax.
■FINANCE
KDB eyes Southeast banks
South Korea’s state-funded KDB Financial Group Inc is seeking to buy Southeast Asian banks, instead of merging with Korea Exchange Bank (KEB) as observers had expected, the group’s chief said yesterday. “KDB Financial is interested in the Asian market and currently watching two or three banks in Southeast Asia,” KDB Financial Group chairman Min Euoo-sung was quoted as telling Yonhap news agency. “Basically, KDB Financial is more interested in overseas banks than KEB,” he said. Min also said the group would seek to enter developing Asian markets in need of financing services for infrastructure, including railroads or ports.
■AVIATION
BA staff to vote on action
Thousands of British Airways (BA) cabin crew are to vote on whether to take industrial action, the Unite trade union said on Saturday, in a row over job cuts and new contracts. The ballot will open next Monday and close on Dec. 14. Unite would have to give seven days’ notice before the start of any action, so strikes could begin just before the Christmas holiday season. More than 13,300 cabin crew staff will be balloted, with union leaders predicting a strong vote in favor of action. On Friday, BA revealed a quadrupling of net losses in its first half and axed 1,200 jobs in an “essential” cost-reduction program.
■METALS
PRC copper imports to drop
China’s imports of refined copper will “sharply decline” next year from this year as demand growth slows amid high stockpiles, an analyst at Beijing Antaike Information Development Co (安泰科信息開發公司) said. Imports are likely to fall from an estimated 3 million tonnes this year, Yang Changhua (楊長華) said at a conference in Wuhan, China. Copper use in the world’s largest consumer will grow 8 percent to 5.8 million tonnes, slowing from this year’s 10 percent gain, Yang said. “China has over-imported this year as can be seen from current high stocks, partly due to a sharp decline of scrap copper” availability, Yang said.
■FINANCE
SocGen repays state aid
Societe Generale SA, France’s second-largest bank by market value, earlier this week repaid the 3.4 billion euros (US$5 billion) in state aid it received in the financial crisis, the national market regulator said. On Wednesday, SocGen refunded Societe de Prise de Participation de l’Etat, the arm of the French state that had injected capital into the nation’s banks, the regulator said on its web site on Saturday. SocGen, led by chief executive officer Frederic Oudea, raised 4.8 billion euros in a capital increase last month to pay back state funds and bolster its capital position.
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