Business news for Mon, 17 Dec 2007 & with word global. 46 news.

Tony Ponturo, vice president of global media and sports marketing for Anheuser-Busch Inc., was named the 12th most influential person in sports business by the Sports Business Journal, down five spots from last year. (BUD)

CHINA will eliminate export tax rebates on major grains as part of a series of measures to ensure domestic supplies are adequate and to control rising food prices. Tax rebates on wheat, rice, soybeans and corn will be eliminated from December 20, according the Website of the central government yesterday. China's food costs gained 18.2 percent last month, pushing inflation to the highest in 11 years. The government has sold corn and vegetable oil from state reserves and asked local authorities to boost emergency stockpiles to ensure stability, according to Bloomberg News. "This is bearish for local wheat and corn markets as it adds a few million tons to supply," said Zhao Qiang, research manager at Tianqi Futures Co in Harbin. "The effect on global markets will be small as China's exports are limited." China shipped 4.9 million tons of corn and 1.2 million tons of rice overseas in the first 11 months of this year.

ASIAN stocks fell the most in four months, led by Samsung Electronics Co and HSBC Holdings Plc, on concern accelerating inflation will limit interest-rate cuts, threatening global growth. Samsung declined the most in three weeks. HSBC and Cheung Kong (Holdings) Ltd paced losses in Hong Kong, where interest rates track those set by the Federal Reserve, after United States consumer prices rose the most since 2005. Centro Properties Group plummeted 76 percent in Sydney after the owner of US shopping malls said it was struggling to refinance debt. "Sentiment in the region is getting worse," said David Ng, who helps manage US$954 million at Hwang-DBS Asset Management Sdn in Kuala Lumpur. "First we had slowing US growth; now add on inflation fears. That makes for a bad combination." The MSCI Asia Pacific Index lost 2.9 percent to 152.28 as of 6:49pm in Tokyo, its sharpest decline since August 17, Bloomberg News said. The benchmark is set for its lowest annual gain

WHEAT rose above US$10 a bushel for the first time yesterday, leading other grains and oilseeds higher in a food price spiral that threatens global economic growth. Chicago wheat futures jumped as much as 30 US cents, or 3.1 percent, to US$10.09 as dry weather threatened crops in Argentina, renewing concern that the world's farmers may not be able to grow enough to meet rising demand for bread, pasta and livestock feed. Rice also advanced to a record, while soybeans reached the highest price in 34 years and corn reached a nine-month peak, said Bloomberg News. Rising prices of food and fuel are stoking inflation and making it more difficult for central bankers to lower interest rates. Kellogg Co, the largest United States cereal maker, General Mills Inc, Nissin Food Products Co and Kikkoman Corp are among companies that have raised prices. "We are seeing a broad-based increase in cost pressures," Brian Redican, senior economist at Macquarie Group Ltd, said from

BAIDU.COM has teamed up with Huawei Technologies and Intel to strengthen its servers and search technologies to expand its lead in the domestic market over rivals including Google, Nasdaq-listed Baidu said yesterday. Baidu announced it will build a joint lab with Huawei to explore "next-generation" online search and test 3G-related mobile phone services, just one month after Google launched mobile search services in China. "Baidu has to break the bottleneck of the server capacity as the demand for search surges in China," William Chang, Baidu's chief scientist, said. "Baidu has to triple its existing capacity to reach the global level of services." In the third quarter, China overtook the United States to become the world's largest search traffic, with 10 billion hits per month, Baidu said. Baidu has launched a series of new services, such as an Olympics channel, game channel, Baidu TV and online music streaming (partnered with Rock Music Group).

SINGAPORE'S exports unexpectedly dropped for the first time in six months in November as shipments by electronics companies and pharmaceutical manufacturers slumped. Non-oil domestic exports sank 3.4 percent from a year earlier following a revised 6.5 percent gain in October, the government's trade promotion agency said. The median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 12 economists was for a 4.5-percent increase. Singapore's electronic shipments have declined each month since February as a global inventory glut caused prices for memory chips and microprocessors to fall. "We don't see a lot of impetus for an early recovery in electronics, especially given the uncertainty over the outlook for the global economy," said Ho Woei Chen, an analyst at United Overseas Bank Ltd in Singapore. "The volatility in exports and production in the pharmaceutical sector remains." Exports dropped a seasonally adjusted six percent last month from October, when they fell a

OVERALL demand for office space in Asia's major commercial centers remained robust over the past quarter, led by expanding local businesses and non-finance-related occupiers increasingly notable in many regional markets, a leading global real estate service provider has said. Supply of Grade A office space continued to be tight in the central business district areas of Hong Kong, Singapore and Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, with vacancy rates hovering at five percent or lower. The Philippines and Singapore led the entire Asian market, with rents jumping over 15 percent over the past quarter, according to a recently released analysis by CB Richard Ellis. Rents in major Chinese cities also remained buoyant in the three-month period. In Shanghai, average rent rose 2.7 percent from a quarter earlier to 20.9 yuan (US$2.84) per square foot per month. In particular, rents grew 2.6 percent to 20.4 yuan per square foot per month in Puxi and rents increased 3.3 percent to 22.3 yuan per

A drug seizure in Dubai highlights how counterfeit drugs move in a global economy, and why they are so difficult to trace.

Record prices for major agricultural commodities and a reduction in the volume of food aid means there is a serious risk that global hunger will worsen next year

The two years of talks that are to put a post-2012 mechanism in place on global warming will have to resolve the depth and distribution of CO2 emission curbs

Can the emerging superpower fast-forward through the most carbon-intense phase of nation building?

Property consultant DTZ today admitted its profits will be hit by the global credit crunch and warned the US is heading towards recession

No London based Caliber Global Investments, ravaged by the sub prime crisis, is not even being allowed to die peacefully

By Mary Rivas. "Gone are the days when you only needed to know about stocks and bonds to make money in the financial markets. ith revolutionary changes taking place in the global economy and investment industry, you can not afford to ignore commodities. "

By Brian Stoll. "Recession, global growth, inflation oh my! What will happen!? Who cares? What’s happening right now is the answer to the question of what to do today about tomorrow."

President Bush signed into law today legislation that will bring more fuel-efficient vehicles into auto showrooms and require wider use of ethanol, calling it "a major step" toward energy independence and easing global warming.

The Federal Reserve is providing $20 billion in loans to banks as part of an unprecedented auction process to ease a global credit crisis and make sure financial institutions can keep lending to their customers.

(Reuters) -- Orbitz Worldwide Inc. said it would eliminate the position of global chief marketing officer and would manage the company's marketing efforts on a regional basis going forward. The online travel site said in a government filing on Friday that Chief Marketing Officer Randy Wagner ...

(Reuters) - Research firm Morningstar Inc. said it agreed to buy Hemscott data, media and investor relations Web site businesses from Ipreo Holdings LLC for $51.6 million in cash, to strengthen global equity base and expand into international markets. The companies expect to complete the ...