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International Business News

Maruti posts record annual sales

AFP, Mumbai
India’s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki said Tuesday that sales in the fiscal year through March jumped 13 percent to almost 765.000 vehicles.
Maruti, which is majority owned by Japan's Suzuki Motor and commands the lion's share of die fast growing Indian auto market, said in a statement that Indian sales were "the highest ever in the history of the company."
It said it sold 764,842 vehicles in the year that ended on March 31, up from 674,924 the previous year.
The record came despite a two percent drop-off for the month of March, as rising interest rates have driven up borrowingcosts.
Annual exports rose by a record 34.9 percent to 53,024 vehicles, it said.
In December, Suzuki Motor said it would launch its next new car from India, targeting European buyers, as it invests 1.8 billion dollars in making India a global production hub.
Suzuki plans to boost Maruti Suzuki's production capacity to 960,000 cars by 2010 to meet burgeoning Indian demand, which has been spurred by an economy growing at an average of nine percent for several years.
NTT sells out in Lanka venture
AFP, Colombo
Japan's Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) sold its 35.2 percent stake in state-owned Sri Lanka Telecom for 297 million US dollars, the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) said Tuesday.
The purchase by Malaysia's Global Telecommunications Holdings NV ended the largest single investment in Sri Lanka bya Japanese firm.
Global, which also owns Maxis Communications of Malaysia, bought the shares at 50.50 rupees (47 US cents) each making it the biggest single transaction ever conducted on the stock exchange, CSE officials said.
Sri Lanka Telecom (SIT) shares had traded at about 40 rupees before the sale was announced and rose 15.8 percent to 48.00 rupees in intraday trade Tuesday on a statement by Global Telecommunications it would be willing to buyout the remaining shareholders at 50.50 rupees.
Sri Lanka Telecom, was privatised in 1997, when the government sold a third of the company to NTT for 225 million dollars. The government retains 49.5 percent of SET, with the balance held by the public and employees.
"That means NTT makes a capital gain of 75 million dollars after 10 years," Arjuna Dassanayake from DFCC Stockbrokers, the selling broker of the deal said.
US, Australia ink open skies pact
AFP, Washington
The United States and Australia on Monday inked an open skies aviation agreement eliminating restrictions on air travel between the two allies that would lead to lower fares, officials said.
Visiting Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd witnessed the signing of the agreement at the US Department of Transport in Washington, hailing it as a "new era" in transpacific aviation links.
Its aim is to make it easier and cheaper for even more people to make the air journey across the Pacific to add more strands to our ties," he said.
Even before the pact was signed, Virgin Blue Holdings Ltd., the Australian low-cost airliner partially owned by British tycoon Richard Branson, said its long-haul international carrier, V Australia, would launch non-stop services between Australia and Los Angeles in December.
The accord breaks the longstanding monopoly of the direct route enjoyed by US carrier United Airlines and Australia's Qantas Airways.
UBS reveals another $19b subprime drama
AEP, Zurich
Swiss bank UBS revealed a second round of subprime-related writedowns of about 19 billion dollars on Tuesday, becoming the world's worst-hit bank in the US mortgage crisis.
The latest writedown was the biggest single subprime hit so far worldwide, and came on top of 18.4 billion dollars (11.7 billion euros) the bank wrote down in 2007.
It will also plunge UBS, the biggest Swiss bank, into a net loss of 12 billion Swiss francs (7.6 billion euros) for the first quarter this year after loss of 4.4 billion Swiss francs in 2007, its first-ever such loss.
The bank also said it wanted to raise 15 billion Swiss francs of new capital, and that it was changing its chairman.
The last writedowns for 2007 had already forced the bank into a controversial rescue recapitalisation by a Singapore sovereign wealth fund and by an unnamed investor in the Middle East.
The overall writedowns by UBS so far of 37.4 billion dollars are far greater than those of American banks Citigroup (21.1 billion dollars in 2007) and Merrill Lynch which has booked 19.4 billion dollars in writedowns.