Sat, Aug 31, 2013 page15

• World Business Quick Take

  • Agencies
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  CURRENCY

  Singh says no to tightening

  India has assured foreign investors it is not contemplating capital controls as a step to stabilize the falling rupee. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the rupee’s sudden decline was a shock, but his government would not address by it imposing capital controls or by reversing reforms. India’s stock market has dropped more than 10 percent in the past three months and the rupee has lost a sixth of its value against the US dollar this year. Much of that fall has been in the past month. Singh said the rupee’s weakness largely stems from the nation’s large current account deficit, caused by huge imports of gold and higher costs of crude oil and coal imports.

  MACROECONOMY

  S Korea output falls 0.1%

  South Korea’s industrial production contracted slightly last month after a brief expansion the preceding month, on the back of a decline in auto and machine equipment manufacturing, government data showed yesterday. Production in the mining, manufacturing, gas and electricity industries shrank a seasonally adjusted 0.1 percent last month, following a revised 0.6 increase in June, according to Statistics Korea. From a year earlier, last month’s output was up 0.9 percent, compared with a revised 2.5 percent fall in June.

  RETAIL

  German sales slide 1.4%

  German retail sales fell unexpectedly last month, dropping 1.4 percent from a month earlier, provisional adjusted figures by the federal statistics office Destatis showed yesterday. On a 12-month basis, retail sales grew 2.3 percent last month, partly helped by an extra day of commerce compared with last year, as well as higher sales in the food, drink and tobacco sectors, where sales grew 5 percent. Non-food sales also rose slightly from a year ago by 0.2 percent. From January to last month, retail sales shrank 0.1 percent compared with the same period last year, Destatis said.

  FOOD

  Recalls to hit sales: Danone

  Danone said baby-nutrition sales in Asia would fall in the third quarter because the company had to recall infant-formula products after a warning of tainted ingredients in some products supplied by Fonterra Cooperative Group Ltd. “We are deploying action plans to restore sales in affected markets,” Paris-based Danone said in a statement yesterday. “Their success will enable Danone to meet its growth and margin targets for 2013.” Danone, which gets 20 percent of revenue from baby nutrition, recalled the products in eight markets, including New Zealand, China and Hong Kong, as a precautionary measure. The company said it still expects to post organic revenue growth of about 5 percent in the third quarter, even though the recalls had a significant impact on sales in the region.

  TOBACCO

  Firm sued over ad claims

  An arm of China’s state tobacco monopoly has been sued for fraudulent advertising after it claimed that some of its cigarettes were “low harm,” state-run media reported. The case against China Tobacco Jiangxi Industrial LLC (江西中煙工業) is the first litigation of its kind in the country, the Beijing News reported. In an online advertisement the company said one of its brands was “low tar, low harm” and that a Chinese medicine ingredient added to its products “sharply reduces” the cigarettes’ damaging effects, the paper said. The case was heard by a Beijing court on Thursday, it added.
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