WASHINGTON,
Feb. 16--Global sales of personal computers are expected to grow nine percent in 2005, a cooler rate than the 11.6 percent growth pace of 2004, a market research firm said Tuesday, AFP reported.
Gartner Inc. projected worldwide PC shipments of 199 million units in 2005, from 183 million units in 2004.
"Overall shipment growth is expected to slow this year as both professional and home users wind down major replacement cycles," said George Shiffler, a Gartner analyst.
"We believe professional replacement activity peaked in 2004 and will decelerate sharply over 2005. While home replacement activity will continue to provide some strength to the market in 2005, it too seems likely to slow by year-end."
Gartner said however that laptop or mobile PC sales will be growing far faster than sales of desktops: 17.4 percent for mobiles o 6.1 percent for desktops.
"Mobile PCs are becoming increasingly attractive to a broad range of users," Shiffler said.
"There are a number of reasons for this including rapidly falling system prices, enhanced wireless experiences, and expanded multimedia/entertainment functionality."
Gartner analysts said there may be room for more growth if the PC makes further strides toward becoming a home entertainment center, but added that this trend remains sluggish.
"Media PCs remain relatively expensive and suffer from spotty reliability as well as troublesome ease-of-use," said analyst Kiyomi Yamada.
"PCs are also handicapped by low interoperability with other media devices and poor aesthetics. This is hurting their ability to compete against alternative devices that are both cheaper and more readily connected to media sources."

Lebanon's former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri symbolized more than anyone else the country's drive to rebuild from the ashes of the 1975-1990 civil war, Reuters reported.
Lebanon's business community fears his vision of economy recovery has died with him.
The billionaire construction tycoon's name was synonymous with Solidere, the firm he created to rebuild downtown Beirut from war-ravaged ruin into the gleaming centrepiece of post-war Lebanon and Hariri's most visible legacy.
While critics blamed the 60-year-old for sinking Lebanon into a $33 billion public debt and letting corruption flourish, Lebanon's business community saw him as the only hope for reforming the economy and averting a financial meltdown that appears more likely in his absence.
"This ... will have aftershocks and a lasting political and economic effect," said Shadi Karam, chairman of Lebanon's BLC Bank.
"The effect has little to do with Hariri being an ex-prime minister. It is because he symbolized investment in Lebanon. He is a man who put his money where his mouth was and invested millions in this country because he believed in it. This is a catastrophe..."
Bankers and analysts, who credit Hariri with stabilizing the Lebanese pound, once in free fall, fear pressure on the currency will build now that he is dead.
Lebanon's financial sector is closed for three days of mourning that analysts say will give investors breathing space to gauge the post-Hariri investment climate.
The central bank has held a flurry of meetings with business and political leaders but has declined to comment so far.
Rumors have circulated that the pound lost value just before markets closed on Monday as news of his death spread. But bankers expect them to reopen with the pound inside the 1,501-1,514 band the central bank has maintained for years.
It will not be cheap for Lebanon's central bank to fend off panic conversions out of the pound or even some short-term capital flight, but the foreign currency reserves are there.
"As far as the currency is concerned, there will be pressure in the early days. There will be an emotional and psychological effect in the first days," said Joe Sarrouh, adviser at Beirut's Fransabank. "But the central bank has a lot of tools to defend the currency while we see how the whole thing unfolds."
Hariri's death comes as Lebanon was beginning to bury images of Lebanon's 1975-1990 and reclaim its place as an Arab tourism and finance hub. International television ads enticing tourists to "rediscover Lebanon" were beginning to make an impression.
Only time will tell how lasting an impact Hariri's demise will have Lebanon's economic future.
Much depends on whether elections planned for April or May take place on time and spawn a business-friendly government with the resolve to implement structural reforms Lebanon promised foreign lenders at Paris 2 donors summit.
A close friend of French President Jacques Chirac, Hariri persuaded France to host that conference in 2002, when Lebanon faced financial crisis, attracting enough soft loans avoid it.
"A delay in the formation of a new cabinet, particularly in case May elections were to be disrupted, would further postpone key structural reforms...This would reignite concerns about the sustainability of Lebanon's massive public debt stock," Credit Suisse First Boston said in a statement.
"The flow of funds from Lebanese expatriates and private Persian Gulf investors, who have been supporting Lebanon's finance through large deposits in its banking system, may also decline sharply, and even reverse in case of prolonged instability."
Lebanon's public debt is among the heftiest in the world at some 185 percent of GDP, most of it held by Lebanon's commercial banks in the form of high-interest treasury bills and accumulated during Hariri's watch.
Hariri held office for much of the past 12 years before quitting in October, after a long and bitter rift with Lebanon's President Emile Lahoud hobbled the reforms he spearheaded.
Bankers and analysts said they hoped Hariri's death would act as a wake-up call, at least ending the bickering that has bogged down Lebanon's economic recovery in recent years.

GENEVA, Feb. 16--International trademark applications grew by 23.5 percent to a record 29,549 last year, boosted by new US coverage and China's more dynamic exporters, the World Intellectual Property Organization said Tuesday, AFP reported.
The "Madrid" system, which allows a single application at WIPO to be registered in any of the 76 countries involved, was helped by the first full year of the US participation in the scheme, WIPO assistant director general Ernesto Rubio said.
That attracted both more applications from foreign companies seeking protection for a brandname on the US market, as well as 1,734 new applications from American companies, he added.
The list of companies using the scheme--which is primarily meant for exporters and does not include trademark protection in one's home market--is dominated by food, household and drugs multinationals.
WIPO also reported a 115 percent increase in use of the system by Chinese companies (1,015 applications) seeking to establish their own brandnames in foreign markets. "They are starting to sell more and more with their own brandnames," Rubio said.
"It has to do with the huge growth in the Chinese economy last year. The Chinese trade office also registered a huge growth in local trademarks," he explained.
German companies topped the list of biggest users for the twelfth consecutive year with 5,393 applications in 2004, or 18.3 percent or the total, followed by 3,503 from French firms (11.9 percent) and a rising proportion of Italian ones (8.5 percent).
Decisions on WIPO-based trademark applications are still in the hands of national authorities.
The growth also provided a financial boost to WIPO, the only revenue earning UN agency.
Rubio said revenue from trademark applications fees was set to grow from 25.6 million Swiss francs (16.5 million euros, $21.5 million) in 2003 to 27 million Swiss francs in 2004.

South Korea is the second largest LNG market in the world.

SEOUL, South Korea, Feb. 16--South Korea will buy $20 billion worth of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Yemen, Malaysia and Russia over 20 years from 2008, officials said Wednesday.
Korea Gas Corp. the world's largest LNG importer, has selected Yemen LNG, Malaysia LNG and Russia's Sakhalin Energy Investment as "preferred sellers," the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy said.
A formal contract would be signed in March or April, replacing an accord with Indonesia's PT Arun NGL that ends in 2007.
South Korea is the second largest LNG market in the world. The three companies will supply up to five million metric tons of LNG annually from 2008, the ministry said.
Energy giant Royal Dutch/Shell Group controls 55 percent of Sakhalin Energy and 15 percent of Malaysia LNG. Yemen LNG is 43 percent owned by France's Total SA, 16 percent by South Korean firms and 18 percent by Dallas-based Hunt Oil.
The ministry said Korea Gas would import 1.5 million tons each from the Malaysian and Russian gas ventures, and 1.3 million tons from Yemen LNG. The remainder is an option for the future.
The price is 35-40 percent cheaper than the country's previous long-term LNG deals and could save South Korea more than $13 billion over the 20 years, the ministry said.
The deal reflects efforts to cut costs and secure a stable long-term supply of gas, it said, adding that Korea Gas was able to cut prices through competition among producers. The three firms were among 12 LNG companies or consortiums from five countries which submitted bids.
"The reduction in import prices reflects the change in international conditions from a sellers' to a buyers' market, with gas producers competing with each other to win deals," Lee Won-Gul, deputy minister for energy and resources policy, told Yonhap news agency. He said more negotiations would take place on participation in future energy development and the acquisition of equity holdings in the companies.

TOKYO, Feb. 16--Japan's threatened economic sanctions against North Korea would cost the isolated state $1.2 billion a year, making its economy contract by 7 percent, a ruling party study said, AFP reported.
A task force of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) calculated the figures by using data from the United Nations and South Korean banks, party officials said Wednesday.
Some LDP lawmakers are calling for economic sanctions against the Stalinist state in retaliation for its failure to repatriate eight Japanese people Pyongyang kidnapped and says are dead.
According to the report, Japan's trade deficit with North Korea averaged $79 million a year, with imports from Pyongyang--chiefly seafood--estimated at $223 million dollars and exports at $144 million.
The deficit is equivalent to 0.5-0.7 percent of North Korea's gross domestic product.
But if spillover effects are added to the figures, the overall economic impact would be as big as $1.2 billion or a seven-percent contraction of the North Korean economy, the report said.
"This would cut off the money going to North Korea's center of power," acting LDP Secretary-General Shinzo Abe told reporters earlier this week.
Last week, the finance ministry separately said that money transfers from Japan to North Korea through official routes plunged 35 percent to 2.68 billion yen ($25.5 million) for the year to March 2004.
The ministry attributed the plunge to tightened baggage screening on North Korean ships after Pyongyang admitted in 2002 to having abducted Japanese nationals during the Cold War to train its spies.
The remittance figure was the lowest since the fiscal year to March 2001 when the finance ministry started compiling such records, although much more money could be undocumented.
The money is mostly from ethnic Koreans living in Japan with 90 percent carried in person and only 10 percent going through financial institutions.

HOUSTON, USA,
Feb. 16--Yukos was to begin presenting its arguments and witnesses Wednesday to support its position that the bankruptcy and a related lawsuit were properly filed in Houston--even though the company has no assets here beyond two bank accounts and its finance chief's home, AP reported.
Deutsche Bank and Gazpromneft, a former unit of Russia-owned natural gas giant Gazprom, say that's not enough. They're asking US Bankruptcy Judge Letitia Clark to throw out the bankruptcy and suit for lack of jurisdiction over a Russian company subject to Russian law.
Yukos filed the bankruptcy Dec. 14 in an unsuccessful effort to head off the Dec. 19 auction of Yuganskneftegaz, which produced 60 percent of its oil.
Once Russia's biggest oil producer, Yukos was the target of a monthslong tax probe that culminated in the forced auction to help pay off a $27.5 billion back-tax levy.
Yukos said in a filing late Tuesday that when a company "is subjected to massive politically motivated, unlawful actions in the form of over $27.5 billion of illegal taxes," creditors and shareholders are harmed. "A bankruptcy case is the only kind of legal proceedings that can deal with these kinds of problems," the company said.
Last week, Yukos sued Gazprom, Gazpromneft, BaikalFinansGroup and Rosneft for $20 billion in damages in a lawsuit stemming from the bankruptcy. The threat of US court action has postponed the merger of Rosneft and Gazprom, which would lift restrictions on foreigners owning shares in the world's biggest gas company.
A crucial requirement to remove the restrictions is for the state to raise its stake in Gazprom above 50 percent, which it would have achieved by folding Rosneft into Gazprom.
But now that Rosneft owns a litigious asset, those plans are on hold, at least until Clark decides whether to dismiss the bankruptcy and litigation.
"We are confident that after seeing our motion, Deutsche Bank's motion, and the evidence this week, Judge Clark will see through Yukos' attempt at manufacturing jurisdiction, and she will dismiss this case," said Michael Goldberg of Baker Botts, the firm representing Gazpromneft.