Thu, Mar 11, 2004 page12

• World Business Quick Take

  • AGENCIES
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  ■ Hong Kong

  Sales tax being mulled

  Hong Kong may introduce a sales tax after three years, risking the territory's reputation as a duty-free shopping haven to bring government finances into balance. The deficit in the year ending March 31 will probably be HK$49 billion (US$6.3 billion), lower than the government's previous HK$78 billion forecast, and may fall to HK$42.6 billion next fiscal year, Financial Secretary Henry Tang (唐英年) said in his first budget speech. He forecast economic growth will accelerate to 6 percent this year from 3.3 percent last year. A sales tax won't be introduced for at least three years, Tang said, adding that a 5 percent rate would generate HK$20 billion to HK$30 billion a year. Tang said the government expects a HK$6 billion budget surplus in five years time.

  ■ Food

  Imports add spice to kimchi

  South Korean kimchi may not always be as Korean as people think. Imports of the fermented food soared to a record 2,396 tonnes in January, tripling from 698 tonnes over the same period last year, according to figures released yesterday by South Korea's Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. Nearly all the imports came from China, where costs for such ingredients as cabbage, garlic and spicy red pepper are much lower than those in South Korea. Last year, South Koreans gobbled up 1.18 million tonnes of kimchi, about two-thirds of it homemade. Kimchi imports for last year totaled 26,042 tonnes, worth US$10.3 million. South Korean kimchi producers are trying to counter the challenge of rising imports by also cutting costs and focusing on niche markets for "high-quality" native kimchi.

  ■ Mobile phones

  Nokia No. 1 in the US

  Nokia Oyj regained the No. 1 position in the US mobile-phone market from Motorola Inc, helped by a new range of handsets that use Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology, newspaper Kauppalehti reported, citing researcher Gartner Inc. The Finnish company has a market share of 34 percent in North America, the Helsinki-based financial daily reported. Nokia has also been helped by delivery problems at Motorola, the paper said. Nokia's global market share was 35 percent last year, down 0.4 percentage points from 2002, the paper said. In Europe, Nokia's fourth-quarter market share fell to 45 percent from 53 percent in the year earlier period.

  ■ Airlines

  Japanese carrier to cut jobs

  Asia's top carrier, Japan Airlines System Corp, will reduce its group work force by almost 8 percent in the next three years, a report said yesterday. The job cuts, which will affect mainly ground staff, are intended to trim operating costs after the integration of Japan Airlines and Japan Air System in April, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said. The group's work force would be reduced by 4,500 from the current 57,000 by March 2007, the newspaper report said. The airline believes it will be able to achieve the payroll reduction through natural attrition alone, it said. At the same time, it will push ahead with the consolidation of administrative divisions and group companies to eliminate duplication, the newspaper said. The company hopes the personnel reduction will help turn around its business to post a profit of about ¥100 billion in fiscal 2006.
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