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international Business News
Ford announces production halt at Russian plant
AFP, Saint Petersburg
US automotive giant Ford on Monday said it had halted production at its Russian plant until June 5 in response to a slump in demand, a spokeswoman for the company said.
"We have suspended production at the Vsevolozhsk factory because of the market situation and forecasts for falling sales in the automobile industry," spokeswoman Yekaterina Kulinenko told AFP.
Ford had already halted production for one month this winter from December 24 to January 21.
Employees at the plant, located near Saint Petersburg, are to be paid one-third of their normal wages during the shut-down.
When production resumes in June the plant will continue with four-day work weeks until October 5, Kulinenko said.
Ford's assembly line in Vsevolozhsk, near Russia's second city, has produced the Focus and Mondeo models for sale on the Russian market since 2002 and employs about 200,000 people.
Although the Focus is the highest selling foreign model in Russia, Ford has said it plans to cut its annual output as Russia's total car sales are expected to drop to 1.5 million vehicles in 2009 compared with 3.0 million last year.
Foreign manufacturers rushed to set up production bases in Russia in recent years hoping to capitilize on what was formerly Europe's fastest growing automotive market.
European exchanges slide as London, Wall Street closed
AFP, Paris
Share prices fell in Frankfurt and Paris Monday, dragged down by a mixed assessment from German businesses and auto sector weakness and in the absence of direction from London and Wall Street.
Markets were closed in Britain and the United States for public holidays.
Most Asian exchanges closed higher earlier in the day, shrugging off concerns prompted by an announcement from North Korea that it had carried out a nuclear test.
In Europe the Frankfurt Dax was down 1.62 percent at 4,838.88 in mid-session trade while in Paris the CAC 40 had fallen 0.58 percent to 3,209.37 points.
A key business sentiment index in Germany, the Ifo indicator, was reported to have risen to a six-month high of 84.2 in May. suggesting that Europe's top economy might be pulling out of its worst slump in over 60 years.
But tempering the optimism, and affecting trade on the Frankfurt exchange, was a sub-index revealing that an assessment by businesses of the current economic situation in Germany had fallen in May to 82.5, its lowest level ever.
Italy, Japan sign nuclear cooperation accord
AFP, Rome
Italy and Japan have signed a nuclear cooperation accord as Rome prepares to revive its atomic energy programme mothballed more than 20 years ago, the Italian economic development ministry said Monday.
The agreement, described as "very general," covers human resources and information exchange but does not involve building nuclear plants in Italy, a ministry spokesman told AFP.
Italian Economic Development Minister Claudio Scajola and Japanese Trade, Economy and Industry Minister Toshihiro Nikai signed the accord late Sunday on the sidelines of a meeting of the Group of Eight energy ministers in Rome.
Twenty-one years after shutting down its nuclear energy programme after the Chernobyl disaster, Italy in late February reached a cooperation accord with France covering all aspects of nuclear power from research to waste management.
The Italian and French energy firms ENEL and EDF signed an accord for the construction in Italy of at least four state-of-the-art reactors in February, with a first nuclear plant to be operational by 2020.
OECD says record 2.1 pc contraction in first quarter
AFP, Paris
The sharpest economic contraction on record for the OECD grouping of rich countries struck in the first quarter of this year, the body said on Monday, in its latest gauge of the worldwide downturn.
Economic growth was minus 2.1 percent compared to the previous quarter across the 30 member states of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the sharpest contraction since its records began in 1960, it said.
The figure was based on preliminary estimates for gross domestic product (GDP) and compared with a contraction of two percent in the previous quarter, it said in a statement.
The United States saw a 1.6-percent fall in GDR the same rate as in the previous quarter, while the quarterly fall accelerated across the 16 countries sharing the euro, to2.5percent.
Japan's GDP plunged by four percent, sharper than the 3.8 percent drop in the fourth quarter of 2008. Asia's biggest economy has been hit hard as its exports have flagged in the economic slowdown.