Mitsubishi Chemical to invest in China

TOKYO: Mitsubishi Chemical Corp, said Friday it will set up a Joint venture ii^ Beijing with Japanese and Chinese partners to make and sell polypropylene compounds.

The joint venture aims to meet growing demand from Japanese automakers in China, a spokesman for Mitsubishi Chemical said.

The joint venture will be capitalised at $ 350.000. Mitsubishi Chemical will hold a stake of around 55 per cent. Toyota Tsusho Corp, will have a stake of about five per cent and a group company of Sinopec. China s national petrochemical corporation, will hold the remaining 40 per cent. Mitsubishi Chemical said.

The Chinese company will supply the raw material propylene and Japan Polychem Corp., a Mitsubishi Chemical-affiliated synthetic resin maker, will provide the technology. Mitsubishi Chemical said.

The joint venture is to start operations by the end of this year.

The company, with production capacity of 2,000 tons a year, will aim for 500 million yen ($4.3 million) in annual sales. Mitsubishi Chemical said.

Japan may buy 95pc of Thai bond issue

BANGKOK: Japan may buy as much as 95 per cent of tne $ 5 billion bond issue that the Thai government plans to launch this year, the English-language newspaper The Nation reported Friday.

In an exclusive interview with The Nation. Thai Finance Minister Tarrin Nimmana-haeminda was quoted as saying Japan would use part of its $30 billion aid programme to help crisis-stricken Asian countries pay for this possible purchase of Thai government bonds.

Tarrin was in Washington, attending the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meeting.

Indonesia delays telecom co sale-off JAKARTA: The privatisation of the state telecommunications company PT Teleko-munikasi Indonesia will be delayed until 2001 owing to unfavourable market conditions, a newspaper reported Friday.

The daily Indonesian Observer quoted State Enterprises Minister Tanri Abeng as saying that "the privatisation programme for the other state companies would continue except Telkon. which is delayed until 2001."

"Selling stakes now won't produce profit, because the price will be low." he was quoted as saying.

The International Monetary Fund-mandated programme originally set a sales target of $1.5 billion through the privatisation of 12 state-owned companies to plug the state budget deficit.

S'pore-Taiwan dual share listing

SINGAPORE: The Stock Exchange of Singapore said Friday it is working with the Taiwan stock exchange of a dual listing programme, which would allow investors in both countries to trade stocks listed on the two bourses.

"We are working with the Taiwan stock exchange on dual listings but details have not been finalised." a Singapore stock exchange spokesman said.

The spokesman declined to give further details but Singapore’s Business Times quoted a Taiwan news report as saying that an agreement will be signed at the end of this year for a tie-up effective early next year.

With a Taiwan stock index futures contract already trading on the Singapore International Monetary Exchange. Singapore investors are seen taking advantage of arbitrage opportunities created by access to Taiwan's spot market.

Liaoning moves to boost business

BEIJING: Alarmed by rising losses at many state-owned companies, the governor of , northeastern Liaoning province has sent 190 officials to try to put their businesses in order, the official newspaper China Daily reported Friday.

Liaoning — once a powerful industrial hub and now a rustbelt of aging factories — has led the sharp decline in China's state enterprise profits. With 1.400 large and mid-size state enterprises, it has swelling unemployed. worker protests over unpaid salaries and pensions, and China's highest concentration of money-losing companies.

According to provincial officials. in the first eight months of 1998 losses in Liaoning's state industry grew to 10.5 billion yuan ($1.27 billion), or an average of 44 million yuan ($5.37 million) a day. the newspaper said.

Zhang Guoguang. Liaoning's governor, has pledged to halt the collapse of state industry within three months, it said.

— AP reports