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Mandelson serves up six-point plan to rescue trade talks
Brussels: Europe's trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, accused "self-interested" countries of jeopardising the world trade talks and served out a six-point plan intended to save next month's Hong Kong summit from failure.

Mandelson said on Tuesday that demands from countries such as Brazil for further EU concessions on farm subsidies and tariffs would wipe out the livelihoods of people in 80 of the poorest countries. The trade commissioner said that his offer to cut tariffs by an average of 47 per cent and trade-distorting subsidies by 70 per cent were "pretty good, frankly" and urged countries to take a "good deal on the table".

Speaking after a meeting with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of poor countries, he said: "The US, Canada, Brazil and India have fired a barrage of criticism in the name of developing countries. What these countries have in common is that they are all large-scale competitive agricultural producers and exporters.

"The kind of tariff cuts they want to see are entirely self-interested and the impact on ACP countries would be devastating. If we accepted US proposals, many of those countries would see two-thirds of their agricultural trade with Europe wiped out."

Mandelson's six-point plan is: quota- and tariff-free access for least-developed economies into rich- country markets; completion of the deal to allow poor countries to buy cheap, generic versions of drugs; more time to cope with rules on property rights; elimination of US cotton subsidies; compensation for countries that will see their preferential position weakened; and more aid to help countries adapt to free trade.

Countries have until the end of next year to seal a deal on farms, industrial tariffs, services and other smaller topics.
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P&O sells out to Dubai Ports for £3.3bn
London: DP World (DPW), the state-owned Dubai ports business agreed to buy P&O for £3.3bn yesterday. DPW has said that it will keep the British company's troubled ferries business, its London headquarters, current management, employees and the brand.

DPW is also committed to a planned giant new £1bn container port, Thames Gateway at Thurrock, Essex.

The deal marks the end of an era for British business ending the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company's 170-year history as an iconic British business. Although the 443p-a-share transaction came at a whopping 46 per cent premium to the P&O share price before DP World's interest was revealed, analysts said that a counter-bid could still not be ruled out, with an outside chance that other leading operators such as Hong Kong's Hutchison, the Port of Singapore or Denmark's AP Moeller could still make a bid.

The deal brings together P&O, the world's No 4 player, which has 29 container ports in 18 countries, with the No 7, DP World. Depending on how the market share is assessed the combined company will be the third-biggest operator, or joint third with AP Moeller.

The Dubai company has already pulled off one other major acquisition recently when it bought the US group CSX Corporation for US$1.15bn (£640m).
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OECD sees U.S. economic growth as solid
Paris: The OECD said Tuesday that U.S. economic expansion is solid despite this fall's devastating hurricanes and will continue at or above its trend rate in 2006. It however warned that the inflationary impact of soaring oil prices remains a key risk.

"Substantial uncertainty surrounds the effects of the large run-up in oil prices," the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said in its half-yearly Economic Outlook report. It said that the U.S. economy is expected to grow by 3.6 per cent in 2005 despite the rise in oil prices and the damage caused by hurricanes. the year.

But OECD has warned that fiscal discipline must improve and monetary policy might have to become restrictive particularly if inflation does feed through to core measures.

"Long term nominal interest rates have been edging up but remain unusually low in real terms. The Federal Reserve has signalled its expectation that short-term interest rates will continue to rise toward a neutral level. Further increases will be necessary if higher energy prices flow through to rising core inflation," the report said.

The OECD expects the U.S. external deficit to continue to grow, reaching 7.0 percent of GDP in 2007 from 6.7 percent in 2006 and the 6.5 percent of GDP deficit forecast for 2005. It also expects the U.S. fiscal position to deteriorate despite a improvement for the 2005 fiscal year because of an increase in tax revenues.
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ICANN to release single-letter Internet names
New York: Even as Internet domain names are getting longer, as Web sites try to accommodate themselves into the crowded ''.com'' address space, so far most single-letter names like ''a.com'' and ''b.com'' have remained unused. But all this is set to change as the Internet's key oversight agency, ICANN considers lifting restrictions on the simplest of names.

In response to requests by companies seeking to extend brands, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers will try to figure out how to sell of property that is clearly highly valued. "Obviously this is a valuable commodity," said Kurt Pritz, ICANN's vice president for business operations. ''How would the name be sold?''

Names are normally released on a first-come, first-served basis for $10 or less. Auctioning names to the highest bidder is one possibility. Single-letter names under ''.com,'' ''.net'' and ''.org'' were set aside in 1993 for technical reasons, but several were already claimed.

Now, a handful of companies have asked ICANN to free up the rest of the single characters. Market observers say that a few names might command more than US$1mn.
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Gold above US$500 - first time in 18 years
London: Gold hit US$500 an ounce yesterday for the first time in 18 years, primarily from strong demand for jewellery in China and the Far East and also amidst growing uncertainty over currencies.

Market analysts said that there has been speculation that some central banks are planning to buy more gold, possibly as a hedge against expected dollar weakness, and that inflation could erode the value of other investments such as bonds and shares.

Even though the price fell back to close unchanged in London at US$496, traders said that they believe the price of gold is set to move higher, even as other commodity prices have been climbing with platinum topping the US$1,000-an-ounce level.

This time of the year also normally sees demand for gold pick up as jewellers prepare for the Christmas holiday period and the Indian wedding season, analysts said.

Earlier gold price had hit a record of US$873 an ounce in January 1980, and US$502 for one day in December 1987. The metal has surged almost 15 per cent in value this year alone.
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Broadband growth in Europe set to plateau
Broadband growth across Europe is expected to falter at about 60 per cent, according to analysts Datamonitor.

In its latest report, 'Consumer broadband markets: approaching maturity?', the company predicts that in the next 18 to 24 months the aggressive pace of broadband adoption across Europe will follow a similar pattern to the uptake of dial-up and begin to plateau.

'The current situation in many markets can be best described as one of rapidly increasing penetration, where broadband has effectively entered its growth sweet spot,' says Tim Gower, enterprise communications analyst at Datamonitor and author of the report. 'With some markets potentially experiencing changes in the household penetration of broadband of up 10 per cent in a calendar year, service providers must be well positioned to take advantage of the forthcoming penetration acceleration, prior to the inevitable slowdown.'

Gower told us that although he expected these growth rates to cool over the next two years, he didn't expect the markets in the US and Europe to hit a 60 per cent broadband penetration point until nearer the end of the decade.

The UK is on track for 8mn broadband connected homes by the end of the year. In June, BT released figures stating 7.4mn homes were connected to broadband, with 2mn using cable and 5.4mn on DSL.
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