Foreign Business Reports Now

February 20th, 2006

by Vasily Klimko

News reports this week contained really good and bad news for certain many people in the technology, business, economy, trade, and entertainment industries or sectors about the planet.

First, the technology industry is reported to be booming.

A proof of the flourishing technology industry is the 3GSM Globe Congress held in Barcelona and participated by 3 most significant cellular telephone technology firms in the planet - Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and Motorola. These organizations presented their latest items in the fair, most of them employing the latest 3G technology. Motorola released ROKR. Nokia revealed plans to release Nokia 6136. Sony-Ericsson disclosed the release of the K610 telephone and music player. Furthermore, Sony Ericsson and Nokia will have a joint venture in developing cellular telephone technology-mobile tv.

Having said that, some shoppers do not avail of this latest technology since they want to avail of discounts and bargains since of offered to final year's technology. But this won't be the case this year as inventories are kept lean since of the new ability of retailers and producers to share sales and inventory advice with every other. But, they can nevertheless get the finest value if the consumer to determined to place some effort and acquire understanding about the technology.

An additional event that took location is the twentieth edition of the Olympic Winter Games final weekend in Turin, Italy, which brought in a host of organizations. Organizations collaborated with the nearby government of Turin below the supervision of the International Olympic committee. They hope to have an international publicity by marketing its product in the uniform of athletes participating the sports event, flooding tv airtime with their commercials, and plastering the venue with advertisements.

This week, organizations have made announcements of either joint ventures, downsizing or takeovers.

Volkswagen announced more than the weekend that there will be 20,000 jobs will be cut from 2006 to 2008. They stated they want to strengthen their market standing as they face fierce competitors and declining markets. Even even though the job cuts dismayed Volkswagen workers, investors were pleased with that decision as the organizations shares rose to pretty much a 3-year high. The enterprise also projects to appreciate a 61 percent enhance in profit.

Toy Enterprise Lego Group and Star Wars franchise owner Lucasfilms Ltd. has agreed to continue their partnership until 2011. In 1999, Lego received the rights to create Star Wars toy items. For the duration of the release the "Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace", Lego earned more than $400 million.

Under new ownership, MySpace ties up with SK Telecom and Earthlink, Inc. and Hello LLC will launch this service following a handful of months. The enterprise will provide its subscribers new service of mobile telephone access to MySpace. Together with the launch of MySpace's mobile telephone access service, they will also release 'Hero' and 'Kickflip' phones that will be manufactured by Pantech and VK.

Nokia and Sanyo Electric Co. will have a joint venture in order to create new mobile telephone with CDMA chips and 3G technology. Nokia aims to capture the American and Japanese market, when Sanyo hopes to be relieved of its monetary debt.

Arcelor plans to enhance its dividend by 85% in order to avoid their rival, Mittal Steel's hostile takeover. Earlier, Arcelor rejected Mittal's bid, and has employed investment banks to formulate a defense plan. Having said that, if the takeover happened, Mittal will scrutinized by the European Commission.

Having said that, a enterprise has been entangled in certain concerns, but has resolved their predicaments currently. Google developed a Chinese version of their search engine and will comply with the Communist Party's regulations. With 30,000 Net censors commissioned by the government, China aims to deter its citizens from gaining access to sites that feature or discuss concerns that are sensitive to Chinese policy. Although it baffled industry insiders, Google's compliance was in line with their aim to capture the lucrative Chinese market, dwelling to more than a hundred million Net users.

Weather also affected organizations this week.

On Sunday morning, residents of Northeastern United States including New York skilled a snowstorm which triggered thousands of dollars worth of property insurance coverage and led organizations to halt on Monday. Final September, Hurricane Katrina left insurance coverage organizations headaches as its havoc triggered more than $5 billion worth of structural damages.

Meanwhile, residents and authorities in New Orleans, Louisiana is preparing for the Mardi Gras, the initially a single to be held following Hurricane Katrina left a large number of many people dead and depressed in August of final year. Although the city's infrastructures are nevertheless below repair, the event is expected to revive the city by creating their tourism industry active once more.

US trade deficit also widened in 2005 since US developed a sturdy consumption for foreign-made items and the value of oil hit a record high of pretty much $71 per barrel more than 5 months ago. US is also threatened by China's booming economy as Chinese items have a trading edge due to lower pricing. The White House is also alarmed with their rising deficit.

On the other hand, Europe is undertaking far better as their market shares closed upward on Monday. Banks shares in Italy rose, as there have been speculations of consolidation between best Italian banks and foreign banks, such as French bank Banque National de Paris Paribas and Spanish Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria.

International organizations are also facing some hard concerns.

The Globe Trading Organization has accused the European Union of violating guidelines by halting the importation of genetically modified foods since 1998. United States, Argentina and Canada, 3 of the most significant agricultural product exporters in the planet, filed a complaint against the EU ban. Having said that, social result in groups, like Good friends of the Earth, are criticizing WTO's recent move. They claim that Austria, Germany, France, Greece, Luxembourg and Italy, which implement the ban, have sovereignty to make choices for themselves.

The Group of 8 Nations, the most exclusive club of developed nations in the financial and political stage, had a meeting more than the weekend for the initially time in St. Peterburg, Russia to discuss the influence of rising oil prices to planet financial development and power supplies. Russia also assured G8 that they preserve the level of their oil and gas exports this year, despite its cutting off gas supply to Ukraine and the whole Eastern Europe. G8 discussions also included talks on new leadership of Palestine, which the US believes to be a terrorist faction, and the threat of bird flu in Asia and Europe.

The value of oil rises once more on Monday following Iran, the fourth biggest exporter of oil in the planet, continued its uranium enrichment activity and ended their cooperation with the United Nation's International Atomic Energy Agency. Reports state that Iran is employing uranium in making nuclear weapons and it has intermittent cooperation with international inspectors. The oil value scenario is even worsened by Nigeria's protests against foreign oil organizations and kidnapping of Royal Dutch Shell workers.

Iran, the fourth biggest exporter of oil in the planet, announced that they ended their cooperation with the United Nation's International Atomic Energy Agency and they will continue its uranium enrichment activity. Due to the fact of this, oil prices rose once more on Monday. Reports state that Iran is employing uranium in making nuclear weapons and it has intermittent cooperation with international inspectors. The oil value scenario is even worsened by Nigeria's protests against foreign oil organizations and kidnapping of Royal Dutch Shell workers.

China is also reported to be more active in the planet trade scene.

China has purchased oil from African nations, such as Algeria, Angola, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Nigeria and Sudan for their growing will need for power to sustain their flourishing industries. Having said that, some nations, like the United States, are threatened since they also have oil interest in this continent.

China and Australia not too long ago met in Canberra in January to speak about the conceivable export of uranium located in Australia to China, and to make certain that the uranium supplies would not be employed for constructing nuclear weapons. Having said that, environmentalists and majority of Australian citizens warn of its destructive consequences, such as greenhouse gases emission and conceivable future resistance of Chinese nuclear industry to international scrutiny.

On the lighter side of points, the entertainment industry is continuing to do well.

The film industry in New Zealand boomed since of the box-office success of films shot or partially shot in the country, which consists of the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, "Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", and Peter Jackson's "King Kong". Due to the fact of this, funds for making nearby films are growing. Hollywood now opted to shoot films in this country since of its breathtaking scenery and its provide of special premiums that will decrease the film studio's production expense.

In 2004, Forbes magazine released their list of 100 Richest Celebrities. They proclaimed Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John and Madonna as wealthiest persons in tinseltown. It also signifies that the music and film industries are flourishing. The Rolling Stones, U2, Greenday, The Eagles, Dave Matthews band, Kenny Chesney, Celine Dion and 50 Cent are also included in the list.