Motorcycle production, exports soar in China
Beijing: China produced more than 18 million units of motorcycles this year and exported eight million units, a senior official said. However, surplus production in the sector has led to unhealthy competition between domestic companies in the overseas market such as irrational price cutting, the official said.

The Chinese government raised the qualification requirements for domestic motorcycle exporters in March, reducing in the number of exporting companies and a more orderly market the official said.

Figures from the General Administration of Customs show China exported nearly five million motorcycles from March to September, up 23 per cent from the same period last year. The total export volume rose 43 per cent during the period to $1.77 billion.
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Pfizer halts cholesterol-drug development
London: Pfizer Inc. has halted clinical trials and development of its important new cholesterol drug torcetrapib because of related deaths and cardiovascular problems in patients who used the drug.

The news has dealt a a serious blow to Pfizer which has been developing the combination drug as a possible successor to it primary revenue driver Lipitor, which loses patent protection in 2010. Lipitor is also the world's best-selling branded prescription drug, with 2005 sales of $12.9 billion, according to IMS Health.
Pfizer shares fell 11.6 pc in Frankfurt on volume of just over 3 million shares. Pfizer shares closed on Friday up 37 cents, or 1.4 pc at $27.86.

Lehman Brothers cut its rating on the company to underweight from overweight after the news.

Pfizer was developing torcetrapib as a drug to help boost good cholesterol that was seen as a potential follow-up to top-selling Lipitor.
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CNBC re-launches own site: ends tie-up with MSN
New York: CNBC has formally ended its tie-up with Microsoft Corp.'s MSN Money and is re-launching its own Web site. CNBC operated its own web site from 1998 to 2001 but began providing online content to Microsoft's MSN portal site under a licensing agreement.

The channel's relaunched site will carry many new features, including Web-specific video clips and market updates, video from news events and interviews with CEOs and other newsmakers.

Customers paying fees of $9.95 (euro7.50) per month also will have access to premium features including archived video and a live feed of video from the financial news network.
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