Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Naryshkin (l) is greeted by Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda prior to their meeting in Tokyo on Monday.

TOKYO, Nov. 6--The Russian-Japanese trade may reach 19-20 billion dollars in 2007, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Naryshkin said in his opening speech at the 16th international business conference “Innovation as the Basis for Economic Diversification; The Russia-Japan Business Dialogue“, which is being held in Tokyo during Nov. 2-8.
About 300 representatives of companies and organizations of the two countries are participating in the conference. In particular, the Russian Railways, TransContainer, TransTeleCom and Metropol represent Russia, while the financial services group Nomura, the trade and investment corporations Marubeni and Itochu represent Japan at the forum, Itar-Tass reported.
“The Russian-Japanese trade and economic cooperation is developing at a quite high pace in recent years. The bilateral trade in commodities and services has grown 2.5-3 times for the last three years,“ Naryshkin emphasized.
He stressed that the energy cooperation is on top priority of Russian-Japanese economic relations.
Meanwhile, the vice-premier expressed confidence that the bilateral cooperation would develop in other spheres including high technologies.
“Russia has been ranked among the countries with more than one trillion dollars of the GDP in recent years,“ Naryshkin pointed out. According to moderate forecasts, Russia’s GDP will grow 6.3 percent in the next two years, he remarked.
Russia’s investments to other countries reached $30 billion, and foreign investments in Russia reached $60 billion in the first half of 2007, Naryshkin
indicated.
The vice-premier focused attention on the fact that the State Duma had recently approved the first reading of the bill that includes two tasks--protecting the interests of the Russian state and creating conditions for the operation of foreign investors, particularly in the strategic sector of economy.
“We believe that a quite clear-cut and transparent procedure of negotiating deals enforced in the law will allow for avoiding subjectivity in the decision-making and will improve investment attractiveness of Russia,“ Naryshkin said.

Following the US financial market crisis, chairman of the country’s largest bank has resigned. Citibank announced in a statement that Charles Prince will resign as the chairman and chief executive of the world’s biggest bank and Robert Rubin will succeed him. Rubin was the US treasury secretary during Bill Clinton’s presidency. Economic experts say that Prince’s resignation from Citibank stems from mounting losses incurred as a result of bad loans and mortgages. Statistics further indicate that the interest of the biggest US bank has had a $6.5 b decline in the fourth quarter of 2007.
Presently, most US banks and investment funds are facing financial crisis. Before Prince, Merrill Lynch& Co. CEO Stan O’Neal resigned from the investment bank last month. The present problem of US banks emanates from millions of American citizens who are unable to pay back subprime mortgages. Following an increase in interest rates on housing loans during the past months, many borrowers have not been able to pay their installments in due time. This very issue has exerted heavy pressures on banks and credit institutes resulting in huge drop in share prices. Of course, the problem is not limited to loan-giving companies and borrowers but rather a recession in the housing sector has heightened unemployment rates in the US. Also, hundreds of thousands of shareholders have suffered huge losses due to the crisis in the US housing sector. International impacts of this crisis have been huge declines in stock markets particularly those of East Asia. So many economic experts believe that the decline in the value of the dollar against other leading currencies is somehow related to the current crisis in the US financial market. Anyway, the US economy is now under intense pressure. On one hand, recession in the US high-consuming markets has put the overview of a bankruptcy in the face of American investors and on the other hand, rising oil price has increased trade deficits more than ever. This crisis, which comes just two months before the US presidential election campaign kicks off, could have negative implications for the present administration and the Republican party.

NEW DELHI, India, Nov. 6--Bangladesh’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus told the head of the World Bank that the bank’s failure to modernize anti-poverty lending programs and include more local input has made its work ineffective.
The “World Bank was created nearly 60 years ago. In this 60 years the world has changed a lot, but the World Bank has not changed its style,“ Yunus said after meeting new World Bank President Robert Zoellick, Sunday, who was visiting Bangladesh to review lending programs, Zeenews portal reported here, IRNA wrote.
“WB was created to eradicate poverty. It cannot achieve the objectives for which it was created,“ Yunus said. “I’ve told them that you’ve forgotten the people. If you cannot involve the people in your work, poverty won’t be reduced,“ he added.
Yunus was honored with the Nobel last October for his Grameen Bank which specializes in lifting people out of extreme poverty by giving them small loans, a formula that has been replicated around the world.
Yunus told Zoellick that the World Bank should carry out wide-ranging reforms including giving more freedom to local administrators of its programs.
“Its country offices sit like a post office. They wait for the orders from the headquarters. I’ve proposed they could be given independence or be made a fully self-governed body,“ he said.
The World Bank in Dhaka said it has pledged to spend as much as three billion dollars in loans and other funds for anti-poverty programs in Bangladesh between 2006 and 2009.
Bangladesh’s military-backed government has sought increased assistance from the worldwide lender for post-flood
rehabilitation programs and other projects like power plants.

An attendant operates a filling machine at a PetrochinaÕs gas station in Shanghai, China.

SHANGHAI, China, Nov. 6--PetroChina, China’s largest oil and gas producer, replaced Exxon Mobil as the world’s largest listed company by market value on Monday as its share price surged by 163 percent to 43.96 yuan on its first day of trading on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.
The company’s share price opened at 48.6 yuan on Monday, almost tripling its IPO price of 16.7 yuan, and ended the morning session at 43.65 yuan, Xinhua reported.
By offering shares on the mainland, the company is trying to increase its crude oil production to match its refining capacity, said Zheng Yi, an analyst with Guangfa Securities.
The company’s market value on the Shanghai bourse swelled to above the one-trillion-dollar mark, surging past Exxon Mobil, valued at 487.7 billion US dollars. It is the first time a company has been valued at one trillion dollars.
But its status as the first $1 trillion company was short-lived. A day after its debut in Shanghai, PetroChina Co.’s shares fell 7.7 percent in early trading to 40.58 yuan ($5.53), AP said.
The share offering would reduce the weight of bank and financial institution stocks to 30 percent from 39 percent and help increase that of industrial sectors such as power, coal and refining, said Wang Jing, an analyst with Orient Securities Co. Ltd.
PetroChina is the first of the country’s three petrochemical giants, including Sinopec and the China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC), to be listed on overseas stock markets.
“Returning to the mainland’s capital market has been our long-cherished wish,“ said Jiang Jiemin, president of PetroChina’s parent company China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), “the mainland offering will give domestic investors opportunities to share the outcome of PetroChina’s fast growth and help expand the company’s business in the mainland,“ he added.
PetroChina raised 66.8 billion yuan (8.9 billion US dollars) in Shanghai by selling four billion A shares, or 2.18 percent of its expanded share capital, in the world’s biggest initial public offering (IPO) so far this year.

BRUSSELS, Belgium, Nov. 6-- ArcelorMittal won approval from Arcelor SA’s shareholders Monday to complete the long-awaited 30 billion euros (US$41 billion) merger creating the world’s largest steel maker by volume.
The votes, held in Luxembourg, mark the last step in the marriage of Arcelor and Mittal Steel Co. after Mittal shareholders approved the merger in a similar series of votes in August, AP wrote.
Once the legal documents have been notarized, the merger will take effect Nov. 13, the company has said. The companies are already operating together.
However, Monday’s milestone was marred by the promise of several lawsuits against ArcelorMittal and other parties involved in the merger.
Hedge funds and Arcelor minority shareholders Deminor Investment Management, Trafalgar Asset Managers and SRM Global Fund said Monday they will file a lawsuit this week in Luxembourg against the steel company, seeking damages related to the company’s final offer to them for the last 6 percent of Arcelor in free float.
The hedge funds and other disgruntled minority shareholders were offered 11 ArcelorMittal shares in exchange for seven Arcelor shares in August 2006. However, the offer was lowered in May this year to eight ArcelorMittal shares for seven Arcelor shares.
The total difference comes to some US$1 billion (689 million euros), according to Trafalgar Asset Managers’ representative, Suhail Rahuja.
The hedge funds said in a statement they will also launch cases against any party liable, without distinction, in any possible jurisdiction, in order to recover losses resulting from the dilution (of the offer).
ArcelorMittal said “the exchange ratio reflects the intrinsic value of those companies and that we are confident it is fair to all shareholders.“

DUBAI, UAE, Nov. 6--A strike of about 40,000 Asian construction workers in Dubai--in its fifth day Monday--has prompted the government to order ministers and construction firms to review salaries and possibly set a minimum wage in an effort to avert turmoil on the labor market.
The workers have refused to work at a hotel site that is part of the world’s tallest skyscraper being built in this booming Persian Gulf Arab city, complaining of low salaries, soaring coast of living and poor working conditions, AP reported.
The strike, one of the most crippling in Dubai’s construction frenzy, has triggered a labor crisis of sorts in this desert city-state that markets itself as a top business and luxury tourist hub in the Middle East.
It has prompted the government to announce the creation of a joint salary reviewing committee, made up of labor ministry’s officials and construction companies’ representatives.
The move, reported by the state WAM news agency late Sunday, was a clear indication the Emirates is taking critical note of the worker’s grievances and not dismissing it as just a problem for the private sector.
Venu Rajamany, India’s Consul General in Dubai, said a government-set minimum wage looked increasingly probable. He has been closely involved in negotiations among the striking workers, labor ministry and Arabtec Construction Company which is behind the Burj Dubai hotel project.
“Setting a minimum wage could be one of the solutions to the problem,“ Rajamany said. “When the labor ministry comes up with a figure after consultations with companies, that figure will be a benchmark bellow which no company can go.“
A minimum wage would be an unprecedented step for the Emirates, which has long depended on cheap imported labor for its capitalist boom.
The 40,000 Asian workers vowed to remain in the 26 labor camps scattered around seven semiautonomous Emirati states, until their salaries are raised by at least US$55 (38 euros).
The company is currently paying unskilled workers US$109 (75 euros) a month while skilled ones get US$163 (113 euros).
Strikes are illegal in the Emirates and unions are banned, but the Asian workers protest has persisted despite threats of detentions.

PRETORIA, South African Nov. 6--Africa’s sub-Sahara region is enjoying its strongest economic growth and its lowest inflation in more than three decades, the International Monetary Fund said on Monday.
“Recent economic performance shows that sub-Sahara Africa is experiencing its strongest growth and lowest inflation in over 30 years,“ IMF’s senior representative in Africa Sean Nolan said during a presentation in Pretoria, AFP reported.
“There is also a positive outlook for 2008 with GDP growth expected to accelerate and inflation to decline further.“The region looks well-poised to sustain its growth momentum,“ he added.
While the overall economic performance outlook excludes Zimbabwe, where the annual rate of inflation is nearly 8,000 percent, “for obvious mathematical reasons“ the “robust expansion cuts across countries.“
Nolan said growth in the region, which includes 44 countries, “should reach 6 percent in 2007 and over 6.5 percent in 2008“ with oil-exporting countries such as Nigeria and Angola boosting the figures.
“The economic expansion is strongest in oil exporters but can cut across all country groups. On the external front, it reflects strong demand for commodities, increased capital inflows, and debt relief.“
“Internally, continued progress in stabilizing economies and implementing reforms in most countries has helped sustain rising investment and productivity.“
He said inflation should average 7.5 percent by the end of 2007, “with inflation in 32 out of 44 countries in single digits“, and fall by about a percentage point in 2008.
A decline in armed conflict across the continent was one of the factors that had increased confidence, he added.
But recent turbulence on the global financial markets, rising oil prices and political instability still posed risks.