BUSINESS BRIEFS
WTO cuts deal on farm exports
Advertiser Staff and News Services
HONG KONG — WTO negotiators cut a last-minute deal yesterday on ending farm export subsidies and other trade barriers, claiming modest progress toward their goal of forging a global trade pact by late 2006.
The agreement was a badly needed breakthrough for the World Trade Organization, whose credibility was on the line following devastating collapses of two of its past three key meetings.
Dickering until the very last minute, delegates from both wealthy and poor countries reconciled their conflicting interests, agreeing to eliminate farm export subsidies by 2013, to work toward dismantling trade barriers in manufacturing and services and to provide greater protections and support for developing countries.
GOLDMAN SACHS TOP GUN IN ASIA
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. tops the rankings this year among banks working on takeovers in Asia outside Japan, after advising on the biggest transactions in China during the period.
Goldman Sachs has advised on $23 billion of mergers and acquisitions in Asia announced in 2005, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News. Half the New York-based bank's business came from deals in China.
Morgan Stanley, the second-biggest U.S. securities firm by market value, slipped to second in Asia outside Japan this year, after advising on $21.7 billion of takeovers, Bloomberg data shows.
SURVEY: U.S. GAS UP 8¢ TO $2.21
The U.S. gasoline pump price rose 8 cents in the past two weeks to an average $2.21 a gallon, Trilby Lundberg said, citing her survey of about 7,000 filling stations nationwide.
The price in Lundberg's survey reached a record $3.01 a gallon in early September after Hurricane Katrina struck Louisiana and Mississippi, damaging refineries, shutting pipelines and curtailing Gulf of Mexico crude oil production.
The refinery damage done by Katrina was made worse when Hurricane Rita struck a month later. After Rita, nearly 30 percent of U.S. refinery capacity was idled temporarily. Fuel prices have declined as the refineries have recovered.
The highest price for self-serve regular gasoline was $2.57 a gallon in Honolulu, according to Lundberg. The lowest was in Salt Lake City at $1.98. On New York's Long Island, the price was $2.40.
