Log Date 08_28_99_13:19:47 ============= Transaction # 1 ============================================== Transaction #: 1 Transaction Code: 0 (New Host Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 13:21:31 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 2 ============================================== Transaction #: 2 Transaction Code: 35 (New Host Connected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:21:32 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 3 ============================================== Transaction #: 3 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 13:23:16 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 6 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(topic @ {drugs for the treatment of asthma})" ============= Transaction # 4 ============================================== Transaction #: 4 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:23:19 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 8389 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 5 ============================================== Transaction #: 5 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:24:30 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT941-10709 _AN-EBHC6AE5FT 940 208 FT 08 FEB 94 / UK Company News: Glaxo asthma drug wi ns US approval By DANIEL GREEN Glax o has belatedly won US approval for one of its most important products of th e 1990s, the inhaled asthma treatment Serevent. The US Food and Drug Adminis tration had been expected to approve the drug in December and Glaxo shares f ell when this did not happen. After Serevent's approval yesterday, the share s rose 15p to end the day with a net fall of 2p at 664p. The drug is importa nt to Glaxo because it is a successor to Ventolin, the long standing big sel ler in asthma treatment. Such respiratory treatments are second in importanc e only to ulcer drugs in Glaxo's therapeutic portfolio, accounting for almos t one quarter of total sales. The older drug has now lost much of its patent protection and the company is relying on Serevent to underpin its position in the market. The drug was approved in Europe in 1991 and should eventually reach sales of Pounds 350m a year, according to James Capel, the broker. In the last full year, Serevent sold Pounds 73m while Ventolin sales were wort h Pounds 484m. The drug had a setback last month, however, when Italian gove rnment healthcare reforms favoured Ventolin by excluding Serevent from a lis t of drugs the government would pay for. Glaxo lodged an appeal against the ruling. Companies:- Glaxo Holdings. Countr ies:- USZ United States of America. Industries:- P2834 Pharmaceutical Preparations. Types:- TECH P roducts & Product use. The Financial Times London P age 24 ============= Transaction # 6 ============================================== Transaction #: 6 Transaction Code: 2 (New Disp. Format Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Long Time Cmd Complete: 13:26:21 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 7 ============================================== Transaction #: 7 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Long Time Cmd Complete: 13:26:47 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT941-10709 _AN-EBHC6AE5FT 940 208 FT 08 FEB 94 / UK Company News: Glaxo asthma drug wi ns US approval By DANIEL GREEN Glax o has belatedly won US approval for one of its most important products of th e 1990s, the inhaled asthma treatment Serevent. The US Food and Drug Adminis tration had been expected to approve the drug in December and Glaxo shares f ell when this did not happen. After Serevent's approval yesterday, the share s rose 15p to end the day with a net fall of 2p at 664p. The drug is importa nt to Glaxo because it is a successor to Ventolin, the long standing big sel ler in asthma treatment. Such respiratory treatments are second in importanc e only to ulcer drugs in Glaxo's therapeutic portfolio, accounting for almos t one quarter of total sales. The older drug has now lost much of its patent protection and the company is relying on Serevent to underpin its position in the market. The drug was approved in Europe in 1991 and should eventually reach sales of Pounds 350m a year, according to James Capel, the broker. In the last full year, Serevent sold Pounds 73m while Ventolin sales were wort h Pounds 484m. The drug had a setback last month, however, when Italian gove rnment healthcare reforms favoured Ventolin by excluding Serevent from a lis t of drugs the government would pay for. Glaxo lodged an appeal against the ruling. Companies:- Glaxo Holdings. Countr ies:- USZ United States of America. Industries:- P2834 Pharmaceutical Preparations. Types:- TECH P roducts & Product use. The Financial Times London P age 24 ============= Transaction # 8 ============================================== Transaction #: 8 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Long Time Cmd Complete: 13:28:36 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT941-10709 _AN-EBHC6AE5FT 940 208 FT 08 FEB 94 / UK Company News: Glaxo asthma drug wi ns US approval By DANIEL GREEN Glax o has belatedly won US approval for one of its most important products of th e 1990s, the inhaled asthma treatment Serevent. The US Food and Drug Adminis tration had been expected to approve the drug in December and Glaxo shares f ell when this did not happen. After Serevent's approval yesterday, the share s rose 15p to end the day with a net fall of 2p at 664p. The drug is importa nt to Glaxo because it is a successor to Ventolin, the long standing big sel ler in asthma treatment. Such respiratory treatments are second in importanc e only to ulcer drugs in Glaxo's therapeutic portfolio, accounting for almos t one quarter of total sales. The older drug has now lost much of its patent protection and the company is relying on Serevent to underpin its position in the market. The drug was approved in Europe in 1991 and should eventually reach sales of Pounds 350m a year, according to James Capel, the broker. In the last full year, Serevent sold Pounds 73m while Ventolin sales were wort h Pounds 484m. The drug had a setback last month, however, when Italian gove rnment healthcare reforms favoured Ventolin by excluding Serevent from a lis t of drugs the government would pay for. Glaxo lodged an appeal against the ruling. Companies:- Glaxo Holdings. Countr ies:- USZ United States of America. Industries:- P2834 Pharmaceutical Preparations. Types:- TECH P roducts & Product use. The Financial Times London P age 24 ============= Transaction # 9 ============================================== Transaction #: 9 Transaction Code: 31 (Save Records Cancelled) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Long Time Cmd Complete: 13:28:40 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 10 ============================================== Transaction #: 10 Transaction Code: 38 (Record Deselected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Long Time Cmd Complete: 13:28:44 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT941-10709 _AN-EBHC6AE5FT 940 208 FT 08 FEB 94 / UK Company News: Glaxo asthma drug wi ns US approval By DANIEL GREEN Glax o has belatedly won US approval for one of its most important products of th e 1990s, the inhaled asthma treatment Serevent. The US Food and Drug Adminis tration had been expected to approve the drug in December and Glaxo shares f ell when this did not happen. After Serevent's approval yesterday, the share s rose 15p to end the day with a net fall of 2p at 664p. The drug is importa nt to Glaxo because it is a successor to Ventolin, the long standing big sel ler in asthma treatment. Such respiratory treatments are second in importanc e only to ulcer drugs in Glaxo's therapeutic portfolio, accounting for almos t one quarter of total sales. The older drug has now lost much of its patent protection and the company is relying on Serevent to underpin its position in the market. The drug was approved in Europe in 1991 and should eventually reach sales of Pounds 350m a year, according to James Capel, the broker. In the last full year, Serevent sold Pounds 73m while Ventolin sales were wort h Pounds 484m. The drug had a setback last month, however, when Italian gove rnment healthcare reforms favoured Ventolin by excluding Serevent from a lis t of drugs the government would pay for. Glaxo lodged an appeal against the ruling. Companies:- Glaxo Holdings. Countr ies:- USZ United States of America. Industries:- P2834 Pharmaceutical Preparations. Types:- TECH P roducts & Product use. The Financial Times London P age 24 ============= Transaction # 11 ============================================== Transaction #: 11 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Long Time Cmd Complete: 13:28:44 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT941-10709 _AN-EBHC6AE5FT 940 208 FT 08 FEB 94 / UK Company News: Glaxo asthma drug wi ns US approval By DANIEL GREEN Glax o has belatedly won US approval for one of its most important products of th e 1990s, the inhaled asthma treatment Serevent. The US Food and Drug Adminis tration had been expected to approve the drug in December and Glaxo shares f ell when this did not happen. After Serevent's approval yesterday, the share s rose 15p to end the day with a net fall of 2p at 664p. The drug is importa nt to Glaxo because it is a successor to Ventolin, the long standing big sel ler in asthma treatment. Such respiratory treatments are second in importanc e only to ulcer drugs in Glaxo's therapeutic portfolio, accounting for almos t one quarter of total sales. The older drug has now lost much of its patent protection and the company is relying on Serevent to underpin its position in the market. The drug was approved in Europe in 1991 and should eventually reach sales of Pounds 350m a year, according to James Capel, the broker. In the last full year, Serevent sold Pounds 73m while Ventolin sales were wort h Pounds 484m. The drug had a setback last month, however, when Italian gove rnment healthcare reforms favoured Ventolin by excluding Serevent from a lis t of drugs the government would pay for. Glaxo lodged an appeal against the ruling. Companies:- Glaxo Holdings. Countr ies:- USZ United States of America. Industries:- P2834 Pharmaceutical Preparations. Types:- TECH P roducts & Product use. The Financial Times London P age 24 ============= Transaction # 12 ============================================== Transaction #: 12 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Long Time Cmd Complete: 13:29:02 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT941-10709 _AN-EBHC6AE5FT 940 208 FT 08 FEB 94 / UK Company News: Glaxo asthma drug wi ns US approval By DANIEL GREEN Glax o has belatedly won US approval for one of its most important products of th e 1990s, the inhaled asthma treatment Serevent. The US Food and Drug Adminis tration had been expected to approve the drug in December and Glaxo shares f ell when this did not happen. After Serevent's approval yesterday, the share s rose 15p to end the day with a net fall of 2p at 664p. The drug is importa nt to Glaxo because it is a successor to Ventolin, the long standing big sel ler in asthma treatment. Such respiratory treatments are second in importanc e only to ulcer drugs in Glaxo's therapeutic portfolio, accounting for almos t one quarter of total sales. The older drug has now lost much of its patent protection and the company is relying on Serevent to underpin its position in the market. The drug was approved in Europe in 1991 and should eventually reach sales of Pounds 350m a year, according to James Capel, the broker. In the last full year, Serevent sold Pounds 73m while Ventolin sales were wort h Pounds 484m. The drug had a setback last month, however, when Italian gove rnment healthcare reforms favoured Ventolin by excluding Serevent from a lis t of drugs the government would pay for. Glaxo lodged an appeal against the ruling. Companies:- Glaxo Holdings. Countr ies:- USZ United States of America. Industries:- P2834 Pharmaceutical Preparations. Types:- TECH P roducts & Product use. The Financial Times London P age 24 ============= Transaction # 13 ============================================== Transaction #: 13 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 13:30:25 Rec. Format: Long Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 7 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(topic @ {drugs for the treatment of asthma ventolin})" ============= Transaction # 14 ============================================== Transaction #: 14 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Long Time Cmd Complete: 13:30:28 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 8390 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 15 ============================================== Transaction #: 15 Transaction Code: 8 (Mixed Bool./Dir. Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 13:31:19 Rec. Format: Long Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 1 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 8 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(topic @ {drugs for the treatment of asthma ventolin}) and (title {gl axo})" ============= Transaction # 16 ============================================== Transaction #: 16 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Long Time Cmd Complete: 13:31:22 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 141 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 17 ============================================== Transaction #: 17 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Long Time Cmd Complete: 13:31:40 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT941-10709 _AN-EBHC6AE5FT 940 208 FT 08 FEB 94 / UK Company News: Glaxo asthma drug wi ns US approval By DANIEL GREEN Glax o has belatedly won US approval for one of its most important products of th e 1990s, the inhaled asthma treatment Serevent. The US Food and Drug Adminis tration had been expected to approve the drug in December and Glaxo shares f ell when this did not happen. After Serevent's approval yesterday, the share s rose 15p to end the day with a net fall of 2p at 664p. The drug is importa nt to Glaxo because it is a successor to Ventolin, the long standing big sel ler in asthma treatment. Such respiratory treatments are second in importanc e only to ulcer drugs in Glaxo's therapeutic portfolio, accounting for almos t one quarter of total sales. The older drug has now lost much of its patent protection and the company is relying on Serevent to underpin its position in the market. The drug was approved in Europe in 1991 and should eventually reach sales of Pounds 350m a year, according to James Capel, the broker. In the last full year, Serevent sold Pounds 73m while Ventolin sales were wort h Pounds 484m. The drug had a setback last month, however, when Italian gove rnment healthcare reforms favoured Ventolin by excluding Serevent from a lis t of drugs the government would pay for. Glaxo lodged an appeal against the ruling. Companies:- Glaxo Holdings. Countr ies:- USZ United States of America. Industries:- P2834 Pharmaceutical Preparations. Types:- TECH P roducts & Product use. The Financial Times London P age 24 ============= Transaction # 18 ============================================== Transaction #: 18 Transaction Code: 12 (Record Relevance Feedback) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 13:31:58 Rec. Format: Long Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind Default:1 ============= Transaction # 19 ============================================== Transaction #: 19 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Long Time Cmd Complete: 13:32:37 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 206926 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 20 ============================================== Transaction #: 20 Transaction Code: 15 (Terms Cleared) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Long Time Cmd Complete: 13:33:41 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 21 ============================================== Transaction #: 21 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 13:36:45 Rec. Format: Long Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 4 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(topic @ {robotic technology developments latest})" ============= Transaction # 22 ============================================== Transaction #: 22 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Long Time Cmd Complete: 13:36:54 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 54702 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 23 ============================================== Transaction #: 23 Transaction Code: 2 (New Disp. Format Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:37:01 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 24 ============================================== Transaction #: 24 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:37:05 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT923-4779 _AN-CIEASADRFT 9209 04 FT 04 SEP 92 / Technology: IGM expands its horizons < /HEADLINE> IGM was founded in 1967 by Gunther Kloimuller and Franz Vo kurka, two former Siemens engineers who are now managing board chairman and supervisory board chairman respectively at the Austrian company. It claims a bout 15 per cent of the world arc welding robot market in money terms, but r ather less in unit terms, as it sells smaller numbers of relatively expensiv e equipment. About 50 per cent of the market is in European hands, with the rest held by big Japanese robot suppliers such as Yaskawa and GMFanuc. But w ith consolidated turnover of Sch524m (Pounds 27m) in the year ended August 1 991, IGM is a minnow in comparison to the Japanese and European robot giants , and has to exploit every global opportunity to support research and develo pment spending of about 10 per cent of sales. To bolster its financial stren gth, the company went public in 1989, raising Sch275m from an issue of prefe rence shares, and last year issued ordinary shares publicly. Just over 50 pe r cent of the company is retained by the two founders and their families. Th e decision was a timely move. With the worldwide recession in capital equipm ent purchases, IGM's sales fell 10-12 per cent in 1990-91, and a further dec line of 4 to 5 per cent is expected for the financial year just ended. But I GM has also been particularly effected by the upheaval in the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe, whose share of turnover has dropped from 25.3 per cent in 1989-90 to an expected 14 per cent in the year just ended. This has prompted an aggressive policy of Far Eastern expansion. A collaboration agre ement last year with India's Bharat Earth Movers was followed this spring wi th the establishment of a Korean subsidiary, and IGM also wants much stronge r representation in China. But the eastern countries are also regarded as ve ry promising long-term - the Russians, says Langner, have always been keen on the latest developments in robotics. Along with its subsidiary in Russia, IGM is negotiating to establish a Ukrainian subsidiary, and is also manufac turing components at an 86 per cent owned Hungarian subsidiary, Roper Robott echnika. Although the European Community and Far East are the main export ar eas, IGM is also keen to exploit opportunities in the US, where it will open new offices and production facilities at Milwaukee at the end of this year. The Financial Times London Page 15 ============= Transaction # 25 ============================================== Transaction #: 25 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:37:40 Selec. Rec. #: 2 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT922-4414 _AN-CFEA9AEEFT 9206 05 FT 05 JUN 92 / Survey of Vehicle Manufacturing Techno logy (6): Machines are now used for tasks beyond spot welding - Robots By ANDREW BAXTER ROBOTS have become an e stablished part of the vehicle manufacturing scene over the past 15 years. T he motor industry accounts for as much as 40 per cent of the 450,000 install ed industrial robots worldwide but their use is changing and applications ar e expanding. The traditional picture of long lines of robots each making bil lions of spot welds on car bodies in a working life of eight to 10 years is still true, but only half the story. Those same welding robots are as likely to be grouped in flexible manufacturing cells and capable of handling a wid e range of models in quick succession. At the same time, smaller robots are increasingly being used in engine assembly, where their ability to do qualit y, repetitive work with a precision of 1/100th of a millimetre is much in de mand. Robots are being used in final assembly work and paint spraying, and s uppliers hope to be able to develop these markets now that the technology ha s been proven. There is an emerging trend for robots to be used in automotiv e sub-contracting, prompted by the vehicle manufacturers' need to be as conf ident in the consistency and quality of out-sourced components as for their own work. The shorter lives of car models, prompted by increased competition in the industry and the Japanese producers' early efforts to reduce product development times, are changing the use and design of robots. The tradition al practice of replacing a robot after two model cycles may have been approp riate when each car model was lasting six to eight years. But with model liv es reduced to three to four years, users want to keep their robots for furth er models, and thus want increased flexibility, according to Dr Axel Gerhard t, a senior board member at the holding company for Kuka, Germany's largest robot supplier. Many of the latest trends in the use of robotics originated in Japan where labour shortages have spurred much greater penetration of rob ots into industry overall compared with Europe and the US. But robot supplie rs such as ABB Robotics, the largest in Europe, believe the European automot ive industry is as enthusiastic a user of robotic automation as its Japanese counterpart. However, some of the more recent applications of robots are le ss prevalent in Europe, giving an opportunity to suppliers if they can convi nce producers of the economic benefits. There are national variations too: t he UK is a long way behind the US and the rest of Europe in the use of robot s in the paint shop, says Mr Mike Wilson, UK sales and marketing director at GMFanuc Robotics. The versatility of modern industrial robots for tasks tha t go beyond spot welding is illustrated by Kuka's involvement in final assem bly of the Citroen XM. Following painting, robots dismount the doors and tai lgate, with the aid of sensors, for completion on separate trim lines; the c ockpit is picked up by robot from an automatic guided vehicle, inserted thro ugh the door and then bolted to the body by a second robot. Robots are used for applying the adhesive sealants and for fitting the glass exactly into th e body aperture with the aid of ultrasonic scanners; seats are inserted by r obot after measuring the exact position of the body by means of tactile sens ors, wheels are mounted and doors and tailgate refitted. Some of these tasks are difficult for robots because of the nature of final assembly. Robots ar e having to operate in a less structured environment, says Mr Wilson, and de al with less defined objects such as seats. Another problem, at least outsid e Japan, is that labour is available and costs less than in skilled manufact uring areas. So robot suppliers have to find applications that create added value, says Mr Stelio Demark, head of ABB Robotics. There are still opportun ities for greater use of robots further up the production line. Relatively n ew processes such as laser-cutting and water-jet cutting are likely to becom e more prevalent, in association with robots, especially for working with pl astics and new advanced composites. Mr Demark sees a substantial increase in automated arc-welding in the automotive industry and sub-suppliers. And Com au, the Italian robotics and systems group, expects some interesting investm ents in the body area, prompted by the increased need for new models, accord ing to Mr Massimo Mattucci, vice-president for engineering and marketing. In paint spraying, says Mr Demark, robots have hardly scratched the surface. L ast year, ABB strengthened its position in the robotic painting market with the acquisition of Graco in the US, but GMFanuc, a US/Japanese concern, and Behr of Germany have strong positions. The flexibility of robots to handle m odel changes will be the key to their further implementation in the car body area. In engine and transmission production, robots are becoming better est ablished, and Mr Mattucci suggests a new generation of engines prompted by t ougher environmental regulations could be the spur to further investment in robots. However, an increasing portion of business for robot suppliers seems likely to come from refurbishment of existing robots rather than new purcha ses as customers seek maximum value from their manufacturing investments. In the past three or four years, this has been a growing trend of robot refitt ing and modification in the motor industry, carried out during model changeo vers and restoring robots to previous levels of accuracy and productivity. < /TEXT> The Financial Times London Page III ============= Transaction # 26 ============================================== Transaction #: 26 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:37:55 Selec. Rec. #: 2 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT922-4414 _AN-CFEA9AEEFT 9206 05 FT 05 JUN 92 / Survey of Vehicle Manufacturing Techno logy (6): Machines are now used for tasks beyond spot welding - Robots By ANDREW BAXTER ROBOTS have become an e stablished part of the vehicle manufacturing scene over the past 15 years. T he motor industry accounts for as much as 40 per cent of the 450,000 install ed industrial robots worldwide but their use is changing and applications ar e expanding. The traditional picture of long lines of robots each making bil lions of spot welds on car bodies in a working life of eight to 10 years is still true, but only half the story. Those same welding robots are as likely to be grouped in flexible manufacturing cells and capable of handling a wid e range of models in quick succession. At the same time, smaller robots are increasingly being used in engine assembly, where their ability to do qualit y, repetitive work with a precision of 1/100th of a millimetre is much in de mand. Robots are being used in final assembly work and paint spraying, and s uppliers hope to be able to develop these markets now that the technology ha s been proven. There is an emerging trend for robots to be used in automotiv e sub-contracting, prompted by the vehicle manufacturers' need to be as conf ident in the consistency and quality of out-sourced components as for their own work. The shorter lives of car models, prompted by increased competition in the industry and the Japanese producers' early efforts to reduce product development times, are changing the use and design of robots. The tradition al practice of replacing a robot after two model cycles may have been approp riate when each car model was lasting six to eight years. But with model liv es reduced to three to four years, users want to keep their robots for furth er models, and thus want increased flexibility, according to Dr Axel Gerhard t, a senior board member at the holding company for Kuka, Germany's largest robot supplier. Many of the latest trends in the use of robotics originated in Japan where labour shortages have spurred much greater penetration of rob ots into industry overall compared with Europe and the US. But robot supplie rs such as ABB Robotics, the largest in Europe, believe the European automot ive industry is as enthusiastic a user of robotic automation as its Japanese counterpart. However, some of the more recent applications of robots are le ss prevalent in Europe, giving an opportunity to suppliers if they can convi nce producers of the economic benefits. There are national variations too: t he UK is a long way behind the US and the rest of Europe in the use of robot s in the paint shop, says Mr Mike Wilson, UK sales and marketing director at GMFanuc Robotics. The versatility of modern industrial robots for tasks tha t go beyond spot welding is illustrated by Kuka's involvement in final assem bly of the Citroen XM. Following painting, robots dismount the doors and tai lgate, with the aid of sensors, for completion on separate trim lines; the c ockpit is picked up by robot from an automatic guided vehicle, inserted thro ugh the door and then bolted to the body by a second robot. Robots are used for applying the adhesive sealants and for fitting the glass exactly into th e body aperture with the aid of ultrasonic scanners; seats are inserted by r obot after measuring the exact position of the body by means of tactile sens ors, wheels are mounted and doors and tailgate refitted. Some of these tasks are difficult for robots because of the nature of final assembly. Robots ar e having to operate in a less structured environment, says Mr Wilson, and de al with less defined objects such as seats. Another problem, at least outsid e Japan, is that labour is available and costs less than in skilled manufact uring areas. So robot suppliers have to find applications that create added value, says Mr Stelio Demark, head of ABB Robotics. There are still opportun ities for greater use of robots further up the production line. Relatively n ew processes such as laser-cutting and water-jet cutting are likely to becom e more prevalent, in association with robots, especially for working with pl astics and new advanced composites. Mr Demark sees a substantial increase in automated arc-welding in the automotive industry and sub-suppliers. And Com au, the Italian robotics and systems group, expects some interesting investm ents in the body area, prompted by the increased need for new models, accord ing to Mr Massimo Mattucci, vice-president for engineering and marketing. In paint spraying, says Mr Demark, robots have hardly scratched the surface. L ast year, ABB strengthened its position in the robotic painting market with the acquisition of Graco in the US, but GMFanuc, a US/Japanese concern, and Behr of Germany have strong positions. The flexibility of robots to handle m odel changes will be the key to their further implementation in the car body area. In engine and transmission production, robots are becoming better est ablished, and Mr Mattucci suggests a new generation of engines prompted by t ougher environmental regulations could be the spur to further investment in robots. However, an increasing portion of business for robot suppliers seems likely to come from refurbishment of existing robots rather than new purcha ses as customers seek maximum value from their manufacturing investments. In the past three or four years, this has been a growing trend of robot refitt ing and modification in the motor industry, carried out during model changeo vers and restoring robots to previous levels of accuracy and productivity. < /TEXT> The Financial Times London Page III ============= Transaction # 27 ============================================== Transaction #: 27 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:37:57 Selec. Rec. #: 2 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT922-4414 _AN-CFEA9AEEFT 9206 05 FT 05 JUN 92 / Survey of Vehicle Manufacturing Techno logy (6): Machines are now used for tasks beyond spot welding - Robots By ANDREW BAXTER ROBOTS have become an e stablished part of the vehicle manufacturing scene over the past 15 years. T he motor industry accounts for as much as 40 per cent of the 450,000 install ed industrial robots worldwide but their use is changing and applications ar e expanding. The traditional picture of long lines of robots each making bil lions of spot welds on car bodies in a working life of eight to 10 years is still true, but only half the story. Those same welding robots are as likely to be grouped in flexible manufacturing cells and capable of handling a wid e range of models in quick succession. At the same time, smaller robots are increasingly being used in engine assembly, where their ability to do qualit y, repetitive work with a precision of 1/100th of a millimetre is much in de mand. Robots are being used in final assembly work and paint spraying, and s uppliers hope to be able to develop these markets now that the technology ha s been proven. There is an emerging trend for robots to be used in automotiv e sub-contracting, prompted by the vehicle manufacturers' need to be as conf ident in the consistency and quality of out-sourced components as for their own work. The shorter lives of car models, prompted by increased competition in the industry and the Japanese producers' early efforts to reduce product development times, are changing the use and design of robots. The tradition al practice of replacing a robot after two model cycles may have been approp riate when each car model was lasting six to eight years. But with model liv es reduced to three to four years, users want to keep their robots for furth er models, and thus want increased flexibility, according to Dr Axel Gerhard t, a senior board member at the holding company for Kuka, Germany's largest robot supplier. Many of the latest trends in the use of robotics originated in Japan where labour shortages have spurred much greater penetration of rob ots into industry overall compared with Europe and the US. But robot supplie rs such as ABB Robotics, the largest in Europe, believe the European automot ive industry is as enthusiastic a user of robotic automation as its Japanese counterpart. However, some of the more recent applications of robots are le ss prevalent in Europe, giving an opportunity to suppliers if they can convi nce producers of the economic benefits. There are national variations too: t he UK is a long way behind the US and the rest of Europe in the use of robot s in the paint shop, says Mr Mike Wilson, UK sales and marketing director at GMFanuc Robotics. The versatility of modern industrial robots for tasks tha t go beyond spot welding is illustrated by Kuka's involvement in final assem bly of the Citroen XM. Following painting, robots dismount the doors and tai lgate, with the aid of sensors, for completion on separate trim lines; the c ockpit is picked up by robot from an automatic guided vehicle, inserted thro ugh the door and then bolted to the body by a second robot. Robots are used for applying the adhesive sealants and for fitting the glass exactly into th e body aperture with the aid of ultrasonic scanners; seats are inserted by r obot after measuring the exact position of the body by means of tactile sens ors, wheels are mounted and doors and tailgate refitted. Some of these tasks are difficult for robots because of the nature of final assembly. Robots ar e having to operate in a less structured environment, says Mr Wilson, and de al with less defined objects such as seats. Another problem, at least outsid e Japan, is that labour is available and costs less than in skilled manufact uring areas. So robot suppliers have to find applications that create added value, says Mr Stelio Demark, head of ABB Robotics. There are still opportun ities for greater use of robots further up the production line. Relatively n ew processes such as laser-cutting and water-jet cutting are likely to becom e more prevalent, in association with robots, especially for working with pl astics and new advanced composites. Mr Demark sees a substantial increase in automated arc-welding in the automotive industry and sub-suppliers. And Com au, the Italian robotics and systems group, expects some interesting investm ents in the body area, prompted by the increased need for new models, accord ing to Mr Massimo Mattucci, vice-president for engineering and marketing. In paint spraying, says Mr Demark, robots have hardly scratched the surface. L ast year, ABB strengthened its position in the robotic painting market with the acquisition of Graco in the US, but GMFanuc, a US/Japanese concern, and Behr of Germany have strong positions. The flexibility of robots to handle m odel changes will be the key to their further implementation in the car body area. In engine and transmission production, robots are becoming better est ablished, and Mr Mattucci suggests a new generation of engines prompted by t ougher environmental regulations could be the spur to further investment in robots. However, an increasing portion of business for robot suppliers seems likely to come from refurbishment of existing robots rather than new purcha ses as customers seek maximum value from their manufacturing investments. In the past three or four years, this has been a growing trend of robot refitt ing and modification in the motor industry, carried out during model changeo vers and restoring robots to previous levels of accuracy and productivity. < /TEXT> The Financial Times London Page III ============= Transaction # 28 ============================================== Transaction #: 28 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:39:15 Selec. Rec. #: 3 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT942-13969 _AN-EDVCVACMFT 940 422 FT 22 APR 94 / Technology (Worth Watching): Robot-se lected gene colonies By CLIVE COOKSON The international Human Genome Project - aimed at mapping and identifying the estimated 100,000 human genes - is stimulating rapid advances in labora tory automation. The latest comes from a collaboration between the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, a London-based charity, and two UK companies: Linear D rives of Rayleigh, Essex, and Genetix of Christchurch, Dorset. The three par tners have developed a robotic system to help scientists produce the huge nu mbers of cloned cells required for genetics research. The system locates clo ne colonies growing on culture plates with a CCD camera. It then 'picks' hea lthy-looking colonies with a block of 96 spring-loaded pins and moves the ce lls to dishes for further growth and analysis. Linear Drives: UK, 0268 77049 6. Countries:- GBZ United Kingdom, EC. In dustries:- P3569 General Industrial Machinery, NEC. P8731 Comm ercial Physical Research. Types:- TECH Products & Prod uct use. The Financial Times London Page 12 ============= Transaction # 29 ============================================== Transaction #: 29 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:39:55 Selec. Rec. #: 3 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT942-13969 _AN-EDVCVACMFT 940 422 FT 22 APR 94 / Technology (Worth Watching): Robot-se lected gene colonies By CLIVE COOKSON The international Human Genome Project - aimed at mapping and identifying the estimated 100,000 human genes - is stimulating rapid advances in labora tory automation. The latest comes from a collaboration between the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, a London-based charity, and two UK companies: Linear D rives of Rayleigh, Essex, and Genetix of Christchurch, Dorset. The three par tners have developed a robotic system to help scientists produce the huge nu mbers of cloned cells required for genetics research. The system locates clo ne colonies growing on culture plates with a CCD camera. It then 'picks' hea lthy-looking colonies with a block of 96 spring-loaded pins and moves the ce lls to dishes for further growth and analysis. Linear Drives: UK, 0268 77049 6. Countries:- GBZ United Kingdom, EC. In dustries:- P3569 General Industrial Machinery, NEC. P8731 Comm ercial Physical Research. Types:- TECH Products & Prod uct use. The Financial Times London Page 12 ============= Transaction # 30 ============================================== Transaction #: 30 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:40:02 Selec. Rec. #: 4 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT932-2797 _AN-DFQCFAC4FT 9306 17 FT 17 JUN 93 / Technology: A little camera with big i deas - The latest smart vision system By RICHARD WIL SON Motorists around the world may soon no longer be blinde d by headlight glare in their rear-view mirrors thanks to a microchip camera and image processing system invented by a Scottish start-up company. That i s only the first commercial application of what has the potential to be worl d-beating semiconductor technology developed by a group of scientists at Edi nburgh University three years ago. Last month, VLSI Vision Ltd (VVL), the co mpany set up to develop this technology, introduced the world's first image- processing system on a single microchip. Donnelly, the big Massachusetts-bas ed manufacturer of rear-view mirrors, has snapped up the combined camera and computer on a chip, known as the imputer, to control a new self-adjusting a nti-glare mirror. Using electrochromic technology, the mirror's surface (con taining the imputer) darkens to cope with outside glare. The deal is a valua ble one for VVL, one of a new generation of small design houses which have l imited resources but must survive on the uniqueness of their ideas. 'Without VVL, Donnelly would not have thought about putting a camera into a rear-vie w mirror,' says Stewart Smith, VVL's marketing manager. Peter Denyer, the Ed inburgh University professor who invented the technology and is now managing director of VVL, believes it can grow into a Pounds 20m company within five years. 'I have learnt to speak cautiously,' said Denyer, 'but that's possib le if one of our products takes off and I believe any of them is capable of it.' Denyer and his team have created a smart vision system which can be mad e small enough and cheaply enough to introduce image-processing technology i nto new applications from production-line monitoring to supermarket checkout scanners. 'Nowhere in the world can you find a camera at such a size and pr ice. It will be unique for a while,' says Denyer. Japanese companies such as Sony lead the world in miniature optical sensors called charge coupled devi ces (CCDs) which are used in camcorders. US companies specialise in fast mic roprocessors which can turn optical data into usable information. VVL, which has Pounds 2m of development capital, combined the CCD sensor with a microp rocessor which can process digital picture information at 1bn bits per secon d on a single integrated circuit costing less than Dollars 10 (Pounds 6.40). But the first production order from Donnelly, the world's largest company i n its sector, is likely to be priced at less than Dollars 5 per circuit. Den yer and his team have none of the financial resources usually thought necess ary in the semiconductor industry. The VVL microchip is made in France by cu stom chip-maker ES2. Their asset is the ability to innovate in semiconductor chip design and software development. To help find commercial applications for the imputer - such as inspection, traffic control, navigation, and robot ics - VVL has produced a development system, with special software, costing Pounds 500. It can be used as an image processor in its own right, but Denye r says its real aim is to enable customers to develop applications. Once the application is found, VVL will compress the system into an integrated circu it the size of a postage stamp. Denyer believes this will give VVL atechnolo gical edge over Japan and the US. VVL is typical of the small, high-tech sta rt-up companies scattered across California which have done so much to give the US its world lead in computer, semiconductor and software design. It has long been suggested that the reluctance of British investors to back new te chnology companies has stifled the start-up culture in the UK. Denyer believ es this is a myth. He had no trouble in raising the necessary capital from p rivate investors. He believes inventing something is not enough for universi ty scientists if they want a successful product. The ideas must have a comme rcial application. Companies:- VLSI Vision. Countries:- GBZ United Kingdom, EC. Industries:- P3674 Semiconductors and Related Devices. P3861 Photographic Equi pment and Supplies. Types:- TECH Products & Product us e. The Financial Times London Page 18 ============= Transaction # 31 ============================================== Transaction #: 31 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:40:23 Selec. Rec. #: 5 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT923-4774 _AN-CIEASADWFT 9209 04 FT 04 SEP 92 / Technology: Heavies move in - After ye ars of work in mass production, robots are taking on bigger jobs By ANDREW BAXTER The drive for competitiveness and low-cost production may have made the car industry the natural home for the world's robot population, but Karlheinz Langner and his colleagues at I GM Robotersysteme have other ideas. Langner, a managing board member at Aust ria's only robotics company, has his sights set on industry's heavy brigade. Less visibly than their counterparts in the car industry, but with increasi ng urgency, manufacturers of heavy equipment - anything from excavators to s teel bridge sections - want to improve their product quality and reduce cycl e times, increase their manufacturing flexibility and clean up their workpla ce. All these issues, in varying degrees, have been tackled successfully by the mass-production car industry with the use of robots, but heavy industry is very different. In recent years, many heavy engineering companies have be en reticent about robots. They may have been put off by the robot suppliers' sales patter or unconvinced that a robot can cope with welding, for example , a crane boom or bulk handling container, particularly if each item to be w elded might be slightly different from the previous one. Or they might simpl y have jibbed at the expense - as much as Dollars 350,000 (Pounds 175,000) f or a sophisticated system with one or more robots, slides, gantries and devi ces to rotate a workpiece that could weigh as much as 15 tonnes. And having purchased a system, some customers have had to solve software problems thems elves to get the robot working correctly. But companies such as IGM, which c elebrates its silver jubilee this year, are spending heavily to find new sol utions for the use of robots in heavy industry, and that, in turn, broadens the market for the robot suppliers. Some sectors such as shipbuilding, for i nstance, are only now waking up to the opportunities for using robots, which were simply not available five years ago. Anybody who has visited a modern car factory cannot fail to be impressed by the serried ranks of robots spot welding body sections or inserting dashboards. Such machines, however, are w orlds apart from those produced by IGM, which specialises in arc or continuo us path welding and some cutting robots, and its rivals at the heavy end of the welding equipment industry such as Esab of Sweden and Cloos of Germany. A continuous weld is the norm in construction equipment, for example, to cop e with the immense stresses to which plant will be subjected during its work ing life, and demands for high-quality welding are increasing. Grappling wit h the welding of an excavator boom could require up to 16 axes of movement f rom the robot and its surrounding equipment, putting pressure on the robot s upplier not only to design the system correctly in mechanical terms but to e nsure that the software and sensor systems are sufficiently sophisticated an d fast to cope. In such a market, says Langner, understanding the customer's needs is of vital importance. But when almost every customer has a differen t problem that may require a customised solution, the challenge could be too great for a small company such as IGM, without the years of experience that produces a clear product strategy. Each robot supplier has a different appr oach, but IGM's is based on two vital elements, says Langner: a modular desi gn system to allow the company to respond to individual customers' needs wit hout having to reinvent the wheel, and the decision to keep all control syst ems development in-house. Broadening the appeal of robots to heavy industry requires a combination of developing the business end of the system (the wel ding itself), taking the robot's mechanical engineering to the limits, and c onstantly updating and improving the control systems. IGM develops welding s ystems together with Fronius, an Austrian welding equipment company - for th e customer, after all, the quality of the weld is the proof of the pudding. The robot supplier recently introduced a new high-performance welding techni que known as Time (transferred ionised molten energy), developed originally by a Canadian metallurgical expert. IGM has also developed an automatic head change facility, allowing welding to be followed by flame cutting in one co ntinuous cycle. This is being used by a UK customer for welding steel bridge sections. As in machine tools, however, while mechanical developments near their limit it is the brains of the robot system - its software and sensors, and the programming - that is receiving the lion's share of attention. This is where the acronyms really begin to proliferate. So-called off-line progr amming, where the robot is set up for the next job without disturbing its pr esent task, is particularly important when it could take many hours, if not days, to start up a new component on a welding robot. IGM's latest contribut ion is IOPS, which uses computer-aided simulation of production cells and ma nufacturing lines to get the best configuration of the welding cell for each workpiece. Another important result of the company's R&D work is ISIP, a ne w optoelectronic camera system for measuring weld grooves. This uses optical sensors to determine the position and geometry of the fabrication, underlin ing the growing importance of vision systems as the 'eyes' in an increasingl y complex 'eyes-brain-hand' environment. Perhaps the most significant develo pment at IGM, however, lies at the heart of the robot software. In a few wee ks' time, the company will have running a prototype of a new robot controlle r based on the transputer, the Inmos superchip. IGM had realised some five y ears ago that it needed to have a more powerful control system, says Langner , and the new controller will increase control speeds by a factor of 10. The new control should be on IGM's robots by next year, but Langner also sees a pplications for the control outside robotics, with initial demand of about 5 00-1,000 units a year, compared with the 150-200 IGM will need each year for its robots. 'But we will not market it by ourselves,' Langner stresses. The Financial Times London Page 15 ============= Transaction # 32 ============================================== Transaction #: 32 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:41:41 Selec. Rec. #: 5 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT923-4774 _AN-CIEASADWFT 9209 04 FT 04 SEP 92 / Technology: Heavies move in - After ye ars of work in mass production, robots are taking on bigger jobs By ANDREW BAXTER The drive for competitiveness and low-cost production may have made the car industry the natural home for the world's robot population, but Karlheinz Langner and his colleagues at I GM Robotersysteme have other ideas. Langner, a managing board member at Aust ria's only robotics company, has his sights set on industry's heavy brigade. Less visibly than their counterparts in the car industry, but with increasi ng urgency, manufacturers of heavy equipment - anything from excavators to s teel bridge sections - want to improve their product quality and reduce cycl e times, increase their manufacturing flexibility and clean up their workpla ce. All these issues, in varying degrees, have been tackled successfully by the mass-production car industry with the use of robots, but heavy industry is very different. In recent years, many heavy engineering companies have be en reticent about robots. They may have been put off by the robot suppliers' sales patter or unconvinced that a robot can cope with welding, for example , a crane boom or bulk handling container, particularly if each item to be w elded might be slightly different from the previous one. Or they might simpl y have jibbed at the expense - as much as Dollars 350,000 (Pounds 175,000) f or a sophisticated system with one or more robots, slides, gantries and devi ces to rotate a workpiece that could weigh as much as 15 tonnes. And having purchased a system, some customers have had to solve software problems thems elves to get the robot working correctly. But companies such as IGM, which c elebrates its silver jubilee this year, are spending heavily to find new sol utions for the use of robots in heavy industry, and that, in turn, broadens the market for the robot suppliers. Some sectors such as shipbuilding, for i nstance, are only now waking up to the opportunities for using robots, which were simply not available five years ago. Anybody who has visited a modern car factory cannot fail to be impressed by the serried ranks of robots spot welding body sections or inserting dashboards. Such machines, however, are w orlds apart from those produced by IGM, which specialises in arc or continuo us path welding and some cutting robots, and its rivals at the heavy end of the welding equipment industry such as Esab of Sweden and Cloos of Germany. A continuous weld is the norm in construction equipment, for example, to cop e with the immense stresses to which plant will be subjected during its work ing life, and demands for high-quality welding are increasing. Grappling wit h the welding of an excavator boom could require up to 16 axes of movement f rom the robot and its surrounding equipment, putting pressure on the robot s upplier not only to design the system correctly in mechanical terms but to e nsure that the software and sensor systems are sufficiently sophisticated an d fast to cope. In such a market, says Langner, understanding the customer's needs is of vital importance. But when almost every customer has a differen t problem that may require a customised solution, the challenge could be too great for a small company such as IGM, without the years of experience that produces a clear product strategy. Each robot supplier has a different appr oach, but IGM's is based on two vital elements, says Langner: a modular desi gn system to allow the company to respond to individual customers' needs wit hout having to reinvent the wheel, and the decision to keep all control syst ems development in-house. Broadening the appeal of robots to heavy industry requires a combination of developing the business end of the system (the wel ding itself), taking the robot's mechanical engineering to the limits, and c onstantly updating and improving the control systems. IGM develops welding s ystems together with Fronius, an Austrian welding equipment company - for th e customer, after all, the quality of the weld is the proof of the pudding. The robot supplier recently introduced a new high-performance welding techni que known as Time (transferred ionised molten energy), developed originally by a Canadian metallurgical expert. IGM has also developed an automatic head change facility, allowing welding to be followed by flame cutting in one co ntinuous cycle. This is being used by a UK customer for welding steel bridge sections. As in machine tools, however, while mechanical developments near their limit it is the brains of the robot system - its software and sensors, and the programming - that is receiving the lion's share of attention. This is where the acronyms really begin to proliferate. So-called off-line progr amming, where the robot is set up for the next job without disturbing its pr esent task, is particularly important when it could take many hours, if not days, to start up a new component on a welding robot. IGM's latest contribut ion is IOPS, which uses computer-aided simulation of production cells and ma nufacturing lines to get the best configuration of the welding cell for each workpiece. Another important result of the company's R&D work is ISIP, a ne w optoelectronic camera system for measuring weld grooves. This uses optical sensors to determine the position and geometry of the fabrication, underlin ing the growing importance of vision systems as the 'eyes' in an increasingl y complex 'eyes-brain-hand' environment. Perhaps the most significant develo pment at IGM, however, lies at the heart of the robot software. In a few wee ks' time, the company will have running a prototype of a new robot controlle r based on the transputer, the Inmos superchip. IGM had realised some five y ears ago that it needed to have a more powerful control system, says Langner , and the new controller will increase control speeds by a factor of 10. The new control should be on IGM's robots by next year, but Langner also sees a pplications for the control outside robotics, with initial demand of about 5 00-1,000 units a year, compared with the 150-200 IGM will need each year for its robots. 'But we will not market it by ourselves,' Langner stresses. The Financial Times London Page 15 ============= Transaction # 33 ============================================== Transaction #: 33 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:41:42 Selec. Rec. #: 6 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT943-11018 _AN-EHBDUACKFT 940 802 FT 02 AUG 94 / Technology: Robots get the dirty work - Japan is developing intelligent systems to help an ageing population By ANDREW FISHER A nifty little robot d arts down a street, picks up the rubbish and puts it into a truck. Inside a power station, another robot carries out vital maintenance work. A hard-pres sed nurse uses robotic help to move beds and patients. Hard to imagine thoug h it may be, Japanese research experts are working on such applications - an d on robots for the home - although it will probably not be until well into the next century that they can be put into practice. Labour will be in short supply in coming years. The 125m population is ageing and will slowly decli ne as the birth rate falls. 'Such systems are necessary for coming generatio ns in Japan,' says Kazuo Asakawa, head of the intelligent systems laboratory at Fujitsu, the Japanese computer group. 'We have to develop intelligent sy stems to replace young people.' Most people do not want to do the so-called '3K' jobs - denoting the Japanese words for 'dirty, difficult and dangerous' - such as working in hospitals, collecting rubbish, maintaining power stati ons and cleaning. Asakawa foresees robots also being used in the office, for handling mail and other straightforward tasks and eventually in the home. T he key to such developments will be neural networks - complex computer syste ms that can learn to recognise patterns and react accordingly. The robots wi ll be equipped with an array of sensors that will enable them to adapt to th eir surroundings. 'In 10 years, we hope to develop autonomous systems using neural networks,' says Asakawa. In the view of Hiroyuki Yoshikawa, president of the University of Tokyo, robots could be the answer to many of Japan's e conomic and social problems. 'It is necessary to use Japan's highly educated labour force to invent these kinds of things.' He believes that Japanese in dustry must look ahead to new products such as these to prepare for a future in which over-production and over-capacity will inhibit industrial growth. Japan's car industry is already plagued by over-capacity, as well as high co sts; the surge in the yen is eating further into export profits. In common w ith other academics and industrialists, Yoshikawa warns of the danger of 'ho llowing-out' as lower-cost countries in Asia and elsewhere take up productio n of goods which have become too expensive to make in Japan. The electronics companies are already big producers in south-east Asia and car makers have been expanding their overseas operations. 'We must change the direction of e ndeavour,' adds Yoshikawa, a specialist in engineering design theory. He thi nks industry should lean towards more automation of services such as healthc are and cleaning. He talks of the need for greater 'amplification of service s', with intelligent, computer-controlled machines doing much of the awkward and dirty work now done by humans. In other countries, where unemployment i s high, this is less of an issue. But Japan's unemployment rate is less than 3 per cent, kept low by the tradition of lifetime employment and the high l evel of consensus and discipline in Japanese society. This is despite the re cession after the bursting of the 'bubble' economy of the late 1980s. Japane se companies already use robots far more widely than the rest of the world. In 1992, there were 350,000 robots in Japan, of which more than 280,000 were advanced (operating in different axes, or with sensors or learning controls ), according to latest statistics from the United Nations and the Internatio nal Federation of Robotics. This compared with 47,000 (42,000 advanced) in t he US and 39,000 (35,500) in Germany. The electronics industry is the bigges t user of robots in Japan, followed by cars. But the advanced applications e nvisaged by Asakawa, Yoshikawa and others are still at the pilot stage. The Ministry of International Trade and Industry supports some of them. Work is progessing on robots to take the backache out of nurses' lifting work and on micromachines to help doctors operate and even to carry tiny doses of medic ine to certain parts of the body. The rubbish-collecting robots described by Yoshikawa - he calls them 'social robots' - are still at the basic research stage. 'I can't say when they will be ready. The direction of research is t o invent new robotics for use on the roads and streets of a city. I hope thi s will be completed in five to 10 years.' A programme to develop robots to e nter the containment vessels of nuclear power plants and carry out maintenan ce work began in 1978, he says. The first prototype was too heavy at 400kg. Toshiba then made a more sophisticated one, which was suitable for the work. But power companies are reluctant to rely on robots rather than humans for work in which safety and reliability is essential. 'My idea is first mainten ance, then social and then home robots,' says Yoshikawa. All these areas, he feels, are ripe for 'amplification' through intelligent automation. Ultimat ely, the home could be the biggest market for robots. But to do household cl eaning and other work, they must be made of softer materials than metal and have more flexible gear systems to fit in with the random pattern of life in the home. Yoshikawa says there are no prototypes of the home robot yet. But he adds that robot manufacturers such as Fuji Machine and Matsushita have s hown considerable interest. Asakawa says Fujitsu is also working on computer programs for domestic use. Thus, sometime around 2010, robots could be scur rying around Japanese streets, homes, offices and hospitals doing routine jo bs and taking some of the strain out of daily life. Countries:- JPZ Japan, Asia. Industries:- P3569 General Industrial Machinery, NEC. Types:- CMMT Comment & Ana lysis. TECH Products & Product use. MGMT Management & Marketing. < /TP> The Financial Times London Page 11 ============= Transaction # 34 ============================================== Transaction #: 34 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:42:14 Selec. Rec. #: 5 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT923-4774 _AN-CIEASADWFT 9209 04 FT 04 SEP 92 / Technology: Heavies move in - After ye ars of work in mass production, robots are taking on bigger jobs By ANDREW BAXTER The drive for competitiveness and low-cost production may have made the car industry the natural home for the world's robot population, but Karlheinz Langner and his colleagues at I GM Robotersysteme have other ideas. Langner, a managing board member at Aust ria's only robotics company, has his sights set on industry's heavy brigade. Less visibly than their counterparts in the car industry, but with increasi ng urgency, manufacturers of heavy equipment - anything from excavators to s teel bridge sections - want to improve their product quality and reduce cycl e times, increase their manufacturing flexibility and clean up their workpla ce. All these issues, in varying degrees, have been tackled successfully by the mass-production car industry with the use of robots, but heavy industry is very different. In recent years, many heavy engineering companies have be en reticent about robots. They may have been put off by the robot suppliers' sales patter or unconvinced that a robot can cope with welding, for example , a crane boom or bulk handling container, particularly if each item to be w elded might be slightly different from the previous one. Or they might simpl y have jibbed at the expense - as much as Dollars 350,000 (Pounds 175,000) f or a sophisticated system with one or more robots, slides, gantries and devi ces to rotate a workpiece that could weigh as much as 15 tonnes. And having purchased a system, some customers have had to solve software problems thems elves to get the robot working correctly. But companies such as IGM, which c elebrates its silver jubilee this year, are spending heavily to find new sol utions for the use of robots in heavy industry, and that, in turn, broadens the market for the robot suppliers. Some sectors such as shipbuilding, for i nstance, are only now waking up to the opportunities for using robots, which were simply not available five years ago. Anybody who has visited a modern car factory cannot fail to be impressed by the serried ranks of robots spot welding body sections or inserting dashboards. Such machines, however, are w orlds apart from those produced by IGM, which specialises in arc or continuo us path welding and some cutting robots, and its rivals at the heavy end of the welding equipment industry such as Esab of Sweden and Cloos of Germany. A continuous weld is the norm in construction equipment, for example, to cop e with the immense stresses to which plant will be subjected during its work ing life, and demands for high-quality welding are increasing. Grappling wit h the welding of an excavator boom could require up to 16 axes of movement f rom the robot and its surrounding equipment, putting pressure on the robot s upplier not only to design the system correctly in mechanical terms but to e nsure that the software and sensor systems are sufficiently sophisticated an d fast to cope. In such a market, says Langner, understanding the customer's needs is of vital importance. But when almost every customer has a differen t problem that may require a customised solution, the challenge could be too great for a small company such as IGM, without the years of experience that produces a clear product strategy. Each robot supplier has a different appr oach, but IGM's is based on two vital elements, says Langner: a modular desi gn system to allow the company to respond to individual customers' needs wit hout having to reinvent the wheel, and the decision to keep all control syst ems development in-house. Broadening the appeal of robots to heavy industry requires a combination of developing the business end of the system (the wel ding itself), taking the robot's mechanical engineering to the limits, and c onstantly updating and improving the control systems. IGM develops welding s ystems together with Fronius, an Austrian welding equipment company - for th e customer, after all, the quality of the weld is the proof of the pudding. The robot supplier recently introduced a new high-performance welding techni que known as Time (transferred ionised molten energy), developed originally by a Canadian metallurgical expert. IGM has also developed an automatic head change facility, allowing welding to be followed by flame cutting in one co ntinuous cycle. This is being used by a UK customer for welding steel bridge sections. As in machine tools, however, while mechanical developments near their limit it is the brains of the robot system - its software and sensors, and the programming - that is receiving the lion's share of attention. This is where the acronyms really begin to proliferate. So-called off-line progr amming, where the robot is set up for the next job without disturbing its pr esent task, is particularly important when it could take many hours, if not days, to start up a new component on a welding robot. IGM's latest contribut ion is IOPS, which uses computer-aided simulation of production cells and ma nufacturing lines to get the best configuration of the welding cell for each workpiece. Another important result of the company's R&D work is ISIP, a ne w optoelectronic camera system for measuring weld grooves. This uses optical sensors to determine the position and geometry of the fabrication, underlin ing the growing importance of vision systems as the 'eyes' in an increasingl y complex 'eyes-brain-hand' environment. Perhaps the most significant develo pment at IGM, however, lies at the heart of the robot software. In a few wee ks' time, the company will have running a prototype of a new robot controlle r based on the transputer, the Inmos superchip. IGM had realised some five y ears ago that it needed to have a more powerful control system, says Langner , and the new controller will increase control speeds by a factor of 10. The new control should be on IGM's robots by next year, but Langner also sees a pplications for the control outside robotics, with initial demand of about 5 00-1,000 units a year, compared with the 150-200 IGM will need each year for its robots. 'But we will not market it by ourselves,' Langner stresses. The Financial Times London Page 15 ============= Transaction # 35 ============================================== Transaction #: 35 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:42:18 Selec. Rec. #: 6 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT943-11018 _AN-EHBDUACKFT 940 802 FT 02 AUG 94 / Technology: Robots get the dirty work - Japan is developing intelligent systems to help an ageing population By ANDREW FISHER A nifty little robot d arts down a street, picks up the rubbish and puts it into a truck. Inside a power station, another robot carries out vital maintenance work. A hard-pres sed nurse uses robotic help to move beds and patients. Hard to imagine thoug h it may be, Japanese research experts are working on such applications - an d on robots for the home - although it will probably not be until well into the next century that they can be put into practice. Labour will be in short supply in coming years. The 125m population is ageing and will slowly decli ne as the birth rate falls. 'Such systems are necessary for coming generatio ns in Japan,' says Kazuo Asakawa, head of the intelligent systems laboratory at Fujitsu, the Japanese computer group. 'We have to develop intelligent sy stems to replace young people.' Most people do not want to do the so-called '3K' jobs - denoting the Japanese words for 'dirty, difficult and dangerous' - such as working in hospitals, collecting rubbish, maintaining power stati ons and cleaning. Asakawa foresees robots also being used in the office, for handling mail and other straightforward tasks and eventually in the home. T he key to such developments will be neural networks - complex computer syste ms that can learn to recognise patterns and react accordingly. The robots wi ll be equipped with an array of sensors that will enable them to adapt to th eir surroundings. 'In 10 years, we hope to develop autonomous systems using neural networks,' says Asakawa. In the view of Hiroyuki Yoshikawa, president of the University of Tokyo, robots could be the answer to many of Japan's e conomic and social problems. 'It is necessary to use Japan's highly educated labour force to invent these kinds of things.' He believes that Japanese in dustry must look ahead to new products such as these to prepare for a future in which over-production and over-capacity will inhibit industrial growth. Japan's car industry is already plagued by over-capacity, as well as high co sts; the surge in the yen is eating further into export profits. In common w ith other academics and industrialists, Yoshikawa warns of the danger of 'ho llowing-out' as lower-cost countries in Asia and elsewhere take up productio n of goods which have become too expensive to make in Japan. The electronics companies are already big producers in south-east Asia and car makers have been expanding their overseas operations. 'We must change the direction of e ndeavour,' adds Yoshikawa, a specialist in engineering design theory. He thi nks industry should lean towards more automation of services such as healthc are and cleaning. He talks of the need for greater 'amplification of service s', with intelligent, computer-controlled machines doing much of the awkward and dirty work now done by humans. In other countries, where unemployment i s high, this is less of an issue. But Japan's unemployment rate is less than 3 per cent, kept low by the tradition of lifetime employment and the high l evel of consensus and discipline in Japanese society. This is despite the re cession after the bursting of the 'bubble' economy of the late 1980s. Japane se companies already use robots far more widely than the rest of the world. In 1992, there were 350,000 robots in Japan, of which more than 280,000 were advanced (operating in different axes, or with sensors or learning controls ), according to latest statistics from the United Nations and the Internatio nal Federation of Robotics. This compared with 47,000 (42,000 advanced) in t he US and 39,000 (35,500) in Germany. The electronics industry is the bigges t user of robots in Japan, followed by cars. But the advanced applications e nvisaged by Asakawa, Yoshikawa and others are still at the pilot stage. The Ministry of International Trade and Industry supports some of them. Work is progessing on robots to take the backache out of nurses' lifting work and on micromachines to help doctors operate and even to carry tiny doses of medic ine to certain parts of the body. The rubbish-collecting robots described by Yoshikawa - he calls them 'social robots' - are still at the basic research stage. 'I can't say when they will be ready. The direction of research is t o invent new robotics for use on the roads and streets of a city. I hope thi s will be completed in five to 10 years.' A programme to develop robots to e nter the containment vessels of nuclear power plants and carry out maintenan ce work began in 1978, he says. The first prototype was too heavy at 400kg. Toshiba then made a more sophisticated one, which was suitable for the work. But power companies are reluctant to rely on robots rather than humans for work in which safety and reliability is essential. 'My idea is first mainten ance, then social and then home robots,' says Yoshikawa. All these areas, he feels, are ripe for 'amplification' through intelligent automation. Ultimat ely, the home could be the biggest market for robots. But to do household cl eaning and other work, they must be made of softer materials than metal and have more flexible gear systems to fit in with the random pattern of life in the home. Yoshikawa says there are no prototypes of the home robot yet. But he adds that robot manufacturers such as Fuji Machine and Matsushita have s hown considerable interest. Asakawa says Fujitsu is also working on computer programs for domestic use. Thus, sometime around 2010, robots could be scur rying around Japanese streets, homes, offices and hospitals doing routine jo bs and taking some of the strain out of daily life. Countries:- JPZ Japan, Asia. Industries:- P3569 General Industrial Machinery, NEC. Types:- CMMT Comment & Ana lysis. TECH Products & Product use. MGMT Management & Marketing. < /TP> The Financial Times London Page 11 ============= Transaction # 36 ============================================== Transaction #: 36 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:43:20 Selec. Rec. #: 6 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT943-11018 _AN-EHBDUACKFT 940 802 FT 02 AUG 94 / Technology: Robots get the dirty work - Japan is developing intelligent systems to help an ageing population By ANDREW FISHER A nifty little robot d arts down a street, picks up the rubbish and puts it into a truck. Inside a power station, another robot carries out vital maintenance work. A hard-pres sed nurse uses robotic help to move beds and patients. Hard to imagine thoug h it may be, Japanese research experts are working on such applications - an d on robots for the home - although it will probably not be until well into the next century that they can be put into practice. Labour will be in short supply in coming years. The 125m population is ageing and will slowly decli ne as the birth rate falls. 'Such systems are necessary for coming generatio ns in Japan,' says Kazuo Asakawa, head of the intelligent systems laboratory at Fujitsu, the Japanese computer group. 'We have to develop intelligent sy stems to replace young people.' Most people do not want to do the so-called '3K' jobs - denoting the Japanese words for 'dirty, difficult and dangerous' - such as working in hospitals, collecting rubbish, maintaining power stati ons and cleaning. Asakawa foresees robots also being used in the office, for handling mail and other straightforward tasks and eventually in the home. T he key to such developments will be neural networks - complex computer syste ms that can learn to recognise patterns and react accordingly. The robots wi ll be equipped with an array of sensors that will enable them to adapt to th eir surroundings. 'In 10 years, we hope to develop autonomous systems using neural networks,' says Asakawa. In the view of Hiroyuki Yoshikawa, president of the University of Tokyo, robots could be the answer to many of Japan's e conomic and social problems. 'It is necessary to use Japan's highly educated labour force to invent these kinds of things.' He believes that Japanese in dustry must look ahead to new products such as these to prepare for a future in which over-production and over-capacity will inhibit industrial growth. Japan's car industry is already plagued by over-capacity, as well as high co sts; the surge in the yen is eating further into export profits. In common w ith other academics and industrialists, Yoshikawa warns of the danger of 'ho llowing-out' as lower-cost countries in Asia and elsewhere take up productio n of goods which have become too expensive to make in Japan. The electronics companies are already big producers in south-east Asia and car makers have been expanding their overseas operations. 'We must change the direction of e ndeavour,' adds Yoshikawa, a specialist in engineering design theory. He thi nks industry should lean towards more automation of services such as healthc are and cleaning. He talks of the need for greater 'amplification of service s', with intelligent, computer-controlled machines doing much of the awkward and dirty work now done by humans. In other countries, where unemployment i s high, this is less of an issue. But Japan's unemployment rate is less than 3 per cent, kept low by the tradition of lifetime employment and the high l evel of consensus and discipline in Japanese society. This is despite the re cession after the bursting of the 'bubble' economy of the late 1980s. Japane se companies already use robots far more widely than the rest of the world. In 1992, there were 350,000 robots in Japan, of which more than 280,000 were advanced (operating in different axes, or with sensors or learning controls ), according to latest statistics from the United Nations and the Internatio nal Federation of Robotics. This compared with 47,000 (42,000 advanced) in t he US and 39,000 (35,500) in Germany. The electronics industry is the bigges t user of robots in Japan, followed by cars. But the advanced applications e nvisaged by Asakawa, Yoshikawa and others are still at the pilot stage. The Ministry of International Trade and Industry supports some of them. Work is progessing on robots to take the backache out of nurses' lifting work and on micromachines to help doctors operate and even to carry tiny doses of medic ine to certain parts of the body. The rubbish-collecting robots described by Yoshikawa - he calls them 'social robots' - are still at the basic research stage. 'I can't say when they will be ready. The direction of research is t o invent new robotics for use on the roads and streets of a city. I hope thi s will be completed in five to 10 years.' A programme to develop robots to e nter the containment vessels of nuclear power plants and carry out maintenan ce work began in 1978, he says. The first prototype was too heavy at 400kg. Toshiba then made a more sophisticated one, which was suitable for the work. But power companies are reluctant to rely on robots rather than humans for work in which safety and reliability is essential. 'My idea is first mainten ance, then social and then home robots,' says Yoshikawa. All these areas, he feels, are ripe for 'amplification' through intelligent automation. Ultimat ely, the home could be the biggest market for robots. But to do household cl eaning and other work, they must be made of softer materials than metal and have more flexible gear systems to fit in with the random pattern of life in the home. Yoshikawa says there are no prototypes of the home robot yet. But he adds that robot manufacturers such as Fuji Machine and Matsushita have s hown considerable interest. Asakawa says Fujitsu is also working on computer programs for domestic use. Thus, sometime around 2010, robots could be scur rying around Japanese streets, homes, offices and hospitals doing routine jo bs and taking some of the strain out of daily life. Countries:- JPZ Japan, Asia. Industries:- P3569 General Industrial Machinery, NEC. Types:- CMMT Comment & Ana lysis. TECH Products & Product use. MGMT Management & Marketing. < /TP> The Financial Times London Page 11 ============= Transaction # 37 ============================================== Transaction #: 37 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:43:27 Selec. Rec. #: 7 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT922-9444 _AN-CEGBFAFXFT 9205 07 FT 07 MAY 92 / Technology: Androids on the march - Af ter years on the breadline, modern robots are finding gainful employment in Europe By ANDREW BAXTER In the US f ashion industry they call it 'localised abrasion' - the pre-worn look for de nim jeans produced by applying potassium permanganate solution to the knee, thigh and seat areas. The faded effect has traditionally been achieved throu gh manual spraying, but consistency and quality control have been hard to ac hieve. Now GMFanuc Robotics has perfected a robotic solution that is three t imes faster than manual spraying, can reproduce a spray pattern to an accura cy of 0.03 inch, and can be programmed easily to handle a wide range of garm ents. The system is a relatively simple example of recent trends in the indu strial robotics industry, which is trying to reduce its dependence on compar atively mature automotive markets and find new applications elsewhere. It is a trend that is particularly important for robot suppliers in the European market, where the overall penetration of robots into industry is much lower than in Japan, and where a potentially huge market for non-automotive applic ations remains untapped. According to Massimo Mattucci, vice president for e ngineering and marketing at Comau of Italy, around 50 per cent of industrial robots installed in Europe are in use in the automotive industry and 20 per cent in electronics -the reverse of the situation in Japan. 'The automotiv e industry has more or less understood the potential of robots,' says Stelio Demark, head of ABB Robotics, Europe's largest producer, although he stress es, along with other robot industry executives, the potential of robots in t he paint-spraying and final assembly area of European vehicle manufacturing. The inherent flexibility of modern robots, and the advances made in control systems and mechanics that have increased their speed and reliability, ough t to increase their suitability for small-batch manufacturing in Europe, whe re model changes are frequent. Demark sees new opportunities for robots emer ging in the European food, packaging, pharmaceutical and white goods industr ies. But the pace at which European industry accepts robots will depend part ly on suppliers' ability to counter the mistrust caused by the hype of the 1 970s and early 1980s, when the robot industry appeared to be carried away by euphoria over business prospects. There are other obstacles, too, for suppl iers to surmount. In Japan, one of the driving forces behind the growth in t he industrial robot population to 274,210 in 1990 - nearly 10 times the popu lation in the former West Germany -has been labour shortages. 'Everything h as to come back to economic considerations,' says Axel Gerhardt, an executiv e board member of IWKA, the holding company for Kuka, Germany's largest robo t supplier. 'In Europe robots are used where it is economical to do so. In J apan the question is often whether to produce with a robot or not to produce there at all.' Mistakes have also been made in the installation of robots, for which the suppliers and customers have to share the blame. 'People have tended to put in a robot, then have an operator standing by watching,' says Demark. 'This is a half-way house that I wouldn't recommend.' Increasingly, robot suppliers are realising that if they are to make inroads into the smal l- and medium-sized businesses that still dominate European industry - espec ially outside the automotive sector - they have to understand better the cu stomer's needs and worries. 'You have to enter into an economic calculation with the customer and demonstrate the ability to find a solution,' says Matt ucci. That could mean being paid only for a feasibility study that comes dow n against the use of robots. But in the long run this approach makes more se nse for an industry that wants to broaden its customer base and maintain its reputation. Comau, which sells most of its robots as part of an integrated automation package, is around 90 per cent dependent on the vehicle industry. Mattucci wants to expand the remaining 10 per cent of the business to 30 pe r cent over the next five years by exploiting the group's strengths in robot ics for body-welding, mechanical assembly and difficult handling operations. The Italian company's most ambitious step away from the automotive sector i s its involvement in the Columbus Automation and robotics Testbed (Cat) prog ramme financed by the European Space Agency. The ground testbed for the auto mation and robotics on board the projected Columbus Space Station will incor porate a new Comau robot using advanced materials such as aeronautical alloy s and composites. A more-down-to earth approach to broadening the customer b ase is in evidence at GMFanuc, the US/Japanese concern which is the world's second biggest supplier. The jean-spraying robot, developed in the US and no w available in the UK, offers a high return on investment with a payback of less than a year, says Mike Wilson, the UK sales and marketing manager. Robo tics are also in their infancy in the European food industry, partly because it has hitherto been difficult to turn a hose on to a robot to clean it wit hout ruining its electrical circuits. In January, GMFanuc launched its 'Wash down' robot to conform to the strict hygiene requirements of the food indust ry and withstand all the chemical substances likely to be used in washdown o r wipedown procedures. In the European electronics industry, robots are more frequent but applications are still developing. Data Packaging, an Irish su pplier of plastic moulded components for the computer industry, recently ins talled an ABB Robotics painting cell to handle metallic paints used to provi de an attractive finish, and assist in electrical shielding, on parts for th e Apple Macintosh. Metallic paints are hard to handle because they block sup ply lines if not kept flowing continuously. The ABB system programs the robo t to fire the spray gun if the system lays dormant for a given length of tim e. Advances such as these are often based on techniques originally developed for the automotive industry, which is not being neglected in suppliers' has te to exploit other markets. A number of fairly recent technologies have rel evance to the use of robots in automotive and non-automotive fields. Laser w elding, says Wilson, is attracting interest in a number of industries, inclu ding aerospace, because of its precision and speed. Unlike conventional spot welding, the robot does not have to reach both sides of the part to be weld ed. Another emerging technology, especially when combined with robotics, is water-jet cutting, which is likely to become increasingly important for cutt ing plastics quickly and cleanly. It is already being used in the automotive industry for cutting carpets, door panels and instrument panels. In both ar eas robot suppliers are forming partnerships with companies which have devel oped the technologies so that they can exploit the opportunities quicker. Co mau has a co-operation agreement with Trumpf, the German machine tool builde r best-known for its laser-cutting machines, while last year ABB Robotics fo rmed a joint venture with Ingersoll-Rand of the US to develop and market a r obotised water-jet cutting system in Europe. The search for a broader Europe an customer base coincides with a much more price-conscious attitude over th e past two to three years among customers, due as much to general business c onditions as to scepticism about the early claims made by robot suppliers. S uppliers are rationalising their product ranges to give customers what they want and no more, but using developments in control systems to increase the applications available from each model. These conditions give advantages and disadvantages in more or less equal measure to European suppliers and Japan ese/US importers, which control one third of the market. Demark and Mattucci strongly believe that the European suppliers benefit from a approach based on solutions rather than products. 'The Japanese do not have the solutions f or European needs,' says Mattucci flatly. This is a view strongly disputed b y the Japanese producers, but in a price-sensitive market the the Japanese d o have the advantage of size - investment in control systems, in particular, can be spread over a bigger sales base. Ultimately, though, all the robot s uppliers could benefit if they can persuade more European companies of the b enefits of robots. And that is likely to be a gradual process where technolo gy is only one factor in the equation. The Financial Times London Page 18 ============= Transaction # 38 ============================================== Transaction #: 38 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:44:57 Selec. Rec. #: 7 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT922-9444 _AN-CEGBFAFXFT 9205 07 FT 07 MAY 92 / Technology: Androids on the march - Af ter years on the breadline, modern robots are finding gainful employment in Europe By ANDREW BAXTER In the US f ashion industry they call it 'localised abrasion' - the pre-worn look for de nim jeans produced by applying potassium permanganate solution to the knee, thigh and seat areas. The faded effect has traditionally been achieved throu gh manual spraying, but consistency and quality control have been hard to ac hieve. Now GMFanuc Robotics has perfected a robotic solution that is three t imes faster than manual spraying, can reproduce a spray pattern to an accura cy of 0.03 inch, and can be programmed easily to handle a wide range of garm ents. The system is a relatively simple example of recent trends in the indu strial robotics industry, which is trying to reduce its dependence on compar atively mature automotive markets and find new applications elsewhere. It is a trend that is particularly important for robot suppliers in the European market, where the overall penetration of robots into industry is much lower than in Japan, and where a potentially huge market for non-automotive applic ations remains untapped. According to Massimo Mattucci, vice president for e ngineering and marketing at Comau of Italy, around 50 per cent of industrial robots installed in Europe are in use in the automotive industry and 20 per cent in electronics -the reverse of the situation in Japan. 'The automotiv e industry has more or less understood the potential of robots,' says Stelio Demark, head of ABB Robotics, Europe's largest producer, although he stress es, along with other robot industry executives, the potential of robots in t he paint-spraying and final assembly area of European vehicle manufacturing. The inherent flexibility of modern robots, and the advances made in control systems and mechanics that have increased their speed and reliability, ough t to increase their suitability for small-batch manufacturing in Europe, whe re model changes are frequent. Demark sees new opportunities for robots emer ging in the European food, packaging, pharmaceutical and white goods industr ies. But the pace at which European industry accepts robots will depend part ly on suppliers' ability to counter the mistrust caused by the hype of the 1 970s and early 1980s, when the robot industry appeared to be carried away by euphoria over business prospects. There are other obstacles, too, for suppl iers to surmount. In Japan, one of the driving forces behind the growth in t he industrial robot population to 274,210 in 1990 - nearly 10 times the popu lation in the former West Germany -has been labour shortages. 'Everything h as to come back to economic considerations,' says Axel Gerhardt, an executiv e board member of IWKA, the holding company for Kuka, Germany's largest robo t supplier. 'In Europe robots are used where it is economical to do so. In J apan the question is often whether to produce with a robot or not to produce there at all.' Mistakes have also been made in the installation of robots, for which the suppliers and customers have to share the blame. 'People have tended to put in a robot, then have an operator standing by watching,' says Demark. 'This is a half-way house that I wouldn't recommend.' Increasingly, robot suppliers are realising that if they are to make inroads into the smal l- and medium-sized businesses that still dominate European industry - espec ially outside the automotive sector - they have to understand better the cu stomer's needs and worries. 'You have to enter into an economic calculation with the customer and demonstrate the ability to find a solution,' says Matt ucci. That could mean being paid only for a feasibility study that comes dow n against the use of robots. But in the long run this approach makes more se nse for an industry that wants to broaden its customer base and maintain its reputation. Comau, which sells most of its robots as part of an integrated automation package, is around 90 per cent dependent on the vehicle industry. Mattucci wants to expand the remaining 10 per cent of the business to 30 pe r cent over the next five years by exploiting the group's strengths in robot ics for body-welding, mechanical assembly and difficult handling operations. The Italian company's most ambitious step away from the automotive sector i s its involvement in the Columbus Automation and robotics Testbed (Cat) prog ramme financed by the European Space Agency. The ground testbed for the auto mation and robotics on board the projected Columbus Space Station will incor porate a new Comau robot using advanced materials such as aeronautical alloy s and composites. A more-down-to earth approach to broadening the customer b ase is in evidence at GMFanuc, the US/Japanese concern which is the world's second biggest supplier. The jean-spraying robot, developed in the US and no w available in the UK, offers a high return on investment with a payback of less than a year, says Mike Wilson, the UK sales and marketing manager. Robo tics are also in their infancy in the European food industry, partly because it has hitherto been difficult to turn a hose on to a robot to clean it wit hout ruining its electrical circuits. In January, GMFanuc launched its 'Wash down' robot to conform to the strict hygiene requirements of the food indust ry and withstand all the chemical substances likely to be used in washdown o r wipedown procedures. In the European electronics industry, robots are more frequent but applications are still developing. Data Packaging, an Irish su pplier of plastic moulded components for the computer industry, recently ins talled an ABB Robotics painting cell to handle metallic paints used to provi de an attractive finish, and assist in electrical shielding, on parts for th e Apple Macintosh. Metallic paints are hard to handle because they block sup ply lines if not kept flowing continuously. The ABB system programs the robo t to fire the spray gun if the system lays dormant for a given length of tim e. Advances such as these are often based on techniques originally developed for the automotive industry, which is not being neglected in suppliers' has te to exploit other markets. A number of fairly recent technologies have rel evance to the use of robots in automotive and non-automotive fields. Laser w elding, says Wilson, is attracting interest in a number of industries, inclu ding aerospace, because of its precision and speed. Unlike conventional spot welding, the robot does not have to reach both sides of the part to be weld ed. Another emerging technology, especially when combined with robotics, is water-jet cutting, which is likely to become increasingly important for cutt ing plastics quickly and cleanly. It is already being used in the automotive industry for cutting carpets, door panels and instrument panels. In both ar eas robot suppliers are forming partnerships with companies which have devel oped the technologies so that they can exploit the opportunities quicker. Co mau has a co-operation agreement with Trumpf, the German machine tool builde r best-known for its laser-cutting machines, while last year ABB Robotics fo rmed a joint venture with Ingersoll-Rand of the US to develop and market a r obotised water-jet cutting system in Europe. The search for a broader Europe an customer base coincides with a much more price-conscious attitude over th e past two to three years among customers, due as much to general business c onditions as to scepticism about the early claims made by robot suppliers. S uppliers are rationalising their product ranges to give customers what they want and no more, but using developments in control systems to increase the applications available from each model. These conditions give advantages and disadvantages in more or less equal measure to European suppliers and Japan ese/US importers, which control one third of the market. Demark and Mattucci strongly believe that the European suppliers benefit from a approach based on solutions rather than products. 'The Japanese do not have the solutions f or European needs,' says Mattucci flatly. This is a view strongly disputed b y the Japanese producers, but in a price-sensitive market the the Japanese d o have the advantage of size - investment in control systems, in particular, can be spread over a bigger sales base. Ultimately, though, all the robot s uppliers could benefit if they can persuade more European companies of the b enefits of robots. And that is likely to be a gradual process where technolo gy is only one factor in the equation. The Financial Times London Page 18 ============= Transaction # 39 ============================================== Transaction #: 39 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:45:03 Selec. Rec. #: 8 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-8893 _AN-CBNB3AE8FT 9202 14 FT 14 FEB 92 / Technology: Machine replaces milkmaid By STEVEN SONSINO For the last thre e years Professor Jim Hewit's team in the Department of Mechanical Engineeri ng at the Loughborough University of Technology has been looking at cows' ud ders with more than a passing interest. Talking to colleagues at the Agricul tural and Food Research Council they discovered that if cows could be milked as often as the cows themselves wanted, milk production would increase. The stress on the cows of being rounded up for milking would also be reduced, w hich could improve milk quality. And farmers would need less equipment, as m ilking would be spread throughout the day, not compressed into the tradition al early and late shifts. The Loughborough team has developed a robotic mach ine to milk the cows automatically. The system incorporates a thermal imagin g system attached to a contraption of booms and telescopic tubing. The solut ion appeared by accident. Hewit discovered a thermal imaging system in the l ab from a previous project. Wondering whether this might distinguish cold te ats from hot udders, the team tested it on cows on an Oxfordshire farm. Not only did it pick out the teats on the cow when the animal entered the milkin g stall, without the need for human guidance, it also picked out a teat dise ased with mastitis, which appeared black to the imaging system. The cow's ow ner was shocked, but grateful, and so were the Loughborough engineers: in a surprise spin-off the robot had become a dual milking and diagnostic imaging system. Work will begin in May on the remaining hurdle: making the imaging systems rugged enough and cheap enough for life on the farm. At present an e ffective imaging system costs around Pounds 30,000, says Hewit, and he is wo rried that a roaring trade in robot rustling might develop. Eventually he be lieves unattended milking stalls will appear on the farm. Cows will wander i n as they please or be called in by the tape-recorded lowings of suckling ca lves. The Financial Times London Page 10 ============= Transaction # 40 ============================================== Transaction #: 40 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:45:21 Selec. Rec. #: 8 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-8893 _AN-CBNB3AE8FT 9202 14 FT 14 FEB 92 / Technology: Machine replaces milkmaid By STEVEN SONSINO For the last thre e years Professor Jim Hewit's team in the Department of Mechanical Engineeri ng at the Loughborough University of Technology has been looking at cows' ud ders with more than a passing interest. Talking to colleagues at the Agricul tural and Food Research Council they discovered that if cows could be milked as often as the cows themselves wanted, milk production would increase. The stress on the cows of being rounded up for milking would also be reduced, w hich could improve milk quality. And farmers would need less equipment, as m ilking would be spread throughout the day, not compressed into the tradition al early and late shifts. The Loughborough team has developed a robotic mach ine to milk the cows automatically. The system incorporates a thermal imagin g system attached to a contraption of booms and telescopic tubing. The solut ion appeared by accident. Hewit discovered a thermal imaging system in the l ab from a previous project. Wondering whether this might distinguish cold te ats from hot udders, the team tested it on cows on an Oxfordshire farm. Not only did it pick out the teats on the cow when the animal entered the milkin g stall, without the need for human guidance, it also picked out a teat dise ased with mastitis, which appeared black to the imaging system. The cow's ow ner was shocked, but grateful, and so were the Loughborough engineers: in a surprise spin-off the robot had become a dual milking and diagnostic imaging system. Work will begin in May on the remaining hurdle: making the imaging systems rugged enough and cheap enough for life on the farm. At present an e ffective imaging system costs around Pounds 30,000, says Hewit, and he is wo rried that a roaring trade in robot rustling might develop. Eventually he be lieves unattended milking stalls will appear on the farm. Cows will wander i n as they please or be called in by the tape-recorded lowings of suckling ca lves. The Financial Times London Page 10 ============= Transaction # 41 ============================================== Transaction #: 41 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:45:47 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 54702 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 42 ============================================== Transaction #: 42 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:45:53 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 54702 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 43 ============================================== Transaction #: 43 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:46:11 Selec. Rec. #: 8 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-8893 _AN-CBNB3AE8FT 9202 14 FT 14 FEB 92 / Technology: Machine replaces milkmaid By STEVEN SONSINO For the last thre e years Professor Jim Hewit's team in the Department of Mechanical Engineeri ng at the Loughborough University of Technology has been looking at cows' ud ders with more than a passing interest. Talking to colleagues at the Agricul tural and Food Research Council they discovered that if cows could be milked as often as the cows themselves wanted, milk production would increase. The stress on the cows of being rounded up for milking would also be reduced, w hich could improve milk quality. And farmers would need less equipment, as m ilking would be spread throughout the day, not compressed into the tradition al early and late shifts. The Loughborough team has developed a robotic mach ine to milk the cows automatically. The system incorporates a thermal imagin g system attached to a contraption of booms and telescopic tubing. The solut ion appeared by accident. Hewit discovered a thermal imaging system in the l ab from a previous project. Wondering whether this might distinguish cold te ats from hot udders, the team tested it on cows on an Oxfordshire farm. Not only did it pick out the teats on the cow when the animal entered the milkin g stall, without the need for human guidance, it also picked out a teat dise ased with mastitis, which appeared black to the imaging system. The cow's ow ner was shocked, but grateful, and so were the Loughborough engineers: in a surprise spin-off the robot had become a dual milking and diagnostic imaging system. Work will begin in May on the remaining hurdle: making the imaging systems rugged enough and cheap enough for life on the farm. At present an e ffective imaging system costs around Pounds 30,000, says Hewit, and he is wo rried that a roaring trade in robot rustling might develop. Eventually he be lieves unattended milking stalls will appear on the farm. Cows will wander i n as they please or be called in by the tape-recorded lowings of suckling ca lves. The Financial Times London Page 10 ============= Transaction # 44 ============================================== Transaction #: 44 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 13:46:37 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 3 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(title {robotic thechology}) and (date {1999})" ============= Transaction # 45 ============================================== Transaction #: 45 Transaction Code: 37 (General (non-Tcl) Error) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:46:39 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: {ERR {Status 1} {Hits 0} {Received 0} {Set Default}} {No matching records fo und} ============= Transaction # 46 ============================================== Transaction #: 46 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 13:46:42 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 3 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(title {robotic thechology}) and (date {1998})" ============= Transaction # 47 ============================================== Transaction #: 47 Transaction Code: 37 (General (non-Tcl) Error) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:46:44 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: {ERR {Status 1} {Hits 0} {Received 0} {Set Default}} {No matching records fo und} ============= Transaction # 48 ============================================== Transaction #: 48 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 13:46:47 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 3 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(title {robotic thechology}) and (date {1997})" ============= Transaction # 49 ============================================== Transaction #: 49 Transaction Code: 37 (General (non-Tcl) Error) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:46:48 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: {ERR {Status 1} {Hits 0} {Received 0} {Set Default}} {No matching records fo und} ============= Transaction # 50 ============================================== Transaction #: 50 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 13:46:52 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 3 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(title {robotic thechology}) and (date {1997})" ============= Transaction # 51 ============================================== Transaction #: 51 Transaction Code: 37 (General (non-Tcl) Error) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:46:53 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: {ERR {Status 1} {Hits 0} {Received 0} {Set Default}} {No matching records fo und} ============= Transaction # 52 ============================================== Transaction #: 52 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 13:46:56 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 3 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(title {robotic thechology}) and (date {97})" ============= Transaction # 53 ============================================== Transaction #: 53 Transaction Code: 37 (General (non-Tcl) Error) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:46:57 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: {ERR {Status 1} {Hits 0} {Received 0} {Set Default}} {No matching records fo und} ============= Transaction # 54 ============================================== Transaction #: 54 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 13:47:01 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 3 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(title {robotic thechology}) and (date {96})" ============= Transaction # 55 ============================================== Transaction #: 55 Transaction Code: 37 (General (non-Tcl) Error) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:47:04 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: {ERR {Status 1} {Hits 0} {Received 0} {Set Default}} {No matching records fo und} ============= Transaction # 56 ============================================== Transaction #: 56 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 13:47:11 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 3 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(title {robotic thechology}) and (date {1996})" ============= Transaction # 57 ============================================== Transaction #: 57 Transaction Code: 37 (General (non-Tcl) Error) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:47:13 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: {ERR {Status 1} {Hits 0} {Received 0} {Set Default}} {No matching records fo und} ============= Transaction # 58 ============================================== Transaction #: 58 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 13:47:16 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 3 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(title {robotic thechology}) and (date {1995})" ============= Transaction # 59 ============================================== Transaction #: 59 Transaction Code: 37 (General (non-Tcl) Error) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:47:18 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: {ERR {Status 1} {Hits 0} {Received 0} {Set Default}} {No matching records fo und} ============= Transaction # 60 ============================================== Transaction #: 60 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 13:47:22 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 2 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(title {robotic thechology})" ============= Transaction # 61 ============================================== Transaction #: 61 Transaction Code: 37 (General (non-Tcl) Error) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:47:23 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: {ERR {Status 1} {Hits 0} {Received 0} {Set Default}} {No matching records fo und} ============= Transaction # 62 ============================================== Transaction #: 62 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 13:47:33 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 3 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(title {robotic thechnology}) and (date {1998})" ============= Transaction # 63 ============================================== Transaction #: 63 Transaction Code: 37 (General (non-Tcl) Error) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:47:34 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: {ERR {Status 1} {Hits 0} {Received 0} {Set Default}} {No matching records fo und} ============= Transaction # 64 ============================================== Transaction #: 64 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 13:47:36 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 3 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(title {robotic thechnology}) and (date {1997})" ============= Transaction # 65 ============================================== Transaction #: 65 Transaction Code: 37 (General (non-Tcl) Error) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:47:39 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: {ERR {Status 1} {Hits 0} {Received 0} {Set Default}} {No matching records fo und} ============= Transaction # 66 ============================================== Transaction #: 66 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 13:47:49 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 3 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(topic {robotic technology}) and (date {1997})" ============= Transaction # 67 ============================================== Transaction #: 67 Transaction Code: 37 (General (non-Tcl) Error) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:47:51 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: {ERR {Status 1} {Hits 0} {Received 0} {Set Default}} {No matching records fo und} ============= Transaction # 68 ============================================== Transaction #: 68 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 13:47:54 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 2 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(topic {robotic technology})" ============= Transaction # 69 ============================================== Transaction #: 69 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:47:55 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 156 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 70 ============================================== Transaction #: 70 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 13:48:13 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 3 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(topic {robotic technology}) and (topic {recent})" ============= Transaction # 71 ============================================== Transaction #: 71 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:48:16 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 76 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 72 ============================================== Transaction #: 72 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:48:22 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT911-1218 _AN-BEHBSAARFT 9105 08 FT 08 MAY 91 / World Trade News: British companies re ap benefits of Japanese markets - Their success owes much to a change in att itude to doing business there By MICHIYO NAKAMOTO WHILE prominent US companies campaign for a bigger slice of t he Japanese market, a growing number of UK companies, both large and small, are quietly reaping the benefits of success in what is arguably the world's most competitive market. Last year, UK exports to Japan rose 16 per cent to Pounds 2.63bn from Pounds 2.26bn in 1989, against an increase in overall imp orts to Japan of 11.2 per cent to Dollars 234.6bn (Pounds 138bn), according to the Japanese finance ministry. In the past three years, visible exports f rom the UK to Japan rose by over 75 per cent, the UK Department of Trade and Industry says. The greater headway British companies are beginning to make in Japan owes much to a change in their attitude to doing business there, an d an increasing awareness of the wider benefits to be derived from being in the Japanese market. Market research commissioned by the DTI shows that 28 p er cent of UK companies surveyed saw Japan as their first or second most imp ortant market, against 13 per cent five years ago. The DTI says Japan has be come the UK's third biggest export market, after western Europe and the US. Given that Japan has the highest per capita GDP among the Group of Seven ind ustrialised countries, it is not surprising that UK companies have made stre nuous efforts to break into the Japanese market. The success of British comp anies in Japan is not limited to the large companies such as Glaxo, or even those with well-established marques either. For example, Teknek Electronics, a small company making a precision machine that cleans sheet materials in t he printed circuit industry saw Japanese sales grow by almost 500 per cent l ast year. The group was able to do this despite its major competitor in the market being a Japanese machine. Solid State Logic is a relatively young com pany which makes professional audio equipment - another area where Japanese manufacturers are gaining prominence. Yet in the 20 months since it set up i ts Japanese subsidiary, it has seen sales to Japan jump 60 per cent from Pou nds 4m to Pounds 6.4m a year. Foseco, the specialty chemicals maker, acquire d by Burmah Castrol at the end of last year, has seen sales of its Japanese subsidiary surge from Y5.8bn (Pounds 24.5m) in 1989 to Y6.2bn last year, up from Y4.3bn in 1986. In the consumer market, Scholl, the footwear and health care products group, last year sold 2.8m pairs of its 'healthy' support tig hts in the first year it introduced the product to the Japanese market. This was achieved despite Scholl not being as much a brand name in Japan as in o ther markets. The rise in UK exports to Japan owes something to the gradual disappearance of that country's visible trade barriers. But while the non-ta riff barriers to trade - the group-oriented trading practices, convoluted di stribution system and the generally inscrutable ways that have been blamed f or keeping foreigners out - still exist, the recent success of UK companies probably stems largely from a new willingness to meet the Japanese market on its own, highly-competitive terms. 'While we treated the Japanese market as any other market it was not a success,' admits Sir Paul Girolami, chairman of Glaxo, one of the winners of this year's Opportunity Japan Awards, a prog ramme sponsored by the DTI in recognition of UK companies especially success ful in Japan. It was only after taking boardroom decisions that Glaxo's Japa nese business began to grow, Sir Paul adds. Many UK companies are themselves starting to preach that having a high-quality product to offer, a high leve l of commitment to the needs of a specific market, an ability to respond eff iciently to those needs, and an understanding of the specific business cultu re, are key ingredients to success in Japan in particular, and the rest of t he world in general. 'You have to understand the different philosophy,' says Mr Mark Sunderland, commercial manager of Teknek Electronics. Teknek found being defensive about a product problem was the wrong reaction. 'The Japanes e end-user said that if we had told them the equipment would have problems a fter so many thousand hours, they would have worked around it. Once they und erstood what the problem was, we could work together to overcome it. It was the surprise element that they found difficult to accept.' It takes a high d egree of commitment to the market, preferably through direct representation at a fairly high level, to attain that kind of understanding. 'It may seem d aunting, but in the long run it is the key to success,' says Mr Sunderland. Teknek, which employs 38 people, has an executive sales representative who s pends three weeks out of four touring Japan and the Pacific Rim. What has en couraged more and more UK companies to pay this kind of attention to the nee ds of the Japanese market and undergo the rigours of being there, is the spr eading realisation of the technological and disciplinary benefits thus deriv ed which filter through to their operations elsewhere. Foseco, for example, licensed a new casting technique it had developed, to a Japanese partner. Th e Japanese company collaborated with Foseco in making improvements to that t echnique, which were so useful that Foseco is now considering marketing the improvements in other countries. Cut-throat price competition, another featu re of the Japanese market, imposes a cost discipline that is universally app licable. 'It is a great rarity for prices to increase in Japan,' according t o Mr Martin Issot, president of Foseco Japan. 'The western philosophy of ann ual price increase is totally unknown. This has had a good and continuing 'c ompetitive' influence on central research and development functions.' The gr oup's Japanese subsidiary sold its Sedex filters at a loss for one year whil e it set up local production to meet intense domestic price competition. It emerged from the ordeal with 55 per cent of the Japanese market, and a reduc tion in production costs that has brought the sales price down by 30 per cen t. Foseco Japan now sells three times as many different types and sizes of S edex filters as any Foseco company. Many UK companies in Japan also benefit from Japanese technological advances. Bowthorpe, the diversified electrical components maker, says it uses prime technology developed in Japan, particul arly involving robots, in other factories worldwide. But the greatest benefi t could be that companies successful in marketing a particular product in Ja pan find it easy to market that product in other countries. 'The image that success in Japan can lead easily to success elsewhere is very significant,' Mr Issot points out. Sir David Plastow, chairman of Vickers, put it somewhat differently: 'If we can't succeed there, we won't succeed at all.' The Financial Times London Page 6 Photograph Sir Paul Gir olami, boardroom decisions paid off (Omitted). ============= Transaction # 73 ============================================== Transaction #: 73 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:48:31 Selec. Rec. #: 2 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT911-133 _AN-BENBQAC2FT 91051 4 FT 14 MAY 91 / Survey of Computers in Manufacturing (7 ): Academia and industry forge tighter links - Research & Development By MICHAEL KENWARD BILL Hillier joined th e Science and Engineering Research Council (Serc) six years ago 'to see if I could help to get academia to work with industry'. He moved from industry, Racal Redac, where he worked on computer-aided design, to become the co-ordi nator of the Acme research programme at the Serc's headquarters in Swindon. Acme stands for Applications of Computers in Manufacturing. Serc invests abo ut Pounds 7m a year through Acme in projects in universities and polytechnic s in Britain. These projects cover the whole range of computing in manufactu ring, from work on the control of robots, for example, through computer-aide d design to production management. Mr Hillier says 'Acme activities emphasis e research at universities into real problems that are industrially relevant .' The R & D is not, though, day-to-day trouble shooting. Industry does not expect academia researchers to provide immediate answers to short-term probl ems. Mr Hillier says that Acme hopes to support research that will deliver u seful results within two to five years. In all, Acme supports something like 135 projects. These range from small grants for visiting fellowship to larg e clubs with industry. The largest grants are for about Pounds 350,000 for t hree years. Serc launched the Acme programme six years ago. Since then it ha s awarded grants worth a total that is approaching Pounds 40m. The work, on about 400 projects, is in four main areas; advanced production machines, com puter-aided engineering, manufacturing processes, and planning and managemen t. In each Acme project, the Serc expects academic institutions to work clos ely with industrial partners. Industry may contribute financially to a proje ct - it adds an average 15 per cent to the Serc's contribution - but in many cases, industry's contribution is not so much financial as in time and othe r resources. For example, companies sometimes provide materials for processi ng in university projects. Acme's projects cover a wide range of industries. For example, the Control and Robotics Group, part of the Department of Elec tronic Engineering at the university of Hull, is involved in several project s with the shoe and garment industries. The aim of this research is to devel op automated manufacturing processes. In one research project at Hull, the g roup is developing a robotic work cell to assemble complete garments, in thi s case underpants. Each cell would have seven or eight machines performing a particular task on a garment before passing it on to the next stage. In the cell, robot vision system would recognise the parts and tell the machines w hat to do with them. A big problem with textiles is that the parts are flexi ble. This makes it difficult for an optical system to recognise the shape. ' Pick up a dishcloth and it doesn't look like a rectangle at all,' says Dr Ga ynor Taylor, a researcher in the group. The industrial collaborator is Corah , a garment manufacturer that supplies Marks and Spencer. The ultimate aim o f this work is to develop a production cell that can receive cut parts at on e end and deliver finished garments from the other. In their research, the H ull group analyses the production process a step at a time. Another series o f projects brings together researchers from the universities of Durham and H ull. Their industrial collaborator is British United Shoe Machinery (BUSM). Here the step-by-step approach is even more important because companies maki ng shoes are not accustomed to investing large amounts in machinery. So the projects set out to automate individual steps of shoe production, with a par ticular emphasis on preparing the parts and sewing them together before they go on the final manufacturing stages. The aim of the project is not to deve lop prototype machines, says Mr Taylor. It is up to the machinery makers to develop commercial equipment. The research at Durham and Hull has concentrat ed on the use of electronic vision and image recognition equipment and other technologies to develop manufacturing and handling processes that do not ha ve to be altered every time a company changes the style of the shoes that it is making. Mr David Reedman is on the receiving end of this research. He is manager of research for BUSM. 'Universities and polytechnics are very good at research but not at product development,' he says. Mr Reedman believes th at projects with academic researchers can tell a manufacturer if a particula r piece of technology will work in its industry. 'I ask 'Can I use this tech nology in Shoe making?'' he says. 'A research project which establishes quic kly and efficiently that a new technology is unsuitable is just as successfu l, if not as acceptable, as one with a more positive outcome.' 'What you get out of the university research is usually a model that demonstrates some pr inciple,' says Mr Reedman. It is then down to development engineers to turn the idea into commercial products. Earlier this month at a trade show in Ger many, BUSM showed a prototype shoe stitching machine based on its work with the university research teams. Over the past five years, BUSM has benefited from grants totalling almost Pounds 450,000 for work at the two universities . 'I don't see how we can survive without the research,' says Mr Reedman. Ac me supports a range of projects in the general area of computer aided design . Dr Bob Cripps at the university of Birmingham, works on the computer model ling of surfaces and how they behave in various manufacturing processes. One such project involved collaboration with Austin Rover on a phenomenon know as springback. When a piece of flat steel is pressed into a complex shape, a car bonnet for example, it takes up the exact shape of the press. But remov e the pressure and the shape changes slightly. In the past, getting the righ t shape was more a black art than a science, according to Dr Bob Cripps who worked on the project. The Birmingham team computerised the whole process of design manufacture of complex components in an attempt to understand the ph enomenon of springback. The idea was to be able to predict exactly how much of a change in shape a component would experience as it came out of a press. The work at Birmingham achieved its goal, the researchers could predict the amount of springback that would occur. However, in the process of computeri sing the manufacturing process, the problem of springback lessened. Another task facing manufacturers is to move products around in factories. In anothe r Acme project, Professor Mike Brady of Oxford University has developed an a utomatic sensing system that can guide an unmanned vehicle around a factory. This Pounds 250,000 project, with four industrial collaborators including G EC and Thorn-EMI, has resulted in the development of a vehicle equipped with a laser-rangefinder and ultrasonic position detection. Sensors feed informa tion into an on-board computer that can then pick a route around unexpected obstacles. Computerised hardware is an essential part of any manufacturing s ystem. There are, however, other issues facing the manufacturer who wants to introduce new technology. This too is an area for academic research. Mr Mik e Gregory is pioneering a new area of research - for academia at least. Ther e is nothing new about research on the technology of manufacturing, engineer ing departments have been doing it since their beginnings. Researchers have also studied the social impacts of new manufacturing technology on the workp lace, but they have yet to look seriously at the management of manufacturing . Mr Gregory believes that before a company can develop a manufacturing stra tegy, it needs to undertake a manufacturing audit. Companies need to design manufacturing systems that meet their business requirements. To achieve this , he says, 'We need more research into the interface between organisations a nd technology'. More research is only of value if the results reach industry . Mr Gregory's work has led to a booklet called Competitive Manufacturing, t hat is published by the Department of Trade and Industry. There are, though, gaps in the flow of information from R & D on computers in manufacturing. T he government's Advisory Council on Science and Technology (Acost) highlight ed these gaps in its recent report called Advanced Manufacturing Technology. The report drew attention to the lack of co-ordination in the various activ ities in advanced manufacturing technology (AMT). 'The aggregation of the di spersed knowledge of AMT in the UK, both industrial and academic, together w ith the acquisition of international experience, can offer individual compan ies a valuable new resource,' says the report. Professor Lionel Maunder of t he university of Newcastle, chairman of Acost's Engineering Technologies Com mittee, hopes that this report will lead to the creation of local centres wh ere industry can seek information on advanced manufacturing technologies. It has prompted the DTI to enter into discussion with the Science and Engineer ing Research Council on the issue. Unfortunately, the Acme programme has bee n hit by the shortage of funds facing the Serc. The programme has to find sa vings of some 15 per cent. This will inevitably put pressure on the DTI's ow n R & D programmes. The Financial Times London Pa ge IV Photograph BUSM's computer-controlled automatic roughing machine (Omit ted). ============= Transaction # 74 ============================================== Transaction #: 74 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:48:32 Selec. Rec. #: 2 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT911-133 _AN-BENBQAC2FT 91051 4 FT 14 MAY 91 / Survey of Computers in Manufacturing (7 ): Academia and industry forge tighter links - Research & Development By MICHAEL KENWARD BILL Hillier joined th e Science and Engineering Research Council (Serc) six years ago 'to see if I could help to get academia to work with industry'. He moved from industry, Racal Redac, where he worked on computer-aided design, to become the co-ordi nator of the Acme research programme at the Serc's headquarters in Swindon. Acme stands for Applications of Computers in Manufacturing. Serc invests abo ut Pounds 7m a year through Acme in projects in universities and polytechnic s in Britain. These projects cover the whole range of computing in manufactu ring, from work on the control of robots, for example, through computer-aide d design to production management. Mr Hillier says 'Acme activities emphasis e research at universities into real problems that are industrially relevant .' The R & D is not, though, day-to-day trouble shooting. Industry does not expect academia researchers to provide immediate answers to short-term probl ems. Mr Hillier says that Acme hopes to support research that will deliver u seful results within two to five years. In all, Acme supports something like 135 projects. These range from small grants for visiting fellowship to larg e clubs with industry. The largest grants are for about Pounds 350,000 for t hree years. Serc launched the Acme programme six years ago. Since then it ha s awarded grants worth a total that is approaching Pounds 40m. The work, on about 400 projects, is in four main areas; advanced production machines, com puter-aided engineering, manufacturing processes, and planning and managemen t. In each Acme project, the Serc expects academic institutions to work clos ely with industrial partners. Industry may contribute financially to a proje ct - it adds an average 15 per cent to the Serc's contribution - but in many cases, industry's contribution is not so much financial as in time and othe r resources. For example, companies sometimes provide materials for processi ng in university projects. Acme's projects cover a wide range of industries. For example, the Control and Robotics Group, part of the Department of Elec tronic Engineering at the university of Hull, is involved in several project s with the shoe and garment industries. The aim of this research is to devel op automated manufacturing processes. In one research project at Hull, the g roup is developing a robotic work cell to assemble complete garments, in thi s case underpants. Each cell would have seven or eight machines performing a particular task on a garment before passing it on to the next stage. In the cell, robot vision system would recognise the parts and tell the machines w hat to do with them. A big problem with textiles is that the parts are flexi ble. This makes it difficult for an optical system to recognise the shape. ' Pick up a dishcloth and it doesn't look like a rectangle at all,' says Dr Ga ynor Taylor, a researcher in the group. The industrial collaborator is Corah , a garment manufacturer that supplies Marks and Spencer. The ultimate aim o f this work is to develop a production cell that can receive cut parts at on e end and deliver finished garments from the other. In their research, the H ull group analyses the production process a step at a time. Another series o f projects brings together researchers from the universities of Durham and H ull. Their industrial collaborator is British United Shoe Machinery (BUSM). Here the step-by-step approach is even more important because companies maki ng shoes are not accustomed to investing large amounts in machinery. So the projects set out to automate individual steps of shoe production, with a par ticular emphasis on preparing the parts and sewing them together before they go on the final manufacturing stages. The aim of the project is not to deve lop prototype machines, says Mr Taylor. It is up to the machinery makers to develop commercial equipment. The research at Durham and Hull has concentrat ed on the use of electronic vision and image recognition equipment and other technologies to develop manufacturing and handling processes that do not ha ve to be altered every time a company changes the style of the shoes that it is making. Mr David Reedman is on the receiving end of this research. He is manager of research for BUSM. 'Universities and polytechnics are very good at research but not at product development,' he says. Mr Reedman believes th at projects with academic researchers can tell a manufacturer if a particula r piece of technology will work in its industry. 'I ask 'Can I use this tech nology in Shoe making?'' he says. 'A research project which establishes quic kly and efficiently that a new technology is unsuitable is just as successfu l, if not as acceptable, as one with a more positive outcome.' 'What you get out of the university research is usually a model that demonstrates some pr inciple,' says Mr Reedman. It is then down to development engineers to turn the idea into commercial products. Earlier this month at a trade show in Ger many, BUSM showed a prototype shoe stitching machine based on its work with the university research teams. Over the past five years, BUSM has benefited from grants totalling almost Pounds 450,000 for work at the two universities . 'I don't see how we can survive without the research,' says Mr Reedman. Ac me supports a range of projects in the general area of computer aided design . Dr Bob Cripps at the university of Birmingham, works on the computer model ling of surfaces and how they behave in various manufacturing processes. One such project involved collaboration with Austin Rover on a phenomenon know as springback. When a piece of flat steel is pressed into a complex shape, a car bonnet for example, it takes up the exact shape of the press. But remov e the pressure and the shape changes slightly. In the past, getting the righ t shape was more a black art than a science, according to Dr Bob Cripps who worked on the project. The Birmingham team computerised the whole process of design manufacture of complex components in an attempt to understand the ph enomenon of springback. The idea was to be able to predict exactly how much of a change in shape a component would experience as it came out of a press. The work at Birmingham achieved its goal, the researchers could predict the amount of springback that would occur. However, in the process of computeri sing the manufacturing process, the problem of springback lessened. Another task facing manufacturers is to move products around in factories. In anothe r Acme project, Professor Mike Brady of Oxford University has developed an a utomatic sensing system that can guide an unmanned vehicle around a factory. This Pounds 250,000 project, with four industrial collaborators including G EC and Thorn-EMI, has resulted in the development of a vehicle equipped with a laser-rangefinder and ultrasonic position detection. Sensors feed informa tion into an on-board computer that can then pick a route around unexpected obstacles. Computerised hardware is an essential part of any manufacturing s ystem. There are, however, other issues facing the manufacturer who wants to introduce new technology. This too is an area for academic research. Mr Mik e Gregory is pioneering a new area of research - for academia at least. Ther e is nothing new about research on the technology of manufacturing, engineer ing departments have been doing it since their beginnings. Researchers have also studied the social impacts of new manufacturing technology on the workp lace, but they have yet to look seriously at the management of manufacturing . Mr Gregory believes that before a company can develop a manufacturing stra tegy, it needs to undertake a manufacturing audit. Companies need to design manufacturing systems that meet their business requirements. To achieve this , he says, 'We need more research into the interface between organisations a nd technology'. More research is only of value if the results reach industry . Mr Gregory's work has led to a booklet called Competitive Manufacturing, t hat is published by the Department of Trade and Industry. There are, though, gaps in the flow of information from R & D on computers in manufacturing. T he government's Advisory Council on Science and Technology (Acost) highlight ed these gaps in its recent report called Advanced Manufacturing Technology. The report drew attention to the lack of co-ordination in the various activ ities in advanced manufacturing technology (AMT). 'The aggregation of the di spersed knowledge of AMT in the UK, both industrial and academic, together w ith the acquisition of international experience, can offer individual compan ies a valuable new resource,' says the report. Professor Lionel Maunder of t he university of Newcastle, chairman of Acost's Engineering Technologies Com mittee, hopes that this report will lead to the creation of local centres wh ere industry can seek information on advanced manufacturing technologies. It has prompted the DTI to enter into discussion with the Science and Engineer ing Research Council on the issue. Unfortunately, the Acme programme has bee n hit by the shortage of funds facing the Serc. The programme has to find sa vings of some 15 per cent. This will inevitably put pressure on the DTI's ow n R & D programmes. The Financial Times London Pa ge IV Photograph BUSM's computer-controlled automatic roughing machine (Omit ted). ============= Transaction # 75 ============================================== Transaction #: 75 Transaction Code: 15 (Terms Cleared) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:49:12 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 76 ============================================== Transaction #: 76 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 13:49:19 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 3 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(topic @ {recent robotic technology})" ============= Transaction # 77 ============================================== Transaction #: 77 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:49:27 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 49984 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 78 ============================================== Transaction #: 78 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:49:30 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT922-9444 _AN-CEGBFAFXFT 9205 07 FT 07 MAY 92 / Technology: Androids on the march - Af ter years on the breadline, modern robots are finding gainful employment in Europe By ANDREW BAXTER In the US f ashion industry they call it 'localised abrasion' - the pre-worn look for de nim jeans produced by applying potassium permanganate solution to the knee, thigh and seat areas. The faded effect has traditionally been achieved throu gh manual spraying, but consistency and quality control have been hard to ac hieve. Now GMFanuc Robotics has perfected a robotic solution that is three t imes faster than manual spraying, can reproduce a spray pattern to an accura cy of 0.03 inch, and can be programmed easily to handle a wide range of garm ents. The system is a relatively simple example of recent trends in the indu strial robotics industry, which is trying to reduce its dependence on compar atively mature automotive markets and find new applications elsewhere. It is a trend that is particularly important for robot suppliers in the European market, where the overall penetration of robots into industry is much lower than in Japan, and where a potentially huge market for non-automotive applic ations remains untapped. According to Massimo Mattucci, vice president for e ngineering and marketing at Comau of Italy, around 50 per cent of industrial robots installed in Europe are in use in the automotive industry and 20 per cent in electronics -the reverse of the situation in Japan. 'The automotiv e industry has more or less understood the potential of robots,' says Stelio Demark, head of ABB Robotics, Europe's largest producer, although he stress es, along with other robot industry executives, the potential of robots in t he paint-spraying and final assembly area of European vehicle manufacturing. The inherent flexibility of modern robots, and the advances made in control systems and mechanics that have increased their speed and reliability, ough t to increase their suitability for small-batch manufacturing in Europe, whe re model changes are frequent. Demark sees new opportunities for robots emer ging in the European food, packaging, pharmaceutical and white goods industr ies. But the pace at which European industry accepts robots will depend part ly on suppliers' ability to counter the mistrust caused by the hype of the 1 970s and early 1980s, when the robot industry appeared to be carried away by euphoria over business prospects. There are other obstacles, too, for suppl iers to surmount. In Japan, one of the driving forces behind the growth in t he industrial robot population to 274,210 in 1990 - nearly 10 times the popu lation in the former West Germany -has been labour shortages. 'Everything h as to come back to economic considerations,' says Axel Gerhardt, an executiv e board member of IWKA, the holding company for Kuka, Germany's largest robo t supplier. 'In Europe robots are used where it is economical to do so. In J apan the question is often whether to produce with a robot or not to produce there at all.' Mistakes have also been made in the installation of robots, for which the suppliers and customers have to share the blame. 'People have tended to put in a robot, then have an operator standing by watching,' says Demark. 'This is a half-way house that I wouldn't recommend.' Increasingly, robot suppliers are realising that if they are to make inroads into the smal l- and medium-sized businesses that still dominate European industry - espec ially outside the automotive sector - they have to understand better the cu stomer's needs and worries. 'You have to enter into an economic calculation with the customer and demonstrate the ability to find a solution,' says Matt ucci. That could mean being paid only for a feasibility study that comes dow n against the use of robots. But in the long run this approach makes more se nse for an industry that wants to broaden its customer base and maintain its reputation. Comau, which sells most of its robots as part of an integrated automation package, is around 90 per cent dependent on the vehicle industry. Mattucci wants to expand the remaining 10 per cent of the business to 30 pe r cent over the next five years by exploiting the group's strengths in robot ics for body-welding, mechanical assembly and difficult handling operations. The Italian company's most ambitious step away from the automotive sector i s its involvement in the Columbus Automation and robotics Testbed (Cat) prog ramme financed by the European Space Agency. The ground testbed for the auto mation and robotics on board the projected Columbus Space Station will incor porate a new Comau robot using advanced materials such as aeronautical alloy s and composites. A more-down-to earth approach to broadening the customer b ase is in evidence at GMFanuc, the US/Japanese concern which is the world's second biggest supplier. The jean-spraying robot, developed in the US and no w available in the UK, offers a high return on investment with a payback of less than a year, says Mike Wilson, the UK sales and marketing manager. Robo tics are also in their infancy in the European food industry, partly because it has hitherto been difficult to turn a hose on to a robot to clean it wit hout ruining its electrical circuits. In January, GMFanuc launched its 'Wash down' robot to conform to the strict hygiene requirements of the food indust ry and withstand all the chemical substances likely to be used in washdown o r wipedown procedures. In the European electronics industry, robots are more frequent but applications are still developing. Data Packaging, an Irish su pplier of plastic moulded components for the computer industry, recently ins talled an ABB Robotics painting cell to handle metallic paints used to provi de an attractive finish, and assist in electrical shielding, on parts for th e Apple Macintosh. Metallic paints are hard to handle because they block sup ply lines if not kept flowing continuously. The ABB system programs the robo t to fire the spray gun if the system lays dormant for a given length of tim e. Advances such as these are often based on techniques originally developed for the automotive industry, which is not being neglected in suppliers' has te to exploit other markets. A number of fairly recent technologies have rel evance to the use of robots in automotive and non-automotive fields. Laser w elding, says Wilson, is attracting interest in a number of industries, inclu ding aerospace, because of its precision and speed. Unlike conventional spot welding, the robot does not have to reach both sides of the part to be weld ed. Another emerging technology, especially when combined with robotics, is water-jet cutting, which is likely to become increasingly important for cutt ing plastics quickly and cleanly. It is already being used in the automotive industry for cutting carpets, door panels and instrument panels. In both ar eas robot suppliers are forming partnerships with companies which have devel oped the technologies so that they can exploit the opportunities quicker. Co mau has a co-operation agreement with Trumpf, the German machine tool builde r best-known for its laser-cutting machines, while last year ABB Robotics fo rmed a joint venture with Ingersoll-Rand of the US to develop and market a r obotised water-jet cutting system in Europe. The search for a broader Europe an customer base coincides with a much more price-conscious attitude over th e past two to three years among customers, due as much to general business c onditions as to scepticism about the early claims made by robot suppliers. S uppliers are rationalising their product ranges to give customers what they want and no more, but using developments in control systems to increase the applications available from each model. These conditions give advantages and disadvantages in more or less equal measure to European suppliers and Japan ese/US importers, which control one third of the market. Demark and Mattucci strongly believe that the European suppliers benefit from a approach based on solutions rather than products. 'The Japanese do not have the solutions f or European needs,' says Mattucci flatly. This is a view strongly disputed b y the Japanese producers, but in a price-sensitive market the the Japanese d o have the advantage of size - investment in control systems, in particular, can be spread over a bigger sales base. Ultimately, though, all the robot s uppliers could benefit if they can persuade more European companies of the b enefits of robots. And that is likely to be a gradual process where technolo gy is only one factor in the equation. The Financial Times London Page 18 ============= Transaction # 79 ============================================== Transaction #: 79 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:49:40 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT922-9444 _AN-CEGBFAFXFT 9205 07 FT 07 MAY 92 / Technology: Androids on the march - Af ter years on the breadline, modern robots are finding gainful employment in Europe By ANDREW BAXTER In the US f ashion industry they call it 'localised abrasion' - the pre-worn look for de nim jeans produced by applying potassium permanganate solution to the knee, thigh and seat areas. The faded effect has traditionally been achieved throu gh manual spraying, but consistency and quality control have been hard to ac hieve. Now GMFanuc Robotics has perfected a robotic solution that is three t imes faster than manual spraying, can reproduce a spray pattern to an accura cy of 0.03 inch, and can be programmed easily to handle a wide range of garm ents. The system is a relatively simple example of recent trends in the indu strial robotics industry, which is trying to reduce its dependence on compar atively mature automotive markets and find new applications elsewhere. It is a trend that is particularly important for robot suppliers in the European market, where the overall penetration of robots into industry is much lower than in Japan, and where a potentially huge market for non-automotive applic ations remains untapped. According to Massimo Mattucci, vice president for e ngineering and marketing at Comau of Italy, around 50 per cent of industrial robots installed in Europe are in use in the automotive industry and 20 per cent in electronics -the reverse of the situation in Japan. 'The automotiv e industry has more or less understood the potential of robots,' says Stelio Demark, head of ABB Robotics, Europe's largest producer, although he stress es, along with other robot industry executives, the potential of robots in t he paint-spraying and final assembly area of European vehicle manufacturing. The inherent flexibility of modern robots, and the advances made in control systems and mechanics that have increased their speed and reliability, ough t to increase their suitability for small-batch manufacturing in Europe, whe re model changes are frequent. Demark sees new opportunities for robots emer ging in the European food, packaging, pharmaceutical and white goods industr ies. But the pace at which European industry accepts robots will depend part ly on suppliers' ability to counter the mistrust caused by the hype of the 1 970s and early 1980s, when the robot industry appeared to be carried away by euphoria over business prospects. There are other obstacles, too, for suppl iers to surmount. In Japan, one of the driving forces behind the growth in t he industrial robot population to 274,210 in 1990 - nearly 10 times the popu lation in the former West Germany -has been labour shortages. 'Everything h as to come back to economic considerations,' says Axel Gerhardt, an executiv e board member of IWKA, the holding company for Kuka, Germany's largest robo t supplier. 'In Europe robots are used where it is economical to do so. In J apan the question is often whether to produce with a robot or not to produce there at all.' Mistakes have also been made in the installation of robots, for which the suppliers and customers have to share the blame. 'People have tended to put in a robot, then have an operator standing by watching,' says Demark. 'This is a half-way house that I wouldn't recommend.' Increasingly, robot suppliers are realising that if they are to make inroads into the smal l- and medium-sized businesses that still dominate European industry - espec ially outside the automotive sector - they have to understand better the cu stomer's needs and worries. 'You have to enter into an economic calculation with the customer and demonstrate the ability to find a solution,' says Matt ucci. That could mean being paid only for a feasibility study that comes dow n against the use of robots. But in the long run this approach makes more se nse for an industry that wants to broaden its customer base and maintain its reputation. Comau, which sells most of its robots as part of an integrated automation package, is around 90 per cent dependent on the vehicle industry. Mattucci wants to expand the remaining 10 per cent of the business to 30 pe r cent over the next five years by exploiting the group's strengths in robot ics for body-welding, mechanical assembly and difficult handling operations. The Italian company's most ambitious step away from the automotive sector i s its involvement in the Columbus Automation and robotics Testbed (Cat) prog ramme financed by the European Space Agency. The ground testbed for the auto mation and robotics on board the projected Columbus Space Station will incor porate a new Comau robot using advanced materials such as aeronautical alloy s and composites. A more-down-to earth approach to broadening the customer b ase is in evidence at GMFanuc, the US/Japanese concern which is the world's second biggest supplier. The jean-spraying robot, developed in the US and no w available in the UK, offers a high return on investment with a payback of less than a year, says Mike Wilson, the UK sales and marketing manager. Robo tics are also in their infancy in the European food industry, partly because it has hitherto been difficult to turn a hose on to a robot to clean it wit hout ruining its electrical circuits. In January, GMFanuc launched its 'Wash down' robot to conform to the strict hygiene requirements of the food indust ry and withstand all the chemical substances likely to be used in washdown o r wipedown procedures. In the European electronics industry, robots are more frequent but applications are still developing. Data Packaging, an Irish su pplier of plastic moulded components for the computer industry, recently ins talled an ABB Robotics painting cell to handle metallic paints used to provi de an attractive finish, and assist in electrical shielding, on parts for th e Apple Macintosh. Metallic paints are hard to handle because they block sup ply lines if not kept flowing continuously. The ABB system programs the robo t to fire the spray gun if the system lays dormant for a given length of tim e. Advances such as these are often based on techniques originally developed for the automotive industry, which is not being neglected in suppliers' has te to exploit other markets. A number of fairly recent technologies have rel evance to the use of robots in automotive and non-automotive fields. Laser w elding, says Wilson, is attracting interest in a number of industries, inclu ding aerospace, because of its precision and speed. Unlike conventional spot welding, the robot does not have to reach both sides of the part to be weld ed. Another emerging technology, especially when combined with robotics, is water-jet cutting, which is likely to become increasingly important for cutt ing plastics quickly and cleanly. It is already being used in the automotive industry for cutting carpets, door panels and instrument panels. In both ar eas robot suppliers are forming partnerships with companies which have devel oped the technologies so that they can exploit the opportunities quicker. Co mau has a co-operation agreement with Trumpf, the German machine tool builde r best-known for its laser-cutting machines, while last year ABB Robotics fo rmed a joint venture with Ingersoll-Rand of the US to develop and market a r obotised water-jet cutting system in Europe. The search for a broader Europe an customer base coincides with a much more price-conscious attitude over th e past two to three years among customers, due as much to general business c onditions as to scepticism about the early claims made by robot suppliers. S uppliers are rationalising their product ranges to give customers what they want and no more, but using developments in control systems to increase the applications available from each model. These conditions give advantages and disadvantages in more or less equal measure to European suppliers and Japan ese/US importers, which control one third of the market. Demark and Mattucci strongly believe that the European suppliers benefit from a approach based on solutions rather than products. 'The Japanese do not have the solutions f or European needs,' says Mattucci flatly. This is a view strongly disputed b y the Japanese producers, but in a price-sensitive market the the Japanese d o have the advantage of size - investment in control systems, in particular, can be spread over a bigger sales base. Ultimately, though, all the robot s uppliers could benefit if they can persuade more European companies of the b enefits of robots. And that is likely to be a gradual process where technolo gy is only one factor in the equation. The Financial Times London Page 18 ============= Transaction # 80 ============================================== Transaction #: 80 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:49:45 Selec. Rec. #: 2 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT922-4414 _AN-CFEA9AEEFT 9206 05 FT 05 JUN 92 / Survey of Vehicle Manufacturing Techno logy (6): Machines are now used for tasks beyond spot welding - Robots By ANDREW BAXTER ROBOTS have become an e stablished part of the vehicle manufacturing scene over the past 15 years. T he motor industry accounts for as much as 40 per cent of the 450,000 install ed industrial robots worldwide but their use is changing and applications ar e expanding. The traditional picture of long lines of robots each making bil lions of spot welds on car bodies in a working life of eight to 10 years is still true, but only half the story. Those same welding robots are as likely to be grouped in flexible manufacturing cells and capable of handling a wid e range of models in quick succession. At the same time, smaller robots are increasingly being used in engine assembly, where their ability to do qualit y, repetitive work with a precision of 1/100th of a millimetre is much in de mand. Robots are being used in final assembly work and paint spraying, and s uppliers hope to be able to develop these markets now that the technology ha s been proven. There is an emerging trend for robots to be used in automotiv e sub-contracting, prompted by the vehicle manufacturers' need to be as conf ident in the consistency and quality of out-sourced components as for their own work. The shorter lives of car models, prompted by increased competition in the industry and the Japanese producers' early efforts to reduce product development times, are changing the use and design of robots. The tradition al practice of replacing a robot after two model cycles may have been approp riate when each car model was lasting six to eight years. But with model liv es reduced to three to four years, users want to keep their robots for furth er models, and thus want increased flexibility, according to Dr Axel Gerhard t, a senior board member at the holding company for Kuka, Germany's largest robot supplier. Many of the latest trends in the use of robotics originated in Japan where labour shortages have spurred much greater penetration of rob ots into industry overall compared with Europe and the US. But robot supplie rs such as ABB Robotics, the largest in Europe, believe the European automot ive industry is as enthusiastic a user of robotic automation as its Japanese counterpart. However, some of the more recent applications of robots are le ss prevalent in Europe, giving an opportunity to suppliers if they can convi nce producers of the economic benefits. There are national variations too: t he UK is a long way behind the US and the rest of Europe in the use of robot s in the paint shop, says Mr Mike Wilson, UK sales and marketing director at GMFanuc Robotics. The versatility of modern industrial robots for tasks tha t go beyond spot welding is illustrated by Kuka's involvement in final assem bly of the Citroen XM. Following painting, robots dismount the doors and tai lgate, with the aid of sensors, for completion on separate trim lines; the c ockpit is picked up by robot from an automatic guided vehicle, inserted thro ugh the door and then bolted to the body by a second robot. Robots are used for applying the adhesive sealants and for fitting the glass exactly into th e body aperture with the aid of ultrasonic scanners; seats are inserted by r obot after measuring the exact position of the body by means of tactile sens ors, wheels are mounted and doors and tailgate refitted. Some of these tasks are difficult for robots because of the nature of final assembly. Robots ar e having to operate in a less structured environment, says Mr Wilson, and de al with less defined objects such as seats. Another problem, at least outsid e Japan, is that labour is available and costs less than in skilled manufact uring areas. So robot suppliers have to find applications that create added value, says Mr Stelio Demark, head of ABB Robotics. There are still opportun ities for greater use of robots further up the production line. Relatively n ew processes such as laser-cutting and water-jet cutting are likely to becom e more prevalent, in association with robots, especially for working with pl astics and new advanced composites. Mr Demark sees a substantial increase in automated arc-welding in the automotive industry and sub-suppliers. And Com au, the Italian robotics and systems group, expects some interesting investm ents in the body area, prompted by the increased need for new models, accord ing to Mr Massimo Mattucci, vice-president for engineering and marketing. In paint spraying, says Mr Demark, robots have hardly scratched the surface. L ast year, ABB strengthened its position in the robotic painting market with the acquisition of Graco in the US, but GMFanuc, a US/Japanese concern, and Behr of Germany have strong positions. The flexibility of robots to handle m odel changes will be the key to their further implementation in the car body area. In engine and transmission production, robots are becoming better est ablished, and Mr Mattucci suggests a new generation of engines prompted by t ougher environmental regulations could be the spur to further investment in robots. However, an increasing portion of business for robot suppliers seems likely to come from refurbishment of existing robots rather than new purcha ses as customers seek maximum value from their manufacturing investments. In the past three or four years, this has been a growing trend of robot refitt ing and modification in the motor industry, carried out during model changeo vers and restoring robots to previous levels of accuracy and productivity. < /TEXT> The Financial Times London Page III ============= Transaction # 81 ============================================== Transaction #: 81 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:49:51 Selec. Rec. #: 2 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT922-4414 _AN-CFEA9AEEFT 9206 05 FT 05 JUN 92 / Survey of Vehicle Manufacturing Techno logy (6): Machines are now used for tasks beyond spot welding - Robots By ANDREW BAXTER ROBOTS have become an e stablished part of the vehicle manufacturing scene over the past 15 years. T he motor industry accounts for as much as 40 per cent of the 450,000 install ed industrial robots worldwide but their use is changing and applications ar e expanding. The traditional picture of long lines of robots each making bil lions of spot welds on car bodies in a working life of eight to 10 years is still true, but only half the story. Those same welding robots are as likely to be grouped in flexible manufacturing cells and capable of handling a wid e range of models in quick succession. At the same time, smaller robots are increasingly being used in engine assembly, where their ability to do qualit y, repetitive work with a precision of 1/100th of a millimetre is much in de mand. Robots are being used in final assembly work and paint spraying, and s uppliers hope to be able to develop these markets now that the technology ha s been proven. There is an emerging trend for robots to be used in automotiv e sub-contracting, prompted by the vehicle manufacturers' need to be as conf ident in the consistency and quality of out-sourced components as for their own work. The shorter lives of car models, prompted by increased competition in the industry and the Japanese producers' early efforts to reduce product development times, are changing the use and design of robots. The tradition al practice of replacing a robot after two model cycles may have been approp riate when each car model was lasting six to eight years. But with model liv es reduced to three to four years, users want to keep their robots for furth er models, and thus want increased flexibility, according to Dr Axel Gerhard t, a senior board member at the holding company for Kuka, Germany's largest robot supplier. Many of the latest trends in the use of robotics originated in Japan where labour shortages have spurred much greater penetration of rob ots into industry overall compared with Europe and the US. But robot supplie rs such as ABB Robotics, the largest in Europe, believe the European automot ive industry is as enthusiastic a user of robotic automation as its Japanese counterpart. However, some of the more recent applications of robots are le ss prevalent in Europe, giving an opportunity to suppliers if they can convi nce producers of the economic benefits. There are national variations too: t he UK is a long way behind the US and the rest of Europe in the use of robot s in the paint shop, says Mr Mike Wilson, UK sales and marketing director at GMFanuc Robotics. The versatility of modern industrial robots for tasks tha t go beyond spot welding is illustrated by Kuka's involvement in final assem bly of the Citroen XM. Following painting, robots dismount the doors and tai lgate, with the aid of sensors, for completion on separate trim lines; the c ockpit is picked up by robot from an automatic guided vehicle, inserted thro ugh the door and then bolted to the body by a second robot. Robots are used for applying the adhesive sealants and for fitting the glass exactly into th e body aperture with the aid of ultrasonic scanners; seats are inserted by r obot after measuring the exact position of the body by means of tactile sens ors, wheels are mounted and doors and tailgate refitted. Some of these tasks are difficult for robots because of the nature of final assembly. Robots ar e having to operate in a less structured environment, says Mr Wilson, and de al with less defined objects such as seats. Another problem, at least outsid e Japan, is that labour is available and costs less than in skilled manufact uring areas. So robot suppliers have to find applications that create added value, says Mr Stelio Demark, head of ABB Robotics. There are still opportun ities for greater use of robots further up the production line. Relatively n ew processes such as laser-cutting and water-jet cutting are likely to becom e more prevalent, in association with robots, especially for working with pl astics and new advanced composites. Mr Demark sees a substantial increase in automated arc-welding in the automotive industry and sub-suppliers. And Com au, the Italian robotics and systems group, expects some interesting investm ents in the body area, prompted by the increased need for new models, accord ing to Mr Massimo Mattucci, vice-president for engineering and marketing. In paint spraying, says Mr Demark, robots have hardly scratched the surface. L ast year, ABB strengthened its position in the robotic painting market with the acquisition of Graco in the US, but GMFanuc, a US/Japanese concern, and Behr of Germany have strong positions. The flexibility of robots to handle m odel changes will be the key to their further implementation in the car body area. In engine and transmission production, robots are becoming better est ablished, and Mr Mattucci suggests a new generation of engines prompted by t ougher environmental regulations could be the spur to further investment in robots. However, an increasing portion of business for robot suppliers seems likely to come from refurbishment of existing robots rather than new purcha ses as customers seek maximum value from their manufacturing investments. In the past three or four years, this has been a growing trend of robot refitt ing and modification in the motor industry, carried out during model changeo vers and restoring robots to previous levels of accuracy and productivity. < /TEXT> The Financial Times London Page III ============= Transaction # 82 ============================================== Transaction #: 82 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:50:01 Selec. Rec. #: 3 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT933-4691 _AN-DIHB8ABGFT 9309 08 FT 08 SEP 93 / World Trade News: ABB robots deal with GM Europe By ANDREW BAXTER ABB Rob otics, part of Asea Brown Boveri, has won a 'breakthrough' order worth nearl y Dollars 20m to supply more than 200 industrial robots to General Motors Eu rope. The deal is ABB Robotics' first European order from GM, which has prev iously bought most of its robots from its former joint venture company, GMFa nuc Robotics. Last year, however, GM sold its 50 per cent stake in GMFanuc t o its partner, Fanuc of Japan, as part of its strategy to concentrate on its core business of vehicle production. The robots are part of substantial inv estments by GM at its plants in Belgium, Germany, Sweden and the UK. At leas t 120 of the robots ABB is supplying will go to the Vauxhall Motors plant in Luton. Most of the robots will be delivered next year, and will be mainly u sed for spot welding. ABB Robotics said the performance and cost efficiency of its product line were key factors in winning the order against fierce Jap anese competition. ABB Robotics' and the renamed Fanuc Robotics are the two biggest suppliers of robots to European industry. Over the past decade, the automotive industry has been the largest customer for industrial robots. It remains important to the robot industry even if growth opportunities are hig her in less robotised industrial sectors such as the food industry. Companies:- ABB Robotics. Countries:- BE Z Belgium, EC. DEZ Germany, EC. SEZ Sweden, West Europe. GBZ United Kingdom, EC. Industries:- P3569 General Industr ial Machinery, NEC. Types:- MKTS Contracts. The Financial Times London Page 7 ============= Transaction # 83 ============================================== Transaction #: 83 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:50:06 Selec. Rec. #: 4 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT944-18195 _AN-EJED5AA3FT 941 005 FT 05 OCT 94 / Industrial robots 'set to soar by one third': Potential for expansion enormous, says report By FRANCES WILLIAMS GENEVA The world's industrial robot population is forecast to soar by more than a thir d over the four years to 1997, according to a report published by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and the International Federation of Robotics yesterday.* The report, the first in an annual series, says sagging growth in robot investment bottomed out in 1993 and numbers are set to jump from 610,000 at the end of last year to more than 830,000 by the end of 199 7. Annual sales are predicted to rise from about 54,000 units in 1993 to mor e than 103,000 units in 1997. Japan accounts for more than half the world's robot stock, equivalent to 325 robots for every 10,000 manufacturing workers . It is followed by Singapore (109), Sweden (73), Italy (70) and Germany (62 ). Use of robots is most widespread in the motor vehicle industry, which acc ounts for between a third and more than one-half of robots in use in countri es such as France, Poland, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan and Britain. Tho ugh Japan now has the highest number of robots in the electrical and electro nic industry, it remains the world leader by far in the use of robots for ve hicle manufacture. In the transport equipment sector, which includes motor v ehicles, Japan has 1,000 robots for every 10,000 workers, compared with 167 in Sweden, 110 in France and 63 in Britain. In most countries, especially th ose with big motor vehicle industries, robots are used most frequently for w elding. But in some countries machining is the most common application. In J apan 40 per cent of the robot stock is used for assembly, reflecting the lar ge-scale use of robots in the electronic sector. The potential for expansion of robotics is enormous. Numbers would explode if other industrialised coun tries were to reach Japan's robot densities and if industry in general were to reach only half the robot density of the motor vehicle sector. If all ind ustries in France and Britain had half as many robots as the motor industry in these countries, the robot stock would more than double. If it reached ha lf the density of the Japanese motor vehicle industry, it would increase mor e than 20-fold. *World Industrial Robots 1994: Statistics 1983-93 and foreca sts to 1997. Sales No. GV. E94.0.24, UN Sales section, Palais des Nations, C H-1211 Geneva 10, Dollars 120. Countries:- CHZ Switz erland, West Europe. Industries:- P3569 General Industr ial Machinery, NEC. P3548 Welding Apparatus. Types:- MKTS Market shares. CMMT Comment & Analysis. The Financia l Times London Page 4 ============= Transaction # 84 ============================================== Transaction #: 84 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:50:21 Selec. Rec. #: 5 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT933-2950 _AN-DIPCOAC9FT 9309 16 FT 16 SEP 93 / Technology: A robot that makes the cof fee By VICTORIA GRIFFITH Science fi ction often features machines which respond obediently to orders barked out by humans. In the imaginary world, robots fetch slippers, cook dinner and pe rform the role of high-technology 'slaves'. A robot which can perform comple x tasks still exists only in the realm of dreams, but scientists say we may not be far from the day when we can wake up, shout out 'Temperature 72`F] Co ffee-maker on] Toaster on]' and get up 15 minutes later to a warm house, fre sh coffee and breakfast. What might make this dream reality is the developme nt of 'voice-recognition' technology, which enables machines to understand s poken commands. Bringing voice-activated devices to the mass market is the m ission of Voice Powered Technology. The group already produces a VCR program mer which operates by voice command, and will launch another speech-activate d device, a 'date-reminder', in the autumn. Just how many people will prefer to use their voice instead of their fingers in operating home appliances is not yet certain, but the new VCR programmer has caught the attention of Phi lips Consumer Electronics. The US subsidiary of the Dutch electronics giant has contracted with Voice Powered Technology to use the voice-activated prog ramming device in two of its Magnavox VCR models, and as a stand-alone remot e control accessory. 'An overwhelming number of consumers still have trouble programming their VCRs,' says Jim Newbrough, vice-president of marketing at Philips, 'and the use of voice enables us to differentiate our products.' T he VCR programmer prompts the user by flashing questions on the television s creen. In response to the question 'Which?', for instance, the user would sa y a number. The user can also make the programmer skip over commercials in a recording by saying 'Zap it]' The 'date-reminder' device, which will come o ut this autumn, works in the following manner: the user says a phrase such a s 'Don't forget to call John Doe, Monday at 9.00 am'. The date-reminder reco gnises the words Monday and 9.00 am, and records the rest of the message. On Monday at nine, the machine will beep and spit out the recording. The techn ology used in these devices is relatively simple. The video programmer, for instance, has a vocabulary of just 31 words. Both are operated by an eight-b it microprocessor, instead of the heavy digital signal processor that most v oice-recognition technology relies on. 'This enabled us to offer the product as a battery-operated device,' says Jerry Gutterman, of Voice Powered Techn ology. The group hopes the simplicity of its technology will allow it to be applied to a number of domestic appliances. 'We are taking voice-recognition to the masses,' says Gutterman, 'and this technology can be applied to a nu mber of products, including CD players, coffee machines and microwaves.' The day a machine can be commanded to cook a meal may not be so far off, after all. Countries:- USZ United States of America. Industries:- P3569 General Industrial Machinery, NEC. Types:- TECH Products & Product use. CMMT Comment & Ana lysis. The Financial Times London Page 24 < /DOC> ============= Transaction # 85 ============================================== Transaction #: 85 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:50:25 Selec. Rec. #: 5 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT933-2950 _AN-DIPCOAC9FT 9309 16 FT 16 SEP 93 / Technology: A robot that makes the cof fee By VICTORIA GRIFFITH Science fi ction often features machines which respond obediently to orders barked out by humans. In the imaginary world, robots fetch slippers, cook dinner and pe rform the role of high-technology 'slaves'. A robot which can perform comple x tasks still exists only in the realm of dreams, but scientists say we may not be far from the day when we can wake up, shout out 'Temperature 72`F] Co ffee-maker on] Toaster on]' and get up 15 minutes later to a warm house, fre sh coffee and breakfast. What might make this dream reality is the developme nt of 'voice-recognition' technology, which enables machines to understand s poken commands. Bringing voice-activated devices to the mass market is the m ission of Voice Powered Technology. The group already produces a VCR program mer which operates by voice command, and will launch another speech-activate d device, a 'date-reminder', in the autumn. Just how many people will prefer to use their voice instead of their fingers in operating home appliances is not yet certain, but the new VCR programmer has caught the attention of Phi lips Consumer Electronics. The US subsidiary of the Dutch electronics giant has contracted with Voice Powered Technology to use the voice-activated prog ramming device in two of its Magnavox VCR models, and as a stand-alone remot e control accessory. 'An overwhelming number of consumers still have trouble programming their VCRs,' says Jim Newbrough, vice-president of marketing at Philips, 'and the use of voice enables us to differentiate our products.' T he VCR programmer prompts the user by flashing questions on the television s creen. In response to the question 'Which?', for instance, the user would sa y a number. The user can also make the programmer skip over commercials in a recording by saying 'Zap it]' The 'date-reminder' device, which will come o ut this autumn, works in the following manner: the user says a phrase such a s 'Don't forget to call John Doe, Monday at 9.00 am'. The date-reminder reco gnises the words Monday and 9.00 am, and records the rest of the message. On Monday at nine, the machine will beep and spit out the recording. The techn ology used in these devices is relatively simple. The video programmer, for instance, has a vocabulary of just 31 words. Both are operated by an eight-b it microprocessor, instead of the heavy digital signal processor that most v oice-recognition technology relies on. 'This enabled us to offer the product as a battery-operated device,' says Jerry Gutterman, of Voice Powered Techn ology. The group hopes the simplicity of its technology will allow it to be applied to a number of domestic appliances. 'We are taking voice-recognition to the masses,' says Gutterman, 'and this technology can be applied to a nu mber of products, including CD players, coffee machines and microwaves.' The day a machine can be commanded to cook a meal may not be so far off, after all. Countries:- USZ United States of America. Industries:- P3569 General Industrial Machinery, NEC. Types:- TECH Products & Product use. CMMT Comment & Ana lysis. The Financial Times London Page 24 < /DOC> ============= Transaction # 86 ============================================== Transaction #: 86 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:50:27 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT922-9444 _AN-CEGBFAFXFT 9205 07 FT 07 MAY 92 / Technology: Androids on the march - Af ter years on the breadline, modern robots are finding gainful employment in Europe By ANDREW BAXTER In the US f ashion industry they call it 'localised abrasion' - the pre-worn look for de nim jeans produced by applying potassium permanganate solution to the knee, thigh and seat areas. The faded effect has traditionally been achieved throu gh manual spraying, but consistency and quality control have been hard to ac hieve. Now GMFanuc Robotics has perfected a robotic solution that is three t imes faster than manual spraying, can reproduce a spray pattern to an accura cy of 0.03 inch, and can be programmed easily to handle a wide range of garm ents. The system is a relatively simple example of recent trends in the indu strial robotics industry, which is trying to reduce its dependence on compar atively mature automotive markets and find new applications elsewhere. It is a trend that is particularly important for robot suppliers in the European market, where the overall penetration of robots into industry is much lower than in Japan, and where a potentially huge market for non-automotive applic ations remains untapped. According to Massimo Mattucci, vice president for e ngineering and marketing at Comau of Italy, around 50 per cent of industrial robots installed in Europe are in use in the automotive industry and 20 per cent in electronics -the reverse of the situation in Japan. 'The automotiv e industry has more or less understood the potential of robots,' says Stelio Demark, head of ABB Robotics, Europe's largest producer, although he stress es, along with other robot industry executives, the potential of robots in t he paint-spraying and final assembly area of European vehicle manufacturing. The inherent flexibility of modern robots, and the advances made in control systems and mechanics that have increased their speed and reliability, ough t to increase their suitability for small-batch manufacturing in Europe, whe re model changes are frequent. Demark sees new opportunities for robots emer ging in the European food, packaging, pharmaceutical and white goods industr ies. But the pace at which European industry accepts robots will depend part ly on suppliers' ability to counter the mistrust caused by the hype of the 1 970s and early 1980s, when the robot industry appeared to be carried away by euphoria over business prospects. There are other obstacles, too, for suppl iers to surmount. In Japan, one of the driving forces behind the growth in t he industrial robot population to 274,210 in 1990 - nearly 10 times the popu lation in the former West Germany -has been labour shortages. 'Everything h as to come back to economic considerations,' says Axel Gerhardt, an executiv e board member of IWKA, the holding company for Kuka, Germany's largest robo t supplier. 'In Europe robots are used where it is economical to do so. In J apan the question is often whether to produce with a robot or not to produce there at all.' Mistakes have also been made in the installation of robots, for which the suppliers and customers have to share the blame. 'People have tended to put in a robot, then have an operator standing by watching,' says Demark. 'This is a half-way house that I wouldn't recommend.' Increasingly, robot suppliers are realising that if they are to make inroads into the smal l- and medium-sized businesses that still dominate European industry - espec ially outside the automotive sector - they have to understand better the cu stomer's needs and worries. 'You have to enter into an economic calculation with the customer and demonstrate the ability to find a solution,' says Matt ucci. That could mean being paid only for a feasibility study that comes dow n against the use of robots. But in the long run this approach makes more se nse for an industry that wants to broaden its customer base and maintain its reputation. Comau, which sells most of its robots as part of an integrated automation package, is around 90 per cent dependent on the vehicle industry. Mattucci wants to expand the remaining 10 per cent of the business to 30 pe r cent over the next five years by exploiting the group's strengths in robot ics for body-welding, mechanical assembly and difficult handling operations. The Italian company's most ambitious step away from the automotive sector i s its involvement in the Columbus Automation and robotics Testbed (Cat) prog ramme financed by the European Space Agency. The ground testbed for the auto mation and robotics on board the projected Columbus Space Station will incor porate a new Comau robot using advanced materials such as aeronautical alloy s and composites. A more-down-to earth approach to broadening the customer b ase is in evidence at GMFanuc, the US/Japanese concern which is the world's second biggest supplier. The jean-spraying robot, developed in the US and no w available in the UK, offers a high return on investment with a payback of less than a year, says Mike Wilson, the UK sales and marketing manager. Robo tics are also in their infancy in the European food industry, partly because it has hitherto been difficult to turn a hose on to a robot to clean it wit hout ruining its electrical circuits. In January, GMFanuc launched its 'Wash down' robot to conform to the strict hygiene requirements of the food indust ry and withstand all the chemical substances likely to be used in washdown o r wipedown procedures. In the European electronics industry, robots are more frequent but applications are still developing. Data Packaging, an Irish su pplier of plastic moulded components for the computer industry, recently ins talled an ABB Robotics painting cell to handle metallic paints used to provi de an attractive finish, and assist in electrical shielding, on parts for th e Apple Macintosh. Metallic paints are hard to handle because they block sup ply lines if not kept flowing continuously. The ABB system programs the robo t to fire the spray gun if the system lays dormant for a given length of tim e. Advances such as these are often based on techniques originally developed for the automotive industry, which is not being neglected in suppliers' has te to exploit other markets. A number of fairly recent technologies have rel evance to the use of robots in automotive and non-automotive fields. Laser w elding, says Wilson, is attracting interest in a number of industries, inclu ding aerospace, because of its precision and speed. Unlike conventional spot welding, the robot does not have to reach both sides of the part to be weld ed. Another emerging technology, especially when combined with robotics, is water-jet cutting, which is likely to become increasingly important for cutt ing plastics quickly and cleanly. It is already being used in the automotive industry for cutting carpets, door panels and instrument panels. In both ar eas robot suppliers are forming partnerships with companies which have devel oped the technologies so that they can exploit the opportunities quicker. Co mau has a co-operation agreement with Trumpf, the German machine tool builde r best-known for its laser-cutting machines, while last year ABB Robotics fo rmed a joint venture with Ingersoll-Rand of the US to develop and market a r obotised water-jet cutting system in Europe. The search for a broader Europe an customer base coincides with a much more price-conscious attitude over th e past two to three years among customers, due as much to general business c onditions as to scepticism about the early claims made by robot suppliers. S uppliers are rationalising their product ranges to give customers what they want and no more, but using developments in control systems to increase the applications available from each model. These conditions give advantages and disadvantages in more or less equal measure to European suppliers and Japan ese/US importers, which control one third of the market. Demark and Mattucci strongly believe that the European suppliers benefit from a approach based on solutions rather than products. 'The Japanese do not have the solutions f or European needs,' says Mattucci flatly. This is a view strongly disputed b y the Japanese producers, but in a price-sensitive market the the Japanese d o have the advantage of size - investment in control systems, in particular, can be spread over a bigger sales base. Ultimately, though, all the robot s uppliers could benefit if they can persuade more European companies of the b enefits of robots. And that is likely to be a gradual process where technolo gy is only one factor in the equation. The Financial Times London Page 18 ============= Transaction # 87 ============================================== Transaction #: 87 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:50:27 Selec. Rec. #: 2 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT922-4414 _AN-CFEA9AEEFT 9206 05 FT 05 JUN 92 / Survey of Vehicle Manufacturing Techno logy (6): Machines are now used for tasks beyond spot welding - Robots By ANDREW BAXTER ROBOTS have become an e stablished part of the vehicle manufacturing scene over the past 15 years. T he motor industry accounts for as much as 40 per cent of the 450,000 install ed industrial robots worldwide but their use is changing and applications ar e expanding. The traditional picture of long lines of robots each making bil lions of spot welds on car bodies in a working life of eight to 10 years is still true, but only half the story. Those same welding robots are as likely to be grouped in flexible manufacturing cells and capable of handling a wid e range of models in quick succession. At the same time, smaller robots are increasingly being used in engine assembly, where their ability to do qualit y, repetitive work with a precision of 1/100th of a millimetre is much in de mand. Robots are being used in final assembly work and paint spraying, and s uppliers hope to be able to develop these markets now that the technology ha s been proven. There is an emerging trend for robots to be used in automotiv e sub-contracting, prompted by the vehicle manufacturers' need to be as conf ident in the consistency and quality of out-sourced components as for their own work. The shorter lives of car models, prompted by increased competition in the industry and the Japanese producers' early efforts to reduce product development times, are changing the use and design of robots. The tradition al practice of replacing a robot after two model cycles may have been approp riate when each car model was lasting six to eight years. But with model liv es reduced to three to four years, users want to keep their robots for furth er models, and thus want increased flexibility, according to Dr Axel Gerhard t, a senior board member at the holding company for Kuka, Germany's largest robot supplier. Many of the latest trends in the use of robotics originated in Japan where labour shortages have spurred much greater penetration of rob ots into industry overall compared with Europe and the US. But robot supplie rs such as ABB Robotics, the largest in Europe, believe the European automot ive industry is as enthusiastic a user of robotic automation as its Japanese counterpart. However, some of the more recent applications of robots are le ss prevalent in Europe, giving an opportunity to suppliers if they can convi nce producers of the economic benefits. There are national variations too: t he UK is a long way behind the US and the rest of Europe in the use of robot s in the paint shop, says Mr Mike Wilson, UK sales and marketing director at GMFanuc Robotics. The versatility of modern industrial robots for tasks tha t go beyond spot welding is illustrated by Kuka's involvement in final assem bly of the Citroen XM. Following painting, robots dismount the doors and tai lgate, with the aid of sensors, for completion on separate trim lines; the c ockpit is picked up by robot from an automatic guided vehicle, inserted thro ugh the door and then bolted to the body by a second robot. Robots are used for applying the adhesive sealants and for fitting the glass exactly into th e body aperture with the aid of ultrasonic scanners; seats are inserted by r obot after measuring the exact position of the body by means of tactile sens ors, wheels are mounted and doors and tailgate refitted. Some of these tasks are difficult for robots because of the nature of final assembly. Robots ar e having to operate in a less structured environment, says Mr Wilson, and de al with less defined objects such as seats. Another problem, at least outsid e Japan, is that labour is available and costs less than in skilled manufact uring areas. So robot suppliers have to find applications that create added value, says Mr Stelio Demark, head of ABB Robotics. There are still opportun ities for greater use of robots further up the production line. Relatively n ew processes such as laser-cutting and water-jet cutting are likely to becom e more prevalent, in association with robots, especially for working with pl astics and new advanced composites. Mr Demark sees a substantial increase in automated arc-welding in the automotive industry and sub-suppliers. And Com au, the Italian robotics and systems group, expects some interesting investm ents in the body area, prompted by the increased need for new models, accord ing to Mr Massimo Mattucci, vice-president for engineering and marketing. In paint spraying, says Mr Demark, robots have hardly scratched the surface. L ast year, ABB strengthened its position in the robotic painting market with the acquisition of Graco in the US, but GMFanuc, a US/Japanese concern, and Behr of Germany have strong positions. The flexibility of robots to handle m odel changes will be the key to their further implementation in the car body area. In engine and transmission production, robots are becoming better est ablished, and Mr Mattucci suggests a new generation of engines prompted by t ougher environmental regulations could be the spur to further investment in robots. However, an increasing portion of business for robot suppliers seems likely to come from refurbishment of existing robots rather than new purcha ses as customers seek maximum value from their manufacturing investments. In the past three or four years, this has been a growing trend of robot refitt ing and modification in the motor industry, carried out during model changeo vers and restoring robots to previous levels of accuracy and productivity. < /TEXT> The Financial Times London Page III ============= Transaction # 88 ============================================== Transaction #: 88 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:50:27 Selec. Rec. #: 5 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT933-2950 _AN-DIPCOAC9FT 9309 16 FT 16 SEP 93 / Technology: A robot that makes the cof fee By VICTORIA GRIFFITH Science fi ction often features machines which respond obediently to orders barked out by humans. In the imaginary world, robots fetch slippers, cook dinner and pe rform the role of high-technology 'slaves'. A robot which can perform comple x tasks still exists only in the realm of dreams, but scientists say we may not be far from the day when we can wake up, shout out 'Temperature 72`F] Co ffee-maker on] Toaster on]' and get up 15 minutes later to a warm house, fre sh coffee and breakfast. What might make this dream reality is the developme nt of 'voice-recognition' technology, which enables machines to understand s poken commands. Bringing voice-activated devices to the mass market is the m ission of Voice Powered Technology. The group already produces a VCR program mer which operates by voice command, and will launch another speech-activate d device, a 'date-reminder', in the autumn. Just how many people will prefer to use their voice instead of their fingers in operating home appliances is not yet certain, but the new VCR programmer has caught the attention of Phi lips Consumer Electronics. The US subsidiary of the Dutch electronics giant has contracted with Voice Powered Technology to use the voice-activated prog ramming device in two of its Magnavox VCR models, and as a stand-alone remot e control accessory. 'An overwhelming number of consumers still have trouble programming their VCRs,' says Jim Newbrough, vice-president of marketing at Philips, 'and the use of voice enables us to differentiate our products.' T he VCR programmer prompts the user by flashing questions on the television s creen. In response to the question 'Which?', for instance, the user would sa y a number. The user can also make the programmer skip over commercials in a recording by saying 'Zap it]' The 'date-reminder' device, which will come o ut this autumn, works in the following manner: the user says a phrase such a s 'Don't forget to call John Doe, Monday at 9.00 am'. The date-reminder reco gnises the words Monday and 9.00 am, and records the rest of the message. On Monday at nine, the machine will beep and spit out the recording. The techn ology used in these devices is relatively simple. The video programmer, for instance, has a vocabulary of just 31 words. Both are operated by an eight-b it microprocessor, instead of the heavy digital signal processor that most v oice-recognition technology relies on. 'This enabled us to offer the product as a battery-operated device,' says Jerry Gutterman, of Voice Powered Techn ology. The group hopes the simplicity of its technology will allow it to be applied to a number of domestic appliances. 'We are taking voice-recognition to the masses,' says Gutterman, 'and this technology can be applied to a nu mber of products, including CD players, coffee machines and microwaves.' The day a machine can be commanded to cook a meal may not be so far off, after all. Countries:- USZ United States of America. Industries:- P3569 General Industrial Machinery, NEC. Types:- TECH Products & Product use. CMMT Comment & Ana lysis. The Financial Times London Page 24 < /DOC> ============= Transaction # 89 ============================================== Transaction #: 89 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:50:34 Selec. Rec. #: 6 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT924-12704 _AN-CJTB8ABAFT 921 020 FT 20 OCT 92 / Technology: Fewer jobs in the high-te ch sector - Technically Speaking By LOUISE KEHOE High-technology industries are frequently called an 'engine fo r economic growth'. Many have mistakenly taken this to mean that growth in h igh-technology industries will lead to rising employment, offsetting the dec lines in 'maturing' industries. Yet recent trends in the electronics and com puter sectors raise serious questions about the presumption that technology will continue to create new jobs. Just this month Compaq Computer cut its wo rkforce, in the US and Scotland, by 1,000 people and Hewlett-Packard announc ed plans to reduce employment by 2,700 over the next few months. Apple Compu ter is closing a California plant with the loss of 345 jobs. Amdahl is cutti ng back by 900, and at Cray Research 650 employees must go. All this comes a gainst the backdrop of 'downsizing' at IBM, which expects to reduce its work force by 40,000 this year, and at Digital Equipment which is cutting 28,000 jobs. US information-technology industries, far from representing a source o f jobs growth, have become significant contributors to rising unemployment. In the US alone, employment in electronics industries has declined by about 10 per cent, or 265,000 jobs, over the past three years, according to data c ompiled by the American Electronics Association (AEA), a US industry trade g roup. 'It is rapidly becoming apparent that this pattern (of declining emplo yment) is not of short-term duration and not wholly the result of the recent recessionary period,' Richard Iverson, AEA president and chief executive, h as concluded. The AEA and several other industry groups have laid the blame for US job losses on Japan. 'Although the world market for electronics produ cts and services has been expanding, our share of that pie has been shrinkin g dramatically,' Iverson says. Others have defined the problem in terms of d eclining international competitiveness, suggesting that the US and European electronics manufacturers are falling behind those of Japan and other Asian countries. However, it is becoming increasingly evident that there is an und erlying trend towards lower employment in high-technology industries that ha s little to do with either global competitiveness or 'closed' markets. Put s imply, it takes fewer people to develop, build and sell a computer or a chip or a piece of communications equipment today than it did a few years ago. H ewlett-Packard, for example, has increased its revenue per worker by about 5 0 per cent over the past four years. Other high-tech companies are making, o r striving to make, similar strides in worker productivity. Even at companie s that are increasing their share of the world market the workforce is shrin king. High-technology industries are becoming highly automated industries. C omputer designers rely increasingly upon computer-aided design systems. Fact ories that produce semiconductor chips, disk drives and computers are full o f robots. PCs are sold over the telephone in minutes. The pace of automation in high-technology industries is currently outstripping market growth. More importantly, few within the industry anticipate a reversal of this trend, e ven when general economic conditions improve. The drive to raise productivit y and thus international competitiveness in high-technology industries is ac celerating the trend toward lower employment, rather than alleviating it. Do es this mean that governments should no longer support efforts to boost tech nology leadership? On the contrary, while high-technology industries may no longer be as fertile a source of new jobs in the 1990s as they were in the 1 980s, the computers and robots and communications equipment that high-tech c ompanies build have become the essential work tools of all types of enterpri se. This makes technology leadership vital to international industrial compe titiveness. The Financial Times London Page 18 ============= Transaction # 90 ============================================== Transaction #: 90 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 13:50:59 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 4 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(topic @ {recent robotic technology 98})" ============= Transaction # 91 ============================================== Transaction #: 91 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:51:07 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 52130 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 92 ============================================== Transaction #: 92 Transaction Code: 23 (Saved Recs. Viewed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:51:11 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 93 ============================================== Transaction #: 93 Transaction Code: 24 (Saved Recs. Win. iconized) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:51:28 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 94 ============================================== Transaction #: 94 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:51:51 Selec. Rec. #: 8 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT941-15546 _AN-EANDNADMFT 940 114 FT 14 JAN 94 / Technology (Worth Watching): Robots g et their marching orders By ANDREW FISHER Robots are on the march. In the US, Frost & Sullivan Market Intellige nce forecasts that the robot market will double from Dollars 592m (Pounds 40 0m) in 1992 to Dollars 1.2bn by 1999. Pushing this expansion of nearly 11 pe r cent compound growth a year will be competitive pressures for greater prod uctivity and quality at lower cost. Robots will be used increasingly to repl ace workers in hazardous environments, partly in reaction to soaring medical compensation costs, and in complex automation systems. Until now, the US ha s lagged behind Europe and Japan (the world's largest buyer of robots) in th is market. Frost & Sullivan: US, 415 961 9000 UK, 71 730 3438. Countries:- USZ United States of America. Industries:- P3569 General Industrial Machinery, NEC. Types:- MKTS Market shares. The Financial Times Londo n Page 18 ============= Transaction # 95 ============================================== Transaction #: 95 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:52:07 Selec. Rec. #: 9 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT941-13625 _AN-EAYDAACEFT 940 125 FT 25 JAN 94 / Technology: Robots ration costs By ANNA KOCHAN A new robot installation for packing military rations is helping the French army cut costs and could even earn it some money. The FFr60m (Pounds 6.8m) facility is automated and can respond quickly to sharp increases in demand at times of crisis. This co uld make it attractive to other armies and aid organisations, says Colonel H ugues Keller, head of the facility at Angers, south-west France. With an out put of 24 rations per minute, the plant easily satisfies the army's regular annual requirement for 2m rations and could produce two or three times as mu ch. Developed as part of the army's cost-cutting programme, the facility con centrates the production of military rations on one site. Before, there were two. Also, says Keller, 'we have seized the opportunity and installed state -of-the-art technology which will satisfy the needs not only of today's army but also that of the next century'. The robots fill cardboard cartons with the 18 constituents of a soldier's daily food allowance. The 14 possible men us include tinned cooked meals, chocolate bars, chewing gum, packet soup, wa ter purification tablets, dry crackers and paper tissues. Each package must be put in the right position in the box so it can be closed, sealed and cove red in plastic film, ready to be packed for shipment. At the centre of the s ystem is a line of nine small robots from Californian manufacturer Adept, ea ch responsible for loading two different components into the cartons from a conveyor. The larger, more robust items such as the tins are put into the ra tion carton first. These are removed from their boxes and fed directly to th e Adept line, one layer at a time, by three large robots from ABB Robotique France, part of the Swiss-Swedish group. The smaller items are then fed to t he Adept robots. Countries:- FRZ France, EC. < XX> Industries:- P3569 General Industrial Machinery, NEC. P356 5 Packaging Machinery. Types:- TECH Products & Product use. CMMT Comment & Analysis. The Financial Times

London Page 12 ============= Transaction # 96 ============================================== Transaction #: 96 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:52:26 Selec. Rec. #: 10 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT923-11658 _AN-CGWASAEJFT 920 723 FT 23 JUL 92 / Technology: More oil on the wheels - Financial pressures have forced Japan's auto makers to build in flexibility By STEVEN BUTLER Nissan Motor's kit chen-clean car assembly plant on Japan's southern Kyushu Island could easily pass for an exhibition of state-of-the-art robotics and computer-controlled manufacturing. Giant mechanical arms hoist seven stamped, steel panels into position and, amid a shower of sparks caused by 64 simultaneous welds, the main body of a car is created. Sixteen robots then go to work on the body, p erforming 600 spot welds in rapid succession in two stages. Today, productio n on the line is just getting going, but eventually the robots will handle u p to four different model styles, in eight different variations, all of it c ontrolled by computer. Production at the body assembly stage is 100 per cent automated. But more important than the automation itself is that Nissan has managed to build in flexibility, albeit at considerable cost. As Japanese c ar makers face a labour shortage that is forcing them to replace human versa tility with far less adaptable machines, flexibility in manufacturing - or r ather lack of it - has become a critical issue. Machines are not easily prog rammed to install different components for different cars coming down the li ne, and they still lack the dexterity of men. Market trends have also height ened this need. While the Japanese manufacturers increased sales sharply in the late 1980s, all but Toyota did this by selling more models in smaller pr oduction runs. Being able to assemble multiple models on a single line incre ases the utilisation rate of expensive equipment. Today, with consumer taste s shifting rapidly, some production lines are running flat out, unable to me et demand, while others making less popular models go underutilised. 'Our fo cus in production engineering is to enhance flexibility,' says Ryuichi Tsuka moto, executive vice president at Honda Engineering, a subsidiary of Honda M otor. 'Enhancing flexibility is the best way to get efficient production.' T sukamoto's strategy involves two broad approaches: one stresses the localisa tion of parts supply for an industry that has in a decade become global, and a second involves increasing the use of standardised parts and rethinking t he design process for cars to allow standardised robots to install functiona lly different components. Tsukamoto describes the idealised 'lean' Japanese manufacturing process as direct production, which is essentially similar to the production system pioneered by Toyota Motor in the 1950s. Tsukamoto trie s to match production capacity for parts and components suppliers precisely with the needs of the assembly line, with suppliers located near the assembl y factory and thus able to respond quickly to demands from the factory floor . Honda more or less achieved this in the 1970s at its two main assembly pla nts in Japan, in Sayama and Suzuka. However, the start of production in the US in the early 1980s, followed by a period of hectic growth, led Honda far from the ideal, as the US plants were dependent on a long umbilical cord to Japanese suppliers. 'Year by year we have been trying to localise parts supp ly and create direct production in the US,' he says. The US operation is sti ll 20 to 30 per cent dependent on Japan for parts supply. Honda intends to c arry the process further, and has recently established separate overseas ope rating divisions aimed at decentralising the international management in ord er to enhance local flexibility. Honda is the most advanced in giving a long leash to its overseas operations, but all the Japanese companies are headin g in the same direction. The redesign of parts and components themselves has recently become something of a hot topic in Japan, and Yoshifumi Tsuji, pre sident of Nissan, has been most vocal about the need to reduce the complexit y of cars, to use fewer parts, and to use more common parts in different mod els, thus allowing for greater economies of scale in manufacture. Companies like Nissan and Honda competed in recent years by bringing out new models, w hich were designed from scratch with little thought about economising on par ts supply. Honda's experience with the 1990 Accord, its bread-and-butter mid -sized car, however, caused the company to rethink the design process. The c ar was loaded with new technology, but was panned by the Japanese press for being old hat, mainly on styling grounds, and it flopped with consumers. Thi s begged the question: if consumers were unable to appreciate innovative eng ineering throughout the car, was it all necessary? Might not the use of more standardised parts in different models produce a car of equal appeal and qu ality? Tsukamoto is now leading a campaign within Honda to improve what he c alls 'commonality of design'. The idea is not just to put identical parts in to different models, but to set standards for installation, for example, put ting mounting holes in the same place on different models. The aim is to all ow a relatively inflexible robot to install a wide variety of parts. Flexibi lity in this case comes not from the production line itself, but from the de sign process. How far the process can be taken, however, remains an open que stion, particularly at a time when automobile technology is changing rapidly in response to tightening environmental and safety standards around the wor ld. New technology means changing parts designs that will stand in the way o f standardisation. Shoichiro Toyoda, president of Toyota Motor, is sceptical . 'We have been trying to use common parts for a long time, but have not bee n able to do it very well,' he admits. Toyoda says that while the concept of using common parts is attractive, in practice it is difficult to achieve wi thout compromising the quality of different models of cars, where the engine ering requirements are subtly different. To some extent, Toyoda's scepticism reflects the relative efficiency of Toyota's engineering and manufacturing process, which has for years set the standard for the industry. There may si mply be less room for improvement at Toyota. Toyota has a double advantage b ecause the scale of its operations is considerably bigger than the other com panies, already allowing for greater economies of scale. And Toyota's habit of adopting a cautious, gradualist approach to new technology, in order to a void making expensive errors, has served it well over the years. For the res t of the industry, however, the financial pressure to reinvent the engineeri ng process is intense. With the bloom having come off the car market, there is less to be gained from dazzling consumers with fancy new models. Car make rs have little choice but to try to match Toyota's efficiency - and to bette r it if they can. A previous article on Japanese engineering for flexibility appeared on the Technology Page on July 16. The Financial Time s London Page 12 ============= Transaction # 97 ============================================== Transaction #: 97 Transaction Code: 8 (Mixed Bool./Dir. Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 13:52:48 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 1 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 1 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: Yes Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 5 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(topic @ {recent robotic technology 98}) and (date {96})" ============= Transaction # 98 ============================================== Transaction #: 98 Transaction Code: 37 (General (non-Tcl) Error) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:52:57 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: {ERR {Status 1} {Hits 0} {Received 0} {Set Default}} {No matching records fo und} ============= Transaction # 99 ============================================== Transaction #: 99 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 13:53:01 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 4 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(topic @ {recent robotic technology 98})" ============= Transaction # 100 ============================================== Transaction #: 100 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:53:09 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 52130 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 101 ============================================== Transaction #: 101 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:53:21 Selec. Rec. #: 12 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT923-4774 _AN-CIEASADWFT 9209 04 FT 04 SEP 92 / Technology: Heavies move in - After ye ars of work in mass production, robots are taking on bigger jobs By ANDREW BAXTER The drive for competitiveness and low-cost production may have made the car industry the natural home for the world's robot population, but Karlheinz Langner and his colleagues at I GM Robotersysteme have other ideas. Langner, a managing board member at Aust ria's only robotics company, has his sights set on industry's heavy brigade. Less visibly than their counterparts in the car industry, but with increasi ng urgency, manufacturers of heavy equipment - anything from excavators to s teel bridge sections - want to improve their product quality and reduce cycl e times, increase their manufacturing flexibility and clean up their workpla ce. All these issues, in varying degrees, have been tackled successfully by the mass-production car industry with the use of robots, but heavy industry is very different. In recent years, many heavy engineering companies have be en reticent about robots. They may have been put off by the robot suppliers' sales patter or unconvinced that a robot can cope with welding, for example , a crane boom or bulk handling container, particularly if each item to be w elded might be slightly different from the previous one. Or they might simpl y have jibbed at the expense - as much as Dollars 350,000 (Pounds 175,000) f or a sophisticated system with one or more robots, slides, gantries and devi ces to rotate a workpiece that could weigh as much as 15 tonnes. And having purchased a system, some customers have had to solve software problems thems elves to get the robot working correctly. But companies such as IGM, which c elebrates its silver jubilee this year, are spending heavily to find new sol utions for the use of robots in heavy industry, and that, in turn, broadens the market for the robot suppliers. Some sectors such as shipbuilding, for i nstance, are only now waking up to the opportunities for using robots, which were simply not available five years ago. Anybody who has visited a modern car factory cannot fail to be impressed by the serried ranks of robots spot welding body sections or inserting dashboards. Such machines, however, are w orlds apart from those produced by IGM, which specialises in arc or continuo us path welding and some cutting robots, and its rivals at the heavy end of the welding equipment industry such as Esab of Sweden and Cloos of Germany. A continuous weld is the norm in construction equipment, for example, to cop e with the immense stresses to which plant will be subjected during its work ing life, and demands for high-quality welding are increasing. Grappling wit h the welding of an excavator boom could require up to 16 axes of movement f rom the robot and its surrounding equipment, putting pressure on the robot s upplier not only to design the system correctly in mechanical terms but to e nsure that the software and sensor systems are sufficiently sophisticated an d fast to cope. In such a market, says Langner, understanding the customer's needs is of vital importance. But when almost every customer has a differen t problem that may require a customised solution, the challenge could be too great for a small company such as IGM, without the years of experience that produces a clear product strategy. Each robot supplier has a different appr oach, but IGM's is based on two vital elements, says Langner: a modular desi gn system to allow the company to respond to individual customers' needs wit hout having to reinvent the wheel, and the decision to keep all control syst ems development in-house. Broadening the appeal of robots to heavy industry requires a combination of developing the business end of the system (the wel ding itself), taking the robot's mechanical engineering to the limits, and c onstantly updating and improving the control systems. IGM develops welding s ystems together with Fronius, an Austrian welding equipment company - for th e customer, after all, the quality of the weld is the proof of the pudding. The robot supplier recently introduced a new high-performance welding techni que known as Time (transferred ionised molten energy), developed originally by a Canadian metallurgical expert. IGM has also developed an automatic head change facility, allowing welding to be followed by flame cutting in one co ntinuous cycle. This is being used by a UK customer for welding steel bridge sections. As in machine tools, however, while mechanical developments near their limit it is the brains of the robot system - its software and sensors, and the programming - that is receiving the lion's share of attention. This is where the acronyms really begin to proliferate. So-called off-line progr amming, where the robot is set up for the next job without disturbing its pr esent task, is particularly important when it could take many hours, if not days, to start up a new component on a welding robot. IGM's latest contribut ion is IOPS, which uses computer-aided simulation of production cells and ma nufacturing lines to get the best configuration of the welding cell for each workpiece. Another important result of the company's R&D work is ISIP, a ne w optoelectronic camera system for measuring weld grooves. This uses optical sensors to determine the position and geometry of the fabrication, underlin ing the growing importance of vision systems as the 'eyes' in an increasingl y complex 'eyes-brain-hand' environment. Perhaps the most significant develo pment at IGM, however, lies at the heart of the robot software. In a few wee ks' time, the company will have running a prototype of a new robot controlle r based on the transputer, the Inmos superchip. IGM had realised some five y ears ago that it needed to have a more powerful control system, says Langner , and the new controller will increase control speeds by a factor of 10. The new control should be on IGM's robots by next year, but Langner also sees a pplications for the control outside robotics, with initial demand of about 5 00-1,000 units a year, compared with the 150-200 IGM will need each year for its robots. 'But we will not market it by ourselves,' Langner stresses. The Financial Times London Page 15 ============= Transaction # 102 ============================================== Transaction #: 102 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:53:25 Selec. Rec. #: 12 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT923-4774 _AN-CIEASADWFT 9209 04 FT 04 SEP 92 / Technology: Heavies move in - After ye ars of work in mass production, robots are taking on bigger jobs By ANDREW BAXTER The drive for competitiveness and low-cost production may have made the car industry the natural home for the world's robot population, but Karlheinz Langner and his colleagues at I GM Robotersysteme have other ideas. Langner, a managing board member at Aust ria's only robotics company, has his sights set on industry's heavy brigade. Less visibly than their counterparts in the car industry, but with increasi ng urgency, manufacturers of heavy equipment - anything from excavators to s teel bridge sections - want to improve their product quality and reduce cycl e times, increase their manufacturing flexibility and clean up their workpla ce. All these issues, in varying degrees, have been tackled successfully by the mass-production car industry with the use of robots, but heavy industry is very different. In recent years, many heavy engineering companies have be en reticent about robots. They may have been put off by the robot suppliers' sales patter or unconvinced that a robot can cope with welding, for example , a crane boom or bulk handling container, particularly if each item to be w elded might be slightly different from the previous one. Or they might simpl y have jibbed at the expense - as much as Dollars 350,000 (Pounds 175,000) f or a sophisticated system with one or more robots, slides, gantries and devi ces to rotate a workpiece that could weigh as much as 15 tonnes. And having purchased a system, some customers have had to solve software problems thems elves to get the robot working correctly. But companies such as IGM, which c elebrates its silver jubilee this year, are spending heavily to find new sol utions for the use of robots in heavy industry, and that, in turn, broadens the market for the robot suppliers. Some sectors such as shipbuilding, for i nstance, are only now waking up to the opportunities for using robots, which were simply not available five years ago. Anybody who has visited a modern car factory cannot fail to be impressed by the serried ranks of robots spot welding body sections or inserting dashboards. Such machines, however, are w orlds apart from those produced by IGM, which specialises in arc or continuo us path welding and some cutting robots, and its rivals at the heavy end of the welding equipment industry such as Esab of Sweden and Cloos of Germany. A continuous weld is the norm in construction equipment, for example, to cop e with the immense stresses to which plant will be subjected during its work ing life, and demands for high-quality welding are increasing. Grappling wit h the welding of an excavator boom could require up to 16 axes of movement f rom the robot and its surrounding equipment, putting pressure on the robot s upplier not only to design the system correctly in mechanical terms but to e nsure that the software and sensor systems are sufficiently sophisticated an d fast to cope. In such a market, says Langner, understanding the customer's needs is of vital importance. But when almost every customer has a differen t problem that may require a customised solution, the challenge could be too great for a small company such as IGM, without the years of experience that produces a clear product strategy. Each robot supplier has a different appr oach, but IGM's is based on two vital elements, says Langner: a modular desi gn system to allow the company to respond to individual customers' needs wit hout having to reinvent the wheel, and the decision to keep all control syst ems development in-house. Broadening the appeal of robots to heavy industry requires a combination of developing the business end of the system (the wel ding itself), taking the robot's mechanical engineering to the limits, and c onstantly updating and improving the control systems. IGM develops welding s ystems together with Fronius, an Austrian welding equipment company - for th e customer, after all, the quality of the weld is the proof of the pudding. The robot supplier recently introduced a new high-performance welding techni que known as Time (transferred ionised molten energy), developed originally by a Canadian metallurgical expert. IGM has also developed an automatic head change facility, allowing welding to be followed by flame cutting in one co ntinuous cycle. This is being used by a UK customer for welding steel bridge sections. As in machine tools, however, while mechanical developments near their limit it is the brains of the robot system - its software and sensors, and the programming - that is receiving the lion's share of attention. This is where the acronyms really begin to proliferate. So-called off-line progr amming, where the robot is set up for the next job without disturbing its pr esent task, is particularly important when it could take many hours, if not days, to start up a new component on a welding robot. IGM's latest contribut ion is IOPS, which uses computer-aided simulation of production cells and ma nufacturing lines to get the best configuration of the welding cell for each workpiece. Another important result of the company's R&D work is ISIP, a ne w optoelectronic camera system for measuring weld grooves. This uses optical sensors to determine the position and geometry of the fabrication, underlin ing the growing importance of vision systems as the 'eyes' in an increasingl y complex 'eyes-brain-hand' environment. Perhaps the most significant develo pment at IGM, however, lies at the heart of the robot software. In a few wee ks' time, the company will have running a prototype of a new robot controlle r based on the transputer, the Inmos superchip. IGM had realised some five y ears ago that it needed to have a more powerful control system, says Langner , and the new controller will increase control speeds by a factor of 10. The new control should be on IGM's robots by next year, but Langner also sees a pplications for the control outside robotics, with initial demand of about 5 00-1,000 units a year, compared with the 150-200 IGM will need each year for its robots. 'But we will not market it by ourselves,' Langner stresses. The Financial Times London Page 15 ============= Transaction # 103 ============================================== Transaction #: 103 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:53:27 Selec. Rec. #: 11 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT931-6266 _AN-DCBCFAF0FT 9303 02 FT 02 MAR 93 / International Company News: Robotics c hief warns of tough 12-months By ANDREW BAXTER EUROPE'S Dollars 500m robotics market is facing a tough year in 1993 because of the recession in Germany and reduced investment by the autom otive sector, said Mr Bruce Potts, executive vice-president of Fanuc Robotic s Europe. But the market was likely to bounce back next year because of stro ng underlying demand for robots by European manufacturers keen to improve th eir productivity, he said. Mr Potts was speaking in Coventry at the unveilin g by Fanuc Robotics, the world's largest robot producer, of its new series o f robot control systems. The controller is a key plank in Fanuc's strategy t o broaden the use of robots in non-automotive markets; in Europe, for exampl e, about 60 per cent of the installed base of 50,000 to 60,000 robots is use d by the motor industry. It is also an important element in Fanuc's strategy to become the market leader in Europe, where, said Mr Potts, it runs a 'sol id second' behind ABB Robotics. In the past two years, the European robotics market has been relatively more resilient than other sectors of mechanical engineering. Last year, the market was flat, with weakness in some countries offset by the effects of reunification in Germany, which accounts for about half the total market, and by carmakers' spending. This year, said Mr Potts , the North American robot market will come out of recession and will be the best-performing of the major markets. The European market could fall from l ast year, but would still perform better than the recession-bound Japanese m arket. Fanuc believes the new controller will have the same effect on the ro bot market as the 'graphical user interface' had on personal computers by ma king the robot easier to understand for users in areas such as welding, mech anical handling and painting. Countries:- DEZ German y, EC. XGZ Europe. Industries:- P3569 General Indu strial Machinery, NEC. Types:- CMMT Comment & Analysis . The Financial Times London Page 24 ============= Transaction # 104 ============================================== Transaction #: 104 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:53:30 Selec. Rec. #: 12 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT923-4774 _AN-CIEASADWFT 9209 04 FT 04 SEP 92 / Technology: Heavies move in - After ye ars of work in mass production, robots are taking on bigger jobs By ANDREW BAXTER The drive for competitiveness and low-cost production may have made the car industry the natural home for the world's robot population, but Karlheinz Langner and his colleagues at I GM Robotersysteme have other ideas. Langner, a managing board member at Aust ria's only robotics company, has his sights set on industry's heavy brigade. Less visibly than their counterparts in the car industry, but with increasi ng urgency, manufacturers of heavy equipment - anything from excavators to s teel bridge sections - want to improve their product quality and reduce cycl e times, increase their manufacturing flexibility and clean up their workpla ce. All these issues, in varying degrees, have been tackled successfully by the mass-production car industry with the use of robots, but heavy industry is very different. In recent years, many heavy engineering companies have be en reticent about robots. They may have been put off by the robot suppliers' sales patter or unconvinced that a robot can cope with welding, for example , a crane boom or bulk handling container, particularly if each item to be w elded might be slightly different from the previous one. Or they might simpl y have jibbed at the expense - as much as Dollars 350,000 (Pounds 175,000) f or a sophisticated system with one or more robots, slides, gantries and devi ces to rotate a workpiece that could weigh as much as 15 tonnes. And having purchased a system, some customers have had to solve software problems thems elves to get the robot working correctly. But companies such as IGM, which c elebrates its silver jubilee this year, are spending heavily to find new sol utions for the use of robots in heavy industry, and that, in turn, broadens the market for the robot suppliers. Some sectors such as shipbuilding, for i nstance, are only now waking up to the opportunities for using robots, which were simply not available five years ago. Anybody who has visited a modern car factory cannot fail to be impressed by the serried ranks of robots spot welding body sections or inserting dashboards. Such machines, however, are w orlds apart from those produced by IGM, which specialises in arc or continuo us path welding and some cutting robots, and its rivals at the heavy end of the welding equipment industry such as Esab of Sweden and Cloos of Germany. A continuous weld is the norm in construction equipment, for example, to cop e with the immense stresses to which plant will be subjected during its work ing life, and demands for high-quality welding are increasing. Grappling wit h the welding of an excavator boom could require up to 16 axes of movement f rom the robot and its surrounding equipment, putting pressure on the robot s upplier not only to design the system correctly in mechanical terms but to e nsure that the software and sensor systems are sufficiently sophisticated an d fast to cope. In such a market, says Langner, understanding the customer's needs is of vital importance. But when almost every customer has a differen t problem that may require a customised solution, the challenge could be too great for a small company such as IGM, without the years of experience that produces a clear product strategy. Each robot supplier has a different appr oach, but IGM's is based on two vital elements, says Langner: a modular desi gn system to allow the company to respond to individual customers' needs wit hout having to reinvent the wheel, and the decision to keep all control syst ems development in-house. Broadening the appeal of robots to heavy industry requires a combination of developing the business end of the system (the wel ding itself), taking the robot's mechanical engineering to the limits, and c onstantly updating and improving the control systems. IGM develops welding s ystems together with Fronius, an Austrian welding equipment company - for th e customer, after all, the quality of the weld is the proof of the pudding. The robot supplier recently introduced a new high-performance welding techni que known as Time (transferred ionised molten energy), developed originally by a Canadian metallurgical expert. IGM has also developed an automatic head change facility, allowing welding to be followed by flame cutting in one co ntinuous cycle. This is being used by a UK customer for welding steel bridge sections. As in machine tools, however, while mechanical developments near their limit it is the brains of the robot system - its software and sensors, and the programming - that is receiving the lion's share of attention. This is where the acronyms really begin to proliferate. So-called off-line progr amming, where the robot is set up for the next job without disturbing its pr esent task, is particularly important when it could take many hours, if not days, to start up a new component on a welding robot. IGM's latest contribut ion is IOPS, which uses computer-aided simulation of production cells and ma nufacturing lines to get the best configuration of the welding cell for each workpiece. Another important result of the company's R&D work is ISIP, a ne w optoelectronic camera system for measuring weld grooves. This uses optical sensors to determine the position and geometry of the fabrication, underlin ing the growing importance of vision systems as the 'eyes' in an increasingl y complex 'eyes-brain-hand' environment. Perhaps the most significant develo pment at IGM, however, lies at the heart of the robot software. In a few wee ks' time, the company will have running a prototype of a new robot controlle r based on the transputer, the Inmos superchip. IGM had realised some five y ears ago that it needed to have a more powerful control system, says Langner , and the new controller will increase control speeds by a factor of 10. The new control should be on IGM's robots by next year, but Langner also sees a pplications for the control outside robotics, with initial demand of about 5 00-1,000 units a year, compared with the 150-200 IGM will need each year for its robots. 'But we will not market it by ourselves,' Langner stresses. The Financial Times London Page 15 ============= Transaction # 105 ============================================== Transaction #: 105 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:53:37 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT922-9444 _AN-CEGBFAFXFT 9205 07 FT 07 MAY 92 / Technology: Androids on the march - Af ter years on the breadline, modern robots are finding gainful employment in Europe By ANDREW BAXTER In the US f ashion industry they call it 'localised abrasion' - the pre-worn look for de nim jeans produced by applying potassium permanganate solution to the knee, thigh and seat areas. The faded effect has traditionally been achieved throu gh manual spraying, but consistency and quality control have been hard to ac hieve. Now GMFanuc Robotics has perfected a robotic solution that is three t imes faster than manual spraying, can reproduce a spray pattern to an accura cy of 0.03 inch, and can be programmed easily to handle a wide range of garm ents. The system is a relatively simple example of recent trends in the indu strial robotics industry, which is trying to reduce its dependence on compar atively mature automotive markets and find new applications elsewhere. It is a trend that is particularly important for robot suppliers in the European market, where the overall penetration of robots into industry is much lower than in Japan, and where a potentially huge market for non-automotive applic ations remains untapped. According to Massimo Mattucci, vice president for e ngineering and marketing at Comau of Italy, around 50 per cent of industrial robots installed in Europe are in use in the automotive industry and 20 per cent in electronics -the reverse of the situation in Japan. 'The automotiv e industry has more or less understood the potential of robots,' says Stelio Demark, head of ABB Robotics, Europe's largest producer, although he stress es, along with other robot industry executives, the potential of robots in t he paint-spraying and final assembly area of European vehicle manufacturing. The inherent flexibility of modern robots, and the advances made in control systems and mechanics that have increased their speed and reliability, ough t to increase their suitability for small-batch manufacturing in Europe, whe re model changes are frequent. Demark sees new opportunities for robots emer ging in the European food, packaging, pharmaceutical and white goods industr ies. But the pace at which European industry accepts robots will depend part ly on suppliers' ability to counter the mistrust caused by the hype of the 1 970s and early 1980s, when the robot industry appeared to be carried away by euphoria over business prospects. There are other obstacles, too, for suppl iers to surmount. In Japan, one of the driving forces behind the growth in t he industrial robot population to 274,210 in 1990 - nearly 10 times the popu lation in the former West Germany -has been labour shortages. 'Everything h as to come back to economic considerations,' says Axel Gerhardt, an executiv e board member of IWKA, the holding company for Kuka, Germany's largest robo t supplier. 'In Europe robots are used where it is economical to do so. In J apan the question is often whether to produce with a robot or not to produce there at all.' Mistakes have also been made in the installation of robots, for which the suppliers and customers have to share the blame. 'People have tended to put in a robot, then have an operator standing by watching,' says Demark. 'This is a half-way house that I wouldn't recommend.' Increasingly, robot suppliers are realising that if they are to make inroads into the smal l- and medium-sized businesses that still dominate European industry - espec ially outside the automotive sector - they have to understand better the cu stomer's needs and worries. 'You have to enter into an economic calculation with the customer and demonstrate the ability to find a solution,' says Matt ucci. That could mean being paid only for a feasibility study that comes dow n against the use of robots. But in the long run this approach makes more se nse for an industry that wants to broaden its customer base and maintain its reputation. Comau, which sells most of its robots as part of an integrated automation package, is around 90 per cent dependent on the vehicle industry. Mattucci wants to expand the remaining 10 per cent of the business to 30 pe r cent over the next five years by exploiting the group's strengths in robot ics for body-welding, mechanical assembly and difficult handling operations. The Italian company's most ambitious step away from the automotive sector i s its involvement in the Columbus Automation and robotics Testbed (Cat) prog ramme financed by the European Space Agency. The ground testbed for the auto mation and robotics on board the projected Columbus Space Station will incor porate a new Comau robot using advanced materials such as aeronautical alloy s and composites. A more-down-to earth approach to broadening the customer b ase is in evidence at GMFanuc, the US/Japanese concern which is the world's second biggest supplier. The jean-spraying robot, developed in the US and no w available in the UK, offers a high return on investment with a payback of less than a year, says Mike Wilson, the UK sales and marketing manager. Robo tics are also in their infancy in the European food industry, partly because it has hitherto been difficult to turn a hose on to a robot to clean it wit hout ruining its electrical circuits. In January, GMFanuc launched its 'Wash down' robot to conform to the strict hygiene requirements of the food indust ry and withstand all the chemical substances likely to be used in washdown o r wipedown procedures. In the European electronics industry, robots are more frequent but applications are still developing. Data Packaging, an Irish su pplier of plastic moulded components for the computer industry, recently ins talled an ABB Robotics painting cell to handle metallic paints used to provi de an attractive finish, and assist in electrical shielding, on parts for th e Apple Macintosh. Metallic paints are hard to handle because they block sup ply lines if not kept flowing continuously. The ABB system programs the robo t to fire the spray gun if the system lays dormant for a given length of tim e. Advances such as these are often based on techniques originally developed for the automotive industry, which is not being neglected in suppliers' has te to exploit other markets. A number of fairly recent technologies have rel evance to the use of robots in automotive and non-automotive fields. Laser w elding, says Wilson, is attracting interest in a number of industries, inclu ding aerospace, because of its precision and speed. Unlike conventional spot welding, the robot does not have to reach both sides of the part to be weld ed. Another emerging technology, especially when combined with robotics, is water-jet cutting, which is likely to become increasingly important for cutt ing plastics quickly and cleanly. It is already being used in the automotive industry for cutting carpets, door panels and instrument panels. In both ar eas robot suppliers are forming partnerships with companies which have devel oped the technologies so that they can exploit the opportunities quicker. Co mau has a co-operation agreement with Trumpf, the German machine tool builde r best-known for its laser-cutting machines, while last year ABB Robotics fo rmed a joint venture with Ingersoll-Rand of the US to develop and market a r obotised water-jet cutting system in Europe. The search for a broader Europe an customer base coincides with a much more price-conscious attitude over th e past two to three years among customers, due as much to general business c onditions as to scepticism about the early claims made by robot suppliers. S uppliers are rationalising their product ranges to give customers what they want and no more, but using developments in control systems to increase the applications available from each model. These conditions give advantages and disadvantages in more or less equal measure to European suppliers and Japan ese/US importers, which control one third of the market. Demark and Mattucci strongly believe that the European suppliers benefit from a approach based on solutions rather than products. 'The Japanese do not have the solutions f or European needs,' says Mattucci flatly. This is a view strongly disputed b y the Japanese producers, but in a price-sensitive market the the Japanese d o have the advantage of size - investment in control systems, in particular, can be spread over a bigger sales base. Ultimately, though, all the robot s uppliers could benefit if they can persuade more European companies of the b enefits of robots. And that is likely to be a gradual process where technolo gy is only one factor in the equation. The Financial Times London Page 18 ============= Transaction # 106 ============================================== Transaction #: 106 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:53:39 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT922-9444 _AN-CEGBFAFXFT 9205 07 FT 07 MAY 92 / Technology: Androids on the march - Af ter years on the breadline, modern robots are finding gainful employment in Europe By ANDREW BAXTER In the US f ashion industry they call it 'localised abrasion' - the pre-worn look for de nim jeans produced by applying potassium permanganate solution to the knee, thigh and seat areas. The faded effect has traditionally been achieved throu gh manual spraying, but consistency and quality control have been hard to ac hieve. Now GMFanuc Robotics has perfected a robotic solution that is three t imes faster than manual spraying, can reproduce a spray pattern to an accura cy of 0.03 inch, and can be programmed easily to handle a wide range of garm ents. The system is a relatively simple example of recent trends in the indu strial robotics industry, which is trying to reduce its dependence on compar atively mature automotive markets and find new applications elsewhere. It is a trend that is particularly important for robot suppliers in the European market, where the overall penetration of robots into industry is much lower than in Japan, and where a potentially huge market for non-automotive applic ations remains untapped. According to Massimo Mattucci, vice president for e ngineering and marketing at Comau of Italy, around 50 per cent of industrial robots installed in Europe are in use in the automotive industry and 20 per cent in electronics -the reverse of the situation in Japan. 'The automotiv e industry has more or less understood the potential of robots,' says Stelio Demark, head of ABB Robotics, Europe's largest producer, although he stress es, along with other robot industry executives, the potential of robots in t he paint-spraying and final assembly area of European vehicle manufacturing. The inherent flexibility of modern robots, and the advances made in control systems and mechanics that have increased their speed and reliability, ough t to increase their suitability for small-batch manufacturing in Europe, whe re model changes are frequent. Demark sees new opportunities for robots emer ging in the European food, packaging, pharmaceutical and white goods industr ies. But the pace at which European industry accepts robots will depend part ly on suppliers' ability to counter the mistrust caused by the hype of the 1 970s and early 1980s, when the robot industry appeared to be carried away by euphoria over business prospects. There are other obstacles, too, for suppl iers to surmount. In Japan, one of the driving forces behind the growth in t he industrial robot population to 274,210 in 1990 - nearly 10 times the popu lation in the former West Germany -has been labour shortages. 'Everything h as to come back to economic considerations,' says Axel Gerhardt, an executiv e board member of IWKA, the holding company for Kuka, Germany's largest robo t supplier. 'In Europe robots are used where it is economical to do so. In J apan the question is often whether to produce with a robot or not to produce there at all.' Mistakes have also been made in the installation of robots, for which the suppliers and customers have to share the blame. 'People have tended to put in a robot, then have an operator standing by watching,' says Demark. 'This is a half-way house that I wouldn't recommend.' Increasingly, robot suppliers are realising that if they are to make inroads into the smal l- and medium-sized businesses that still dominate European industry - espec ially outside the automotive sector - they have to understand better the cu stomer's needs and worries. 'You have to enter into an economic calculation with the customer and demonstrate the ability to find a solution,' says Matt ucci. That could mean being paid only for a feasibility study that comes dow n against the use of robots. But in the long run this approach makes more se nse for an industry that wants to broaden its customer base and maintain its reputation. Comau, which sells most of its robots as part of an integrated automation package, is around 90 per cent dependent on the vehicle industry. Mattucci wants to expand the remaining 10 per cent of the business to 30 pe r cent over the next five years by exploiting the group's strengths in robot ics for body-welding, mechanical assembly and difficult handling operations. The Italian company's most ambitious step away from the automotive sector i s its involvement in the Columbus Automation and robotics Testbed (Cat) prog ramme financed by the European Space Agency. The ground testbed for the auto mation and robotics on board the projected Columbus Space Station will incor porate a new Comau robot using advanced materials such as aeronautical alloy s and composites. A more-down-to earth approach to broadening the customer b ase is in evidence at GMFanuc, the US/Japanese concern which is the world's second biggest supplier. The jean-spraying robot, developed in the US and no w available in the UK, offers a high return on investment with a payback of less than a year, says Mike Wilson, the UK sales and marketing manager. Robo tics are also in their infancy in the European food industry, partly because it has hitherto been difficult to turn a hose on to a robot to clean it wit hout ruining its electrical circuits. In January, GMFanuc launched its 'Wash down' robot to conform to the strict hygiene requirements of the food indust ry and withstand all the chemical substances likely to be used in washdown o r wipedown procedures. In the European electronics industry, robots are more frequent but applications are still developing. Data Packaging, an Irish su pplier of plastic moulded components for the computer industry, recently ins talled an ABB Robotics painting cell to handle metallic paints used to provi de an attractive finish, and assist in electrical shielding, on parts for th e Apple Macintosh. Metallic paints are hard to handle because they block sup ply lines if not kept flowing continuously. The ABB system programs the robo t to fire the spray gun if the system lays dormant for a given length of tim e. Advances such as these are often based on techniques originally developed for the automotive industry, which is not being neglected in suppliers' has te to exploit other markets. A number of fairly recent technologies have rel evance to the use of robots in automotive and non-automotive fields. Laser w elding, says Wilson, is attracting interest in a number of industries, inclu ding aerospace, because of its precision and speed. Unlike conventional spot welding, the robot does not have to reach both sides of the part to be weld ed. Another emerging technology, especially when combined with robotics, is water-jet cutting, which is likely to become increasingly important for cutt ing plastics quickly and cleanly. It is already being used in the automotive industry for cutting carpets, door panels and instrument panels. In both ar eas robot suppliers are forming partnerships with companies which have devel oped the technologies so that they can exploit the opportunities quicker. Co mau has a co-operation agreement with Trumpf, the German machine tool builde r best-known for its laser-cutting machines, while last year ABB Robotics fo rmed a joint venture with Ingersoll-Rand of the US to develop and market a r obotised water-jet cutting system in Europe. The search for a broader Europe an customer base coincides with a much more price-conscious attitude over th e past two to three years among customers, due as much to general business c onditions as to scepticism about the early claims made by robot suppliers. S uppliers are rationalising their product ranges to give customers what they want and no more, but using developments in control systems to increase the applications available from each model. These conditions give advantages and disadvantages in more or less equal measure to European suppliers and Japan ese/US importers, which control one third of the market. Demark and Mattucci strongly believe that the European suppliers benefit from a approach based on solutions rather than products. 'The Japanese do not have the solutions f or European needs,' says Mattucci flatly. This is a view strongly disputed b y the Japanese producers, but in a price-sensitive market the the Japanese d o have the advantage of size - investment in control systems, in particular, can be spread over a bigger sales base. Ultimately, though, all the robot s uppliers could benefit if they can persuade more European companies of the b enefits of robots. And that is likely to be a gradual process where technolo gy is only one factor in the equation. The Financial Times London Page 18 ============= Transaction # 107 ============================================== Transaction #: 107 Transaction Code: 12 (Record Relevance Feedback) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 13:53:42 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind Default:12,1 ============= Transaction # 108 ============================================== Transaction #: 108 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:54:56 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 209563 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 109 ============================================== Transaction #: 109 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:55:06 Selec. Rec. #: 3 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT922-4414 _AN-CFEA9AEEFT 9206 05 FT 05 JUN 92 / Survey of Vehicle Manufacturing Techno logy (6): Machines are now used for tasks beyond spot welding - Robots By ANDREW BAXTER ROBOTS have become an e stablished part of the vehicle manufacturing scene over the past 15 years. T he motor industry accounts for as much as 40 per cent of the 450,000 install ed industrial robots worldwide but their use is changing and applications ar e expanding. The traditional picture of long lines of robots each making bil lions of spot welds on car bodies in a working life of eight to 10 years is still true, but only half the story. Those same welding robots are as likely to be grouped in flexible manufacturing cells and capable of handling a wid e range of models in quick succession. At the same time, smaller robots are increasingly being used in engine assembly, where their ability to do qualit y, repetitive work with a precision of 1/100th of a millimetre is much in de mand. Robots are being used in final assembly work and paint spraying, and s uppliers hope to be able to develop these markets now that the technology ha s been proven. There is an emerging trend for robots to be used in automotiv e sub-contracting, prompted by the vehicle manufacturers' need to be as conf ident in the consistency and quality of out-sourced components as for their own work. The shorter lives of car models, prompted by increased competition in the industry and the Japanese producers' early efforts to reduce product development times, are changing the use and design of robots. The tradition al practice of replacing a robot after two model cycles may have been approp riate when each car model was lasting six to eight years. But with model liv es reduced to three to four years, users want to keep their robots for furth er models, and thus want increased flexibility, according to Dr Axel Gerhard t, a senior board member at the holding company for Kuka, Germany's largest robot supplier. Many of the latest trends in the use of robotics originated in Japan where labour shortages have spurred much greater penetration of rob ots into industry overall compared with Europe and the US. But robot supplie rs such as ABB Robotics, the largest in Europe, believe the European automot ive industry is as enthusiastic a user of robotic automation as its Japanese counterpart. However, some of the more recent applications of robots are le ss prevalent in Europe, giving an opportunity to suppliers if they can convi nce producers of the economic benefits. There are national variations too: t he UK is a long way behind the US and the rest of Europe in the use of robot s in the paint shop, says Mr Mike Wilson, UK sales and marketing director at GMFanuc Robotics. The versatility of modern industrial robots for tasks tha t go beyond spot welding is illustrated by Kuka's involvement in final assem bly of the Citroen XM. Following painting, robots dismount the doors and tai lgate, with the aid of sensors, for completion on separate trim lines; the c ockpit is picked up by robot from an automatic guided vehicle, inserted thro ugh the door and then bolted to the body by a second robot. Robots are used for applying the adhesive sealants and for fitting the glass exactly into th e body aperture with the aid of ultrasonic scanners; seats are inserted by r obot after measuring the exact position of the body by means of tactile sens ors, wheels are mounted and doors and tailgate refitted. Some of these tasks are difficult for robots because of the nature of final assembly. Robots ar e having to operate in a less structured environment, says Mr Wilson, and de al with less defined objects such as seats. Another problem, at least outsid e Japan, is that labour is available and costs less than in skilled manufact uring areas. So robot suppliers have to find applications that create added value, says Mr Stelio Demark, head of ABB Robotics. There are still opportun ities for greater use of robots further up the production line. Relatively n ew processes such as laser-cutting and water-jet cutting are likely to becom e more prevalent, in association with robots, especially for working with pl astics and new advanced composites. Mr Demark sees a substantial increase in automated arc-welding in the automotive industry and sub-suppliers. And Com au, the Italian robotics and systems group, expects some interesting investm ents in the body area, prompted by the increased need for new models, accord ing to Mr Massimo Mattucci, vice-president for engineering and marketing. In paint spraying, says Mr Demark, robots have hardly scratched the surface. L ast year, ABB strengthened its position in the robotic painting market with the acquisition of Graco in the US, but GMFanuc, a US/Japanese concern, and Behr of Germany have strong positions. The flexibility of robots to handle m odel changes will be the key to their further implementation in the car body area. In engine and transmission production, robots are becoming better est ablished, and Mr Mattucci suggests a new generation of engines prompted by t ougher environmental regulations could be the spur to further investment in robots. However, an increasing portion of business for robot suppliers seems likely to come from refurbishment of existing robots rather than new purcha ses as customers seek maximum value from their manufacturing investments. In the past three or four years, this has been a growing trend of robot refitt ing and modification in the motor industry, carried out during model changeo vers and restoring robots to previous levels of accuracy and productivity. < /TEXT> The Financial Times London Page III ============= Transaction # 110 ============================================== Transaction #: 110 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:55:07 Selec. Rec. #: 3 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT922-4414 _AN-CFEA9AEEFT 9206 05 FT 05 JUN 92 / Survey of Vehicle Manufacturing Techno logy (6): Machines are now used for tasks beyond spot welding - Robots By ANDREW BAXTER ROBOTS have become an e stablished part of the vehicle manufacturing scene over the past 15 years. T he motor industry accounts for as much as 40 per cent of the 450,000 install ed industrial robots worldwide but their use is changing and applications ar e expanding. The traditional picture of long lines of robots each making bil lions of spot welds on car bodies in a working life of eight to 10 years is still true, but only half the story. Those same welding robots are as likely to be grouped in flexible manufacturing cells and capable of handling a wid e range of models in quick succession. At the same time, smaller robots are increasingly being used in engine assembly, where their ability to do qualit y, repetitive work with a precision of 1/100th of a millimetre is much in de mand. Robots are being used in final assembly work and paint spraying, and s uppliers hope to be able to develop these markets now that the technology ha s been proven. There is an emerging trend for robots to be used in automotiv e sub-contracting, prompted by the vehicle manufacturers' need to be as conf ident in the consistency and quality of out-sourced components as for their own work. The shorter lives of car models, prompted by increased competition in the industry and the Japanese producers' early efforts to reduce product development times, are changing the use and design of robots. The tradition al practice of replacing a robot after two model cycles may have been approp riate when each car model was lasting six to eight years. But with model liv es reduced to three to four years, users want to keep their robots for furth er models, and thus want increased flexibility, according to Dr Axel Gerhard t, a senior board member at the holding company for Kuka, Germany's largest robot supplier. Many of the latest trends in the use of robotics originated in Japan where labour shortages have spurred much greater penetration of rob ots into industry overall compared with Europe and the US. But robot supplie rs such as ABB Robotics, the largest in Europe, believe the European automot ive industry is as enthusiastic a user of robotic automation as its Japanese counterpart. However, some of the more recent applications of robots are le ss prevalent in Europe, giving an opportunity to suppliers if they can convi nce producers of the economic benefits. There are national variations too: t he UK is a long way behind the US and the rest of Europe in the use of robot s in the paint shop, says Mr Mike Wilson, UK sales and marketing director at GMFanuc Robotics. The versatility of modern industrial robots for tasks tha t go beyond spot welding is illustrated by Kuka's involvement in final assem bly of the Citroen XM. Following painting, robots dismount the doors and tai lgate, with the aid of sensors, for completion on separate trim lines; the c ockpit is picked up by robot from an automatic guided vehicle, inserted thro ugh the door and then bolted to the body by a second robot. Robots are used for applying the adhesive sealants and for fitting the glass exactly into th e body aperture with the aid of ultrasonic scanners; seats are inserted by r obot after measuring the exact position of the body by means of tactile sens ors, wheels are mounted and doors and tailgate refitted. Some of these tasks are difficult for robots because of the nature of final assembly. Robots ar e having to operate in a less structured environment, says Mr Wilson, and de al with less defined objects such as seats. Another problem, at least outsid e Japan, is that labour is available and costs less than in skilled manufact uring areas. So robot suppliers have to find applications that create added value, says Mr Stelio Demark, head of ABB Robotics. There are still opportun ities for greater use of robots further up the production line. Relatively n ew processes such as laser-cutting and water-jet cutting are likely to becom e more prevalent, in association with robots, especially for working with pl astics and new advanced composites. Mr Demark sees a substantial increase in automated arc-welding in the automotive industry and sub-suppliers. And Com au, the Italian robotics and systems group, expects some interesting investm ents in the body area, prompted by the increased need for new models, accord ing to Mr Massimo Mattucci, vice-president for engineering and marketing. In paint spraying, says Mr Demark, robots have hardly scratched the surface. L ast year, ABB strengthened its position in the robotic painting market with the acquisition of Graco in the US, but GMFanuc, a US/Japanese concern, and Behr of Germany have strong positions. The flexibility of robots to handle m odel changes will be the key to their further implementation in the car body area. In engine and transmission production, robots are becoming better est ablished, and Mr Mattucci suggests a new generation of engines prompted by t ougher environmental regulations could be the spur to further investment in robots. However, an increasing portion of business for robot suppliers seems likely to come from refurbishment of existing robots rather than new purcha ses as customers seek maximum value from their manufacturing investments. In the past three or four years, this has been a growing trend of robot refitt ing and modification in the motor industry, carried out during model changeo vers and restoring robots to previous levels of accuracy and productivity. < /TEXT> The Financial Times London Page III ============= Transaction # 111 ============================================== Transaction #: 111 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:55:09 Selec. Rec. #: 3 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT922-4414 _AN-CFEA9AEEFT 9206 05 FT 05 JUN 92 / Survey of Vehicle Manufacturing Techno logy (6): Machines are now used for tasks beyond spot welding - Robots By ANDREW BAXTER ROBOTS have become an e stablished part of the vehicle manufacturing scene over the past 15 years. T he motor industry accounts for as much as 40 per cent of the 450,000 install ed industrial robots worldwide but their use is changing and applications ar e expanding. The traditional picture of long lines of robots each making bil lions of spot welds on car bodies in a working life of eight to 10 years is still true, but only half the story. Those same welding robots are as likely to be grouped in flexible manufacturing cells and capable of handling a wid e range of models in quick succession. At the same time, smaller robots are increasingly being used in engine assembly, where their ability to do qualit y, repetitive work with a precision of 1/100th of a millimetre is much in de mand. Robots are being used in final assembly work and paint spraying, and s uppliers hope to be able to develop these markets now that the technology ha s been proven. There is an emerging trend for robots to be used in automotiv e sub-contracting, prompted by the vehicle manufacturers' need to be as conf ident in the consistency and quality of out-sourced components as for their own work. The shorter lives of car models, prompted by increased competition in the industry and the Japanese producers' early efforts to reduce product development times, are changing the use and design of robots. The tradition al practice of replacing a robot after two model cycles may have been approp riate when each car model was lasting six to eight years. But with model liv es reduced to three to four years, users want to keep their robots for furth er models, and thus want increased flexibility, according to Dr Axel Gerhard t, a senior board member at the holding company for Kuka, Germany's largest robot supplier. Many of the latest trends in the use of robotics originated in Japan where labour shortages have spurred much greater penetration of rob ots into industry overall compared with Europe and the US. But robot supplie rs such as ABB Robotics, the largest in Europe, believe the European automot ive industry is as enthusiastic a user of robotic automation as its Japanese counterpart. However, some of the more recent applications of robots are le ss prevalent in Europe, giving an opportunity to suppliers if they can convi nce producers of the economic benefits. There are national variations too: t he UK is a long way behind the US and the rest of Europe in the use of robot s in the paint shop, says Mr Mike Wilson, UK sales and marketing director at GMFanuc Robotics. The versatility of modern industrial robots for tasks tha t go beyond spot welding is illustrated by Kuka's involvement in final assem bly of the Citroen XM. Following painting, robots dismount the doors and tai lgate, with the aid of sensors, for completion on separate trim lines; the c ockpit is picked up by robot from an automatic guided vehicle, inserted thro ugh the door and then bolted to the body by a second robot. Robots are used for applying the adhesive sealants and for fitting the glass exactly into th e body aperture with the aid of ultrasonic scanners; seats are inserted by r obot after measuring the exact position of the body by means of tactile sens ors, wheels are mounted and doors and tailgate refitted. Some of these tasks are difficult for robots because of the nature of final assembly. Robots ar e having to operate in a less structured environment, says Mr Wilson, and de al with less defined objects such as seats. Another problem, at least outsid e Japan, is that labour is available and costs less than in skilled manufact uring areas. So robot suppliers have to find applications that create added value, says Mr Stelio Demark, head of ABB Robotics. There are still opportun ities for greater use of robots further up the production line. Relatively n ew processes such as laser-cutting and water-jet cutting are likely to becom e more prevalent, in association with robots, especially for working with pl astics and new advanced composites. Mr Demark sees a substantial increase in automated arc-welding in the automotive industry and sub-suppliers. And Com au, the Italian robotics and systems group, expects some interesting investm ents in the body area, prompted by the increased need for new models, accord ing to Mr Massimo Mattucci, vice-president for engineering and marketing. In paint spraying, says Mr Demark, robots have hardly scratched the surface. L ast year, ABB strengthened its position in the robotic painting market with the acquisition of Graco in the US, but GMFanuc, a US/Japanese concern, and Behr of Germany have strong positions. The flexibility of robots to handle m odel changes will be the key to their further implementation in the car body area. In engine and transmission production, robots are becoming better est ablished, and Mr Mattucci suggests a new generation of engines prompted by t ougher environmental regulations could be the spur to further investment in robots. However, an increasing portion of business for robot suppliers seems likely to come from refurbishment of existing robots rather than new purcha ses as customers seek maximum value from their manufacturing investments. In the past three or four years, this has been a growing trend of robot refitt ing and modification in the motor industry, carried out during model changeo vers and restoring robots to previous levels of accuracy and productivity. < /TEXT> The Financial Times London Page III ============= Transaction # 112 ============================================== Transaction #: 112 Transaction Code: 15 (Terms Cleared) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:55:16 Selec. 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Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 114 ============================================== Transaction #: 114 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 13:56:50 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 4 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(topic @ {cuba sugar imports exports})" ============= Transaction # 115 ============================================== Transaction #: 115 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:56:57 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 40632 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 116 ============================================== Transaction #: 116 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 13:57:31 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 4 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(topic {cuba}) and (topic {sugar imports exports})" ============= Transaction # 117 ============================================== Transaction #: 117 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:57:33 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 19 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 118 ============================================== Transaction #: 118 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:57:42 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-3603 _AN-CCMBUADIFT 9203 13 FT 13 MAR 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Problems piling up for Caribbean sugar sector - A wave of labour unrest is adding to the woes of a struggling industry, writes Canute James By CANUTE JAMES A WAVE of industrial unrest in the Carib bean sugar industry has compounded earlier problems caused by falling produc tion and changes in important markets. Exporters are having difficulty in re taining traditional markets and no new ones are available; some export quota s have been reduced while some export commitments are not being fulfilled. T he pain is most evident in Barbados, for which the sugar industry is a relat ively small but important pillar of the troubled economy. An eight-week stri ke that delayed the start of this year's harvest has reduced production at a time when the financially strapped industry has been trying to catch its br eath. The industry was shut down late last year because it ran out of money. The privately-owned Barbados Sugar Industry Ltd, which operates the island' s mills, owes a state-owned bank about USDollars 87m. New money has not been available because the government is under pressure to reduce state spending . It took a loan of Pounds 5m from Barclays Bank of the UK to get the indust ry up on its feet again, but preparations by millers to start processing can e in January were frustrated by a strike. Unions demanded an increase in wag es but the millers said they were unable to pay because of their weak financ es. It took the intervention of the country's prime minister to break the im passe. The industry is forecasting production of 50,000 tonnes for this year , which will not be enough to meet its quotas to the European Community and the US while satisfying domestic demand, for which about 73,000 tonnes would be needed. Failure to fill export quotas has also been a major worry for th e Guyanese sugar industry. In each of the past three years the country has p leaded force majeure on scheduled shipments to the European Community as pro duction has faltered because of strikes and poor weather. The industry expec ts to meet its EC quota of 167,000 tonnes this year although production was only 155,000 tonnes last year, 25,000 tonnes more than in 1990. Like other c ountries that fear a loss of their quotas if they do not meet the supply sch edules, Guyana and Barbados may be forced to import sugar for the domestic m arket. 'The logic here is quite simple,' explains a Jamaican trade official. 'The preferential markets such as the EC pay more than the exporters would get on the world market. So they ensure they meet their quotas and then buy cheaply on the world market for domestic consumption. The EC and the US do n ot like this practice, but it is done fairly often.' In Guyana and Barbados efforts are being made to improve the management of the sugar industry and r aise productivity. Booker Tate, a subsidiary of Booker of the UK, is managin g the state-owned industry in Guyana, and will begin running the Barbados in dustry later this year. The marginal improvement in output by the Jamaican i ndustry over the past two years was halted by a two-week strike at the islan d's nine mills that ended this week. This year's target of 230,000 tonnes, i f it is achieved, will allow the island to meet its quota commitments. The a dministrators of the industry in the Caribbean complain that region's market ing and production plans are being adversely affected by changing conditions in important markets, such as the US, where adjustments to import quotas ar e frequent. In the current crop year, for example, most of the Caribbean pro ducers have had their US quota cut by 35 per cent, and others by 10 per cent . These changes, which are influenced mainly by the level of domestic US pro duction, are expected to reduce the Caribbean region's earnings by about USD ollars 70m. The reduction is hitting hardest in the Dominican Republic, wher e industry has been in decline for the past decade. The cut of 35 per cent i n its US quota to 232,500 tonnes this year might have been less painful had it not been for uncertainty over another valuable market. The Dominicans had been supplying between 50,000 tonnes and 225,000 tonnes a year to the Sovie t Union. But with the break-up of the union Dominican industry officials and bankers say there is uncertainty about future of sales to the Commonwealth of Independent States, as it is now called. Like most of the other Caribbean producers, production costs in the Dominican Republic, which produced 628,0 00 tonnes last year, exceed world market prices. Strikes and production cost s are not likely to be among the problems facing the sugar sector in Cuba, t he region's largest producer. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, which was the island's major market, short term contracts with members of the CIS have brought some relief. But a significant reduction in output is likely th is year because of a late start to harvesting and a shortage of fuel which h as overtaken the embattled economy. There are indications that output this y ear will be about 1m tonnes less than last year's 7.6m tonnes. The US indust ry, however, is already weighing the consequences of the changes in Cuba's m arkets, with suggestions that this could leave the island with millions of t onnes to dispose of on the world market. Depression of prices would be compo unded by a likely loss of market for some of Cuba's neighbours, particularly if there were political changes on the island. 'In a post-Castro Cuba, the US would try to assist a new government if it is democratic,' suggests Mr Ju lio Herrera, president of the Caribbean Basin Sugar Producers Group. 'Cuba w ill inevitably turn to the US as a market for its sugar. The US will be told that it has a moral obligation to buy Cuban sugar.' The Financ ial Times London Page 30 ============= Transaction # 119 ============================================== Transaction #: 119 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:58:14 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-3603 _AN-CCMBUADIFT 9203 13 FT 13 MAR 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Problems piling up for Caribbean sugar sector - A wave of labour unrest is adding to the woes of a struggling industry, writes Canute James By CANUTE JAMES A WAVE of industrial unrest in the Carib bean sugar industry has compounded earlier problems caused by falling produc tion and changes in important markets. Exporters are having difficulty in re taining traditional markets and no new ones are available; some export quota s have been reduced while some export commitments are not being fulfilled. T he pain is most evident in Barbados, for which the sugar industry is a relat ively small but important pillar of the troubled economy. An eight-week stri ke that delayed the start of this year's harvest has reduced production at a time when the financially strapped industry has been trying to catch its br eath. The industry was shut down late last year because it ran out of money. The privately-owned Barbados Sugar Industry Ltd, which operates the island' s mills, owes a state-owned bank about USDollars 87m. New money has not been available because the government is under pressure to reduce state spending . It took a loan of Pounds 5m from Barclays Bank of the UK to get the indust ry up on its feet again, but preparations by millers to start processing can e in January were frustrated by a strike. Unions demanded an increase in wag es but the millers said they were unable to pay because of their weak financ es. It took the intervention of the country's prime minister to break the im passe. The industry is forecasting production of 50,000 tonnes for this year , which will not be enough to meet its quotas to the European Community and the US while satisfying domestic demand, for which about 73,000 tonnes would be needed. Failure to fill export quotas has also been a major worry for th e Guyanese sugar industry. In each of the past three years the country has p leaded force majeure on scheduled shipments to the European Community as pro duction has faltered because of strikes and poor weather. The industry expec ts to meet its EC quota of 167,000 tonnes this year although production was only 155,000 tonnes last year, 25,000 tonnes more than in 1990. Like other c ountries that fear a loss of their quotas if they do not meet the supply sch edules, Guyana and Barbados may be forced to import sugar for the domestic m arket. 'The logic here is quite simple,' explains a Jamaican trade official. 'The preferential markets such as the EC pay more than the exporters would get on the world market. So they ensure they meet their quotas and then buy cheaply on the world market for domestic consumption. The EC and the US do n ot like this practice, but it is done fairly often.' In Guyana and Barbados efforts are being made to improve the management of the sugar industry and r aise productivity. Booker Tate, a subsidiary of Booker of the UK, is managin g the state-owned industry in Guyana, and will begin running the Barbados in dustry later this year. The marginal improvement in output by the Jamaican i ndustry over the past two years was halted by a two-week strike at the islan d's nine mills that ended this week. This year's target of 230,000 tonnes, i f it is achieved, will allow the island to meet its quota commitments. The a dministrators of the industry in the Caribbean complain that region's market ing and production plans are being adversely affected by changing conditions in important markets, such as the US, where adjustments to import quotas ar e frequent. In the current crop year, for example, most of the Caribbean pro ducers have had their US quota cut by 35 per cent, and others by 10 per cent . These changes, which are influenced mainly by the level of domestic US pro duction, are expected to reduce the Caribbean region's earnings by about USD ollars 70m. The reduction is hitting hardest in the Dominican Republic, wher e industry has been in decline for the past decade. The cut of 35 per cent i n its US quota to 232,500 tonnes this year might have been less painful had it not been for uncertainty over another valuable market. The Dominicans had been supplying between 50,000 tonnes and 225,000 tonnes a year to the Sovie t Union. But with the break-up of the union Dominican industry officials and bankers say there is uncertainty about future of sales to the Commonwealth of Independent States, as it is now called. Like most of the other Caribbean producers, production costs in the Dominican Republic, which produced 628,0 00 tonnes last year, exceed world market prices. Strikes and production cost s are not likely to be among the problems facing the sugar sector in Cuba, t he region's largest producer. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, which was the island's major market, short term contracts with members of the CIS have brought some relief. But a significant reduction in output is likely th is year because of a late start to harvesting and a shortage of fuel which h as overtaken the embattled economy. There are indications that output this y ear will be about 1m tonnes less than last year's 7.6m tonnes. The US indust ry, however, is already weighing the consequences of the changes in Cuba's m arkets, with suggestions that this could leave the island with millions of t onnes to dispose of on the world market. Depression of prices would be compo unded by a likely loss of market for some of Cuba's neighbours, particularly if there were political changes on the island. 'In a post-Castro Cuba, the US would try to assist a new government if it is democratic,' suggests Mr Ju lio Herrera, president of the Caribbean Basin Sugar Producers Group. 'Cuba w ill inevitably turn to the US as a market for its sugar. The US will be told that it has a moral obligation to buy Cuban sugar.' The Financ ial Times London Page 30 ============= Transaction # 120 ============================================== Transaction #: 120 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:58:16 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-3603 _AN-CCMBUADIFT 9203 13 FT 13 MAR 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Problems piling up for Caribbean sugar sector - A wave of labour unrest is adding to the woes of a struggling industry, writes Canute James By CANUTE JAMES A WAVE of industrial unrest in the Carib bean sugar industry has compounded earlier problems caused by falling produc tion and changes in important markets. Exporters are having difficulty in re taining traditional markets and no new ones are available; some export quota s have been reduced while some export commitments are not being fulfilled. T he pain is most evident in Barbados, for which the sugar industry is a relat ively small but important pillar of the troubled economy. An eight-week stri ke that delayed the start of this year's harvest has reduced production at a time when the financially strapped industry has been trying to catch its br eath. The industry was shut down late last year because it ran out of money. The privately-owned Barbados Sugar Industry Ltd, which operates the island' s mills, owes a state-owned bank about USDollars 87m. New money has not been available because the government is under pressure to reduce state spending . It took a loan of Pounds 5m from Barclays Bank of the UK to get the indust ry up on its feet again, but preparations by millers to start processing can e in January were frustrated by a strike. Unions demanded an increase in wag es but the millers said they were unable to pay because of their weak financ es. It took the intervention of the country's prime minister to break the im passe. The industry is forecasting production of 50,000 tonnes for this year , which will not be enough to meet its quotas to the European Community and the US while satisfying domestic demand, for which about 73,000 tonnes would be needed. Failure to fill export quotas has also been a major worry for th e Guyanese sugar industry. In each of the past three years the country has p leaded force majeure on scheduled shipments to the European Community as pro duction has faltered because of strikes and poor weather. The industry expec ts to meet its EC quota of 167,000 tonnes this year although production was only 155,000 tonnes last year, 25,000 tonnes more than in 1990. Like other c ountries that fear a loss of their quotas if they do not meet the supply sch edules, Guyana and Barbados may be forced to import sugar for the domestic m arket. 'The logic here is quite simple,' explains a Jamaican trade official. 'The preferential markets such as the EC pay more than the exporters would get on the world market. So they ensure they meet their quotas and then buy cheaply on the world market for domestic consumption. The EC and the US do n ot like this practice, but it is done fairly often.' In Guyana and Barbados efforts are being made to improve the management of the sugar industry and r aise productivity. Booker Tate, a subsidiary of Booker of the UK, is managin g the state-owned industry in Guyana, and will begin running the Barbados in dustry later this year. The marginal improvement in output by the Jamaican i ndustry over the past two years was halted by a two-week strike at the islan d's nine mills that ended this week. This year's target of 230,000 tonnes, i f it is achieved, will allow the island to meet its quota commitments. The a dministrators of the industry in the Caribbean complain that region's market ing and production plans are being adversely affected by changing conditions in important markets, such as the US, where adjustments to import quotas ar e frequent. In the current crop year, for example, most of the Caribbean pro ducers have had their US quota cut by 35 per cent, and others by 10 per cent . These changes, which are influenced mainly by the level of domestic US pro duction, are expected to reduce the Caribbean region's earnings by about USD ollars 70m. The reduction is hitting hardest in the Dominican Republic, wher e industry has been in decline for the past decade. The cut of 35 per cent i n its US quota to 232,500 tonnes this year might have been less painful had it not been for uncertainty over another valuable market. The Dominicans had been supplying between 50,000 tonnes and 225,000 tonnes a year to the Sovie t Union. But with the break-up of the union Dominican industry officials and bankers say there is uncertainty about future of sales to the Commonwealth of Independent States, as it is now called. Like most of the other Caribbean producers, production costs in the Dominican Republic, which produced 628,0 00 tonnes last year, exceed world market prices. Strikes and production cost s are not likely to be among the problems facing the sugar sector in Cuba, t he region's largest producer. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, which was the island's major market, short term contracts with members of the CIS have brought some relief. But a significant reduction in output is likely th is year because of a late start to harvesting and a shortage of fuel which h as overtaken the embattled economy. There are indications that output this y ear will be about 1m tonnes less than last year's 7.6m tonnes. The US indust ry, however, is already weighing the consequences of the changes in Cuba's m arkets, with suggestions that this could leave the island with millions of t onnes to dispose of on the world market. Depression of prices would be compo unded by a likely loss of market for some of Cuba's neighbours, particularly if there were political changes on the island. 'In a post-Castro Cuba, the US would try to assist a new government if it is democratic,' suggests Mr Ju lio Herrera, president of the Caribbean Basin Sugar Producers Group. 'Cuba w ill inevitably turn to the US as a market for its sugar. The US will be told that it has a moral obligation to buy Cuban sugar.' The Financ ial Times London Page 30 ============= Transaction # 121 ============================================== Transaction #: 121 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:58:22 Selec. Rec. #: 2 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-6637 _AN-CB0CIAAGFT 9202 27 FT 27 FEB 92 / Survey of Dominican Republic (11): An industry slow to adapt -The country's sugar production has halved in eight years By CANUTE JAMES FOR MANY year s the main pillar of the Dominican economy, the sugar industry has recently undergone some difficult years. As the region's second largest producer afte r Cuba, the Dominican Republic has seen production fall by a half between 19 83 and last year. In 1983, the industry accounted for 35 per cent of the cou ntry's foreign earnings; last year its share fell to 16 per cent, writes Can ute James. The decline has been the result of changes in the economics of in ternational sugar, which have overtaken an industry that has been slow to ad apt. At the root of the problem has been the State Sugar Council (CEA), an e nterprise created in 1966 to manage the large holdings once owned by Preside nt Rafael Trujillo, the dictator assassinated in 1961. Favourable world pric es masked a high degree of inefficiency, until depression overtook the inter national sugar market about a decade ago. Falling prices and high production costs, compounded by outbreaks of cane rust disease which caused depleted y ields, exposed the company, and forced it to diversify its operations and se ll off land, reducing the area under canes. Much of this land is now taken u p by non-traditional agriculture, tourism resorts and free trade zones. The country's other producers, Central Romana (once owned by Gulf and Western) a nd the Vicini Group, which are both privately owned, also suffered, but were better able to adapt. The sugar industry was also hit by reduced access to the US market with a cutback by Washington of import quotas. Fluctuations in domestic US output led to an increase in the Dominican quota to 333,000 ton nes in 1990, but this has again been cut to 232,500 tonnes this year. At the same time, the Dominican Republic has not made use of preferential access f or its sugar to the European market. When it signed the Lome Convention, tra ditional suppliers said they feared Dominican sugar would depress prices on the EC market. The Dominican government said it would not ship sugar to the EC under preferential terms granted by the Convention. A more recent setback to the country's industry has been the break-up of the Soviet Union, to whi ch it has been supplying between 50,000 and 225,000 tonnes a year. Industry officials and bankers say there is uncertainty about the future of sales to the Commonwealth of Independent States. The sugar industry was hit last year by a row over allegations that Haitian children were being used as labourer s on farms owned and operated by the CEA. The Dominican government, stung by accusations from human rights groups that it was condoning child slavery, o rdered the deportation of thousands of Haitians who, it said, were illegally resident in the country. Government officials say wages in the sugar indust ry do not encourage Dominican workers, but there appears to be no worry abou t the supply of labour for the industry. Rather, Mr Frederico Echineque, exe cutive director of the Dominican Sugar Institute, says that this year produc tion will be higher than last year. The industry is moving into new areas, u sing the byproducts of the canes for such products as chemicals for the pain t industry. But it is unlikely that the industry will abandon production of sugar as its main undertaking. It provides a livelihood for 80,000 people in a labour surplus economy. ------------------------------------------------ SUGAR PRODUCTION (in tonnes**) ----------------------------------- ------------- Total Exports to Exports to the US the USSR ----------------------------------------------- - 1983 1,209,456 640,128 45,156 1984 1,133,341 614,15 9 55,175 1985 920,699 465,085 224,689 1986 894,5 38 357,789 51,243 1987 815,549 302,804 146,315 1 988 776,630 228,900 219,560 1989 693,004 285,136 122,239 1990 589,664 310,297 33,115 1991 628,269 290,310* n/a ------------------------------------------------ *Estimate **Raw value ------------------------------------------------ S ource: Dominican Sugar Institute ------------------------------------------ ------ The Financial Times London Page 35 ============= Transaction # 122 ============================================== Transaction #: 122 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:58:41 Selec. Rec. #: 4 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-8261 _AN-CBRBMAFXFT 9202 18 FT 18 FEB 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: World sug ar market 'at the crossroads' By DAVID BLACKWELL THE WORLD sugar market is at the crossroads, forcing many prod ucers to review their sugar policies in the light of changing international trade patterns, the Gatt, and other trade liberalisation issues, according t o the latest sugar report from ED & F. Man, the London trade house. Should t he Gatt talks be successful, cuts in support mechanisms by 1999 'should acce lerate the fall in the EC's net exports as marginal producers fail to cover their average production costs. The same argument applies to some of the hig h cost/less efficient producers in the US.' This will open up new opportunit ies for many producers in Africa and the Caribbean, but they will need to ex amine their long-term cost structure and efficiency. Man points out that und er preferential access to the US and EC markets, their production costs and efficiency deteriorated to the extent that some have failed even to meet the ir quota allocations. The increase in international trade will not, however, increase the transparency of the market. The uncertainty of Russsia's effec tive imports, Cuba's exports and the pattern of trade elsewhere in eastern E urope have 'turned the clock back some 40 years to a time when information a bout import demand and export availabiltiy was lacking'. Meanwhile sugar pri ces - which recently fell below 8 cents a lb - are expected to come under fu rther pressure as exportable surpluses come on to the market from Brazil, Cu ba, Thailand and the EC. The Financial Times Lond on Page 36 ============= Transaction # 123 ============================================== Transaction #: 123 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:58:54 Selec. Rec. #: 5 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-2957 _AN-CCQBDAC4FT 9203 17 FT 17 MAR 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Sugar pri ces forecast to remain in narrow range By DAVID BLAC KWELL WORLD SUGAR prices are set to remain locked in the 'd esperately narrow' 1.5 cents a lb trading range of the last 12 months, accor ding to the latest sugar report from ED & F. Man, the London trade house. Th e resistance to movement in spite of a volatile trading environment is due t o fear of uncertainty at a time of revolutionary change in the eastern Europ ean and Cuban markets, Man suggests. It also coincides with 'an unprecedente d convergence of views about the overall supply and demand balance'. While u ncertainty surrounds crop prospects in both Cuba, the biggest exporter, and the CIS, the biggest importer, the convergence can be explained by favourabl e growing conditions in many exporting countries. Output in Brazil, Thailand and India in the year to the end of last month has exceeded the previous ye ar by 24, 30 and 8 per cent respectively. 'The full impact of these potentia lly bumper crops has not as yet been felt on the market,' says Man. The Financial Times London Page 32 ============= Transaction # 124 ============================================== Transaction #: 124 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 13:59:26 Selec. Rec. #: 6 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT922-12873 _AN-CDOBJAC3FT 920 415 FT 15 APR 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Cuba fac ed with worst sugar crop in years By REUTER HAVANA CUBA IS straining to finish what c ould be its worst sugar harvest in recent years because it says it needs eve ry tonne to help keep its crisis-hit economy afloat, reports Reuter from Hav ana. After maintaining a virtual news blackout on the 1991-1992 sugar crop f or five months, the Caribbean island's government is now making the harvest a national public issue. 'Our sole option. . . is not to lose a single tonne of sugar,' it said. The government urged the country's sugar workers to mak e a maximum effort over the next few weeks, a message reinforced by daily te levision propaganda spots focusing on the harvest. The official media descri be the current season as one of the most difficult ever experienced by Cuba, which has traditionally been the world's biggest exporter of sugar. The 199 1-1992 harvest started late and has been bedevilled by shortages of oil, lub ricants and spare parts that are essential to keep mechanical harvesters and mills running. Adding to the urgency is the possible onset of spring rains in May which could disrupt a late-finishing harvest. Even more worrying for Cuba, the difficulties come at a time when it needs every tonne of sugar it can produce to exchange for vital imports of oil, machinery spares and food. The Financial Times London Page 30 ============= Transaction # 125 ============================================== Transaction #: 125 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 14:00:04 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 4 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(title {cuba}) and (topic {sugar imports exports})" ============= Transaction # 126 ============================================== Transaction #: 126 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:00:06 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 4 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 4 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 127 ============================================== Transaction #: 127 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:00:19 Selec. Rec. #: 3 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT941-16799 _AN-EAGC3AFBFT 940 107 FT 07 JAN 94 / Commodities and Agriculture: Washingt on holds key to Cuba's farming future - Agricultural exports could blossom i f the US lifted its embargo By CANUTE JAMES Cuban agriculture could become a significant force on markets, incl uding the US, if Washington's trade embargo on the Caribbean island was lift ed, according to a group of experts that discussed the island's agriculture at a recent conference in Miami on Central American and Caribbean trade. It also concluded, however, that it would take the country many years after the ending of an embargo to adjust to a global market very different from that which prevailed at the time of the 1959 revolution. It was also thought unli kely that the island republic would be able to regain any of the significant markets it lost, as these had been taken over by other producers who would not easily be dislodged. 'Cuba has not been sitting still in agriculture des pite the many setbacks,' said Mr John Lamb, associate director for internati onal trade of Chemonics International of the US. 'The sector employs 19 per cent of the country's workers and accounts for 75 per cent of its foreign ea rnings.' The changes to Cuba's agriculture that were implemented by the gove rnment last September were intended to deal with current problems of product ion shortfalls, and did not seek to lift production to find new markets, the experts concluded. The Cuban government has allowed increased private parti cipation in agriculture with the establishment of new co-operative farms and individually-run farms - but these still operate within the framework of th e state's continuing control of the economy. The sugar industry, the main pi llar of Cuban agriculture, would face some difficulty in regaining markets e ven if the embargo was lifted, Mr Lamb said. He noted that before the 1959 r evolution, Cuba had a half of the US sugar market at a time when US cane sug ar imports were about 6m tonnes a year. But US cane sugar consumption was no w only about 3m tonnes a year. The experts reasoned that, if the trade embar go ended, Cuba could be attractive to US investors in agriculture wanting an offshore location. Mr Lamb said the island had good soil and flat land, ade quate water, a large, trained labour force, minimal pest problems, good port s and a sound internal transportation infrastructure. The Cuban citrus indus try was supported by an extensive research system, said Mr Gene Albrigo, a h orticulturalist with the Citrus Research and Education Centre of the Univers ity of Florida. 'Over 60 per cent of the trees are under 15 years old. There are adequate facilities in the packing houses, of which there are 25, with two more being built. The industry has several forms of joint agreements wit h Chilean, British, Spanish, Israeli and Greek companies.' Cuba's impact on the US or other markets would not be immediate if the embargo was lifted, th e experts concluded. They expected that first efforts would be for an expans ion of domestic food crops for local consumption, and a rehabilitation of th e sugar industry because of its importance to the national economy. It would also take some time for the expected disputes over land tenure and land own ership to be resolved. The US government has warned prospective foreign inve stors in Cuba not to become involved with property that was seized by the go vernment and could be the subject of legal disputes if and when there is a c hange of government in the island. 'Salinity is also a very big and growing problem,' reported Mr Albrigo. 'This has reached a crisis in some parts of t he coast and across the centre of the island. If this continues it will be a disaster, particularly for fruit and vegetables.' In addition to expanded p roduction of the traditional commodities (sugar, citrus, coffee, tobacco) to satisfy a new market, Cuba has the potential to become an important source of horticultural products for North America. Some participants in the confer ence concluded that this was an area of the island's agriculture that could bloom in a post-embargo Cuba. 'Cuba was once a major exporter of vegetables, but the market has been taken over by Mexico since the embargo,' said Mr La mb. 'Cuban access to the US market in the future will have an adverse impact on producers in the Caribbean, Central America, Mexico and Florida, especia lly in the production of vegetables and horticulture.' Mr Carlos Balerdi, a tropical fruit crops agent in the agricultural extension service of Dade Cou nty, Florida, thought that one major hurdle for Cuban agriculture if and whe n the embargo was lifted could be psychological. 'One problem is that agricu ltural work has been used as a penalty for dissidents and those trying to le ave the island,' he said. 'This may cause a very negative psychological reac tion to agriculture in a future Cuba.' Countries:- CU Z Cuba, Caribbean. Industries:- P0133 Sugarcane and Su gar Beets. P0174 Citrus Fruits. P01 Agricultural Production-Crops. Types:- CMMT Comment & Analysis. MKTS Foreign tr ade. The Financial Times London Page 20 ============= Transaction # 128 ============================================== Transaction #: 128 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 14:01:45 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 4 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(topic {cuba sugar}) and (topic {imports exports})" ============= Transaction # 129 ============================================== Transaction #: 129 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:01:47 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 19 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 130 ============================================== Transaction #: 130 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:01:49 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-3603 _AN-CCMBUADIFT 9203 13 FT 13 MAR 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Problems piling up for Caribbean sugar sector - A wave of labour unrest is adding to the woes of a struggling industry, writes Canute James By CANUTE JAMES A WAVE of industrial unrest in the Carib bean sugar industry has compounded earlier problems caused by falling produc tion and changes in important markets. Exporters are having difficulty in re taining traditional markets and no new ones are available; some export quota s have been reduced while some export commitments are not being fulfilled. T he pain is most evident in Barbados, for which the sugar industry is a relat ively small but important pillar of the troubled economy. An eight-week stri ke that delayed the start of this year's harvest has reduced production at a time when the financially strapped industry has been trying to catch its br eath. The industry was shut down late last year because it ran out of money. The privately-owned Barbados Sugar Industry Ltd, which operates the island' s mills, owes a state-owned bank about USDollars 87m. New money has not been available because the government is under pressure to reduce state spending . It took a loan of Pounds 5m from Barclays Bank of the UK to get the indust ry up on its feet again, but preparations by millers to start processing can e in January were frustrated by a strike. Unions demanded an increase in wag es but the millers said they were unable to pay because of their weak financ es. It took the intervention of the country's prime minister to break the im passe. The industry is forecasting production of 50,000 tonnes for this year , which will not be enough to meet its quotas to the European Community and the US while satisfying domestic demand, for which about 73,000 tonnes would be needed. Failure to fill export quotas has also been a major worry for th e Guyanese sugar industry. In each of the past three years the country has p leaded force majeure on scheduled shipments to the European Community as pro duction has faltered because of strikes and poor weather. The industry expec ts to meet its EC quota of 167,000 tonnes this year although production was only 155,000 tonnes last year, 25,000 tonnes more than in 1990. Like other c ountries that fear a loss of their quotas if they do not meet the supply sch edules, Guyana and Barbados may be forced to import sugar for the domestic m arket. 'The logic here is quite simple,' explains a Jamaican trade official. 'The preferential markets such as the EC pay more than the exporters would get on the world market. So they ensure they meet their quotas and then buy cheaply on the world market for domestic consumption. The EC and the US do n ot like this practice, but it is done fairly often.' In Guyana and Barbados efforts are being made to improve the management of the sugar industry and r aise productivity. Booker Tate, a subsidiary of Booker of the UK, is managin g the state-owned industry in Guyana, and will begin running the Barbados in dustry later this year. The marginal improvement in output by the Jamaican i ndustry over the past two years was halted by a two-week strike at the islan d's nine mills that ended this week. This year's target of 230,000 tonnes, i f it is achieved, will allow the island to meet its quota commitments. The a dministrators of the industry in the Caribbean complain that region's market ing and production plans are being adversely affected by changing conditions in important markets, such as the US, where adjustments to import quotas ar e frequent. In the current crop year, for example, most of the Caribbean pro ducers have had their US quota cut by 35 per cent, and others by 10 per cent . These changes, which are influenced mainly by the level of domestic US pro duction, are expected to reduce the Caribbean region's earnings by about USD ollars 70m. The reduction is hitting hardest in the Dominican Republic, wher e industry has been in decline for the past decade. The cut of 35 per cent i n its US quota to 232,500 tonnes this year might have been less painful had it not been for uncertainty over another valuable market. The Dominicans had been supplying between 50,000 tonnes and 225,000 tonnes a year to the Sovie t Union. But with the break-up of the union Dominican industry officials and bankers say there is uncertainty about future of sales to the Commonwealth of Independent States, as it is now called. Like most of the other Caribbean producers, production costs in the Dominican Republic, which produced 628,0 00 tonnes last year, exceed world market prices. Strikes and production cost s are not likely to be among the problems facing the sugar sector in Cuba, t he region's largest producer. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, which was the island's major market, short term contracts with members of the CIS have brought some relief. But a significant reduction in output is likely th is year because of a late start to harvesting and a shortage of fuel which h as overtaken the embattled economy. There are indications that output this y ear will be about 1m tonnes less than last year's 7.6m tonnes. The US indust ry, however, is already weighing the consequences of the changes in Cuba's m arkets, with suggestions that this could leave the island with millions of t onnes to dispose of on the world market. Depression of prices would be compo unded by a likely loss of market for some of Cuba's neighbours, particularly if there were political changes on the island. 'In a post-Castro Cuba, the US would try to assist a new government if it is democratic,' suggests Mr Ju lio Herrera, president of the Caribbean Basin Sugar Producers Group. 'Cuba w ill inevitably turn to the US as a market for its sugar. The US will be told that it has a moral obligation to buy Cuban sugar.' The Financ ial Times London Page 30 ============= Transaction # 131 ============================================== Transaction #: 131 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:01:49 Selec. Rec. #: 2 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-6637 _AN-CB0CIAAGFT 9202 27 FT 27 FEB 92 / Survey of Dominican Republic (11): An industry slow to adapt -The country's sugar production has halved in eight years By CANUTE JAMES FOR MANY year s the main pillar of the Dominican economy, the sugar industry has recently undergone some difficult years. As the region's second largest producer afte r Cuba, the Dominican Republic has seen production fall by a half between 19 83 and last year. In 1983, the industry accounted for 35 per cent of the cou ntry's foreign earnings; last year its share fell to 16 per cent, writes Can ute James. The decline has been the result of changes in the economics of in ternational sugar, which have overtaken an industry that has been slow to ad apt. At the root of the problem has been the State Sugar Council (CEA), an e nterprise created in 1966 to manage the large holdings once owned by Preside nt Rafael Trujillo, the dictator assassinated in 1961. Favourable world pric es masked a high degree of inefficiency, until depression overtook the inter national sugar market about a decade ago. Falling prices and high production costs, compounded by outbreaks of cane rust disease which caused depleted y ields, exposed the company, and forced it to diversify its operations and se ll off land, reducing the area under canes. Much of this land is now taken u p by non-traditional agriculture, tourism resorts and free trade zones. The country's other producers, Central Romana (once owned by Gulf and Western) a nd the Vicini Group, which are both privately owned, also suffered, but were better able to adapt. The sugar industry was also hit by reduced access to the US market with a cutback by Washington of import quotas. Fluctuations in domestic US output led to an increase in the Dominican quota to 333,000 ton nes in 1990, but this has again been cut to 232,500 tonnes this year. At the same time, the Dominican Republic has not made use of preferential access f or its sugar to the European market. When it signed the Lome Convention, tra ditional suppliers said they feared Dominican sugar would depress prices on the EC market. The Dominican government said it would not ship sugar to the EC under preferential terms granted by the Convention. A more recent setback to the country's industry has been the break-up of the Soviet Union, to whi ch it has been supplying between 50,000 and 225,000 tonnes a year. Industry officials and bankers say there is uncertainty about the future of sales to the Commonwealth of Independent States. The sugar industry was hit last year by a row over allegations that Haitian children were being used as labourer s on farms owned and operated by the CEA. The Dominican government, stung by accusations from human rights groups that it was condoning child slavery, o rdered the deportation of thousands of Haitians who, it said, were illegally resident in the country. Government officials say wages in the sugar indust ry do not encourage Dominican workers, but there appears to be no worry abou t the supply of labour for the industry. Rather, Mr Frederico Echineque, exe cutive director of the Dominican Sugar Institute, says that this year produc tion will be higher than last year. The industry is moving into new areas, u sing the byproducts of the canes for such products as chemicals for the pain t industry. But it is unlikely that the industry will abandon production of sugar as its main undertaking. It provides a livelihood for 80,000 people in a labour surplus economy. ------------------------------------------------ SUGAR PRODUCTION (in tonnes**) ----------------------------------- ------------- Total Exports to Exports to the US the USSR ----------------------------------------------- - 1983 1,209,456 640,128 45,156 1984 1,133,341 614,15 9 55,175 1985 920,699 465,085 224,689 1986 894,5 38 357,789 51,243 1987 815,549 302,804 146,315 1 988 776,630 228,900 219,560 1989 693,004 285,136 122,239 1990 589,664 310,297 33,115 1991 628,269 290,310* n/a ------------------------------------------------ *Estimate **Raw value ------------------------------------------------ S ource: Dominican Sugar Institute ------------------------------------------ ------ The Financial Times London Page 35 ============= Transaction # 132 ============================================== Transaction #: 132 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:01:49 Selec. Rec. #: 3 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-6639 _AN-CB0CIAAEFT 9202 27 FT 27 FEB 92 / Survey of Dominican Republic (6): Focu s turns to new crops - Farmers, after a decade of poor performance, are brea king with tradition By CANUTE JAMES ON ROLLING plains about 50 miles to the north of Santo Domingo, the Dominic an capital, almost 7,000 acres of land previously under sugar cane have been taken up by seemingly unending rows of pineapple plants. To the east of the capital, in the sugar town of La Romana, a new meat processing plant is exp anding capacity to meet growing demand in foreign markets. These ventures ar e part of the cutting edge of a dramatic change in agriculture in the Domini can Republic. Up to 10 years ago the agriculture sector was dominated by tra ditional crops such as sugar (which for long was the backbone of the economy ), coffee, cocoa and tobacco. Now non-traditional crops are getting more att ention from local farmers, the government and foreign investors. The sugar, coffee, cocoa and tobacco sectors have performed miserably in the past decad e, due to a combination of domestic and foreign market developments. There h as been a concurrent expansion of the non-traditional sector, with investmen ts in new crops reaching Dollars 350m over the past eight years, and earning s from exports rising to Dollars 430m in 1988, and expected to reach just ov er Dollars 600m this year. The Joint Agribusiness Co-investment Council, whi ch promotes the development of non-traditional agriculture, says the expansi on is reflected particularly in the production of pineapples, citrus, melons , mangoes, vegetables, cut flowers and ornamental plants. The expansion has also been encouraged by a mixture of government incentives and market opport unities. One significant development has been the Caribbean Basin Initiative , a US trade prog- ramme which allows countries designated by Washington to ship a range of products, also selected by the US govern- ment, duty-free to the US market. More recently, the Dominican Republic became a beneficiary o f the Lome Convention which allows preferential access to the European Commu nity. Already the country is increasing its exports of non-traditional agric ultural products to Europe. Pineapples, citrus and juice concentrate are amo ng the products making use of preferential access to both the Caribbean Basi n Initiative and the Lome Convention.' Dole Dominicana produces about 2.5m ( 40lb) boxes of pineapples a year, and 800,000 gallons of juice concentrate. The company plans to invest another Dollars 1m to expand the facility, which already gives the Dominican government about Dollars 1.5m in rental fees an d sales. Agrocarne, a Dollars 16m joint venture between local investors and Campo Frio of Spain, was drawn to the Dominican Republic for much the same r easons, according to Mr Luis Rodriguez, the company's export manager. 'We co uld have gone to other places, but labour here is cheaper and the location, in relation to the markets we want to access, is very good.' The company's p rocessed pork products are currently exported to Mexico and some Caribbean i slands. Agrocarne also supplies part of domestic demand. It is now awaiting the conclusion of negotiations between the Dominican Republic and the US on the conditions under which Dominican pork products can enter the American ma rket. Even the non-traditional agriculture sector has not been immune to pro blems which have troubled the Dominican economy over the past decade. Those which have proved most worrisome include the lack of chemicals to fight pest s, restrictions on products (such as some varieties of vegetables and fruit) entering the US market, and outdated practices in farm management, post-har vest handling and packaging and marketing. Mr Fleming says that there need t o be changes to some 'old bad habits and attitudes' in the Dominican Republi c, if the agriculture sector is to continue expanding. 'The Dominican Republ ic is operating against the clock in the face of changes which will be creat ed by the widening of the North American Free Trade Area and the possibility of changes in Cuba,' he observes. The concentration on non-traditional agri culture has diverted attention from the traditional crops. While the financi ally embarrassed State Sugar Council is attempting to rationalise its operat ions, coffee and cocoa output continue to be victims of outdated husbandry. Peasant farmers who should have profited from land reform with the break-up of large plantations owned by Pres- ident Rafael Trujillo have found themsel ves unable to get farm credit because they have received only provisional ti tles which bankers find to be unsatisfactory collateral. Coffee and cocoa ou tput has fluctuated over the past decade, and although still important forei gn currency earners, both crops have been affected by the uncertainties of a volatile market. The expansion in the output of non-traditional products ha s helped to stem a decline in the agriculture sector, which accounts for 15 per cent of the gross domestic product. One promising area is tobacco. Expor ts of cigars have been increasing as the Dominican Republic makes use of new market opportunities. 'The Dominican Republic exports between 58m and 60m c igars each year, with the major market being the US, which accounts for abou t 80 per cent of the product,' says Mr Jose Seijas, general manager of Tabac alera de Garcia, one of the country's leading cigar manufacturers. 'Between 10 and 15 per cent of the country's cigar exports now go to the European Com munity.' The Financial Times London Page 34 Photo graph Non-traditional crops, harvesting a crop of beans on a collective farm in the mountains of Peravia (Omitted). ============= Transaction # 133 ============================================== Transaction #: 133 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:01:49 Selec. Rec. #: 4 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-8261 _AN-CBRBMAFXFT 9202 18 FT 18 FEB 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: World sug ar market 'at the crossroads' By DAVID BLACKWELL THE WORLD sugar market is at the crossroads, forcing many prod ucers to review their sugar policies in the light of changing international trade patterns, the Gatt, and other trade liberalisation issues, according t o the latest sugar report from ED & F. Man, the London trade house. Should t he Gatt talks be successful, cuts in support mechanisms by 1999 'should acce lerate the fall in the EC's net exports as marginal producers fail to cover their average production costs. The same argument applies to some of the hig h cost/less efficient producers in the US.' This will open up new opportunit ies for many producers in Africa and the Caribbean, but they will need to ex amine their long-term cost structure and efficiency. Man points out that und er preferential access to the US and EC markets, their production costs and efficiency deteriorated to the extent that some have failed even to meet the ir quota allocations. The increase in international trade will not, however, increase the transparency of the market. The uncertainty of Russsia's effec tive imports, Cuba's exports and the pattern of trade elsewhere in eastern E urope have 'turned the clock back some 40 years to a time when information a bout import demand and export availabiltiy was lacking'. Meanwhile sugar pri ces - which recently fell below 8 cents a lb - are expected to come under fu rther pressure as exportable surpluses come on to the market from Brazil, Cu ba, Thailand and the EC. The Financial Times Lond on Page 36 ============= Transaction # 134 ============================================== Transaction #: 134 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:01:49 Selec. Rec. #: 5 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-2957 _AN-CCQBDAC4FT 9203 17 FT 17 MAR 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Sugar pri ces forecast to remain in narrow range By DAVID BLAC KWELL WORLD SUGAR prices are set to remain locked in the 'd esperately narrow' 1.5 cents a lb trading range of the last 12 months, accor ding to the latest sugar report from ED & F. Man, the London trade house. Th e resistance to movement in spite of a volatile trading environment is due t o fear of uncertainty at a time of revolutionary change in the eastern Europ ean and Cuban markets, Man suggests. It also coincides with 'an unprecedente d convergence of views about the overall supply and demand balance'. While u ncertainty surrounds crop prospects in both Cuba, the biggest exporter, and the CIS, the biggest importer, the convergence can be explained by favourabl e growing conditions in many exporting countries. Output in Brazil, Thailand and India in the year to the end of last month has exceeded the previous ye ar by 24, 30 and 8 per cent respectively. 'The full impact of these potentia lly bumper crops has not as yet been felt on the market,' says Man. The Financial Times London Page 32 ============= Transaction # 135 ============================================== Transaction #: 135 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:01:49 Selec. Rec. #: 6 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT922-12873 _AN-CDOBJAC3FT 920 415 FT 15 APR 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Cuba fac ed with worst sugar crop in years By REUTER HAVANA CUBA IS straining to finish what c ould be its worst sugar harvest in recent years because it says it needs eve ry tonne to help keep its crisis-hit economy afloat, reports Reuter from Hav ana. After maintaining a virtual news blackout on the 1991-1992 sugar crop f or five months, the Caribbean island's government is now making the harvest a national public issue. 'Our sole option. . . is not to lose a single tonne of sugar,' it said. The government urged the country's sugar workers to mak e a maximum effort over the next few weeks, a message reinforced by daily te levision propaganda spots focusing on the harvest. The official media descri be the current season as one of the most difficult ever experienced by Cuba, which has traditionally been the world's biggest exporter of sugar. The 199 1-1992 harvest started late and has been bedevilled by shortages of oil, lub ricants and spare parts that are essential to keep mechanical harvesters and mills running. Adding to the urgency is the possible onset of spring rains in May which could disrupt a late-finishing harvest. Even more worrying for Cuba, the difficulties come at a time when it needs every tonne of sugar it can produce to exchange for vital imports of oil, machinery spares and food. The Financial Times London Page 30 ============= Transaction # 136 ============================================== Transaction #: 136 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:01:49 Selec. Rec. #: 7 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT923-3729 _AN-CIJB4AFOFT 9209 10 FT 10 SEP 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Pakistan can halt sugar imports By FARHAN BOKHARI < DATELINE> ISLAMABAD SURPLUS SUGAR stocks in Pakistan a re set to eliminate the country's need to import sugar, although the potenti al for export remains unclear. Pakistan's total production is expected to hi t 2.6m tonnes by the end of the 1992-93 fiscal year, up from 2.3m tonnes in 1991-92. Government officials estimate that private traders are holding 132, 000 tonnes of stocks, and that is expected to start rising next month as the new production season begins at sugar mills. The rise in sugar production h as partly resulted from an increase in the number of sugar mills as well as improvements in the recovery rate of sugar cane and beet. Pakistan started w ith 2 sugar mills with a daily sugar cane crushing capacity of 1,500 tonnes at the time of its independence in 1947; today there are 54, with an aggrega te capacity of 175,000 tonnes. The rise in production has allowed cuts in su gar imports. In June this year, imports of white refined sugar fell to just 538 tonnes, down from 3,480 tonnes in May. Last year, 36,819 tonnes was impo rted in June, following 48,290 tonnes in May. However, the country's sugar e xport potential remains unclear. With countries such as Brazil and Cuba havi ng lower costs of production, Pakistani sugar might not be able to compete, said one senior official. Up to 100,000 tonnes of sugar is estimated to be s muggled annually to neighbouring Iran and Afghanistan. That has made it diff icult to assess if a surplus will be left after meeting domestic consumption , including smuggling, in order to set aside large quantities for export. Ho wever, Pakistan will at least save valuable foreign exchange by meeting its sugar requirements domestically. Last year Dollars 36.8m was spent on import ing sugar, which was down from Dollars 160.5m, a year earlier. The Financial Times London Page 32 ============= Transaction # 137 ============================================== Transaction #: 137 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:01:49 Selec. Rec. #: 8 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT924-5210 _AN-CK0B0AFQFT 9211 27 FT 27 NOV 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Barbadian collapse deepens shadow over Caribbean sugar - The region, faced with high costs and low productivity, relies on guaranteed market access < BYLINE> By CANUTE JAMES THE COLLAPSE of Barbados' sugar industry late last month is the latest indication of the sometimes terminal difficulties which beset Caribbean producers. The region is faced with high production costs and often low productivity, and is unable to survive withou t guaranteed access to markets such as the European Community and the US, an d which pay higher than prevailing world market prices. The problems caused by inefficiency and indebtedness are exacerbated by what many producers see as a threat to current preferential market arrangements. Many are worried by the recent reduction in US import quotas, and are uncertain how they will f are if the North American Free Trade Agreement is implemented and Mexican pr oduction becomes a market factor. In the case of Barbados, the island has be en unable to produce enough even to meet its quota obligations to these guar anteed markets. Efforts are under way to jump-start the industry after the s tate-owned Barbados National Bank, exercising tighter credit control as part of a government austerity programme, and which is owed Dollars 50m by the i ndustry, suspended all further loans. This followed production of 55,000 ton nes from the 1992 harvest, the lowest in 60 years, according to official fig ures. In order to make use of its opportunities on the EC and US markets the island has had to import sugar to meet domestic demand. Ironically, the col lapse of the industry came after indications that it was being put under new management by Booker Tate, a subsidiary of Booker, the UK food and farming group. The company has become an important factor in the region's troubled s ugar industry, and has been called in to help the industries in Guyana, Beli ze and St Kitts-Nevis, and to run two of Jamaica's nine mills. Trinidad and Tobago is the only producer in the Commonwealth Caribbean in which Booker Ta te is not involved. In all cases the company contracted to give corporate ma nagement and technical services to sugar industries in the five countries. I t provides engineers, technologists, agriculturalists, economists, marketing specialists and support staff. The industries in both Guyana and Jamaica ha ve attracted financial assistance from multilateral institutions as a result of the management contracts given to Booker Tate, But assessments to the co mpany's effectiveness differ in the two countries. Jamaican officials say th e performance of the two mills managed by the company since 1985 has been 'd isappointing'. Yet the case of Guyana shows that the regional sugar industry is not beyond redemption. From output of 330,000 tonnes a year in the mid-1 970s, Guyana's production, plagued by labour unrest and poor weather, slumpe d to 135,000 tonnes in 1990. The industry declared shortfalls on its Europea n Community quota for three years, and shipped none of its quota to the US. Booker Tate's takeover of the management of the industry has been followed, however, by a decisive turnaround. Production is up this year and export quo tas have been met. In the Dominican Republic, the region's second largest pr oducer after Cuba, the problems of financial viability have been compounded by a shortage of labour. Foreign criticism of the treatment of workers from neighbouring Haiti, and the subsequent expulsion of thousands of Haitian wor kers, has resulted in the state-owned producer suffering a painful drop in o utput. Production this year is 8 per cent less than the 326,000 tonnes of la st year and sugar has had to be imported to meet domestic demand. The outloo k for the industry, like that of others in the region, has been depressed by the recent reduction in global imports by the US. The Caribbean's cumulativ e quota has been reduced by 11 per cent to 276,341 tonnes, causing an estima ted Dollars 15m reduction in earnings. It is the second consecutive cut for the Caribbean holders of US quotas, which were allowed to supply 471,710 ton nes in 1991. Sugar industry officials in the region say one area of uncertai nty is Mexico's future access to the US market under the Nafta. They say Mex ico's current and modest US quota of 7,500 tonnes a year can be increased 20 -fold in seven years, at the expense of existing suppliers. Cuba's troubled industry has received a fillip with a new trade agreement between the island and the Russian republic. Cuba will receive 23m barrels of Russian oil a ye ar for 2m tonnes of sugar - significantly less than the country had sold in past years to the former Soviet Union. But the island's economic problems ha ve depressed output this year to just over 6.9m tonnes. ------------------- ------------------------------- Caribbean Sugar Production ('000 tonnes, raw value) ------------------------------------------ -------- 1987-88 1989-90 1991-92 --------------- ----------------------------------- Barbados 81 69 57 Cuba 7,547 7,932 7,000 Dominican Rep. 758 632 670 French W. Indies 82 4 6 38 Guyana 178 135 238 Haiti 30 31 30 Jamaica 225 2 19 224 Trinidad 95 120 110 ----------- --------------------------------------- Source: ED and F. Man. ------------ -------------------------------------- The Financial Times London Page 30 ============= Transaction # 138 ============================================== Transaction #: 138 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:01:49 Selec. Rec. #: 9 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT924-7110 _AN-CKRCBACRFT 9211 18 FT 18 NOV 92 / A storm in a coffee cup: Falling price s and a world glut have led coffee producers and consumers to seek a new quo ta pact By CHRISTINA LAMB For the p ast two years, the world's coffee producers have been forced to swallow a bi tter brew. Plummeting prices and excess supply threaten the livelihood of mo re than 25m coffee workers from Brazil to Indonesia. The product, once known as green gold, is losing its lustre as the economic mainstay of many develo ping countries. An experiment with the free market has left the industry, wi th total sales estimated at Dollars 34bn a year and a daily consumption of 2 bn cups, in its worst crisis for decades. After the collapse in 1989 of the International Coffee Agreement - a pact between producers and consumers cont rolling exports to ensure price stability - a world glut caused coffee price s to slump to almost a third of the level of the late 1980s. Most growers ha ve been selling at well below cost for the past two years. The current state of the industry is so serious that growers, exporters, processors and buyer s - led by Brazil, the largest producer, and the US, the largest consumer an d processor - have put aside competing interests to come to the negotiating table. Following a first round in September, crucial talks will begin next M onday at the International Coffee Organisation (ICO) in London to try to con clude a new coffee pact, re-establishing quotas to limit exports and stabili se prices in an admission that the free market has not worked. Hitting 22-ye ar price lows in August of less than 50 cents a pound in New York, coffee ha s been overtaken by sugar as the developing countries' main earner after oil . Unlike oil, however, coffee supply cannot simply be turned on and off, so growers in the 50 main producing countries have to sell at the lower prices or stop production. Their ability to boost prices through holding back suppl ies is weakened by the considerable stocks in the hands of consuming countri es. The results are abandoned plantations across the developing world and ou t-of-work coffee pickers, whose anger threatens to spill over into social un rest. In some countries, such as Colombia, the principal alternative crop is the coca leaf, the raw material of cocaine. The outcome of the talks is kee nly awaited, particularly in Brazil, which has been the biggest producer alm ost continuously since the 1760s when Cappuchin monks in Rio de Janeiro bega n growing seeds smuggled from French Guyana. Mr Jose Dias de Goveia, a 76-ye ar-old farmer in Pocos de Caldas, Brazil's coffee heartland, says: 'I've bee n in coffee all my life but the last four years have been the worst I've eve r seen. We're talking survival.' Production costs are Dollars 65 a 60-kilo b ag, but he is forced to sell at Dollars 40. He has cut staff to a third, red uced land under cultivation from 500 to 400 hectares, and is producing what he calls 'ecological coffee', because he cannot afford fertilisers. In south ern Minas Gerais, the world's most productive coffee belt, such stories are common. Growers are abandoning coffee, which has always been a volatile comm odity and sensitive to climatic changes, for eucalyptus, nuts and passion fr uit. On many farms cattle graze between the remaining coffee bushes. In the past three years the number of coffee bushes in Brazil has fallen from 4.2bn to 3.2bn. Only 20 per cent are thought to be properly cultivated; quality i s suffering and thus flavour is deteriorating because coffee prices are too low for growers to invest in fertilisers and technology. The current crop is expected to yield fewer than 20m bags compared with 43m in 1987-88. Althoug h these figures are significant, the impact of the coffee price slump is eve n greater on many smaller coffee-producing nations, where coffee is the prin cipal foreign exchange earner. Growers have little alternative but to turn t o cocaine production to sustain their families. In Colombia, disenchanted pi ckers are raw fodder for recruitment into cocaine production cartels. In Bra zil, industrialisation has diminished coffee's contribution to export earnin gs to less than 4 per cent this year compared with 21.5 per cent 15 years ag o and 50 per cent in the early 1960s. However, coffee cultivation remains a labour-intensive business and Mr Christian Ottoni, head of the Pocos do Cald as Rural Union, warns: 'The social consequences of the price collapse have b een devastating.' He estimates that 1.5m to 2m of the 10m workers dependent on Brazil's coffee sector are unemployed and adding to the growing number of slum-dwellers in the cities. Ironically, it was Brazil that scuppered the c offee accord. It was angered by US attempts to reduce its export quota to al low Colombia and Central America, which produce the milder varieties of coff ee favoured by Americans, to increase their exports. The Bush administration was motivated by a determination to provide economic support for these coun tries in return for co-operation in the war against drugs. The Brazilian Exp orters Federation (Febec), which had been convinced that the world's largest producer could only stand to benefit from a free market, has had its hopes shattered as the country has seen coffee income fall from Dollars 2.5bn a ye ar to little more than Dollars 1bn since 1989. Despite the glut on world mar kets, Brazil is struggling to fulfil its export commitments this year of 13m bags. It is reportedly even importing low-grade coffee to meet the requirem ents of its home market - now the second-largest in the world at 10m bags. B y contrast, Colombia more than doubled its crop since 1989 to 18m bags and h as seen earnings increase to match those of Brazil. Brazil's growers put par t of the blame on disgraced President Fernando Collor's policy of deregulati on. While Colombian growers have received government subsidies and support i n technology and marketing since the pact collapsed, the Brazilian governmen t in 1990 closed its Coffee Institute, which controlled supply and sales. Th e government's curbs on subsidies for agriculture meant growers had no acces s to cheap finance, domestic prices were subjected to successive price freez es and exports were hit by an overvalued cruzeiro. The Brazilian coffee sect or was also discredited internationally by charges in New York of insider tr ading in coffee futures -after the government's sudden suspension of coffee exports in March last year - allegedly linked to the corruption scandal whi ch caused Mr Collor's downfall last month. But Mr Luiz Sergio de Paiva, from Brazil's National Coffee Council, says most of the blame for the current cr isis must be laid at the door of the small group of processors which dominat es the market. 'It was not a free market at all,' he says, pointing at a map on his wall. 'All the world's coffee grows between the tropics of Cancer an d Capricorn in the third world and thus lacks planning and development. The consumers are all in Europe and the northern hemisphere. Five big first-worl d companies process half the world's coffee. In a so-called free market it w ill always be producers that lose and processors that gain.' With many Febec members facing bankruptcy, the federation has yielded to growers' demands a nd is backing a new agreement. 'We did not expect that being without an acco rd would be so hard or so long,' admits Mr Oswaldo Aranha Neto, Febec presid ent. But coffee diplomacy is a delicate business. The International Coffee O rganisation includes 50 coffee-exporting nations (representing 97 per cent o f world production) and 21 importing countries (responsible for 80 per cent of consumption). Negotiations bring together countries as diverse as Germany , Cuba, Vietnam and Ethiopia, and previous talks have been acrimonious. The producers might seem to be in the weak position. Mr Alexandre Beltrao, head of the ICO, estimates that producers have been losing Dollars 4bn-Dollars 5b n a year worldwide since the accord collapsed. But the tables may soon turn. The price has started to recover quite rapidly over the past few weeks as B razil has admitted its crop is lower than expected, and now stands at more t han 70 cents a pound. Consumers and processors are beginning to be worried a bout a possible dearth of supplies, particularly as it takes four years for a bush to start producing beans. Industrialists worry that the low prices ha ve caused quality to drop even further. Mr Beltrao points out that the incom e lost by producers 'is money which should have been directed towards invest ment'. The price recovery is generating renewed optimism among producers tha t the sector may be poised for revival, rendering a pact academic. But price s were at 130 cents when the accord collapsed and Mr Beltrao says: 'Prices h ave not risen enough to dissuade anyone of the need for a new accord. I thin k by the end of the year we'll have a framework agreement.' Negotiations on a pact may, however, be affected by a change of administration in the two ma in participating countries. The new Brazilian president, Mr Itamar Franco, i s from Minas Gerais, which produces half of Brazil's coffee, and is thought to be sympathetic to the idea of an accord. The position of Mr Bill Clinton, US president-elect, is less clear, though Mr Jorge Cardenas, of the Colombi an National Growers Federation, says he is not worried that a change in the White House means the US will cool to the idea of a deal. In September a ser ious hurdle was overcome with agreement on the concept of universal quotas, covering exports of producers to all destinations rather than just to ICO me mbers, and guaranteeing that exports offered to member countries would be on at least as good terms as to non-members. Under the previous agreement, pro ducers sold surplus supplies to non-members at cheaper prices, which then so ld the coffee on to member countries. The remaining obstacles include a syst em for controlling shipments, agreeing on prices and quota sizes. The issue of selectivity will also have to be resolved to allow consumers to obtain th e types of coffee they prefer, such as robusta or the milder arabica. Mr Bel trao stresses that the return to a pact would not mean the sector had lost i ts taste for the free market. 'I don't see a pact as an alternative but as a five-year transition period,' he says. Whether the worst is over for those whose livelihood depends on coffee rests largely on the outcome of this mont h's negotiations. Although a new pact might push up prices for coffee lovers , the hope is that the ensuing price stability and quality would act like a caffeine shot to stimulate consumption above the 72m bags at which it has st uck. Mr Paiva warns: 'We must remember that coffee is not the only drink in the world.' ----------------------------------------------- A LOT LESS COFFEE IN BRAZIL ----------------------------------------------- The t op overall consumers ----------------------------------------------- 1991 60kg bags Kg per (million) capita ----------------------------------------------- US 18.89 4.52 Germany 10.48 7.92 Brazil 9 .20 3.78 Japan 6.00 2.92 France 5.56 5.84 ----------------------------------------------- The to p drinkers ----------------------------------------------- 1991 Kg per capita a year -------------------------------- --------------- Finland 11.51 Sweden 11.13 Norway 10.66 Denmark 10.59 --------------------------- -------------------- The top exporters ------------------------------------ ----------- Coffee year 60kg bags 1991/92 (million ) ----------------------------------------------- Brazil 21.74 Colombia 15.42 Indonesia 4.02 Ivory Co ast 3.57 Guatemala 3.29 Mexico 2.98 Costa Rica 2.27 ----------------------------------- ------------ Source: ICO ----------------------------------------------- The Financial Times London Page 18 ============= Transaction # 139 ============================================== Transaction #: 139 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:01:49 Selec. Rec. #: 10 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT931-17084 _AN-DACAXAB9FT 930 102 FT 02 JAN 93 / Commodities (Year in the Markets): Pr ices end back at square one after another turbulent year By DAVID BLACKWELL and RICHARD MOONEY RECESSION and co ntinued turbulence in the former Soviet Union have left commodity prices lit tle changed at the end of the year from those seen last January. But that ba ld statement belies the level of activity in the markets. On the London Meta l Exchange the flood of imports from the former Soviet Union pushed nickel p rices sharply down and kept a firm lid on the aluminium market, where wareho use stocks now stand above 1.5m tonnes. The zinc market suffered a classic s queeze. Copper, still traded in sterling, appears to have risen sharply unti l the figures are converted to dollars - around Dollars 1 a lb looks set to be the going rate this January as last. Gold has fallen further, hit by an a lmost total lack of interest from investors. Both platinum and silver have c ontinued to settle into their relatively new roles as industrial metals. Coc oa and coffee prices have touched their lowest levels for 20 years or more b efore recovering. The lack of activity in the sugar market has left London w ith virtually no futures trading. Gold fell to a six-year low in late March as it crashed through what many traders had seen as the last line of defence - Dollars 342 a troy ounce. Persistent selling, some of it thought to be on behalf of an eastern European central bank, coincided with Ramadan, the Isl amic fast, which kept most Middle Eastern operators away from the market. By Easter gold was at a fresh low of Dollars 336.80 a troy ounce, with dealers predicting that the price was bottoming out. They were proved right for a t ime as the market started to climb, brushing aside an announcement by the Be lgian central bank that it had sold 202 tonnes from its reserves. Platinum w as also rising as South African unrest made users reluctant to go short in c ase of a miners' strike. In July the platinum price hit the year's high of j ust over Dollars 390 a troy ounce. But some analysts pointed out that the ma rket was ignoring weak demand from Japan and continuing recession in the US. Gold reached its peak for the year of just under Dollars 360 a troyounce a few days after platinum - and then both markets slid steeply, leaving one an alyst just two weeks later describing Dollars 355 for gold as 'like the Matt erhorn'. On one mid-August day gold fell by more than Dollars 8 and platinum by Dollars 16 a troy ounce. The withdrawal of US investment funds sparked t he gold fall, which was exacerbated by more news of central bank selling - t his time from Uruguay, which unloaded 50,000 troy ounces in July in order to buy fixed term deposits denominated in US dollars and D-marks. Platinum sli d along with the Japanese equity market. The European currency market jitter s of September gave some support to gold, but South African and Australian p roducers were able to lock in profits in their own currencies through forwar d selling. Gold has not had a good year; Middle East sales in November finis hed the battering from central bank sales and the total lack of investor int erest and took the market to a 7-year low of Dollars 329.30. It has not made much headway since, closing at Dollars 333.05 a troy ounce on Thursday, dow n about Dollars 20 on the year. Platinum ended the year at Dollars 355.25 a troy ounce, some Dollars 20 above its price at the beginning of the year. Op timism about a recovery in Japanese demand and positive charts point to furt her gains, analysts believe. Silver hit an 18-month low of 364.75 cents at t he end of August and closed at 367.5 on Thursday, 20 cents down on the year. The biggest excitement of the year was the Saudi sale via the National Comm ercial Bank of Jeddah of Dollars 160m-worth of silver - equivalent to more t han 10 per cent of world demand - in just two hours early in July, knocking more than 20 cents off the price. Like most of the base metals copper began the year in a fairly hopeful mood. Chilean strike fears and technical factor s had helped to lift prices to 2 1/2 -month highs by mid-February, before so me of the gains were relinquished in response to reports that Russia, hungry for hard curency, was planning to cut export duties on the metal. In the sp ring talk of Chinese buying was partly counteracted by concern about the eff ects of a possible strike in Germany, one of the biggest importers of copper , but as London Metal Exchange warehouse stocks began to be reduced and US r ecovery hopes started to grow prices climbed to 12-month highs by mid-June. Bullish sentiment continued - fuelled by concern about supply tightness, Pol ish labour tension, bad weather in Chilean producing areas and expected dema nd growth - and a month later copper prices stood at the highest level for 1 8 months. From that point the picture becomes blurred by sterling's extreme weakness against the US dollar, in which base metals are traded worldwide. T he effect of the pound's decline, most of which was concentrated in the dram atic mid-September devaluation, on copper prices is illustrated by the fact that the two-year sterling high reached in early November equated to a nine- month dollar low. And that factor has continued to dominate the market. The three months copper price closed on Thursday at Pounds 1,538 a tonne, Pounds 350 up on the year. But once the currency disportion is stripped out the 12 -month advance comes down to a much less impressive Pounds 78 a tonne. For l ead, the LME's other sterling-denominated contract, the devaluation effect i s even more pronounced, turning what would have been a Pounds 60 fall into a n apparent Pounds 8 rise on the year, at Pounds 308.75 a tonne for three mon ths metal. After a flat start to the year, depressed by sluggish car battery sales, the LME lead market found support in production problems, notably in Italy and Yugolslavia, followed by signs of a technical squeeze on nearby s upplies and reports of Chinese buying. Between them, and helped by the pound 's weakness, these factors lifted the lead market to a 12-month peak in July . And that was exceeded in the September as a direct result of sterling's pl unge. By the end of November, however, the market's fundamental weakness had been reasserted and prices were back to five-month lows. Another LME market to feel the effects of a squeeze this year was zinc. Signs of the coming te chnical suppy tightness were apparent from the start of the year, though the y tended to be obscured by the effects of production problems in Italy, Peru , Canada, Mexico and the US, among others. Hopes of a US retail upturn were also cited as zinc prices reached 15-month highs in March. But from then on the squeeze was the undoubted dominant factor. The normal 'contango' situati on, with the cash price at a discount to forward positions, was reversed in late March and the 'backwardation', as a cash premium is known, widened inex orably until it reached an extraordinary Dollars 189 a tonne in the middle o f June. In normal circumstances a backwardation would suggest a shortage of metal available for delivery, but that hardly fitted in with this year's sus tained rise in LME warehouse stocks of zinc, which, by the time the cash pre mium appeared, had grown from 152,000 tonnes at the start of the year to 221 ,000 tonnes. It was clear, therefore, that some sort of distortion (not to s ay manipulation) was afoot. The exchange responded by imposing a descending ceiling on the one-day backwardation - ie on the cost of carrying forward a short position for one day. The backwardation had disappeared by the end of July, though it made frequent reappearances before the squeeze, suspected t o be the work of a group of producers, could confidently be said to be over in early October. With fundamental considerations taking over direction of t he market and the rise in LME stocks continuing the ensuing price slide saw the three months price retreat some Dollars 300 from its summer level to end the year at Dollars 1,079.50 a tonne, down Dollars 35.50 on balance. The al uminium market had been weighed down in 1991 by the unprecedented growth of the stockpile in LME warehouses, which began 1992 by passing the unwelcome m ilestone of 1m tonnes. There were hopes that the flood of metal from the for mer Soviet Union that had been largely responsible for swelling LME stocks w ould soon abate, especially in view of the inefficiency of smelters in the n ewly independent republics and their much-vaunted espousal of market economi cs. But the republics' hunger for hard currency proved greater than their co mmitment to industrial efficiency and with CIS exports remaining very high t he LME stockpile grew by another 500,000 tonnes. Perhaps surprisingly, the m arket took this pretty much in its stride and the three months LME price end ed the year Dollars 110 to the good at Dollars 1,260.50 a tonne. Gains early in the year were mostly lost in the summer as hopes of economic recovery fa ded and the gloomy truth about CIS export prospects became apparent. But in the latter part of the year the market was encouraged by the announcement of production cuts. The biggest loser on the LME last year was nickel. The moo d was bright enough early on as traders looked forward to big production cut s in response to the low price level and, as with aluminium, a slackening of CIS exports. The former came too late, however, and the latter came not at all, and the six-month highs seen in February proved to be the year's peak. By the time Inco of Canada instituted a round of output cuts in October nick el prices had fallen to two-year lows and LME stocks of the metal had risen by 300 per cent on the year so far to nearly 50,000 tonnes. In those circums tances the market was looking for an upturn in demand, especially in the sta inless steel sector, to give it the necessary shot in the arm, not simply a reduction in output. Further production cuts were subsequently announced by Falconbridge of Canada, Cuba's state-run producer and Western Mining of Aust ralia - amounting in all to nearly 38,00 tonnes in a full year -but the pri ce slide continued and LME three months nickel closed on Thursday at Dollars 6,023 a tonne, down Dollars 1,192 on the year. By comparison, the tin marke t had a good year. LME stocks rose by only 7.4 per cent to 14,710 tonnes and the three months price ended 1992 up Dollars 240 at Dollars 5,845 a tonne. A life-of-contract low of Dollars 5,485 had been registered at the beginning of the year but by mid-February the market was at a six-month high, reflect ing concern about shipment delays from Brazil and Malaysia, the two biggest suppliers. The bullish mood continued throughout the first half, lifting the price to a 25-month high of Dollars 6,950 a tonne, before a reaction was ca used by Brazilian and Chinese selling and bearish technical factors. But the market was moving higher again before the new year, encouraged by buying in Kuala Lumpur and activity in the options market. For the oil market in gene ral 1992 proved a disappointing year and for members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries a worrying one. Having started at the low leve l of about Dollars 17 a barrel the Brent crude price was buoyed in the sprin g by optimism about the prospects for demand when the expected industrial re covery began. And the price moved above Dollars 20 a barrel for the first ti me in six months when Opec ministers agreed unexpectedly in May to roll over its second quarter production ceiling of 22.98m b/d into the third quarter, rather than anticipate the rise in demand. But by November, in the absence of the expected demand boost, the market was looking for Opec ministers to a gree substantial production cuts at their meeting in Vienna. When this did n ot happen prices fell sharply and it took the political turmoil in Russia, t he world's biggest producer, to lift Brent crude back above Dollars 18 a bar rel last month. Of the softs, cocoa began the year in the most optimistic mo od as the market looked forward eagerly to the first annual supply deficit f or eight years. But, with collapsing demand from the former Soviet Union, ho pes of higher prices proved to be a pipe dream, with the market failing to r egain the 1991 peak of Pounds 829 a tonne. The second postion contract on Lo ndon Fox opened the year at Pounds 745 a tonne. The market continued an almo st unbroken decline for the next six months. The nadir came at the end of Ju ne, when the second position contract fell to Pounds 509 a tonne, the lowest level for more than 16 years. At these levels countries of origin, includin g the Ivory Coast, were reluctant to sell, and were also pinning some hope o n the outcome of Geneva talks on a new international agreement. The market b egan a slow climb back to more than Pounds 750 a tonne in early November, gi ven a boost by sterling's devaluation and an Ivory Coast decision to ban the sale of small beans. But London prices have ended close to Pounds 700 a ton ne, and it is worth noting that the nearby New York contract which began the year at Dollars 1,245 a tonne, closed it at Dollars 936. The Economist Inte lligence Unit is predicting a small deficit of 43,000 tonnes for 1992-93, wh ile the US Agriculture Department estimates production and supply in balance at 2.35m tonnes. The EIU expects the next round of talks on a cocoa pact in February to end with a purely administrative pact, and is predicting prices to average about the same as in 1991 at 55 cents a lb. Coffee prices, like cocoa, went into a steep slide from the beginning of the year. The London ro busta market fell by more than Dollars 300 to hit 22-year lows at the beginn ing of May. The high level of consumer stocks - 19m bags (60 kg each) - left producers with little option but to sell for what they could get. Throughou t the summer the market edged higher, keeping an eye on the International Co ffee Organisation's interminable negotiations on a new international agreeme nt. The different supply and demand picture for robustas and arabicas kept L ondon steady while New York arabicas went below 50 cents a lb in September. But by the end of October both markets were rallying strongly as traders enj oyed a total change in sentiment, mainly on perceptions of a smaller 1992-93 crop in Brazil, the biggest producer, and Colombia. In December, London's s econd position robusta contract broke through the Dollars 1,000 a tonne leve l for the first time since January 8. The EIU believes the recent rise has b een overdone. Consumer stocks are still high and this month's ICO talks are likely to be inconclusive, pushing a new coffee agreement back to 1994. The centre of gravity for world sugar prices has moved decisively from London to New York, where speculative money provides liquidity. The second position N ew York raw sugar futures contract has ranged between 8 and 10 cents a lb th roughout the year - another market with more than enough production to satis fy demand. For much of the last few months the market has been stuck between 8.5 and 9 cents - a narrow range with depressingly low traded volumes, acco rding to ED & F. Man's latest sugar report. But this contrasted with increas ed volumes of freely traded sugar following the dissolution of the Cuban tra ding arrangements with Comecon, Man pointed out. A November report from the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation predicted trade expansion for sugar, b ut believed that by the turn of the century prices would still be about 10 c ents a lb in 1990 terms. Countries:- XAZ World. Industries:- P0179 Fruits and Tree Nuts, NEC. P3339 P rimary Nonferrous Metals, NEC. P0722 Crop Harvesting. P2062 Cane S ugar Refining. P1311 Crude Petroleum and Natural Gas. Types: - MKTS Market Data. COSTS Commodity prices. The F inancial Times London Page 10 ============= Transaction # 140 ============================================== Transaction #: 140 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:01:49 Selec. Rec. #: 11 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT932-4130 _AN-DFJB6AF3FT 9306 10 FT 10 JUN 93 / Commodities and Agriculture: Brazil's low-grade crystals worry New York traders By LAURIE MORSE and REUTER CHICAGO, PARIS N EW YORK'S Coffee, Sugar, and Cocoa Exchange, which administers the world's m ost traded sugar futures contract, is under pressure from the world's bigges t refiners to tighten its definition of what is deliverable against its No. 11 raw sugar contract. The controversy, which has been simmering since April , is crucial to traders who have been in the midst of a supply-driven rally following crop disasters in Thailand and Cuba and reduced output from other of the world's major sugar exporters. Unusual market conditions have re-arra nged traditional price relationships between raw sugar and other grades. Whi te sugar usually trades at a premium to raw sugar, and so would not be deliv ered against the New York futures contract. However, as world raw sugar supp lies tighten, prices have at times moved above those for low-grade Brazilian white crystals. The Brazilian product is of too low quality to be delivered against the London white sugar market, but technically meets New York's del ivery specifications, even though it is not raw sugar. New York sugar trader s at one point believed as much as 200,000 tonnes of the Brazilian crystals would be delivered against the expiring July contract. The crystals, accordi ng to Mr Peter Hulme, divisional trading director for Tate and Lyle Internat ional, are difficult to handle, produce dust that poses safety concerns for warehouses and could meet with import restrictions at some international bor ders. Now, with July futures well below their high of 13.26 cents a lb, the immediate threat of white crystal deliveries seems to have faded. However, t he controversy remains, and Mr Hulme, who says he represents the position of a consortium of sugar refiners, has asked the exchange clearly to exclude t he crystals from delivery before the problem arises again. The CSCE's sugar committee met briefly Tuesday to discuss the issue, but did not communicate any findings. The exchange's board was attending a regular meeting yesterday but an official would not say if the sugar delivery issue was on the agenda . French trade house Sucres et Denrees yesterday denied rumors that it sold white sugar to Russia's Prodintorg trade agency in the past few days, report s Reuter from Paris. 'I don't know where these rumours come from. They're fa lse. We haven't signed a deal with Prodintorg recently, but we do sell sugar every day to Russia through private buyers,' said Sucden's co-president, Mr Serge Varsano. Private business with Russia was likely to reach 1m to 1.5m tonnes this year, through small but almost daily sales of 20,000 to 40,000 t onnes, he added. Countries:- USZ United States of Am erica. BRZ Brazil, South America. FRZ France, EC. RUZ Russia, East Europe. Industries:- P6221 Commodity Contracts Br okers, Dealers. P0133 Sugarcane and Sugar Beets. Types:- COSTS Commodity prices. CMMT Comment & Analysis. The Financial Times London Page 32 ============= Transaction # 141 ============================================== Transaction #: 141 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:01:49 Selec. Rec. #: 12 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT934-4579 _AN-DLCDFABGFT 9312 03 FT 03 DEC 93 / World Trade News: Cruise ship lifeline for Cuban economy - Castro's latest attempt to attract dollars from tourism By ROSIE HAYES and STEPHEN FIDLER When the cruise ship Santiago de Cuba sails later this month from Havana, it will underline the extent to which revolutionary fervour is giving way to p ragmatism as Cuba tries to adjust to economic hardship. On board ship, there will be gambling - although it will not be allowed in Cuban ports. The gove rnment of President Fidel Castro is now accepting an activity it banned when it closed Havana's notorious gambling parlours after the 1959 revolution. C ompared with the previous policy shifts forced on the Cuban government by th e collapse of the Soviet Union and its financial support for Cuba, this is s mall. Among other things, the government has been aggressively pursuing prev iously unwelcome foreign investors and has legalised use of the once-banned US dollar. The cruise operation - a joint venture between the state-owned Ha vanatur and European interests, including the Italian ship agents Fratelli C osulich - is the latest attempt to attract tourist dollars to the country. M r Castro is now laying much emphasis on the promotion of tourism. He turned up last month on the holiday island of Cayo Coco at a ceremonial signing of a Spanish-Cuban joint venture and mingled with tourists, even at one stage w atching a dance performance in a discotheque. The joint venture involves the Spanish group Guitart Hotels investing Dollars 20m (Pounds 13.4m) over 10 y ears and the local Cubanacana SA contributing the equivalent in local curren cy. He spoke of fighting the country's financial problems through tourism an d told Cubans to prepare for an influx of foreign visitors. The president ha s also heaped praise on Spain, probably the most important source of foreign investment in the Cuban tourist industry, and has described Spanish skill a nd enterprise as a great advantage to the island. He even told an audience o f Havana Communist party delegates this month that sugar was 'no longer the country's main economic source' and that the tourist industry had developed to such an extent it was now 'Cuba's main financial lifeline'. The number of visitors to Cuba has increased from 289,000 in 1987 to 460,000 last year, a nd is forecast to grow again this year. Visitors are also spending more. Acc ording to the government, daily spending rose to Dollars 67 a day in 1990 to Dollars 89 in 1992, and is predicted to increase to Dollars 100 in 1995. Bu t there are doubts among external observers whether tourism is as important as the government suggests. Mr Jorge Dominguez, a Harvard professor and visi ting fellow at the Washington-based study group InterAmerican Dialogue, says that total foreign direct investment in Cuba is an elusive figure, but prob ably amounts to less than Dollars 1bn. 'That means the claim that tourism is significant rests on its generation of foreign exchange.' Yet the foreign e xchange earnings usually quoted by Cuban sources represent gross, rather tha n net earnings. A report produced in March by the Cuban Grupo de Turismo sai d that tourism generated Dollars 530m in gross hard-currency receipts in 199 2 - four times the 1987 level - and directly accounted for 62,000 jobs, 1.6 per cent of total employment. A report published in April by La Sociedad Eco nomica, a moderate London-based exile group which favours the country's tran sformation to a market economy, also points out that the policy of keeping t ourists in enclaves 'limits the market for locally-produced goods and servic es, so reducing the beneficial effect that tourism could generate in the wid er economy'. The net hard-currency benefit is thus significantly less than t he gross receipts. Tourists have to be serviced by imports, such as Scotch w hisky and video cassettes. Sales commissions, tour operating profits, and av iation expenses must also be paid. This suggests, says Mr Dominguez, the net annual hard currency gain to Cuba is between Dollars 100m and Dollars 300m. While this compares with the Dollars 220m earned in 1992 from nickel export s, it is still significantly less than its earnings from sugar exports, even though they fell to their lowest level this year since 1963. This year's ha rvest of 4.2m tonnes would generate Dollars 800m-Dollars 900m in export reve nues. 'Tourism, as at present structured, offers only very limited relief to Cuba's economic crisis,' argues La Sociedad Economica. This could change if Americans were allowed to go to Cuba - but the end of the US embargo still appears a long way off. Companies:- Havanatur. Fr atelli Cosulich. Guitart Hotels. Cubanacana. Countries:- CUZ Cuba, Caribbean. ITZ Italy, EC. ESZ Spain, EC. Industries:- P7999 Amusement and Recreation, NEC. P7011 Hotels and Motels. P4481 Deep Sea Passenger Transportation, Ex Ferry. < /IN> Types:- COMP Strategic links & Joint venture. CMMT Comment & Analysis. The Financial Times London Pag e 6 ============= Transaction # 142 ============================================== Transaction #: 142 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:01:56 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-3603 _AN-CCMBUADIFT 9203 13 FT 13 MAR 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Problems piling up for Caribbean sugar sector - A wave of labour unrest is adding to the woes of a struggling industry, writes Canute James By CANUTE JAMES A WAVE of industrial unrest in the Carib bean sugar industry has compounded earlier problems caused by falling produc tion and changes in important markets. Exporters are having difficulty in re taining traditional markets and no new ones are available; some export quota s have been reduced while some export commitments are not being fulfilled. T he pain is most evident in Barbados, for which the sugar industry is a relat ively small but important pillar of the troubled economy. An eight-week stri ke that delayed the start of this year's harvest has reduced production at a time when the financially strapped industry has been trying to catch its br eath. The industry was shut down late last year because it ran out of money. The privately-owned Barbados Sugar Industry Ltd, which operates the island' s mills, owes a state-owned bank about USDollars 87m. New money has not been available because the government is under pressure to reduce state spending . It took a loan of Pounds 5m from Barclays Bank of the UK to get the indust ry up on its feet again, but preparations by millers to start processing can e in January were frustrated by a strike. Unions demanded an increase in wag es but the millers said they were unable to pay because of their weak financ es. It took the intervention of the country's prime minister to break the im passe. The industry is forecasting production of 50,000 tonnes for this year , which will not be enough to meet its quotas to the European Community and the US while satisfying domestic demand, for which about 73,000 tonnes would be needed. Failure to fill export quotas has also been a major worry for th e Guyanese sugar industry. In each of the past three years the country has p leaded force majeure on scheduled shipments to the European Community as pro duction has faltered because of strikes and poor weather. The industry expec ts to meet its EC quota of 167,000 tonnes this year although production was only 155,000 tonnes last year, 25,000 tonnes more than in 1990. Like other c ountries that fear a loss of their quotas if they do not meet the supply sch edules, Guyana and Barbados may be forced to import sugar for the domestic m arket. 'The logic here is quite simple,' explains a Jamaican trade official. 'The preferential markets such as the EC pay more than the exporters would get on the world market. So they ensure they meet their quotas and then buy cheaply on the world market for domestic consumption. The EC and the US do n ot like this practice, but it is done fairly often.' In Guyana and Barbados efforts are being made to improve the management of the sugar industry and r aise productivity. Booker Tate, a subsidiary of Booker of the UK, is managin g the state-owned industry in Guyana, and will begin running the Barbados in dustry later this year. The marginal improvement in output by the Jamaican i ndustry over the past two years was halted by a two-week strike at the islan d's nine mills that ended this week. This year's target of 230,000 tonnes, i f it is achieved, will allow the island to meet its quota commitments. The a dministrators of the industry in the Caribbean complain that region's market ing and production plans are being adversely affected by changing conditions in important markets, such as the US, where adjustments to import quotas ar e frequent. In the current crop year, for example, most of the Caribbean pro ducers have had their US quota cut by 35 per cent, and others by 10 per cent . These changes, which are influenced mainly by the level of domestic US pro duction, are expected to reduce the Caribbean region's earnings by about USD ollars 70m. The reduction is hitting hardest in the Dominican Republic, wher e industry has been in decline for the past decade. The cut of 35 per cent i n its US quota to 232,500 tonnes this year might have been less painful had it not been for uncertainty over another valuable market. The Dominicans had been supplying between 50,000 tonnes and 225,000 tonnes a year to the Sovie t Union. But with the break-up of the union Dominican industry officials and bankers say there is uncertainty about future of sales to the Commonwealth of Independent States, as it is now called. Like most of the other Caribbean producers, production costs in the Dominican Republic, which produced 628,0 00 tonnes last year, exceed world market prices. Strikes and production cost s are not likely to be among the problems facing the sugar sector in Cuba, t he region's largest producer. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, which was the island's major market, short term contracts with members of the CIS have brought some relief. But a significant reduction in output is likely th is year because of a late start to harvesting and a shortage of fuel which h as overtaken the embattled economy. There are indications that output this y ear will be about 1m tonnes less than last year's 7.6m tonnes. The US indust ry, however, is already weighing the consequences of the changes in Cuba's m arkets, with suggestions that this could leave the island with millions of t onnes to dispose of on the world market. Depression of prices would be compo unded by a likely loss of market for some of Cuba's neighbours, particularly if there were political changes on the island. 'In a post-Castro Cuba, the US would try to assist a new government if it is democratic,' suggests Mr Ju lio Herrera, president of the Caribbean Basin Sugar Producers Group. 'Cuba w ill inevitably turn to the US as a market for its sugar. The US will be told that it has a moral obligation to buy Cuban sugar.' The Financ ial Times London Page 30 ============= Transaction # 143 ============================================== Transaction #: 143 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:02:12 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-3603 _AN-CCMBUADIFT 9203 13 FT 13 MAR 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Problems piling up for Caribbean sugar sector - A wave of labour unrest is adding to the woes of a struggling industry, writes Canute James By CANUTE JAMES A WAVE of industrial unrest in the Carib bean sugar industry has compounded earlier problems caused by falling produc tion and changes in important markets. Exporters are having difficulty in re taining traditional markets and no new ones are available; some export quota s have been reduced while some export commitments are not being fulfilled. T he pain is most evident in Barbados, for which the sugar industry is a relat ively small but important pillar of the troubled economy. An eight-week stri ke that delayed the start of this year's harvest has reduced production at a time when the financially strapped industry has been trying to catch its br eath. The industry was shut down late last year because it ran out of money. The privately-owned Barbados Sugar Industry Ltd, which operates the island' s mills, owes a state-owned bank about USDollars 87m. New money has not been available because the government is under pressure to reduce state spending . It took a loan of Pounds 5m from Barclays Bank of the UK to get the indust ry up on its feet again, but preparations by millers to start processing can e in January were frustrated by a strike. Unions demanded an increase in wag es but the millers said they were unable to pay because of their weak financ es. It took the intervention of the country's prime minister to break the im passe. The industry is forecasting production of 50,000 tonnes for this year , which will not be enough to meet its quotas to the European Community and the US while satisfying domestic demand, for which about 73,000 tonnes would be needed. Failure to fill export quotas has also been a major worry for th e Guyanese sugar industry. In each of the past three years the country has p leaded force majeure on scheduled shipments to the European Community as pro duction has faltered because of strikes and poor weather. The industry expec ts to meet its EC quota of 167,000 tonnes this year although production was only 155,000 tonnes last year, 25,000 tonnes more than in 1990. Like other c ountries that fear a loss of their quotas if they do not meet the supply sch edules, Guyana and Barbados may be forced to import sugar for the domestic m arket. 'The logic here is quite simple,' explains a Jamaican trade official. 'The preferential markets such as the EC pay more than the exporters would get on the world market. So they ensure they meet their quotas and then buy cheaply on the world market for domestic consumption. The EC and the US do n ot like this practice, but it is done fairly often.' In Guyana and Barbados efforts are being made to improve the management of the sugar industry and r aise productivity. Booker Tate, a subsidiary of Booker of the UK, is managin g the state-owned industry in Guyana, and will begin running the Barbados in dustry later this year. The marginal improvement in output by the Jamaican i ndustry over the past two years was halted by a two-week strike at the islan d's nine mills that ended this week. This year's target of 230,000 tonnes, i f it is achieved, will allow the island to meet its quota commitments. The a dministrators of the industry in the Caribbean complain that region's market ing and production plans are being adversely affected by changing conditions in important markets, such as the US, where adjustments to import quotas ar e frequent. In the current crop year, for example, most of the Caribbean pro ducers have had their US quota cut by 35 per cent, and others by 10 per cent . These changes, which are influenced mainly by the level of domestic US pro duction, are expected to reduce the Caribbean region's earnings by about USD ollars 70m. The reduction is hitting hardest in the Dominican Republic, wher e industry has been in decline for the past decade. The cut of 35 per cent i n its US quota to 232,500 tonnes this year might have been less painful had it not been for uncertainty over another valuable market. The Dominicans had been supplying between 50,000 tonnes and 225,000 tonnes a year to the Sovie t Union. But with the break-up of the union Dominican industry officials and bankers say there is uncertainty about future of sales to the Commonwealth of Independent States, as it is now called. Like most of the other Caribbean producers, production costs in the Dominican Republic, which produced 628,0 00 tonnes last year, exceed world market prices. Strikes and production cost s are not likely to be among the problems facing the sugar sector in Cuba, t he region's largest producer. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, which was the island's major market, short term contracts with members of the CIS have brought some relief. But a significant reduction in output is likely th is year because of a late start to harvesting and a shortage of fuel which h as overtaken the embattled economy. There are indications that output this y ear will be about 1m tonnes less than last year's 7.6m tonnes. The US indust ry, however, is already weighing the consequences of the changes in Cuba's m arkets, with suggestions that this could leave the island with millions of t onnes to dispose of on the world market. Depression of prices would be compo unded by a likely loss of market for some of Cuba's neighbours, particularly if there were political changes on the island. 'In a post-Castro Cuba, the US would try to assist a new government if it is democratic,' suggests Mr Ju lio Herrera, president of the Caribbean Basin Sugar Producers Group. 'Cuba w ill inevitably turn to the US as a market for its sugar. The US will be told that it has a moral obligation to buy Cuban sugar.' The Financ ial Times London Page 30 ============= Transaction # 144 ============================================== Transaction #: 144 Transaction Code: 38 (Record Deselected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:02:13 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-3603 _AN-CCMBUADIFT 9203 13 FT 13 MAR 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Problems piling up for Caribbean sugar sector - A wave of labour unrest is adding to the woes of a struggling industry, writes Canute James By CANUTE JAMES A WAVE of industrial unrest in the Carib bean sugar industry has compounded earlier problems caused by falling produc tion and changes in important markets. Exporters are having difficulty in re taining traditional markets and no new ones are available; some export quota s have been reduced while some export commitments are not being fulfilled. T he pain is most evident in Barbados, for which the sugar industry is a relat ively small but important pillar of the troubled economy. An eight-week stri ke that delayed the start of this year's harvest has reduced production at a time when the financially strapped industry has been trying to catch its br eath. The industry was shut down late last year because it ran out of money. The privately-owned Barbados Sugar Industry Ltd, which operates the island' s mills, owes a state-owned bank about USDollars 87m. New money has not been available because the government is under pressure to reduce state spending . It took a loan of Pounds 5m from Barclays Bank of the UK to get the indust ry up on its feet again, but preparations by millers to start processing can e in January were frustrated by a strike. Unions demanded an increase in wag es but the millers said they were unable to pay because of their weak financ es. It took the intervention of the country's prime minister to break the im passe. The industry is forecasting production of 50,000 tonnes for this year , which will not be enough to meet its quotas to the European Community and the US while satisfying domestic demand, for which about 73,000 tonnes would be needed. Failure to fill export quotas has also been a major worry for th e Guyanese sugar industry. In each of the past three years the country has p leaded force majeure on scheduled shipments to the European Community as pro duction has faltered because of strikes and poor weather. The industry expec ts to meet its EC quota of 167,000 tonnes this year although production was only 155,000 tonnes last year, 25,000 tonnes more than in 1990. Like other c ountries that fear a loss of their quotas if they do not meet the supply sch edules, Guyana and Barbados may be forced to import sugar for the domestic m arket. 'The logic here is quite simple,' explains a Jamaican trade official. 'The preferential markets such as the EC pay more than the exporters would get on the world market. So they ensure they meet their quotas and then buy cheaply on the world market for domestic consumption. The EC and the US do n ot like this practice, but it is done fairly often.' In Guyana and Barbados efforts are being made to improve the management of the sugar industry and r aise productivity. Booker Tate, a subsidiary of Booker of the UK, is managin g the state-owned industry in Guyana, and will begin running the Barbados in dustry later this year. The marginal improvement in output by the Jamaican i ndustry over the past two years was halted by a two-week strike at the islan d's nine mills that ended this week. This year's target of 230,000 tonnes, i f it is achieved, will allow the island to meet its quota commitments. The a dministrators of the industry in the Caribbean complain that region's market ing and production plans are being adversely affected by changing conditions in important markets, such as the US, where adjustments to import quotas ar e frequent. In the current crop year, for example, most of the Caribbean pro ducers have had their US quota cut by 35 per cent, and others by 10 per cent . These changes, which are influenced mainly by the level of domestic US pro duction, are expected to reduce the Caribbean region's earnings by about USD ollars 70m. The reduction is hitting hardest in the Dominican Republic, wher e industry has been in decline for the past decade. The cut of 35 per cent i n its US quota to 232,500 tonnes this year might have been less painful had it not been for uncertainty over another valuable market. The Dominicans had been supplying between 50,000 tonnes and 225,000 tonnes a year to the Sovie t Union. But with the break-up of the union Dominican industry officials and bankers say there is uncertainty about future of sales to the Commonwealth of Independent States, as it is now called. Like most of the other Caribbean producers, production costs in the Dominican Republic, which produced 628,0 00 tonnes last year, exceed world market prices. Strikes and production cost s are not likely to be among the problems facing the sugar sector in Cuba, t he region's largest producer. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, which was the island's major market, short term contracts with members of the CIS have brought some relief. But a significant reduction in output is likely th is year because of a late start to harvesting and a shortage of fuel which h as overtaken the embattled economy. There are indications that output this y ear will be about 1m tonnes less than last year's 7.6m tonnes. The US indust ry, however, is already weighing the consequences of the changes in Cuba's m arkets, with suggestions that this could leave the island with millions of t onnes to dispose of on the world market. Depression of prices would be compo unded by a likely loss of market for some of Cuba's neighbours, particularly if there were political changes on the island. 'In a post-Castro Cuba, the US would try to assist a new government if it is democratic,' suggests Mr Ju lio Herrera, president of the Caribbean Basin Sugar Producers Group. 'Cuba w ill inevitably turn to the US as a market for its sugar. The US will be told that it has a moral obligation to buy Cuban sugar.' The Financ ial Times London Page 30 ============= Transaction # 145 ============================================== Transaction #: 145 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:02:14 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-3603 _AN-CCMBUADIFT 9203 13 FT 13 MAR 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Problems piling up for Caribbean sugar sector - A wave of labour unrest is adding to the woes of a struggling industry, writes Canute James By CANUTE JAMES A WAVE of industrial unrest in the Carib bean sugar industry has compounded earlier problems caused by falling produc tion and changes in important markets. Exporters are having difficulty in re taining traditional markets and no new ones are available; some export quota s have been reduced while some export commitments are not being fulfilled. T he pain is most evident in Barbados, for which the sugar industry is a relat ively small but important pillar of the troubled economy. An eight-week stri ke that delayed the start of this year's harvest has reduced production at a time when the financially strapped industry has been trying to catch its br eath. The industry was shut down late last year because it ran out of money. The privately-owned Barbados Sugar Industry Ltd, which operates the island' s mills, owes a state-owned bank about USDollars 87m. New money has not been available because the government is under pressure to reduce state spending . It took a loan of Pounds 5m from Barclays Bank of the UK to get the indust ry up on its feet again, but preparations by millers to start processing can e in January were frustrated by a strike. Unions demanded an increase in wag es but the millers said they were unable to pay because of their weak financ es. It took the intervention of the country's prime minister to break the im passe. The industry is forecasting production of 50,000 tonnes for this year , which will not be enough to meet its quotas to the European Community and the US while satisfying domestic demand, for which about 73,000 tonnes would be needed. Failure to fill export quotas has also been a major worry for th e Guyanese sugar industry. In each of the past three years the country has p leaded force majeure on scheduled shipments to the European Community as pro duction has faltered because of strikes and poor weather. The industry expec ts to meet its EC quota of 167,000 tonnes this year although production was only 155,000 tonnes last year, 25,000 tonnes more than in 1990. Like other c ountries that fear a loss of their quotas if they do not meet the supply sch edules, Guyana and Barbados may be forced to import sugar for the domestic m arket. 'The logic here is quite simple,' explains a Jamaican trade official. 'The preferential markets such as the EC pay more than the exporters would get on the world market. So they ensure they meet their quotas and then buy cheaply on the world market for domestic consumption. The EC and the US do n ot like this practice, but it is done fairly often.' In Guyana and Barbados efforts are being made to improve the management of the sugar industry and r aise productivity. Booker Tate, a subsidiary of Booker of the UK, is managin g the state-owned industry in Guyana, and will begin running the Barbados in dustry later this year. The marginal improvement in output by the Jamaican i ndustry over the past two years was halted by a two-week strike at the islan d's nine mills that ended this week. This year's target of 230,000 tonnes, i f it is achieved, will allow the island to meet its quota commitments. The a dministrators of the industry in the Caribbean complain that region's market ing and production plans are being adversely affected by changing conditions in important markets, such as the US, where adjustments to import quotas ar e frequent. In the current crop year, for example, most of the Caribbean pro ducers have had their US quota cut by 35 per cent, and others by 10 per cent . These changes, which are influenced mainly by the level of domestic US pro duction, are expected to reduce the Caribbean region's earnings by about USD ollars 70m. The reduction is hitting hardest in the Dominican Republic, wher e industry has been in decline for the past decade. The cut of 35 per cent i n its US quota to 232,500 tonnes this year might have been less painful had it not been for uncertainty over another valuable market. The Dominicans had been supplying between 50,000 tonnes and 225,000 tonnes a year to the Sovie t Union. But with the break-up of the union Dominican industry officials and bankers say there is uncertainty about future of sales to the Commonwealth of Independent States, as it is now called. Like most of the other Caribbean producers, production costs in the Dominican Republic, which produced 628,0 00 tonnes last year, exceed world market prices. Strikes and production cost s are not likely to be among the problems facing the sugar sector in Cuba, t he region's largest producer. Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, which was the island's major market, short term contracts with members of the CIS have brought some relief. But a significant reduction in output is likely th is year because of a late start to harvesting and a shortage of fuel which h as overtaken the embattled economy. There are indications that output this y ear will be about 1m tonnes less than last year's 7.6m tonnes. The US indust ry, however, is already weighing the consequences of the changes in Cuba's m arkets, with suggestions that this could leave the island with millions of t onnes to dispose of on the world market. Depression of prices would be compo unded by a likely loss of market for some of Cuba's neighbours, particularly if there were political changes on the island. 'In a post-Castro Cuba, the US would try to assist a new government if it is democratic,' suggests Mr Ju lio Herrera, president of the Caribbean Basin Sugar Producers Group. 'Cuba w ill inevitably turn to the US as a market for its sugar. The US will be told that it has a moral obligation to buy Cuban sugar.' The Financ ial Times London Page 30 ============= Transaction # 146 ============================================== Transaction #: 146 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:02:29 Selec. Rec. #: 6 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT922-12873 _AN-CDOBJAC3FT 920 415 FT 15 APR 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Cuba fac ed with worst sugar crop in years By REUTER HAVANA CUBA IS straining to finish what c ould be its worst sugar harvest in recent years because it says it needs eve ry tonne to help keep its crisis-hit economy afloat, reports Reuter from Hav ana. After maintaining a virtual news blackout on the 1991-1992 sugar crop f or five months, the Caribbean island's government is now making the harvest a national public issue. 'Our sole option. . . is not to lose a single tonne of sugar,' it said. The government urged the country's sugar workers to mak e a maximum effort over the next few weeks, a message reinforced by daily te levision propaganda spots focusing on the harvest. The official media descri be the current season as one of the most difficult ever experienced by Cuba, which has traditionally been the world's biggest exporter of sugar. The 199 1-1992 harvest started late and has been bedevilled by shortages of oil, lub ricants and spare parts that are essential to keep mechanical harvesters and mills running. Adding to the urgency is the possible onset of spring rains in May which could disrupt a late-finishing harvest. Even more worrying for Cuba, the difficulties come at a time when it needs every tonne of sugar it can produce to exchange for vital imports of oil, machinery spares and food. The Financial Times London Page 30 ============= Transaction # 147 ============================================== Transaction #: 147 Transaction Code: 38 (Record Deselected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:02:31 Selec. Rec. #: 6 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT922-12873 _AN-CDOBJAC3FT 920 415 FT 15 APR 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Cuba fac ed with worst sugar crop in years By REUTER HAVANA CUBA IS straining to finish what c ould be its worst sugar harvest in recent years because it says it needs eve ry tonne to help keep its crisis-hit economy afloat, reports Reuter from Hav ana. After maintaining a virtual news blackout on the 1991-1992 sugar crop f or five months, the Caribbean island's government is now making the harvest a national public issue. 'Our sole option. . . is not to lose a single tonne of sugar,' it said. The government urged the country's sugar workers to mak e a maximum effort over the next few weeks, a message reinforced by daily te levision propaganda spots focusing on the harvest. The official media descri be the current season as one of the most difficult ever experienced by Cuba, which has traditionally been the world's biggest exporter of sugar. The 199 1-1992 harvest started late and has been bedevilled by shortages of oil, lub ricants and spare parts that are essential to keep mechanical harvesters and mills running. Adding to the urgency is the possible onset of spring rains in May which could disrupt a late-finishing harvest. Even more worrying for Cuba, the difficulties come at a time when it needs every tonne of sugar it can produce to exchange for vital imports of oil, machinery spares and food. The Financial Times London Page 30 ============= Transaction # 148 ============================================== Transaction #: 148 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:02:39 Selec. Rec. #: 8 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT924-5210 _AN-CK0B0AFQFT 9211 27 FT 27 NOV 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Barbadian collapse deepens shadow over Caribbean sugar - The region, faced with high costs and low productivity, relies on guaranteed market access < BYLINE> By CANUTE JAMES THE COLLAPSE of Barbados' sugar industry late last month is the latest indication of the sometimes terminal difficulties which beset Caribbean producers. The region is faced with high production costs and often low productivity, and is unable to survive withou t guaranteed access to markets such as the European Community and the US, an d which pay higher than prevailing world market prices. The problems caused by inefficiency and indebtedness are exacerbated by what many producers see as a threat to current preferential market arrangements. Many are worried by the recent reduction in US import quotas, and are uncertain how they will f are if the North American Free Trade Agreement is implemented and Mexican pr oduction becomes a market factor. In the case of Barbados, the island has be en unable to produce enough even to meet its quota obligations to these guar anteed markets. Efforts are under way to jump-start the industry after the s tate-owned Barbados National Bank, exercising tighter credit control as part of a government austerity programme, and which is owed Dollars 50m by the i ndustry, suspended all further loans. This followed production of 55,000 ton nes from the 1992 harvest, the lowest in 60 years, according to official fig ures. In order to make use of its opportunities on the EC and US markets the island has had to import sugar to meet domestic demand. Ironically, the col lapse of the industry came after indications that it was being put under new management by Booker Tate, a subsidiary of Booker, the UK food and farming group. The company has become an important factor in the region's troubled s ugar industry, and has been called in to help the industries in Guyana, Beli ze and St Kitts-Nevis, and to run two of Jamaica's nine mills. Trinidad and Tobago is the only producer in the Commonwealth Caribbean in which Booker Ta te is not involved. In all cases the company contracted to give corporate ma nagement and technical services to sugar industries in the five countries. I t provides engineers, technologists, agriculturalists, economists, marketing specialists and support staff. The industries in both Guyana and Jamaica ha ve attracted financial assistance from multilateral institutions as a result of the management contracts given to Booker Tate, But assessments to the co mpany's effectiveness differ in the two countries. Jamaican officials say th e performance of the two mills managed by the company since 1985 has been 'd isappointing'. Yet the case of Guyana shows that the regional sugar industry is not beyond redemption. From output of 330,000 tonnes a year in the mid-1 970s, Guyana's production, plagued by labour unrest and poor weather, slumpe d to 135,000 tonnes in 1990. The industry declared shortfalls on its Europea n Community quota for three years, and shipped none of its quota to the US. Booker Tate's takeover of the management of the industry has been followed, however, by a decisive turnaround. Production is up this year and export quo tas have been met. In the Dominican Republic, the region's second largest pr oducer after Cuba, the problems of financial viability have been compounded by a shortage of labour. Foreign criticism of the treatment of workers from neighbouring Haiti, and the subsequent expulsion of thousands of Haitian wor kers, has resulted in the state-owned producer suffering a painful drop in o utput. Production this year is 8 per cent less than the 326,000 tonnes of la st year and sugar has had to be imported to meet domestic demand. The outloo k for the industry, like that of others in the region, has been depressed by the recent reduction in global imports by the US. The Caribbean's cumulativ e quota has been reduced by 11 per cent to 276,341 tonnes, causing an estima ted Dollars 15m reduction in earnings. It is the second consecutive cut for the Caribbean holders of US quotas, which were allowed to supply 471,710 ton nes in 1991. Sugar industry officials in the region say one area of uncertai nty is Mexico's future access to the US market under the Nafta. They say Mex ico's current and modest US quota of 7,500 tonnes a year can be increased 20 -fold in seven years, at the expense of existing suppliers. Cuba's troubled industry has received a fillip with a new trade agreement between the island and the Russian republic. Cuba will receive 23m barrels of Russian oil a ye ar for 2m tonnes of sugar - significantly less than the country had sold in past years to the former Soviet Union. But the island's economic problems ha ve depressed output this year to just over 6.9m tonnes. ------------------- ------------------------------- Caribbean Sugar Production ('000 tonnes, raw value) ------------------------------------------ -------- 1987-88 1989-90 1991-92 --------------- ----------------------------------- Barbados 81 69 57 Cuba 7,547 7,932 7,000 Dominican Rep. 758 632 670 French W. Indies 82 4 6 38 Guyana 178 135 238 Haiti 30 31 30 Jamaica 225 2 19 224 Trinidad 95 120 110 ----------- --------------------------------------- Source: ED and F. Man. ------------ -------------------------------------- The Financial Times London Page 30 ============= Transaction # 149 ============================================== Transaction #: 149 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:03:03 Selec. Rec. #: 9 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT924-7110 _AN-CKRCBACRFT 9211 18 FT 18 NOV 92 / A storm in a coffee cup: Falling price s and a world glut have led coffee producers and consumers to seek a new quo ta pact By CHRISTINA LAMB For the p ast two years, the world's coffee producers have been forced to swallow a bi tter brew. Plummeting prices and excess supply threaten the livelihood of mo re than 25m coffee workers from Brazil to Indonesia. The product, once known as green gold, is losing its lustre as the economic mainstay of many develo ping countries. An experiment with the free market has left the industry, wi th total sales estimated at Dollars 34bn a year and a daily consumption of 2 bn cups, in its worst crisis for decades. After the collapse in 1989 of the International Coffee Agreement - a pact between producers and consumers cont rolling exports to ensure price stability - a world glut caused coffee price s to slump to almost a third of the level of the late 1980s. Most growers ha ve been selling at well below cost for the past two years. The current state of the industry is so serious that growers, exporters, processors and buyer s - led by Brazil, the largest producer, and the US, the largest consumer an d processor - have put aside competing interests to come to the negotiating table. Following a first round in September, crucial talks will begin next M onday at the International Coffee Organisation (ICO) in London to try to con clude a new coffee pact, re-establishing quotas to limit exports and stabili se prices in an admission that the free market has not worked. Hitting 22-ye ar price lows in August of less than 50 cents a pound in New York, coffee ha s been overtaken by sugar as the developing countries' main earner after oil . Unlike oil, however, coffee supply cannot simply be turned on and off, so growers in the 50 main producing countries have to sell at the lower prices or stop production. Their ability to boost prices through holding back suppl ies is weakened by the considerable stocks in the hands of consuming countri es. The results are abandoned plantations across the developing world and ou t-of-work coffee pickers, whose anger threatens to spill over into social un rest. In some countries, such as Colombia, the principal alternative crop is the coca leaf, the raw material of cocaine. The outcome of the talks is kee nly awaited, particularly in Brazil, which has been the biggest producer alm ost continuously since the 1760s when Cappuchin monks in Rio de Janeiro bega n growing seeds smuggled from French Guyana. Mr Jose Dias de Goveia, a 76-ye ar-old farmer in Pocos de Caldas, Brazil's coffee heartland, says: 'I've bee n in coffee all my life but the last four years have been the worst I've eve r seen. We're talking survival.' Production costs are Dollars 65 a 60-kilo b ag, but he is forced to sell at Dollars 40. He has cut staff to a third, red uced land under cultivation from 500 to 400 hectares, and is producing what he calls 'ecological coffee', because he cannot afford fertilisers. In south ern Minas Gerais, the world's most productive coffee belt, such stories are common. Growers are abandoning coffee, which has always been a volatile comm odity and sensitive to climatic changes, for eucalyptus, nuts and passion fr uit. On many farms cattle graze between the remaining coffee bushes. In the past three years the number of coffee bushes in Brazil has fallen from 4.2bn to 3.2bn. Only 20 per cent are thought to be properly cultivated; quality i s suffering and thus flavour is deteriorating because coffee prices are too low for growers to invest in fertilisers and technology. The current crop is expected to yield fewer than 20m bags compared with 43m in 1987-88. Althoug h these figures are significant, the impact of the coffee price slump is eve n greater on many smaller coffee-producing nations, where coffee is the prin cipal foreign exchange earner. Growers have little alternative but to turn t o cocaine production to sustain their families. In Colombia, disenchanted pi ckers are raw fodder for recruitment into cocaine production cartels. In Bra zil, industrialisation has diminished coffee's contribution to export earnin gs to less than 4 per cent this year compared with 21.5 per cent 15 years ag o and 50 per cent in the early 1960s. However, coffee cultivation remains a labour-intensive business and Mr Christian Ottoni, head of the Pocos do Cald as Rural Union, warns: 'The social consequences of the price collapse have b een devastating.' He estimates that 1.5m to 2m of the 10m workers dependent on Brazil's coffee sector are unemployed and adding to the growing number of slum-dwellers in the cities. Ironically, it was Brazil that scuppered the c offee accord. It was angered by US attempts to reduce its export quota to al low Colombia and Central America, which produce the milder varieties of coff ee favoured by Americans, to increase their exports. The Bush administration was motivated by a determination to provide economic support for these coun tries in return for co-operation in the war against drugs. The Brazilian Exp orters Federation (Febec), which had been convinced that the world's largest producer could only stand to benefit from a free market, has had its hopes shattered as the country has seen coffee income fall from Dollars 2.5bn a ye ar to little more than Dollars 1bn since 1989. Despite the glut on world mar kets, Brazil is struggling to fulfil its export commitments this year of 13m bags. It is reportedly even importing low-grade coffee to meet the requirem ents of its home market - now the second-largest in the world at 10m bags. B y contrast, Colombia more than doubled its crop since 1989 to 18m bags and h as seen earnings increase to match those of Brazil. Brazil's growers put par t of the blame on disgraced President Fernando Collor's policy of deregulati on. While Colombian growers have received government subsidies and support i n technology and marketing since the pact collapsed, the Brazilian governmen t in 1990 closed its Coffee Institute, which controlled supply and sales. Th e government's curbs on subsidies for agriculture meant growers had no acces s to cheap finance, domestic prices were subjected to successive price freez es and exports were hit by an overvalued cruzeiro. The Brazilian coffee sect or was also discredited internationally by charges in New York of insider tr ading in coffee futures -after the government's sudden suspension of coffee exports in March last year - allegedly linked to the corruption scandal whi ch caused Mr Collor's downfall last month. But Mr Luiz Sergio de Paiva, from Brazil's National Coffee Council, says most of the blame for the current cr isis must be laid at the door of the small group of processors which dominat es the market. 'It was not a free market at all,' he says, pointing at a map on his wall. 'All the world's coffee grows between the tropics of Cancer an d Capricorn in the third world and thus lacks planning and development. The consumers are all in Europe and the northern hemisphere. Five big first-worl d companies process half the world's coffee. In a so-called free market it w ill always be producers that lose and processors that gain.' With many Febec members facing bankruptcy, the federation has yielded to growers' demands a nd is backing a new agreement. 'We did not expect that being without an acco rd would be so hard or so long,' admits Mr Oswaldo Aranha Neto, Febec presid ent. But coffee diplomacy is a delicate business. The International Coffee O rganisation includes 50 coffee-exporting nations (representing 97 per cent o f world production) and 21 importing countries (responsible for 80 per cent of consumption). Negotiations bring together countries as diverse as Germany , Cuba, Vietnam and Ethiopia, and previous talks have been acrimonious. The producers might seem to be in the weak position. Mr Alexandre Beltrao, head of the ICO, estimates that producers have been losing Dollars 4bn-Dollars 5b n a year worldwide since the accord collapsed. But the tables may soon turn. The price has started to recover quite rapidly over the past few weeks as B razil has admitted its crop is lower than expected, and now stands at more t han 70 cents a pound. Consumers and processors are beginning to be worried a bout a possible dearth of supplies, particularly as it takes four years for a bush to start producing beans. Industrialists worry that the low prices ha ve caused quality to drop even further. Mr Beltrao points out that the incom e lost by producers 'is money which should have been directed towards invest ment'. The price recovery is generating renewed optimism among producers tha t the sector may be poised for revival, rendering a pact academic. But price s were at 130 cents when the accord collapsed and Mr Beltrao says: 'Prices h ave not risen enough to dissuade anyone of the need for a new accord. I thin k by the end of the year we'll have a framework agreement.' Negotiations on a pact may, however, be affected by a change of administration in the two ma in participating countries. The new Brazilian president, Mr Itamar Franco, i s from Minas Gerais, which produces half of Brazil's coffee, and is thought to be sympathetic to the idea of an accord. The position of Mr Bill Clinton, US president-elect, is less clear, though Mr Jorge Cardenas, of the Colombi an National Growers Federation, says he is not worried that a change in the White House means the US will cool to the idea of a deal. In September a ser ious hurdle was overcome with agreement on the concept of universal quotas, covering exports of producers to all destinations rather than just to ICO me mbers, and guaranteeing that exports offered to member countries would be on at least as good terms as to non-members. Under the previous agreement, pro ducers sold surplus supplies to non-members at cheaper prices, which then so ld the coffee on to member countries. The remaining obstacles include a syst em for controlling shipments, agreeing on prices and quota sizes. The issue of selectivity will also have to be resolved to allow consumers to obtain th e types of coffee they prefer, such as robusta or the milder arabica. Mr Bel trao stresses that the return to a pact would not mean the sector had lost i ts taste for the free market. 'I don't see a pact as an alternative but as a five-year transition period,' he says. Whether the worst is over for those whose livelihood depends on coffee rests largely on the outcome of this mont h's negotiations. Although a new pact might push up prices for coffee lovers , the hope is that the ensuing price stability and quality would act like a caffeine shot to stimulate consumption above the 72m bags at which it has st uck. Mr Paiva warns: 'We must remember that coffee is not the only drink in the world.' ----------------------------------------------- A LOT LESS COFFEE IN BRAZIL ----------------------------------------------- The t op overall consumers ----------------------------------------------- 1991 60kg bags Kg per (million) capita ----------------------------------------------- US 18.89 4.52 Germany 10.48 7.92 Brazil 9 .20 3.78 Japan 6.00 2.92 France 5.56 5.84 ----------------------------------------------- The to p drinkers ----------------------------------------------- 1991 Kg per capita a year -------------------------------- --------------- Finland 11.51 Sweden 11.13 Norway 10.66 Denmark 10.59 --------------------------- -------------------- The top exporters ------------------------------------ ----------- Coffee year 60kg bags 1991/92 (million ) ----------------------------------------------- Brazil 21.74 Colombia 15.42 Indonesia 4.02 Ivory Co ast 3.57 Guatemala 3.29 Mexico 2.98 Costa Rica 2.27 ----------------------------------- ------------ Source: ICO ----------------------------------------------- The Financial Times London Page 18 ============= Transaction # 150 ============================================== Transaction #: 150 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:04:01 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 19 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 7 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 151 ============================================== Transaction #: 151 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 14:04:06 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 3 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(topic {cuba sugar}) and (topic {trade})" ============= Transaction # 152 ============================================== Transaction #: 152 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:04:08 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 57 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 153 ============================================== Transaction #: 153 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:04:27 Selec. Rec. #: 4 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-7881 _AN-CBTB0AC9FT 9202 20 FT 20 FEB 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Sugar dem and estimate reduced By DAVID BLACKWELL DEVELOPMENTS IN the Commonwealth of Independent States have forced Czar nikow, the London trade house, to reduce its forecasts for this year's world sugar production and consumption for the second time. Production for 1991-9 2 is now estimated at 112.27m tonnes, compared with estimates of 112.86m ton nes and 113m tonnes in made last August and November respectively. The lates t figure reflects increased output projections for Thailand, China, Argentin a and the EC, but these were more than offset by sharp falls in the CIS (to 6.75m tonnes) and Cuba (to 6.5m tonnes), says Czarnikow in its latest Sugar Review. Consumption is put at 110.89m tonnes, compared with August and Novem ber predictions of 112.15m tonnes and 113.14m tonnes. The latest figure has been overshadowed by the CIS, where stocks held by consumers are high, and t he picture is further obscured by overseas food aid prospects. Czarnikow now estimates Soviet consumption at 11.2m tonnes. After allowing for unrecorded disappearance, estimated at 600,000 tonnes, the latest figures imply a net addition of 770,000 tonnes to world stocks. The Financial Times London Page 30 ============= Transaction # 154 ============================================== Transaction #: 154 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:04:33 Selec. Rec. #: 5 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-8126 _AN-CBSB3AC8FT 9202 19 FT 19 FEB 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Raw sugar shortage hits Russian refineries By LEYLA BOULTON < /BYLINE> MOSCOW THE RUSSIAN authorities sai d yesterday sugar refinery output had reached a historic low but that relief was on its way in the form of imports from Cuba and France. Mr Vasili Sever in, head of the sugar production department at the Russian agriculture minis try, told Itar-Tass that only four of 95 refineries were functioning because of a shortfall of raw sugar. He said refineries had last year received only 4m tonnes of the 7.5m tonnes of raw sugar they were supposed to receive und er the state plan. His deputy, Mr Anatoly Kholudov, said that the 'situation with sugar was serious' and that supplies would be worse this year than las t. But he added that some more plants would be opened in March to process im ported supplies. Mr Severin said the first shipments would arrive from Cuba and France in late February. Prodintorg, a state trading body, said it was t alking with more potential suppliers but declined to give details. Mr Boris Orlov, head of the government's department for agricultural products, said t hat sugar refining was a seasonal process and that only a few more refinerie s would be open at this time of year any way. 'The plants usually function f or three to four months starting in September.' He said Russia required 7m t onnes of raw sugar this year, some of which would materialise only this autu mn. He said the shortfall was caused by producers' refusal to sell raw sugar to the state because they were waiting for prices to rise. They had sold th eir raw sugar to private markets instead. Mr Alexei Ulyuakev, an adviser to the Russian government, said earlier this week the government was considerin g liberalising from next month the prices of sugar and vegetable oil, two co mmodities which are in particularly short supply in the shops. The Financial Times London Page 28 ============= Transaction # 155 ============================================== Transaction #: 155 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:04:50 Selec. Rec. #: 5 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-8126 _AN-CBSB3AC8FT 9202 19 FT 19 FEB 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Raw sugar shortage hits Russian refineries By LEYLA BOULTON < /BYLINE> MOSCOW THE RUSSIAN authorities sai d yesterday sugar refinery output had reached a historic low but that relief was on its way in the form of imports from Cuba and France. Mr Vasili Sever in, head of the sugar production department at the Russian agriculture minis try, told Itar-Tass that only four of 95 refineries were functioning because of a shortfall of raw sugar. He said refineries had last year received only 4m tonnes of the 7.5m tonnes of raw sugar they were supposed to receive und er the state plan. His deputy, Mr Anatoly Kholudov, said that the 'situation with sugar was serious' and that supplies would be worse this year than las t. But he added that some more plants would be opened in March to process im ported supplies. Mr Severin said the first shipments would arrive from Cuba and France in late February. Prodintorg, a state trading body, said it was t alking with more potential suppliers but declined to give details. Mr Boris Orlov, head of the government's department for agricultural products, said t hat sugar refining was a seasonal process and that only a few more refinerie s would be open at this time of year any way. 'The plants usually function f or three to four months starting in September.' He said Russia required 7m t onnes of raw sugar this year, some of which would materialise only this autu mn. He said the shortfall was caused by producers' refusal to sell raw sugar to the state because they were waiting for prices to rise. They had sold th eir raw sugar to private markets instead. Mr Alexei Ulyuakev, an adviser to the Russian government, said earlier this week the government was considerin g liberalising from next month the prices of sugar and vegetable oil, two co mmodities which are in particularly short supply in the shops. The Financial Times London Page 28 ============= Transaction # 156 ============================================== Transaction #: 156 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:05:05 Selec. Rec. #: 7 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-9644 _AN-CBKBQACWFT 9202 11 FT 11 FEB 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Low Cuban sugar crop forecast By DAMIAN FRASER MEXICO CITY CUBA'S SUGAR crop is at best likely to be 6.5m tonnes in 1991-92, about 1.1m tonnes less than in 1990-91, accor ding to a group of sugar experts who gathered together in the Dominican repu blic under the auspices of the (moderate) Cuban exile group, Sociedad Econom ica de los Amigos del Pais. The experts - who included a senior official fro m the US Department of Agriculture, analysts from FO Licht, the German sugar statistics agency, Scudder Group, Czarnikow, the London trade house, and as sorted academics - believed that Cuba failed to harvest any sugar in the las t two months of 1991. This would reduce the seasonal (November-June) harvest by between 300,000 and 1m tonnes. In January harvesting appears to have bee n very slow. Even if the weather holds up, the experts agreed that Cuba woul d be lucky to produce 6.5m tonnes this year, given the shortages of spare pa rts, poor maintenance of equipment, and problems in the field. The onset of rain would push the forecast even lower, said Mr Gerry Hagelberg, of FO Lich t. In November the USDA estimated that Cuba's production would reach 7.3m to nnes. Mr Peter Buzzanell, the official responsible for estimates, suggested that the department would formally revise its estimate downwards as early as this week. The drop of production, if it materialises, will hit Cuba's batt ered economy hard - for the first time it is having to sell sugar (usually 7 5 per cent of exports) at world, rather than preferential prices. But it wil l come as welcome news to the world sugar market, which has been bracing its elf for a flood of sugar after the collapse of Cuba's barter trade with the former-Soviet Union. In the nine months to last September, Cuba exported 6.1 5m tonnes of sugar, of which 3.7m tonnes went to the Soviet Union, 740,000 t onnes to China, about 500,000 tonnes to Japan and Canada and the remainder t o assorted countries. In the full year Cuba promised to send the Soviet Unio n 4m tonnes of sugar in return for 10m tonnes of oil and other products. (An exchange that valued Cuban sugar at about 24 cents a lb, compared with a wo rld price of 8 cents a lb). This year, however, Cuba has had to renegotiate with ex-Soviet Union states. So far Russia has agreed to buy (with oil) 500, 000 tonnes of Cuban sugar, with an option to buy another 500,000 tonnes; Kaz akhstan will take another 200,000 tonnes, with an option for 200,000 tonnes; and Latvia 50,000 tonnes. Cuba will thus have to find a home for about 1.5m tonnes of sugar that in the past went to the Soviet Union, assuming product ion at the lower 6.5m tonnes (and exports at around 5.4m tonnes), and the op tions fully taken up. Some of this excess sugar will go to other ex-Soviet s tates that have yet to sign trade agreements with Cuba, and, says Mr Hagelbe rg, perhaps as much as 400,000 tonnes to Iran and South Korea. Nevertheless the world markets could still be expected to absorb about 1m tonnes of extra Cuban sugar this year - unless Cuba's crop deteriorates still further. The Financial Times London Page 28 ============= Transaction # 157 ============================================== Transaction #: 157 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:05:33 Selec. Rec. #: 7 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-9644 _AN-CBKBQACWFT 9202 11 FT 11 FEB 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Low Cuban sugar crop forecast By DAMIAN FRASER MEXICO CITY CUBA'S SUGAR crop is at best likely to be 6.5m tonnes in 1991-92, about 1.1m tonnes less than in 1990-91, accor ding to a group of sugar experts who gathered together in the Dominican repu blic under the auspices of the (moderate) Cuban exile group, Sociedad Econom ica de los Amigos del Pais. The experts - who included a senior official fro m the US Department of Agriculture, analysts from FO Licht, the German sugar statistics agency, Scudder Group, Czarnikow, the London trade house, and as sorted academics - believed that Cuba failed to harvest any sugar in the las t two months of 1991. This would reduce the seasonal (November-June) harvest by between 300,000 and 1m tonnes. In January harvesting appears to have bee n very slow. Even if the weather holds up, the experts agreed that Cuba woul d be lucky to produce 6.5m tonnes this year, given the shortages of spare pa rts, poor maintenance of equipment, and problems in the field. The onset of rain would push the forecast even lower, said Mr Gerry Hagelberg, of FO Lich t. In November the USDA estimated that Cuba's production would reach 7.3m to nnes. Mr Peter Buzzanell, the official responsible for estimates, suggested that the department would formally revise its estimate downwards as early as this week. The drop of production, if it materialises, will hit Cuba's batt ered economy hard - for the first time it is having to sell sugar (usually 7 5 per cent of exports) at world, rather than preferential prices. But it wil l come as welcome news to the world sugar market, which has been bracing its elf for a flood of sugar after the collapse of Cuba's barter trade with the former-Soviet Union. In the nine months to last September, Cuba exported 6.1 5m tonnes of sugar, of which 3.7m tonnes went to the Soviet Union, 740,000 t onnes to China, about 500,000 tonnes to Japan and Canada and the remainder t o assorted countries. In the full year Cuba promised to send the Soviet Unio n 4m tonnes of sugar in return for 10m tonnes of oil and other products. (An exchange that valued Cuban sugar at about 24 cents a lb, compared with a wo rld price of 8 cents a lb). This year, however, Cuba has had to renegotiate with ex-Soviet Union states. So far Russia has agreed to buy (with oil) 500, 000 tonnes of Cuban sugar, with an option to buy another 500,000 tonnes; Kaz akhstan will take another 200,000 tonnes, with an option for 200,000 tonnes; and Latvia 50,000 tonnes. Cuba will thus have to find a home for about 1.5m tonnes of sugar that in the past went to the Soviet Union, assuming product ion at the lower 6.5m tonnes (and exports at around 5.4m tonnes), and the op tions fully taken up. Some of this excess sugar will go to other ex-Soviet s tates that have yet to sign trade agreements with Cuba, and, says Mr Hagelbe rg, perhaps as much as 400,000 tonnes to Iran and South Korea. Nevertheless the world markets could still be expected to absorb about 1m tonnes of extra Cuban sugar this year - unless Cuba's crop deteriorates still further. The Financial Times London Page 28 ============= Transaction # 158 ============================================== Transaction #: 158 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:05:35 Selec. Rec. #: 5 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-8126 _AN-CBSB3AC8FT 9202 19 FT 19 FEB 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Raw sugar shortage hits Russian refineries By LEYLA BOULTON < /BYLINE> MOSCOW THE RUSSIAN authorities sai d yesterday sugar refinery output had reached a historic low but that relief was on its way in the form of imports from Cuba and France. Mr Vasili Sever in, head of the sugar production department at the Russian agriculture minis try, told Itar-Tass that only four of 95 refineries were functioning because of a shortfall of raw sugar. He said refineries had last year received only 4m tonnes of the 7.5m tonnes of raw sugar they were supposed to receive und er the state plan. His deputy, Mr Anatoly Kholudov, said that the 'situation with sugar was serious' and that supplies would be worse this year than las t. But he added that some more plants would be opened in March to process im ported supplies. Mr Severin said the first shipments would arrive from Cuba and France in late February. Prodintorg, a state trading body, said it was t alking with more potential suppliers but declined to give details. Mr Boris Orlov, head of the government's department for agricultural products, said t hat sugar refining was a seasonal process and that only a few more refinerie s would be open at this time of year any way. 'The plants usually function f or three to four months starting in September.' He said Russia required 7m t onnes of raw sugar this year, some of which would materialise only this autu mn. He said the shortfall was caused by producers' refusal to sell raw sugar to the state because they were waiting for prices to rise. They had sold th eir raw sugar to private markets instead. Mr Alexei Ulyuakev, an adviser to the Russian government, said earlier this week the government was considerin g liberalising from next month the prices of sugar and vegetable oil, two co mmodities which are in particularly short supply in the shops. The Financial Times London Page 28 ============= Transaction # 159 ============================================== Transaction #: 159 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:05:35 Selec. Rec. #: 7 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-9644 _AN-CBKBQACWFT 9202 11 FT 11 FEB 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Low Cuban sugar crop forecast By DAMIAN FRASER MEXICO CITY CUBA'S SUGAR crop is at best likely to be 6.5m tonnes in 1991-92, about 1.1m tonnes less than in 1990-91, accor ding to a group of sugar experts who gathered together in the Dominican repu blic under the auspices of the (moderate) Cuban exile group, Sociedad Econom ica de los Amigos del Pais. The experts - who included a senior official fro m the US Department of Agriculture, analysts from FO Licht, the German sugar statistics agency, Scudder Group, Czarnikow, the London trade house, and as sorted academics - believed that Cuba failed to harvest any sugar in the las t two months of 1991. This would reduce the seasonal (November-June) harvest by between 300,000 and 1m tonnes. In January harvesting appears to have bee n very slow. Even if the weather holds up, the experts agreed that Cuba woul d be lucky to produce 6.5m tonnes this year, given the shortages of spare pa rts, poor maintenance of equipment, and problems in the field. The onset of rain would push the forecast even lower, said Mr Gerry Hagelberg, of FO Lich t. In November the USDA estimated that Cuba's production would reach 7.3m to nnes. Mr Peter Buzzanell, the official responsible for estimates, suggested that the department would formally revise its estimate downwards as early as this week. The drop of production, if it materialises, will hit Cuba's batt ered economy hard - for the first time it is having to sell sugar (usually 7 5 per cent of exports) at world, rather than preferential prices. But it wil l come as welcome news to the world sugar market, which has been bracing its elf for a flood of sugar after the collapse of Cuba's barter trade with the former-Soviet Union. In the nine months to last September, Cuba exported 6.1 5m tonnes of sugar, of which 3.7m tonnes went to the Soviet Union, 740,000 t onnes to China, about 500,000 tonnes to Japan and Canada and the remainder t o assorted countries. In the full year Cuba promised to send the Soviet Unio n 4m tonnes of sugar in return for 10m tonnes of oil and other products. (An exchange that valued Cuban sugar at about 24 cents a lb, compared with a wo rld price of 8 cents a lb). This year, however, Cuba has had to renegotiate with ex-Soviet Union states. So far Russia has agreed to buy (with oil) 500, 000 tonnes of Cuban sugar, with an option to buy another 500,000 tonnes; Kaz akhstan will take another 200,000 tonnes, with an option for 200,000 tonnes; and Latvia 50,000 tonnes. Cuba will thus have to find a home for about 1.5m tonnes of sugar that in the past went to the Soviet Union, assuming product ion at the lower 6.5m tonnes (and exports at around 5.4m tonnes), and the op tions fully taken up. Some of this excess sugar will go to other ex-Soviet s tates that have yet to sign trade agreements with Cuba, and, says Mr Hagelbe rg, perhaps as much as 400,000 tonnes to Iran and South Korea. Nevertheless the world markets could still be expected to absorb about 1m tonnes of extra Cuban sugar this year - unless Cuba's crop deteriorates still further. The Financial Times London Page 28 ============= Transaction # 160 ============================================== Transaction #: 160 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:06:04 Selec. Rec. #: 8 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-13094 _AN-CAWAWACSFT 920 123 FT 23 JAN 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Broker c uts estimate of 1991-92 sugar surplus By DAVID BLACK WELL FALLS in the sugar production of the former Soviet Uni on and Cuba have led ED & F. Man, the London trade house, to cut its estimat e for the world sugar supply surplus for 1991-92 to 1.58m tonnes from a Sept ember estimate of 2.06m tonnes. This compares with a surplus of 990,000 tonn es predicted last week by FO Licht, the German sugar statistics agency, whic h stated categorically: 'There is no large surplus overhanging the market.' Man, which now puts production at 113.05m tonnes and consumption at 111.47m tonnes, points out that the revolutionary changes in the world political are na have plunged the sugar market into 'the greatest period of uncertainty ov er three decades'. The immediate impact has been the forecast decline in imp orts to the former Soviet Union, coupled with a fall in its trade with Cuba. 'A shift away from agreements that by-passed the international free market is a favourable development for the world sugar market but, coming at a time when the raw sugar import demand of the ex-centrally planned economies of E ast and Central Europe is falling, it is depressing for prices,' Man says in its latest sugar market report. It is assuming a 15 per cent fall in sugar consumption in the former Soviet Union to 10.6m tonnes of whites. Raw produc tion is put at 7.5m tonnes. The consumption figure is conservative 'given th e hoarding that has apparently taken place over the past two years and the e stimated 2m tonnes of sugar that is used in making home-brewed alcohol'. The Financial Times London Page 34 ============= Transaction # 161 ============================================== Transaction #: 161 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:06:45 Selec. Rec. #: 9 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-2957 _AN-CCQBDAC4FT 9203 17 FT 17 MAR 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Sugar pri ces forecast to remain in narrow range By DAVID BLAC KWELL WORLD SUGAR prices are set to remain locked in the 'd esperately narrow' 1.5 cents a lb trading range of the last 12 months, accor ding to the latest sugar report from ED & F. Man, the London trade house. Th e resistance to movement in spite of a volatile trading environment is due t o fear of uncertainty at a time of revolutionary change in the eastern Europ ean and Cuban markets, Man suggests. It also coincides with 'an unprecedente d convergence of views about the overall supply and demand balance'. While u ncertainty surrounds crop prospects in both Cuba, the biggest exporter, and the CIS, the biggest importer, the convergence can be explained by favourabl e growing conditions in many exporting countries. Output in Brazil, Thailand and India in the year to the end of last month has exceeded the previous ye ar by 24, 30 and 8 per cent respectively. 'The full impact of these potentia lly bumper crops has not as yet been felt on the market,' says Man. The Financial Times London Page 32 ============= Transaction # 162 ============================================== Transaction #: 162 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:07:02 Selec. Rec. #: 10 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT922-12623 _AN-CDPBOADHFT 920 416 FT 16 APR 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Supply f ears buoy sugar prices By DAVID BLACKWELL FEARS OF a tighter sugar supply/demand balance in 1992-93 are support ing the world market, according to reports from two London trade houses. Raw sugar prices have recently touched eight-month highs, nudging 10 cents a lb in the New York market, on fears of tight nearby supplies following damage to the South African crop because of drought. The trade houses, ED & F. Man and Czarnikow, both point out in reports published today that in the short t erm the changing export potential in several countries will keep the lid on prices. The increasing likelihood of a 1m-tonne increase in Thailand's crop, compared with the previous season, together with the availability of export able surpluses from India and Cuba, should 'keep significant advances at bay ', Man's latest sugar report says. Man believes that reports of a catastroph ic Cuban crop this season at 5m to 5.5m tonnes are unsupported by the eviden ce and estimates that the crop will come in at about 6.5m tonnes. It is fore casting a crop of more than 5m tonnes in Thailand and 12.6m tonnes in India. The overall balance for the 1991-92 season remains marginally in surplus, M an says, but it suggests that the situation is likely to be even more tightl y balanced in 1992-93. Czarnikow's sugar review points out that the extent o f the South African drought has raised questions about the timing and covera ge of the El Nino weather phenomenon. 'Already a major drought is developing in Thailand which, if relief does not arrive this month, could have serious implications for the next crop,' the Czarnikow review says. 'If this is par t of a regional phenomenon there might be problems later in the year with th e monsoon in India and this will need to be monitored carefully.'

The Financial Times London Page 38 ============= Transaction # 163 ============================================== Transaction #: 163 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:07:30 Selec. Rec. #: 11 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT922-14632 _AN-CDFBYAAGFT 920 406 FT 06 APR 92 / Survey of Latin American Finance and Investment (7): Privatisation at a glance SOUTH AMERICA A rgentina 1. 1990 privatisations of airline and telephone network seen as mis handled. 2. New programme devised. Plans to sell controlling stakes in follo wing companies or as concessions: five long-distance rail lines; seven Bueno s Aires commuter lines; Buenos Aires underground rail system; ELMA shipping line; ports; SEGBA; Hidronor hydroelectric power generator; Agua y Energia h ydroelectric generator; Gas del Estado, national gas company; OSN, Buenos Ai res water company; Encotel post and telegraph service; Buenos Aires expressw ays; National Mint; CNAS national savings and insurance bank; National Grain Board; Liniers cattle market; SOMISA steelmill; Petroquimica Gen Mosconi; P etroquimica Bahia Blanca. YPF oil company being restructured for future priv atisation. About 30 other small federally-owned companies also listed for sa le, plus 2,500-odd buildings, and real estate. 3. No restrictions on foreign ownership of privatised companies. No exchange controls or limits on divide nds. Payment determined case by case, but combination of cash and conversion of foreign and domestic debt into equity for utilities. Manufacturing compa nies to be sold for cash. Government plans to privatise all state companies by the end of the year, except for YPF. Sale of controlling stakes in seven leading utilities expected to net more than Dollars 6bn, at least Dollars 1. 9bn in cash. BOLIVIA 1. None completed 2. Negotiations under way to transfer mining corporation Comibol's Bolivar zinc and silver mine to Comsur, part-o wned by RTZ. On list: Lloyd Aereo Boliviano airline: up to 49 per cent to fo reign investors perhaps by mid year; hotels; and a group of small sugar, mil k, glass,vegetable oil companies, and a foundry. Customs service. 3. Payment in cash. Foreign investment legislation treats local and foreign capital eq ually. No exchange control. Profit remittances unrestricted, but subject to withholding tax. BRAZIL 1. Started October 1991: Usiminas steel concern rais ed Dollars 1.11bn for voting shares and Dollars 264.3m for non-voting. Recei pts total Dollars 1.65bn, with further sales of Celma (aircraft maintenance) Dollars 90.7m, Mafersa (transport) Dollars 48.4m, Cosinor (steel) Dollars 1 3.6m, SNBP (river transport), Indag (fertiliser) Dollars 6.8m, Piratini (ste el) Dollars 106.2m. 2. 1992 programme: Petroflex (petrochemicals) minimum pr ice Dollars 180m, April 10; Enasa (navigation) Dollars 17.1m, April 30; Cope sul (petrochemicals) Dollars 650m, May 15; Arafertil (fertiliser); Tubarao ( steel); Caraiba (copper mining); Cosipa (steel). 3. Foreigners can hold up t o 40 per cent of voting capital (under discussion). Money must stay in Brazi l six years. Privatisation currency: all types of domestic debt including Si derbras debentures at face value, privatisation certificates, blocked cruzad os, PFAs at par, MYDFAs at discount of 25 per cent (may be changed). CHILE 1 . Three stages: (i) 1973-1974: 350 companies expropriated under preceding so cialist government, for Dollars 1bn; (ii) 1975-1982: State holding company, CORFO, privatised 135 companies and 16 banks: Dollars 1bn; (iii) 1985-1989: Electricity, telecommunications, civil aviation, steel, nitrates and chemica l sectors. Sugar monopoly and insurance business: Dollars 1.4bn. 2. Aylwin g overnment (1990- ) slowed programme, arguing nothing left to sell. Sale envi saged of rail freight services, with government keeping track. Seeking priva te sector partners for remaining state companies, including copper concern C odelco seekingto develop new mines. 3. Diverse methods used for sales. COLOM BIA 1. Banks, taken over in 1980s, being sold to private sector. Banco de Tr abajadores sold to Banco Mercantil of Venezuela; Banco Tequendama to the Ven ezuela Banco de Construccion. Rubbish collection in some areas. 2. Law allow ing the privatisation of telecommunications with Congress. National and fore ign investors to be invited to bid for part of Telecom's shares; company emp loyees get priority for up to 10 per cent. Banks: Talk of privatising the Ag rarian Bank. IFI, the development institute, to sell off most shareholdings, perhaps including Cerro Matoso, nickel producer part owned with Shell. Elec tricity: private companies now authorised to generate and distribute electri city - two small projects already under way. Ports: private groups to take o ver management. Other sales possible in health, television, hotels and some public utilities. 3. General law on privatisation under preparation, but app arent problems with drafting. ECUADOR 1. No Programme 2. No Programme 3. Sta tements of two main presidential candidates, Sixto Duran and Jaime Nebot, su ggest some privatisation, including airline, possible after new government t akes office in August. PARAGUAY 1. None completed 2. Framework privatisation legislation approved December 1991, created privatisation council. Expected at top of list: Lineas Aereas Paraguayas, followed by ACEPAR steel mill, ra ilway company (principal asset: Asuncion-Encarnacion steam railway), fuel al cohol administration, shipping company (assets: river boats and ocean-going freighter). Telephone, oil, and electricity companies later candidates City of Asuncion plans to sell refuse collection company. 3. Regulations not yet announced. No exchange controls. Profit remittances free, subject to withhol ding tax. PERU 1. Two small state holdings in private companies sold: June 1 991, sale via stock exchange of small share in Sogewiese Leasing and in July 9 per cent stake in Buenaventura mining company. 2. President Fujimori call s 1992 'the year of privatisation'. Government lists 14 companies for sale s oon: Solgas (liquid gas); Petro-Peru's filling stations; refinery at Conchan ; Petrolera Transoceanica; Quimica El Pacifico; Bayer Industrial (shares in) ; Cementos Lima (shares in); Aeroperu (airline); Enatru-Peru (urban transpor t company); Minera Condestable (copper mine); Industrias Navales; Banco de C omercio (shares in); Reactivos Nacionales; HierroPeru (iron monopoly). Minin g and refining giant Centromin being valued for sale 1992. 3. Wide range of sale mechanisms likely: public auction, direct sale, to workers in lieu of h efty severance payments and via stock exchange. Government estimates privati sations could bring in 1 per cent of GDP this year, about Dollars 450m. URUG UAY 1. Banco Comercial, commercial bank taken under state control after fail ure, reprivatised in 1990. 2. Two other banks to be reprivatised. Framework privatisation legislation approved October 1991, allows government to sell m ajority stake in Pluna airline and Antel telephone network by mid year. In 1 992 government plans to sell right to build from scratch network to transpor t to, and distribute in Montevideo, natural gas from Argentina. Ancap oil, a lcohol and cement company to be sold. OSE water and sewerage company to be s old in 1993. 3. Sales for cash only. No restriction on foreign ownership or exchange controls. Corporation tax: 30 per cent. Equal treatment to local, f oreign capital. VENEZUELA 1. Since 1990, three commercial banks; May 1991, f ranchise for cellular telephone system; Bell South, Racal Telecom paid Dolla rs 98m; August 1991, Viasa, international airline, 60 per cent stake sold fo r Dollars 145.5m to group led by Spain's Iberia; November 1991, CANTV teleph one monopoly, 40 per cent and operating control sold to group led by GTE of the US, for Dollars 1.89bn; sugar mill, shipyard and four tourist hotels. 2. 1992 programme: eight or more hotels; six sugar mills, Aeropostal airline; National Racetrack Institute (INH); at least two regional electric power com panies, Enelven and Enelbar. Other assets in line for privatisation: Caracas water utility, electricity generating companies, toll road franchises, Dian ca shipyard; Ensal salt producer and metal-working companies. Eight commerci al ports being turned over to private companies to run as concessions. Gover nment considering sale of companies of Corporacion Venezolana de Guayana, wh ose activities include steel - including Sidor, Venezuela's largest steelmak er - aluminium smelting and products, mining, hydroelectric power. 3. No deb t-for-equity swaps. Central America COSTA RICA 1. 1986-1990 Arias administra tion privatised 44 of 46 companies owned by state development corporation, C odesa. Included national aluminium company, Alunasa, sold in October 1987 an d sugar operation, Catsa. 2. Two companies this year: Cempasa cement group a nd Fertica, fertiliser. 3. Under Calderon administration (1991- ), some gove rnment members proposing further privatisation, including utilities, and oil refining. Prospects uncertain. GUATEMALA 1. No programme. 2. Nothing announ ced. 3. Small public enterprise sector. Under discussion in government: priv atisation of utilities: telecommunications, electricity generation, possible sale of assets of government holding company, including non-operational pul p/paper plant. EL SALVADOR 1. Two banks partly reprivatised of banking syste m nationalised in early-1980s. 2. Rest of banks. Government seeking to repri vatise power companies. 3. Discussions over divestments in agriculture/agroi ndustry. Maximum individual holdings in banks limited to 5 per cent: sales i nitially to employees/wealthy individuals, followed by public offerings. HON DURAS 1. Privatisation started under Azcona administration (1986-90): all bu t one of state sawmills sold; 10 of the 25 companies of industrial developme nt bank Conadi. Under Callejas administration (1990- ) cement factory, Inceh sa, sold to military pension fund; some hotels and state share in Tan Sahsa, state airline, sold. 2. Dairy operation, Productos Lacteos Sula; sugar refi ners Acensa and Acansa; banana farm Conbasa; food factory, Mefores Alimentos . 3. Congress blocked sale of cement factory, Cementos de Honduras, to US-Ve nezuelan company Ampac. Privatisation programme has hit political, legal obs tacles. Discussion of sale of telephone company, Hondutel, now administered by armed forces. MEXICO 1. Extensive privatisation programme which has raise d total 51,000bn pesos (about Dollars 17bn) Most significant sales include: Telmex, the telephone monoply, sold in stages from December 1990 to Septembe r 1991, raising more than Dollars 4bn; 12 banks, Dollars 10bn; steel compani es, Dollars 340m. 2. By December, six remaining banks, and assorted smaller industries, headed by Aseguradora Mexicana, the insurance company, and plant s at Fertimex, the fertiliser producer. 3. Privatisation programme to end in December. Government seeking to privatise public sector responsibilities th rough lease-backs, temporary concessions, and other creative financing schem es. NICARAGUA 1. Government allowed establishment of private banks, which ha ve grown quickly. 2. Chamorro administration (1991- ) proposes break up of p ublic sector consisting of over 400 companies, including industrial and agro industrial operations, such as giant sugar refinery at Timal. Tourism assets . 3. Programme has hit legal problems, in particular claims of ex-owners of property confiscated by Sandinista government. PANAMA 1. None so far. 2. App roval expected any time of two laws: (i) General privatisation, covering sma ll state enterprises sector: airline, hotels, agroindustry projects. (ii) Te lephone company privatisation. 3. Feasibility study for sale of telephone co mpany Intel completed in December. Sale, to citizens, could take 12 months o nce started: estimated proceeds Dollars 900m. Caribbean CUBA 1. None 2. Offi cials say government interested in selling part of the sugar industry, inter national airline and nickel production facilities. 3. Concessions for oil ex ploration sold to European companies. GUYANA 1. Companies in paint productio n, wood products, food processing, transport, telecommunications, trading se rvices and leather products. Agreements to be concluded soon for companies i n fish, rice milling and marketing, livestock and livestock feed and soap an d detergent production. 2. On offer: international airline, sugar company, b auxite company. 3. Sales by private treaty to local and foreign investors. J AMAICA 1. Government's majority stake in telecommunications monopoly, larges t commercial bank, only cement producer, and nine resort hotels. Minority ho lding in a radio station has also been divested. 2. On offer: international and domestic airlines, railways, electricity company, water supply authority , post office, some port facilities. 3. Sold through offers of shares or pri vate treaties. Foreign purchasers with hard currency likely to be favoured. TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO 1. None completed 2. Planned sale of several leading com panies in petroleum and natural gas, petro-chemicals, fertilisers, telecommu nications and financial services. 3. Shares will be transferred to new Natio nal Investment Company, to divest the holdings through local stock exchange in five years. DOMINICAN REPUBLIC 1. None. 2. No programme. 3. Government sa ys it plans to divest some state enterprises, including international airlin e. No agreements yet concluded. The Financial Times London Page IV ============= Transaction # 164 ============================================== Transaction #: 164 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:07:55 Selec. Rec. #: 12 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT923-10781 _AN-CG2ASAASFT 920 729 FT 29 JUL 92 / World Trade News: Investors find the door ajar in Cuba - Businessmen report limited but growing foreign involveme nt By STEPHEN FIDLER FOREIGN involv ement in the Cuban economy is growing significantly, according to British bu sinessmen recently returned from a trade mission to Cuba. Their conclusions, described in a restricted circulation report, are that the government is tr ying to move towards a state that is 'managed rather than intimately control led' by the Communist Party. The report, 'Cuba opens its doors to British bu siness', says a kind of 'creeping privatisation' - with the notable exceptio n of land ownership - is under way in a bid to re-orient the economy followi ng the collapse of trade with the former Soviet Union and east Europe. Compe tition is being encouraged between autonomous and older state enterprises, a s is profit, and the retention of hard currency earnings is allowable throug h an independent banking system. The Cubans are seeking to re-orient export production, obtain new markets and find new sources of convertible currency. The report suggests companies from Spain, Italy, France, Canada, Brazil, Me xico and Argentina are taking the lead in investment in Cuba. The report poi nts to two main growth areas: biotechnology and tourism. In biotechnology, t he aim is to link laboratories to the production and commercialisation of ad vanced research finished or nearing completion. Biotechnological research is likely to be marketed in the EC through joint ventures with Spanish, Dutch and Hungarian companies. In tourism, already the country's largest foreign e xchange earner, the development of new facilities has become the highest pri ority. In 1991, Cuba received more than 400,000 visitors and expects to rece ive more than 500,000 this year, projected to reach 1m by 1995 of which 80 p er cent will come from Europe. Cuba plans to build a further 3,000-4,000 roo ms a year to 1995. Based on projects already implemented and other feasibili ty studies, foreign partners can recover investment in three years. Spain ha s been the most aggressive investor in tourism, while Austrian, Italian, Ger man, Swiss and Mexican companies have also shown interest. Projects are bein g discussed with Ramada, Inter-Continental, Camino Real, Lonhro Metropole Gr oup, Club Med and other companies, including some from the US. A recent deci sion to encourage joint ventures and commercial arrangements in other sector s may in reality be somewhat limited. The report notes that the government i s not interested in joint ventures in the production of sugar, health care, education, tobacco or in infrastructure outside Havana. Cuba has, however, p roposed to the Russian government a joint venture in Russia to refine sugar. Cuba is also looking at the possibilities of providing health care, hospita l clinics and other social services to republics of the former Soviet Union. The report suggests changes made thus far are likely to be followed by yet more dramatic changes and innovation in developing new commercial relationsh ips and towards acquiring more advanced technology. 'Almost every aspect of traditional Cuban central planning has been abandoned in the autonomous sect or and for joint ventures and there are signs that this process is now sprea ding to the internal sector,' the report says. Already all enterprises and g overnment agencies are meant to cover expenditure from income. Even the spor ts ministry now has to earn its hard currency requirements from its training and other activities in third countries. The State Committee for Economic C o-operation, whose historical role was as co-ordinator of government-to-gove rnment negotiations and with which the predominant responsibility for joint ventures now lies, says some 50-60 joint venture agreements or other forms o f economic association have been signed, and about 200 are under discussion. However, the report says Cuban ministers acknowledge that most investment o pportunities will be through economic association since a true joint venture is difficult to structure. There are other difficulties too, not mentioned in the report. Some British businessmen considering business with Cuba say t hey have received hints that it might have adverse consequences on their reg ulatory treatment in the US. The Administration has already tightened regula tions on shipping goods to Cuba. Congressional proposals to tighten the econ omic noose around Cuba are causing concern as they could trigger a row with the British and other governments over the extraterritorial ambitions of US law. 'It is for the British government not the US Congress to determine the UK's policy on trade with Cuba,' one UK official warned. Companies have also experienced not-so-subtle pressure from Cuban exile groups, which sometimes have significant knowledge about companies' investment proposals in Cuba. < /TEXT> The Financial Times London Page 4 ============= Transaction # 165 ============================================== Transaction #: 165 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:08:59 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 57 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 166 ============================================== Transaction #: 166 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:09:07 Selec. Rec. #: 13 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT923-1106 _AN-CIXB5AFYFT 9209 24 FT 24 SEP 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Cuban sug ar growers face more problems By REUTER HAVANA CUBA, which in 1991-92 produced its lo west sugar crop in a decade, faces an even more difficult harvest in 1992-93 , according to Mr Juan Herrera, the Cuban sugar minister, Reuter reports fro m Havana. The Cuban domestic news agency AIN said Mr Herrera told Cuba's off icial workers' trade union that 'in the coming harvest there will be even gr eater difficulties'. Cuba produced 7m tonnes of sugar in the 1991-92 harvest , which was plagued by shortages of oil, lubricants, spare parts, herbicides , pesticides and fertilisers. Mr Herrera said a fall in the number of availa ble sugar cane harvesting machines would mean an increase in cane cutting by manual workers next season. The Financial Times London Page 34 ============= Transaction # 167 ============================================== Transaction #: 167 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:09:17 Selec. Rec. #: 14 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT924-5210 _AN-CK0B0AFQFT 9211 27 FT 27 NOV 92 / Commodities and Agriculture: Barbadian collapse deepens shadow over Caribbean sugar - The region, faced with high costs and low productivity, relies on guaranteed market access < BYLINE> By CANUTE JAMES THE COLLAPSE of Barbados' sugar industry late last month is the latest indication of the sometimes terminal difficulties which beset Caribbean producers. The region is faced with high production costs and often low productivity, and is unable to survive withou t guaranteed access to markets such as the European Community and the US, an d which pay higher than prevailing world market prices. The problems caused by inefficiency and indebtedness are exacerbated by what many producers see as a threat to current preferential market arrangements. Many are worried by the recent reduction in US import quotas, and are uncertain how they will f are if the North American Free Trade Agreement is implemented and Mexican pr oduction becomes a market factor. In the case of Barbados, the island has be en unable to produce enough even to meet its quota obligations to these guar anteed markets. Efforts are under way to jump-start the industry after the s tate-owned Barbados National Bank, exercising tighter credit control as part of a government austerity programme, and which is owed Dollars 50m by the i ndustry, suspended all further loans. This followed production of 55,000 ton nes from the 1992 harvest, the lowest in 60 years, according to official fig ures. In order to make use of its opportunities on the EC and US markets the island has had to import sugar to meet domestic demand. Ironically, the col lapse of the industry came after indications that it was being put under new management by Booker Tate, a subsidiary of Booker, the UK food and farming group. The company has become an important factor in the region's troubled s ugar industry, and has been called in to help the industries in Guyana, Beli ze and St Kitts-Nevis, and to run two of Jamaica's nine mills. Trinidad and Tobago is the only producer in the Commonwealth Caribbean in which Booker Ta te is not involved. In all cases the company contracted to give corporate ma nagement and technical services to sugar industries in the five countries. I t provides engineers, technologists, agriculturalists, economists, marketing specialists and support staff. The industries in both Guyana and Jamaica ha ve attracted financial assistance from multilateral institutions as a result of the management contracts given to Booker Tate, But assessments to the co mpany's effectiveness differ in the two countries. Jamaican officials say th e performance of the two mills managed by the company since 1985 has been 'd isappointing'. Yet the case of Guyana shows that the regional sugar industry is not beyond redemption. From output of 330,000 tonnes a year in the mid-1 970s, Guyana's production, plagued by labour unrest and poor weather, slumpe d to 135,000 tonnes in 1990. The industry declared shortfalls on its Europea n Community quota for three years, and shipped none of its quota to the US. Booker Tate's takeover of the management of the industry has been followed, however, by a decisive turnaround. Production is up this year and export quo tas have been met. In the Dominican Republic, the region's second largest pr oducer after Cuba, the problems of financial viability have been compounded by a shortage of labour. Foreign criticism of the treatment of workers from neighbouring Haiti, and the subsequent expulsion of thousands of Haitian wor kers, has resulted in the state-owned producer suffering a painful drop in o utput. Production this year is 8 per cent less than the 326,000 tonnes of la st year and sugar has had to be imported to meet domestic demand. The outloo k for the industry, like that of others in the region, has been depressed by the recent reduction in global imports by the US. The Caribbean's cumulativ e quota has been reduced by 11 per cent to 276,341 tonnes, causing an estima ted Dollars 15m reduction in earnings. It is the second consecutive cut for the Caribbean holders of US quotas, which were allowed to supply 471,710 ton nes in 1991. Sugar industry officials in the region say one area of uncertai nty is Mexico's future access to the US market under the Nafta. They say Mex ico's current and modest US quota of 7,500 tonnes a year can be increased 20 -fold in seven years, at the expense of existing suppliers. Cuba's troubled industry has received a fillip with a new trade agreement between the island and the Russian republic. Cuba will receive 23m barrels of Russian oil a ye ar for 2m tonnes of sugar - significantly less than the country had sold in past years to the former Soviet Union. But the island's economic problems ha ve depressed output this year to just over 6.9m tonnes. ------------------- ------------------------------- Caribbean Sugar Production ('000 tonnes, raw value) ------------------------------------------ -------- 1987-88 1989-90 1991-92 --------------- ----------------------------------- Barbados 81 69 57 Cuba 7,547 7,932 7,000 Dominican Rep. 758 632 670 French W. Indies 82 4 6 38 Guyana 178 135 238 Haiti 30 31 30 Jamaica 225 2 19 224 Trinidad 95 120 110 ----------- --------------------------------------- Source: ED and F. Man. ------------ -------------------------------------- The Financial Times London Page 30 ============= Transaction # 168 ============================================== Transaction #: 168 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:09:59 Selec. Rec. #: 16 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT931-3394 _AN-DCPCCAGAFT 9303 16 FT 16 MAR 93 / Commodities and Agriculture: Sugar sto rms to three-year highs By DAVID BLACKWELL WORLD SUGAR prices, already moving ahead on successive reductions in the Thai crop estimate, surged to the highest level for nearly three years yesterday on news that the storms sweeping up the eastern seaboard of the US had hit Cuba. In New York the May raw sugar contract was up 0.95 at 11.50 c ents a lb in late trading, having touched a peak of 11.83 cents earlier. In London the August white sugar contract closed at Dollars 297.50 a tonne, up Dollars 13 on the day. However, analysts in London were cautious over the da mage to Cuba's crop, which was already expected to be well down on last year 's 7m tonnes. Some are talking of 5m tonnes and under, but there is no hard evidence on which to base a judgment. Talk of damage to sugar mills and dock facilities in Cuba added further fuel to the flames. 'The Cubans have a ves ted interest in allowing people to think it's terrible, ' said Mr Chris Pack , analyst at Czarnikow. 'But it can't have done any good to have a tremendou s storm at the start of the season.' Last week the Thai government revised i ts production estimate down to 3.51m tonnes - the lowest level for five year s. At the beginning of the season production was expected to reach a record 5m tonnes, but drought has damaged the crop. Countries:- XAZ World. Industries:- P0722 Crop Harvesting. Types:- COSTS Commodity prices. The Financial Times London Page 38 ============= Transaction # 169 ============================================== Transaction #: 169 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:10:48 Selec. Rec. #: 17 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT931-8150 _AN-DBUAKACNFT 9302 20 FT 20 FEB 93 / Commodities and Agriculture (Week in t he markets): Sugar breaks into higher ground: By RIC HARD MOONEY A SERIES of bullish developments this week enab led the world sugar market to break free of the strait-jacket that had been confining prices for some time. Having traded mostly between 8 cents and 8.5 cents a lb since last autumn the prompt March futures position at New York' s Cocoa, Sugar and Coffee Exchange leapt in mid-week to 9 cents, a level las t seen on November 2, and moved on to a five-month high of 9.53 cents before edging back yesterday afternoon. Market sentiment has hardened in recent we eks as analysts' assessments of the likely sugar supply surplus in the 1992- 93 season have been reduced. London trader ED & F. Man now expects supply to exceed demand by some 1.5m tonnes (about 1.3 per cent of annual production) , compared with the 3.4m tonnes it was forecasting earlier. And this week C. Czarnikow, another London trade house, which in November was forecasting an 830,000-tonnes surplus, this week adjusted this to a 370,000-tonne deficit (after allowing for 'unrecorded disappearance' of 600,000 tonnes ). However, the factor that changed firmness into strength this week was talk circulati ng among traders that Cuba had been forced to buy 100,000 tonnes of sugar fr om Thailand to enable it to honour supply commitments to China and other Asi an countries. Cuban sugar minister Mr Juan Herrera warned earlier this month that lack of basic inputs had 'caused delays in the start-up of a significa nt number of mills'. Also supporting the market were: a surprise announcemen t of a 160,000-tonne Kenyan buying tender for next Monday; a 14,000-tonne Mo roccan buying tender; talk of Cuban sales to Mexico and of a 100,000-tonnes sale to Indonesia; and a cut in Thailand's harvest forecast from 49.15m tonn es of cane to 43m tonnes. 'There have been several important changes in the statistical outlook for the 1992-93 crop cycle with adjustments to the suppl y side of the balance predominating,' said Czarnikow in the February 17 issu e of its Sugar Review. 'Production for the season has fallen by some 1.32m t onnes since our world forecasts in November and is now expected to slip belo w last season's output by some 1.87m tonnes.' The trade house now estimates world sugar production at 114.57m tonnes, compared with 115.89m in November, and consumption at 114.51m tonnes, compared with 114.46m tonnes. Cocoa pric es put in another steady performance as producers and consumers prepared for next week's International Cocoa Agreement (ICCA) negotiations in Geneva. In late trading yesterday the New York market's May position was quoted at Dol lars 932 a tonne, up Dollars 7 on the week. In London, however, that firmnes s was obscured by the dollar's decline against sterling and the London Futur es and Options Exchange's May cocoa contract ended Pounds 3 down on the week at Pounds 734 a tonne. The Geneva meeting will mark the fourth and final at tempt to agree a price-stabilisation pact to replace the moribund one that e xpires on September 30. Delegates were moving towards agreement at the last session, in November, that efforts to steady the market should be based on t he withholding of between 330,000 and 380,000 tonnes of surplus beans from t he market. But they remained far apart on how that was to be financed and on what price range was to be defended. The existing ICCA, agreed in 1986, cea sed to operate as a market support pact early in 1988, when its buffer stock reached the 250,000-tonnes ceiling. All but one of the London Metal Exchang e's contracts finished down on the week, the biggest fall being in copper, w hich closed yesterday at Pounds 1,551.25 a tonne for three months delivery, down Pounds 30.50 on the week. But, as with cocoa's fall, the culprit was th e sterling rally, but for which the price would have been modestly higher. D ealers said the copper market was supported by concern over production stopp ages in Mexico and Papua New Guinea and the expectation of Chinese buying on any dip to Dollars 2,220 a tonne, about Dollars 7 below the dollar equivale nt of yesterday's close. But the market remained trapped in a narrow range, they added, with overhead resistance expected at Dollars 2,231 a tonne. Afte r most of an early fall had been recovered in mid-week the aluminium market ended on the downbeat, with the cash position closing yesterday at Dollars 1 ,204.50 a tonne, down Dollars 4 on the day and Dollars 7.75 on the week. The market had been steady in the morning, underpinned by talk of further produ ction cuts following Alumax's announcement on Thursday that it was reducing output by about 36,000 tonnes a year at its Mount Holly smelter. Fears that the Bonneville Power Administration restrictions could increase energy costs for some US smelters were also providing support. But prices again ran into overhead resistance and fell away during the afternoon. Among the precious metals platinum and palladium prices reversed last week's gains as confidenc e was rocked by nervousness about US economic policy and a report that Japan ese car makers were to cut imports of the metals, both of which are used in exhaust catalysts. Dollar weakness helped gold to mount another assault on t he upper end of its recent Dollars 327-Dollars 332 a troy ounce trading rang e on Tuesday. Once again it was repelled, as was a fresh attempt yesterday. ----------------------------------- LME WAREHOUSE STOCKS (As at Thursday's close) ----------------------------------- tonnes ------------ ----------------------- Aluminium +2,100 to 1,650,550 Copper unchgd at 319,425 Lead -650 to 234,425 Nickel +1,176 to 82,164 Zinc +7,600 to 546,600 Tin +15 to 17,135 ----------------- ------------------ Countries:- XAZ World. Industries:- P0179 Fruits and Tree Nuts, NEC. P1021 Copper Or es. P0722 Crop Harvesting. P1099 Metal Ores, NEC. P33 Primary Metal Industries. P5051 Metals Service Centers and Offices. T ypes:- MKTS Market data. COSTS Commodity prices. The Financial Times London Page 11 ============= Transaction # 170 ============================================== Transaction #: 170 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:11:22 Selec. Rec. #: 17 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT931-8150 _AN-DBUAKACNFT 9302 20 FT 20 FEB 93 / Commodities and Agriculture (Week in t he markets): Sugar breaks into higher ground: By RIC HARD MOONEY A SERIES of bullish developments this week enab led the world sugar market to break free of the strait-jacket that had been confining prices for some time. Having traded mostly between 8 cents and 8.5 cents a lb since last autumn the prompt March futures position at New York' s Cocoa, Sugar and Coffee Exchange leapt in mid-week to 9 cents, a level las t seen on November 2, and moved on to a five-month high of 9.53 cents before edging back yesterday afternoon. Market sentiment has hardened in recent we eks as analysts' assessments of the likely sugar supply surplus in the 1992- 93 season have been reduced. London trader ED & F. Man now expects supply to exceed demand by some 1.5m tonnes (about 1.3 per cent of annual production) , compared with the 3.4m tonnes it was forecasting earlier. And this week C. Czarnikow, another London trade house, which in November was forecasting an 830,000-tonnes surplus, this week adjusted this to a 370,000-tonne deficit (after allowing for 'unrecorded disappearance' of 600,000 tonnes ). However, the factor that changed firmness into strength this week was talk circulati ng among traders that Cuba had been forced to buy 100,000 tonnes of sugar fr om Thailand to enable it to honour supply commitments to China and other Asi an countries. Cuban sugar minister Mr Juan Herrera warned earlier this month that lack of basic inputs had 'caused delays in the start-up of a significa nt number of mills'. Also supporting the market were: a surprise announcemen t of a 160,000-tonne Kenyan buying tender for next Monday; a 14,000-tonne Mo roccan buying tender; talk of Cuban sales to Mexico and of a 100,000-tonnes sale to Indonesia; and a cut in Thailand's harvest forecast from 49.15m tonn es of cane to 43m tonnes. 'There have been several important changes in the statistical outlook for the 1992-93 crop cycle with adjustments to the suppl y side of the balance predominating,' said Czarnikow in the February 17 issu e of its Sugar Review. 'Production for the season has fallen by some 1.32m t onnes since our world forecasts in November and is now expected to slip belo w last season's output by some 1.87m tonnes.' The trade house now estimates world sugar production at 114.57m tonnes, compared with 115.89m in November, and consumption at 114.51m tonnes, compared with 114.46m tonnes. Cocoa pric es put in another steady performance as producers and consumers prepared for next week's International Cocoa Agreement (ICCA) negotiations in Geneva. In late trading yesterday the New York market's May position was quoted at Dol lars 932 a tonne, up Dollars 7 on the week. In London, however, that firmnes s was obscured by the dollar's decline against sterling and the London Futur es and Options Exchange's May cocoa contract ended Pounds 3 down on the week at Pounds 734 a tonne. The Geneva meeting will mark the fourth and final at tempt to agree a price-stabilisation pact to replace the moribund one that e xpires on September 30. Delegates were moving towards agreement at the last session, in November, that efforts to steady the market should be based on t he withholding of between 330,000 and 380,000 tonnes of surplus beans from t he market. But they remained far apart on how that was to be financed and on what price range was to be defended. The existing ICCA, agreed in 1986, cea sed to operate as a market support pact early in 1988, when its buffer stock reached the 250,000-tonnes ceiling. All but one of the London Metal Exchang e's contracts finished down on the week, the biggest fall being in copper, w hich closed yesterday at Pounds 1,551.25 a tonne for three months delivery, down Pounds 30.50 on the week. But, as with cocoa's fall, the culprit was th e sterling rally, but for which the price would have been modestly higher. D ealers said the copper market was supported by concern over production stopp ages in Mexico and Papua New Guinea and the expectation of Chinese buying on any dip to Dollars 2,220 a tonne, about Dollars 7 below the dollar equivale nt of yesterday's close. But the market remained trapped in a narrow range, they added, with overhead resistance expected at Dollars 2,231 a tonne. Afte r most of an early fall had been recovered in mid-week the aluminium market ended on the downbeat, with the cash position closing yesterday at Dollars 1 ,204.50 a tonne, down Dollars 4 on the day and Dollars 7.75 on the week. The market had been steady in the morning, underpinned by talk of further produ ction cuts following Alumax's announcement on Thursday that it was reducing output by about 36,000 tonnes a year at its Mount Holly smelter. Fears that the Bonneville Power Administration restrictions could increase energy costs for some US smelters were also providing support. But prices again ran into overhead resistance and fell away during the afternoon. Among the precious metals platinum and palladium prices reversed last week's gains as confidenc e was rocked by nervousness about US economic policy and a report that Japan ese car makers were to cut imports of the metals, both of which are used in exhaust catalysts. Dollar weakness helped gold to mount another assault on t he upper end of its recent Dollars 327-Dollars 332 a troy ounce trading rang e on Tuesday. Once again it was repelled, as was a fresh attempt yesterday. ----------------------------------- LME WAREHOUSE STOCKS (As at Thursday's close) ----------------------------------- tonnes ------------ ----------------------- Aluminium +2,100 to 1,650,550 Copper unchgd at 319,425 Lead -650 to 234,425 Nickel +1,176 to 82,164 Zinc +7,600 to 546,600 Tin +15 to 17,135 ----------------- ------------------ Countries:- XAZ World. Industries:- P0179 Fruits and Tree Nuts, NEC. P1021 Copper Or es. P0722 Crop Harvesting. P1099 Metal Ores, NEC. P33 Primary Metal Industries. P5051 Metals Service Centers and Offices. T ypes:- MKTS Market data. COSTS Commodity prices. The Financial Times London Page 11 ============= Transaction # 171 ============================================== Transaction #: 171 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:11:23 Selec. Rec. #: 17 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT931-8150 _AN-DBUAKACNFT 9302 20 FT 20 FEB 93 / Commodities and Agriculture (Week in t he markets): Sugar breaks into higher ground: By RIC HARD MOONEY A SERIES of bullish developments this week enab led the world sugar market to break free of the strait-jacket that had been confining prices for some time. Having traded mostly between 8 cents and 8.5 cents a lb since last autumn the prompt March futures position at New York' s Cocoa, Sugar and Coffee Exchange leapt in mid-week to 9 cents, a level las t seen on November 2, and moved on to a five-month high of 9.53 cents before edging back yesterday afternoon. Market sentiment has hardened in recent we eks as analysts' assessments of the likely sugar supply surplus in the 1992- 93 season have been reduced. London trader ED & F. Man now expects supply to exceed demand by some 1.5m tonnes (about 1.3 per cent of annual production) , compared with the 3.4m tonnes it was forecasting earlier. And this week C. Czarnikow, another London trade house, which in November was forecasting an 830,000-tonnes surplus, this week adjusted this to a 370,000-tonne deficit (after allowing for 'unrecorded disappearance' of 600,000 tonnes ). However, the factor that changed firmness into strength this week was talk circulati ng among traders that Cuba had been forced to buy 100,000 tonnes of sugar fr om Thailand to enable it to honour supply commitments to China and other Asi an countries. Cuban sugar minister Mr Juan Herrera warned earlier this month that lack of basic inputs had 'caused delays in the start-up of a significa nt number of mills'. Also supporting the market were: a surprise announcemen t of a 160,000-tonne Kenyan buying tender for next Monday; a 14,000-tonne Mo roccan buying tender; talk of Cuban sales to Mexico and of a 100,000-tonnes sale to Indonesia; and a cut in Thailand's harvest forecast from 49.15m tonn es of cane to 43m tonnes. 'There have been several important changes in the statistical outlook for the 1992-93 crop cycle with adjustments to the suppl y side of the balance predominating,' said Czarnikow in the February 17 issu e of its Sugar Review. 'Production for the season has fallen by some 1.32m t onnes since our world forecasts in November and is now expected to slip belo w last season's output by some 1.87m tonnes.' The trade house now estimates world sugar production at 114.57m tonnes, compared with 115.89m in November, and consumption at 114.51m tonnes, compared with 114.46m tonnes. Cocoa pric es put in another steady performance as producers and consumers prepared for next week's International Cocoa Agreement (ICCA) negotiations in Geneva. In late trading yesterday the New York market's May position was quoted at Dol lars 932 a tonne, up Dollars 7 on the week. In London, however, that firmnes s was obscured by the dollar's decline against sterling and the London Futur es and Options Exchange's May cocoa contract ended Pounds 3 down on the week at Pounds 734 a tonne. The Geneva meeting will mark the fourth and final at tempt to agree a price-stabilisation pact to replace the moribund one that e xpires on September 30. Delegates were moving towards agreement at the last session, in November, that efforts to steady the market should be based on t he withholding of between 330,000 and 380,000 tonnes of surplus beans from t he market. But they remained far apart on how that was to be financed and on what price range was to be defended. The existing ICCA, agreed in 1986, cea sed to operate as a market support pact early in 1988, when its buffer stock reached the 250,000-tonnes ceiling. All but one of the London Metal Exchang e's contracts finished down on the week, the biggest fall being in copper, w hich closed yesterday at Pounds 1,551.25 a tonne for three months delivery, down Pounds 30.50 on the week. But, as with cocoa's fall, the culprit was th e sterling rally, but for which the price would have been modestly higher. D ealers said the copper market was supported by concern over production stopp ages in Mexico and Papua New Guinea and the expectation of Chinese buying on any dip to Dollars 2,220 a tonne, about Dollars 7 below the dollar equivale nt of yesterday's close. But the market remained trapped in a narrow range, they added, with overhead resistance expected at Dollars 2,231 a tonne. Afte r most of an early fall had been recovered in mid-week the aluminium market ended on the downbeat, with the cash position closing yesterday at Dollars 1 ,204.50 a tonne, down Dollars 4 on the day and Dollars 7.75 on the week. The market had been steady in the morning, underpinned by talk of further produ ction cuts following Alumax's announcement on Thursday that it was reducing output by about 36,000 tonnes a year at its Mount Holly smelter. Fears that the Bonneville Power Administration restrictions could increase energy costs for some US smelters were also providing support. But prices again ran into overhead resistance and fell away during the afternoon. Among the precious metals platinum and palladium prices reversed last week's gains as confidenc e was rocked by nervousness about US economic policy and a report that Japan ese car makers were to cut imports of the metals, both of which are used in exhaust catalysts. Dollar weakness helped gold to mount another assault on t he upper end of its recent Dollars 327-Dollars 332 a troy ounce trading rang e on Tuesday. Once again it was repelled, as was a fresh attempt yesterday. ----------------------------------- LME WAREHOUSE STOCKS (As at Thursday's close) ----------------------------------- tonnes ------------ ----------------------- Aluminium +2,100 to 1,650,550 Copper unchgd at 319,425 Lead -650 to 234,425 Nickel +1,176 to 82,164 Zinc +7,600 to 546,600 Tin +15 to 17,135 ----------------- ------------------ Countries:- XAZ World. Industries:- P0179 Fruits and Tree Nuts, NEC. P1021 Copper Or es. P0722 Crop Harvesting. P1099 Metal Ores, NEC. P33 Primary Metal Industries. P5051 Metals Service Centers and Offices. T ypes:- MKTS Market data. COSTS Commodity prices. The Financial Times London Page 11 ============= Transaction # 172 ============================================== Transaction #: 172 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:11:51 Selec. Rec. #: 18 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT931-8550 _AN-DBRCKAF9FT 9302 18 FT 18 FEB 93 / Commodities and Agriculture: Talk of C uban buying helps to keep sugar price surge going By DAVID BLACKWELL WORLD SUGAR prices continued to surge yest erday as a spate of bullish news this week pushed the market out of the narr ow trading range of recent months. New York's May raw sugar contract, which rose by 0.5 cents on Tuesday, was a further 0.18 ahead in early trading yest erday at 9.69 cents a lb before easing towards the close. At the beginning o f the month it was trading at 8.5 cents. Cuba has been reported buying 100,0 00 tonnes of sugar from Thailand to meet its commitments in China and elsewh ere in Asia. Cuba's harvest is being delayed once again by problems with the country's infrastructure. Mr Juan Herrera, the Cuban sugar minister, said e arlier this month that a lack of basic inputs had 'caused delays in the star t-up of a significant number of mills'. Thailand, which in November forecast a record 1992-93 harvest of 49.15m tonnes, now expects only 43m tonnes of c ane, compared with 47.43m tonnes last year. Kenya surprised the market with the announcement that it would hold a tender next Monday for 160,000 tonnes of white sugar. Morocco is tendering for 14,000 tonnes of raws, and there is talk of Cuban sales to Mexico and of a 100,000-tonne sale to Indonesia. 'Th ere is a buoyant physical sector, and that has brought the funds back into N ew York,' said one US analyst yesterday. 'Fund buying spurred the market thr ough stubborn resistance at 8.65 to 8.70, and then took it through 9 cents.' 'Basically the market is looking a lot better,' said a London trader. 'Good news has arrived when the market was at its weakest.' He pointed out that e stimates for the world sugar surplus in 1992-93 were coming down. ED &. F. M an, the London trade house, has reduced its forecast surplus from 3.4m tonne s to 1.5m tonnes. Countries:- XAZ World. Industries:- P0722 Crop Harvesting. P2062 Cane Sugar Refining. Types:- COSTS Commodity prices. MKTS Market data . The Financial Times London Page 30 ============= Transaction # 173 ============================================== Transaction #: 173 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:12:01 Selec. Rec. #: 19 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT931-8840 _AN-DBQC0AETFT 9302 17 FT 17 FEB 93 / World Commodities Prices: Market Repor t By REUTER GOLD moved ahead on the London bullion market after Comex opened ahead following the US Presidents' Day holiday. New York traders said investor interest had been sparked by ea rly sell-offs in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the dollar, which had been put on the defensive by uncertainty over President Clinton's economic p lans. New York raw SUGAR prices were sharply higher at midday, buoyed by hea vy commission house and fund buying as well as bullish chart factors. The ga ins were fuelled by market rumours that Cuba had had to buy 100,000 tonnes o f Thai sugar to fulfil its Chinese contracts, and that Kenya was said to be tendering for physical sugar. London COCOA futures were depressed by sterlin g's advance against the dollar. On the LME BASE METAL trading continued in n arrow ranges. Dealers said the lacklustre markets might prevail for some tim e yet, as overall physical interest and activity was slow and stocks continu ed to build. Compiled from Reuters Countries:- GBZ U nited Kingdom, EC. Industries:- P333 Primary Nonferrou s Metals. P0133 Sugarcane and Sugar Beets. P0179 Fruits and Tree Nut s, NEC. P6231 Security and Commodity Exchanges. Types:- COSTS Commodity prices. The Financial Times L ondon Page 26 ============= Transaction # 174 ============================================== Transaction #: 174 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:12:24 Selec. Rec. #: 21 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT931-17084 _AN-DACAXAB9FT 930 102 FT 02 JAN 93 / Commodities (Year in the Markets): Pr ices end back at square one after another turbulent year By DAVID BLACKWELL and RICHARD MOONEY RECESSION and co ntinued turbulence in the former Soviet Union have left commodity prices lit tle changed at the end of the year from those seen last January. But that ba ld statement belies the level of activity in the markets. On the London Meta l Exchange the flood of imports from the former Soviet Union pushed nickel p rices sharply down and kept a firm lid on the aluminium market, where wareho use stocks now stand above 1.5m tonnes. The zinc market suffered a classic s queeze. Copper, still traded in sterling, appears to have risen sharply unti l the figures are converted to dollars - around Dollars 1 a lb looks set to be the going rate this January as last. Gold has fallen further, hit by an a lmost total lack of interest from investors. Both platinum and silver have c ontinued to settle into their relatively new roles as industrial metals. Coc oa and coffee prices have touched their lowest levels for 20 years or more b efore recovering. The lack of activity in the sugar market has left London w ith virtually no futures trading. Gold fell to a six-year low in late March as it crashed through what many traders had seen as the last line of defence - Dollars 342 a troy ounce. Persistent selling, some of it thought to be on behalf of an eastern European central bank, coincided with Ramadan, the Isl amic fast, which kept most Middle Eastern operators away from the market. By Easter gold was at a fresh low of Dollars 336.80 a troy ounce, with dealers predicting that the price was bottoming out. They were proved right for a t ime as the market started to climb, brushing aside an announcement by the Be lgian central bank that it had sold 202 tonnes from its reserves. Platinum w as also rising as South African unrest made users reluctant to go short in c ase of a miners' strike. In July the platinum price hit the year's high of j ust over Dollars 390 a troy ounce. But some analysts pointed out that the ma rket was ignoring weak demand from Japan and continuing recession in the US. Gold reached its peak for the year of just under Dollars 360 a troyounce a few days after platinum - and then both markets slid steeply, leaving one an alyst just two weeks later describing Dollars 355 for gold as 'like the Matt erhorn'. On one mid-August day gold fell by more than Dollars 8 and platinum by Dollars 16 a troy ounce. The withdrawal of US investment funds sparked t he gold fall, which was exacerbated by more news of central bank selling - t his time from Uruguay, which unloaded 50,000 troy ounces in July in order to buy fixed term deposits denominated in US dollars and D-marks. Platinum sli d along with the Japanese equity market. The European currency market jitter s of September gave some support to gold, but South African and Australian p roducers were able to lock in profits in their own currencies through forwar d selling. Gold has not had a good year; Middle East sales in November finis hed the battering from central bank sales and the total lack of investor int erest and took the market to a 7-year low of Dollars 329.30. It has not made much headway since, closing at Dollars 333.05 a troy ounce on Thursday, dow n about Dollars 20 on the year. Platinum ended the year at Dollars 355.25 a troy ounce, some Dollars 20 above its price at the beginning of the year. Op timism about a recovery in Japanese demand and positive charts point to furt her gains, analysts believe. Silver hit an 18-month low of 364.75 cents at t he end of August and closed at 367.5 on Thursday, 20 cents down on the year. The biggest excitement of the year was the Saudi sale via the National Comm ercial Bank of Jeddah of Dollars 160m-worth of silver - equivalent to more t han 10 per cent of world demand - in just two hours early in July, knocking more than 20 cents off the price. Like most of the base metals copper began the year in a fairly hopeful mood. Chilean strike fears and technical factor s had helped to lift prices to 2 1/2 -month highs by mid-February, before so me of the gains were relinquished in response to reports that Russia, hungry for hard curency, was planning to cut export duties on the metal. In the sp ring talk of Chinese buying was partly counteracted by concern about the eff ects of a possible strike in Germany, one of the biggest importers of copper , but as London Metal Exchange warehouse stocks began to be reduced and US r ecovery hopes started to grow prices climbed to 12-month highs by mid-June. Bullish sentiment continued - fuelled by concern about supply tightness, Pol ish labour tension, bad weather in Chilean producing areas and expected dema nd growth - and a month later copper prices stood at the highest level for 1 8 months. From that point the picture becomes blurred by sterling's extreme weakness against the US dollar, in which base metals are traded worldwide. T he effect of the pound's decline, most of which was concentrated in the dram atic mid-September devaluation, on copper prices is illustrated by the fact that the two-year sterling high reached in early November equated to a nine- month dollar low. And that factor has continued to dominate the market. The three months copper price closed on Thursday at Pounds 1,538 a tonne, Pounds 350 up on the year. But once the currency disportion is stripped out the 12 -month advance comes down to a much less impressive Pounds 78 a tonne. For l ead, the LME's other sterling-denominated contract, the devaluation effect i s even more pronounced, turning what would have been a Pounds 60 fall into a n apparent Pounds 8 rise on the year, at Pounds 308.75 a tonne for three mon ths metal. After a flat start to the year, depressed by sluggish car battery sales, the LME lead market found support in production problems, notably in Italy and Yugolslavia, followed by signs of a technical squeeze on nearby s upplies and reports of Chinese buying. Between them, and helped by the pound 's weakness, these factors lifted the lead market to a 12-month peak in July . And that was exceeded in the September as a direct result of sterling's pl unge. By the end of November, however, the market's fundamental weakness had been reasserted and prices were back to five-month lows. Another LME market to feel the effects of a squeeze this year was zinc. Signs of the coming te chnical suppy tightness were apparent from the start of the year, though the y tended to be obscured by the effects of production problems in Italy, Peru , Canada, Mexico and the US, among others. Hopes of a US retail upturn were also cited as zinc prices reached 15-month highs in March. But from then on the squeeze was the undoubted dominant factor. The normal 'contango' situati on, with the cash price at a discount to forward positions, was reversed in late March and the 'backwardation', as a cash premium is known, widened inex orably until it reached an extraordinary Dollars 189 a tonne in the middle o f June. In normal circumstances a backwardation would suggest a shortage of metal available for delivery, but that hardly fitted in with this year's sus tained rise in LME warehouse stocks of zinc, which, by the time the cash pre mium appeared, had grown from 152,000 tonnes at the start of the year to 221 ,000 tonnes. It was clear, therefore, that some sort of distortion (not to s ay manipulation) was afoot. The exchange responded by imposing a descending ceiling on the one-day backwardation - ie on the cost of carrying forward a short position for one day. The backwardation had disappeared by the end of July, though it made frequent reappearances before the squeeze, suspected t o be the work of a group of producers, could confidently be said to be over in early October. With fundamental considerations taking over direction of t he market and the rise in LME stocks continuing the ensuing price slide saw the three months price retreat some Dollars 300 from its summer level to end the year at Dollars 1,079.50 a tonne, down Dollars 35.50 on balance. The al uminium market had been weighed down in 1991 by the unprecedented growth of the stockpile in LME warehouses, which began 1992 by passing the unwelcome m ilestone of 1m tonnes. There were hopes that the flood of metal from the for mer Soviet Union that had been largely responsible for swelling LME stocks w ould soon abate, especially in view of the inefficiency of smelters in the n ewly independent republics and their much-vaunted espousal of market economi cs. But the republics' hunger for hard currency proved greater than their co mmitment to industrial efficiency and with CIS exports remaining very high t he LME stockpile grew by another 500,000 tonnes. Perhaps surprisingly, the m arket took this pretty much in its stride and the three months LME price end ed the year Dollars 110 to the good at Dollars 1,260.50 a tonne. Gains early in the year were mostly lost in the summer as hopes of economic recovery fa ded and the gloomy truth about CIS export prospects became apparent. But in the latter part of the year the market was encouraged by the announcement of production cuts. The biggest loser on the LME last year was nickel. The moo d was bright enough early on as traders looked forward to big production cut s in response to the low price level and, as with aluminium, a slackening of CIS exports. The former came too late, however, and the latter came not at all, and the six-month highs seen in February proved to be the year's peak. By the time Inco of Canada instituted a round of output cuts in October nick el prices had fallen to two-year lows and LME stocks of the metal had risen by 300 per cent on the year so far to nearly 50,000 tonnes. In those circums tances the market was looking for an upturn in demand, especially in the sta inless steel sector, to give it the necessary shot in the arm, not simply a reduction in output. Further production cuts were subsequently announced by Falconbridge of Canada, Cuba's state-run producer and Western Mining of Aust ralia - amounting in all to nearly 38,00 tonnes in a full year -but the pri ce slide continued and LME three months nickel closed on Thursday at Dollars 6,023 a tonne, down Dollars 1,192 on the year. By comparison, the tin marke t had a good year. LME stocks rose by only 7.4 per cent to 14,710 tonnes and the three months price ended 1992 up Dollars 240 at Dollars 5,845 a tonne. A life-of-contract low of Dollars 5,485 had been registered at the beginning of the year but by mid-February the market was at a six-month high, reflect ing concern about shipment delays from Brazil and Malaysia, the two biggest suppliers. The bullish mood continued throughout the first half, lifting the price to a 25-month high of Dollars 6,950 a tonne, before a reaction was ca used by Brazilian and Chinese selling and bearish technical factors. But the market was moving higher again before the new year, encouraged by buying in Kuala Lumpur and activity in the options market. For the oil market in gene ral 1992 proved a disappointing year and for members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries a worrying one. Having started at the low leve l of about Dollars 17 a barrel the Brent crude price was buoyed in the sprin g by optimism about the prospects for demand when the expected industrial re covery began. And the price moved above Dollars 20 a barrel for the first ti me in six months when Opec ministers agreed unexpectedly in May to roll over its second quarter production ceiling of 22.98m b/d into the third quarter, rather than anticipate the rise in demand. But by November, in the absence of the expected demand boost, the market was looking for Opec ministers to a gree substantial production cuts at their meeting in Vienna. When this did n ot happen prices fell sharply and it took the political turmoil in Russia, t he world's biggest producer, to lift Brent crude back above Dollars 18 a bar rel last month. Of the softs, cocoa began the year in the most optimistic mo od as the market looked forward eagerly to the first annual supply deficit f or eight years. But, with collapsing demand from the former Soviet Union, ho pes of higher prices proved to be a pipe dream, with the market failing to r egain the 1991 peak of Pounds 829 a tonne. The second postion contract on Lo ndon Fox opened the year at Pounds 745 a tonne. The market continued an almo st unbroken decline for the next six months. The nadir came at the end of Ju ne, when the second position contract fell to Pounds 509 a tonne, the lowest level for more than 16 years. At these levels countries of origin, includin g the Ivory Coast, were reluctant to sell, and were also pinning some hope o n the outcome of Geneva talks on a new international agreement. The market b egan a slow climb back to more than Pounds 750 a tonne in early November, gi ven a boost by sterling's devaluation and an Ivory Coast decision to ban the sale of small beans. But London prices have ended close to Pounds 700 a ton ne, and it is worth noting that the nearby New York contract which began the year at Dollars 1,245 a tonne, closed it at Dollars 936. The Economist Inte lligence Unit is predicting a small deficit of 43,000 tonnes for 1992-93, wh ile the US Agriculture Department estimates production and supply in balance at 2.35m tonnes. The EIU expects the next round of talks on a cocoa pact in February to end with a purely administrative pact, and is predicting prices to average about the same as in 1991 at 55 cents a lb. Coffee prices, like cocoa, went into a steep slide from the beginning of the year. The London ro busta market fell by more than Dollars 300 to hit 22-year lows at the beginn ing of May. The high level of consumer stocks - 19m bags (60 kg each) - left producers with little option but to sell for what they could get. Throughou t the summer the market edged higher, keeping an eye on the International Co ffee Organisation's interminable negotiations on a new international agreeme nt. The different supply and demand picture for robustas and arabicas kept L ondon steady while New York arabicas went below 50 cents a lb in September. But by the end of October both markets were rallying strongly as traders enj oyed a total change in sentiment, mainly on perceptions of a smaller 1992-93 crop in Brazil, the biggest producer, and Colombia. In December, London's s econd position robusta contract broke through the Dollars 1,000 a tonne leve l for the first time since January 8. The EIU believes the recent rise has b een overdone. Consumer stocks are still high and this month's ICO talks are likely to be inconclusive, pushing a new coffee agreement back to 1994. The centre of gravity for world sugar prices has moved decisively from London to New York, where speculative money provides liquidity. The second position N ew York raw sugar futures contract has ranged between 8 and 10 cents a lb th roughout the year - another market with more than enough production to satis fy demand. For much of the last few months the market has been stuck between 8.5 and 9 cents - a narrow range with depressingly low traded volumes, acco rding to ED & F. Man's latest sugar report. But this contrasted with increas ed volumes of freely traded sugar following the dissolution of the Cuban tra ding arrangements with Comecon, Man pointed out. A November report from the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation predicted trade expansion for sugar, b ut believed that by the turn of the century prices would still be about 10 c ents a lb in 1990 terms. Countries:- XAZ World. Industries:- P0179 Fruits and Tree Nuts, NEC. P3339 P rimary Nonferrous Metals, NEC. P0722 Crop Harvesting. P2062 Cane S ugar Refining. P1311 Crude Petroleum and Natural Gas. Types: - MKTS Market Data. COSTS Commodity prices. The F inancial Times London Page 10 ============= Transaction # 175 ============================================== Transaction #: 175 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:13:17 Selec. Rec. #: 22 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT931-2324 _AN-DCUAGACMFT 9303 20 FT 20 MAR 93 / Commodities and Agriculture (Week in t he Markets): Cocoa support scheme abandoned By RICHA RD MOONEY INTERNATIONAL COCOA Organisation delegates decide d yesterday to abandon efforts to negotiate a market stabilisation pact base d on a stock withholding scheme. With time quickly running out for reaching an agreement that could be ratified in time to replace the present moribund pact when it expires at the end of September, and with wide gaps remaining b etween producers and consumers on several crucial issues, the delegates deci ded to consider the softer option of an agreement based on voluntary product ion control, promotion of consumption and running down the organisation's 23 3,000-tonne buffer stock. A special session of the ICCO council will be held on June 8-11 to discuss this plan, which an official described yesterday as more than an administrative pact but well short of a full economic accord. The announcement, which came too late to produce any response at the London cocoa futures market, is unlikely to have come as much of a surprise to trad ers, most of whom had long ago given up hope of an effective market support pact being agreed. Late trading in New York showed little sign of a reaction , though prices were tending lower. Sugar continued to be the brightest star in the commodities firmament this week as New York futures prices surged to three-year peaks and their London counterparts to the highest levels since April 1991. The August contract in London closed yesterday at Dollars 265.20 a tonne, up Dollars 25.20 on the week, while New York's July contract moved above the 12 cents-a-lb mark. In late trading it was quoted at 12.50 cents a lb, up 1.72 cents from the end of last week and three cents from a month a go. Having been wakened from its torpor a few weeks ago by drought-induced c uts in the Thai crop projection - down from the initial 5m tonnes to 3.51m, which would be the lowest level for five years - the sugar market was given a further boost by news that Cuba had been hit by the storms that swept the eastern seaboard of the US last weekend. London analysts were dubious from t he first about the extent of the damage to Cuba's sugar crop, which was alre ady expected to be well down from last year's 7m tonnes, possibly as low as 5m tonnes. And in its daily Commodity Report yesterday GNI, the London trade house, noted that a Cuban request for United Nations aid revealed that 'onl y Dollars 46m of damage was done to the sugar crop - or 190,000 tonnes'. Tha t figure was well below some of the earlier estimates, GNI said, 'and adds w eight to our negative view point'. Traders were in no mood to be dissuaded f rom their new-found bullishness, however. 'The market is still tight,' one L ondon analysts told the Reuter news agency yesterday. 'It's on an uptrend an d it has recovered a long way.' But he was not sure that it could sustain pr esent price levels, which offered attractive profit-taking opportunities for speculators and might tempt producers to sell from their stocks. 'There is a lot of material to be sold short term and if selling begins, we could see the top of the market,' he suggested. In contrast, the coffee market extende d last week's heavy fall. The London Futures and Options Exchange's May robu stas price closed yesterday at Dollars 879 a tonne, up Dollars 6 on the day but Dollars 34 down on the week. In the absence of fundamental developments traders attributed the market's continued weakness to the high level of cons umer stocks and pessimism about the prospects for progress towards the reviv al of the International Coffee Organisation's export quota system being made at next week's London meeting. GNI suggested yesterday that lack of enthusi asm from the US, the biggest coffee consumer, could scupper the negotiations . 'It is likely that the US delegation has not received a fresh mandate from (President) Clinton,' it said in its Commodity Report, 'in which case the m eetings will merely be to set another date for talks, but if (delegates) hav e had word that the US position has not changed under Clinton, then everyone might as well pack up and go home early.' At the London Metal Exchange tin proved the brightest spark as commission house buying fuelled a late rally i n prices. Dealers said labour unrest in the Bolivian mining industry also pr ovided support as an accelerating Dollars 230 surge over three days wiped ou t an earlier Dollars 142.50 fall and left the cash position at Dollars 5,755 a tonne. The cash copper price ended Pounds 61.50 down on the week at Pound s 1,459.50 a tonne, but most of that resulted from sterling's strength again st the dollar, in terms of which the pice was only down about Dollars 12. De spite high stocks, poor demand growth outside North America and Japanese sel ling early in the week, copper made several attempts to break long-standing resistance at just above Dollars 2,200 for three months metal. Dealers said buyers were encouraged by concern over the situation in Zaire, labour unrest in Chile and falls in stocks at the New York Commodity Exchange (Comex), su ggesting that output losses caused by widespread flooding in Arizona this ye ar had been heavier than thought earlier. The gold price moved steadily high er this week, ending yesterday at Dollars 331.45 a troy ounce, up Dollars 3. 70 on balance. But dealers expected any closer approach to the ceiling of th e recent Dollars 326/333 price range to attract producer selling, especially as in South African rand terms the price near a record. ------------------ -------------------------------- LME WAREHOUSE STOCKS (As at Thursday's clos e) tonnes -------------------------------------------------- Aluminium + 3,425 to 1,715,075 Copper +1,250 to 347,350 Lead +7,275 to 242,425 Nickel -12 to 85,740 Zinc +6,050 to 593,450 Tin -125 to 19,045 ------- ------------------------------------------- Countries:- < CN>USZ United States of America. GBZ United Kingdom, EC. In dustries:- P0179 Fruits and Tree Nuts, NEC. P0133 Sugarcane an d Sugar Beets. P6231 Security and Commodity Exchanges. P333 Primary Nonferrous Metals. Types:- CMMT Comment & Analysis. COSTS Commodity prices. MKTS Market data. The Financial Times London Page 9 ============= Transaction # 176 ============================================== Transaction #: 176 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:13:49 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 57 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 177 ============================================== Transaction #: 177 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:13:57 Selec. Rec. #: 25 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT932-4641 _AN-DFHCQAF2FT 9306 08 FT 08 JUN 93 / World Commodities Prices: Market Repor t By REUTER GOLD drifted lower on t he London bullion market, but dealers said that it had survived several test s of support at Dollars 372 a troy ounce. There was a lot of nervousness aro und the morning fix after Friday's 40-minute fix when the price jumped Dolla rs 3-Dollars 4. 'Nobody really wanted to buy this morning and the price just came right off,' one dealer said. The market found little encouragement fro m New York, which opened weaker. London's robusta COFFEE closed just above t he day's lows, but dealers noted some early signs that the downward move mig ht be running out of steam. The market continued to be driven by technical f actors in New York, where the breach of support at 60 cents a lb for the Jul y contract late last week put it on the defensive. New York raw SUGAR prices were easier at midday as the market continued to absorb Cuba's declaration of a 45-day force majeure last week. Analysts said that uncertainty over whe ther Russia and China would look for alternative supplies inspired nervousne ss. COPPER appeared to be consolidating on the LME after Friday's volatile t rading, with three-month metal settling into a range between Dollars 1,820 a nd Dollars 1,850. Compiled from Reuters Countries:- U SZ United States of America. Industries:- P1041 Gold O res. P0179 Fruits and Tree Nuts, NEC. P0133 Sugarcane and Sugar Beet s. P1021 Copper Ores. Types:- COSTS Commodity pric es. The Financial Times London Page 26 ============= Transaction # 178 ============================================== Transaction #: 178 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:14:05 Selec. Rec. #: 26 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT932-5104 _AN-DFFAXACAFT 9306 05 FT 05 JUN 93 / Commodities (Week in the Markets): Cop per surge gets bears on the run By RICHARD MOONEY THE LONDON Metal Exchange copper market this week staged its first substantial rally since it went into free-fall in mid-April. The uptur n, which began after an initial post-holiday dip to Dollars 1,785 a tonne fo r three months metal, was stalled for a while by resistance around the Dolla rs 1,850 area; but when this barrier was breached on Thursday fresh momentum was provided as investors who had gambled on further falls scrambled to cov er their short positions. That pattern was continued yesterday morning, when the three months delivery position peaked at Dollars 1,940 a tonne, but as bearish fundamentals were underlined by another rise in LME warehouse stocks to a fresh nine-year high profit-taking pared the price back to Dollars 1,8 55 a tonne at the end of after-hours trading, down Dollars 10 on the day and up Dollars 60 on the week. The sterling quotation, which was given an extra boost by the pound's weakness, had closed afternoon ring trading at Pounds 1,262.25 a tonne, up Pounds 101.75 on the week. Dealers said the market's st rength had been bolstered by concern about possible supply disruptions in th e US and Chile. Labour contracts at Phelps dodge's Chino mine, Asarco's Ray mine and RTZ Corporation's Bingham Canyon all expire at the end of this mont h; while in Chile, unions at Chuquicamata, the world's biggest copper mine, on Wednesday rejected the first offer of a new two-year contract from Codelc o, the state-owned mining corporation. Meanwhile Asarco and Phelps Dodge exe cutives told institutional investors in London this week that a sharp increa se in US copper demand was far outweighing the downturn in Europe. Mr Richar d Osborne, Asarco's chairman, predicted that, as a result of this and of mod estly reduced exports from former Soviet bloc countries, stocks in LME and N ew York Commodity Exchange (Comex) warehouses would begin to fall in the sec ond half of this year. He was less hopeful about the outlook for zinc as sto cks were so high that it would take a long time for price-induced production cuts to make a significant impact on them. Nevertheless copper's more bulli sh sentiment spilled over into the LME zinc market this week and the three m onths price, which dipped to a six-year low of Dollars 937 a tonne on Tuesda y, recovered to touch Dollars 970 yesterday, before closing at Dollars 968.5 0 a tonne, up Dollars 2 on the week. Lead's slide to record lows in real ter ms was halted in mid-week after two more smelters announced production cuts. Nuova Samim, the Italian state-owned group, said it would close its Portove sme smelter for two months at a production cost of 30,000 tonnes, while MIM Holdings of Australia revealed that it planned to reduce output by 3,000 ton nes at its Britannia Refined Metals plant in Northfleet, UK, by shutting sec ondary (recycling) furnaces. These cuts take recently announced output reduc tions to between 160,000 and 200,000 tonnes a year. Although analysts though t a retrenchment of this order was bound to influence market sentiment befor e long the market's initial reaction was hesitant, with the price slide bein g halted rather than reversed. On Thursday, however, LME quotations started to move upwards and at yesterday's close three months lead was at Pounds 275 .75 a tonne, up Pounds 8 on the week and Pounds 10.25 above Tuesday's low. A luminium put in a robust performance, shrugging off the continuing flow of m etal into bulging LME warehouses and news early in the week that labour cont racts had been agreed at Aluminium Company of America, the world's biggest p roducer, and Reynolds Metals, also of the US, the third biggest, thus averti ng the threat of serious supply disruptions. Tuesday's price decline was rev ersed on the following day and Thursday saw the three months price break thr ough resistance above the Dollars 1,150-a-tonne mark. That allowed buyers to get the upper hand yesterday, when three months metal closed at Dollars 1,1 69.25 a tonne, up Dollars 17 on the day and Dollars 19 on the week. At the L ondon bullion market the gold price retreated to just above Dollars 370 a tr oy ounce in mid-week and traders were talking of a test of support in the Do llars 366 area. But continental buyers were back in the market on Thursday a nd by yesterday's after noon fix the price had recovered to Dollars 377.60 a n ounce. At that point traders were looking forward to a successful test of resistance at Dollars 378, but in the event the price slid back Dollars 3 to end Dollars 5.15 down on the week. Cuba brought the sugar market back to li fe yesterday with a force majeure declaration that pushed the New York marke t's October futures price, which had been easing, up by 0.66 of a cent a lb at one stage. In late trading the rise had been trimmed to 0.55 at 11.33 cen ts a lb. The Cuban move, which refers to June shipments, was reported to hav e been prompted by the recent torrential rain, which has made extremely diff icult to move sugar to the ports. Bad weather had already hit the Cuban suga r-cane crop, as had shortages of inputs and fuel caused in part by the break -up of the Soviet Union, the island republic's ally and main customer for su gar. Last week Cubazucar, the state sugar agency announced that the 1992-93 crop would reach only about 4.2m tonnes, down from 7m tonnes in the previous year. ------------------------------- LME WAREHOUSE STOCKS (As at Thursday 's close) tonnes ------------------------------- Aluminium +50 to 1,8 14,875 Copper +4,400 to 424,800 Lead +825 to 258,700 Nickel +372 to 95,652 Zinc +4,450 to 664,625 Tin -110 to 20,125 ------------------------------- Countries:- GBZ United Kingdom, EC. Industries:- P1021 Copper Ores . P1031 Lead and Zinc Ores. P1041 Gold Ores. P1099 Metal Ores, N EC. P0133 Sugarcane and Sugar Beets. Types:- COSTS Commodity prices. MKTS Market data. The Financial Times

London Page 13 ============= Transaction # 179 ============================================== Transaction #: 179 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:14:37 Selec. Rec. #: 27 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT932-6585 _AN-DE0B8AG0FT 9305 27 FT 27 MAY 93 / Commodities and Agriculture: Sugar pri ce down further despite lower Cuban crop By DAVID BL ACKWELL FINAL CONFIRMATION that Cuba's sugar crop will be o nly 4.2m tonnes compared with last year's 7m tonnes did not prevent a furthe r decline in New York raw sugar prices, writes David Blackwell. In late trad ing yesterday the July contract was down 0.63 at 11.15 cents a lb - well off the high of 13.26 on May 17. The fall came in spite of Monday night's annou ncement from Cubazucar, which put the outcome of the troubled harvest well b elow all recent trade estimates. Czarnikow, the London trade house, last wee k estimated Cuban production at 5.5m tonnes, a figure matched this week by E D & F. Man, also of London. Production in Cuba, the world's biggest exporter , has been hit by bad weather and problems with the country's crumbling infr astructure. Falls in production in Cuba, Thailand and India have led to earl y predictions of a world surplus this year being changed to predictions of a deficit, averaging around 2m tonnes below consumption. This has been enough to drive prices sharply higher after a flat period between last September a nd February, when nearby New York traded between 8 and 9 cents a lb. However , the market has eased back recently as physical demand for sugar has not be en evident, partly because of the high prices. Countries:- CUZ Cuba, Caribbean. Industries:- P0133 Sugarcan e and Sugar Beets. Types:- COSTS Commodity prices. The Financial Times London Page 34 ============= Transaction # 180 ============================================== Transaction #: 180 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:14:53 Selec. Rec. #: 28 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT932-7462 _AN-DEXCBAA2FT 9305 24 FT 24 MAY 93 / Cuba and Russia boost ties By REUTER HAVANA Cub a and Russia have agreed to try to boost their flagging bilateral economic t ies and signed a memorandum outlining joint trade, production and investment initiatives in sugar, oil, machinery parts and fertilisers, Reuter reports from Havana. Cuban state media said the memorandum outlined ways for the two countries to put their trade relations on a new footing by setting up joint ventures and production-sharing initiatives. Countries:- CUZ Cuba, Caribbean. RUZ Russia, East Europe. Industri es:- P0133 Sugarcane and Sugar Beets. P1311 Crude Petroleum an d Natural Gas. P3599 Industrial Machinery, NEC. P9721 International Affairs. Types:- NEWS General News. The Fin ancial Times London Page 6 ============= Transaction # 181 ============================================== Transaction #: 181 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:15:06 Selec. Rec. #: 29 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT932-7733 _AN-DEUB0AHDFT 9305 21 FT 21 MAY 93 / Commodities and Agriculture: Bigger su gar deficit forecast By DAVID BLACKWELL WORLD SUGAR production will fall 2.84m tonnes below consumption in 1992 -93, according to Czarnikow, the London trade house. The group's latest suga r review puts production at 111.6m tonnes, down 3m tonnes from the last esti mate in February, and substantially below last year's 116.42m tonnes. Consum ption is now estimated at 113.9m tonnes, and 600,000 tonnes has been allowed for what Czarnikow terms 'unrecorded disappearance'. The deficit is well ah ead of the International Sugar Organisation's figure of 1.61m tonnes, announ ced earlier this week. Mr Chris Pack, analyst at Czarnikow, said yesterday t hat the latest figures showed a swing from last season's surplus to this sea son's deficit of 7m tonnes. 'It is not surprising that the market has moved sharply ahead,' he said. 'It is trying to find a new level.' For most of the six months between last September and February, the New York nearby raw sug ar contracts were trading between 8 and 9 cents a lb. But as perceptions inc reased of much lower crops than expected in Cuba, Thailand and India, the ma rket has risen sharply. On Monday the New York July contract reached a high of 13.26 cents a lb before profit taking set in. Yesterday in late trading i t was at 11.98 cents a lb. Czarnikow estimates Cuban production at 5.5m tonn es, on the high side compared with other forecasters but still well down on last year's 7m tonnes. Indian production is put at 11.5m tonnes, down 3m ton nes from last year, while Thailand is expected to produce 3.8m tonnes, down from 1991-92's 5.1m tonnes. Mr Pack said that now a clearer picture of produ ction was emerging, the market was looking for signs of demand, which has be en restricted by the higher price levels. 'This market is fundamentally driv en,' he said, 'but demand is a little cool for some of the rampant bulls to follow.' Countries:- XAZ World. Industrie s:- P2061 Raw Cane Sugar. Types:- CMMT Comme nt & Analysis. MKTS Production. The Financial Times < PAGE> London Page 32 ============= Transaction # 182 ============================================== Transaction #: 182 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:15:14 Selec. Rec. #: 30 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT932-7937 _AN-DEUB0ABNFT 9305 21 FT 21 MAY 93 / IMF watches as Kyrgyzstan fights the b attle of the som By JOHN LLOYD BISHKEK A REMARKABLE experiment is taking place in Kyr gyzstan, the poorest of the former Soviet republics. It has introduced a new currency with strong support from the west. On its success depends the futu re of the state itself, the viability of new currencies in the post-Soviet w orld and the reputation of the multilateral financial institutions. Kyrgyzst an is a small, landlocked state on the Chinese border. It has an ethnically divided population - the Kyrgyz are a bare majority with a 25 per cent Russi an-speaking minority which dominates production and forms the majority in th e capital Bishkek. The industrial sector of Kyrgyzstan is like that of all e x-Soviet states, but more so. The Frunze agricultural machinery plant made o ne type of machinery for the former Soviet trading bloc which is no longer i n demand and for which it usually cannot get steel anyway. A sugar refinery got its raw material from Cuba, hauled across central Asia from the Black Se a. Both have all but stopped production. This is a grim position in which to find oneself 'independent' - especially since its years as a Soviet state h ave left what Kyrgyzstan's foremost economist, Mr Turar Koichuyev, calls a ' psychology of dependence'. But in introducing the som ('catfish' in Russian) in place of the rouble, it blazes a trail for the other members of the Comm onwealth of Independent States - only one of which, Ukraine, has introduced its own currency, and that without an accompanying programme approved by the International Monetary Fund. The effects of the introduction of the som hav e so far been both dramatically good and disturbingly bad. Its first trading session took place on Monday in the street outside the National Bank, where some Dollars 2m was exchanged for som issued the week before. It held its i ntroductory rate of 4 to the dollar, while on the black market the official rate of Rbs150 to a som doubled to around Rbs300. A government decree that, after a five-day transition period, the rouble may no longer be used seems t o have been obeyed. But it has caused an inflamed reaction in neighbouring U zbekistan. The border between the two states has been closed, money transfer s and trading of any kind stopped and gas supplies shut off. Uzbek President Islam Karimov, no friend of the pro-western leaders of Kyrgyzstan, accused the Kyrgyz of plotting to flood his republic with unwanted roubles. His acti on threatens to strain further the bad relations between the Kyrgyz and the ethnic Uzbeks who live in the border areas of Kyrgyzstan. The currency's int roduction was badly executed and badly advertised; the result has been that only Rbs7bn to Rbs10bn of the estimated stock of Rbs30bn in the country were exchanged for som in the five days. Residents of Bishkek grumble about the bright new currency - accusing the government of raising prices under its co ver, and fearing that the government had given them an unconvertible currenc y. The som is a test case in two ways. First, it poses a colossal challenge to the leadership of Kyrgyzstan: a leadership which, under the presidency of Mr Askar Akayev and the premiership of Mr Tursumbek Chyngyshev, attempts to chart a pro-market course. Mr Chyngyshev says: 'We believe we had no choice but to introduce the som: it allows us to escape from the inflation of the rouble and to create our own economy.' The chance is there, but the task is difficult. The second test is of the IMF and, to a lesser extent, the other multilateral financial agencies. The IMF, some six months ago, switched its policy advice dramatically: having previously advised the former Soviet stat es to stay in the rouble zone, it concluded - after observing the actions of the central bank of Russia in supporting enterprises with a flood of credit - that the only way ex-Soviet states could fight inflation was to control t heir own currencies. Says Mr Harry Trines, the resident man from the IMF: 'I t became clear that in the present circumstances no one could reduce inflati on while remaining tied to the rouble. And thus the IMF executive board deci ded that if the (ex-Soviet) countries wanted their own programmes with the I MF they must have their own currency.' This decision. meant that the IMF, an d through it the richer countries of the world who provide aid to the former Soviet Union, were implicitly offering to support the new currencies if the state could commit itself to an IMF programme with its familiar features of monetary stability, budget stringency and rapid privatisation. Kyrgyzstan, uniquely - outside the Baltic states which are not part of the CIS - has don e so, earlier this month signing on to a tough programme and receiving Dolla rs 23m as a first tranche of an Dollars 85m package of support. These funds form the reserves with which the National Bank has supported the currency. I n all, Kyrgyzstan should receive Dollars 400m in loans, including a Rbs75bn (about Dollars 100m) from Russia which is promised but the delivery of which must be in some doubt. The World Bank and the Japanese government are to pu t in about Dollars 110m in budget support - in the form of goods which will be sold in Kyrgyzstan. For the foreign experts now in Bishkek, the future se ems clear enough: a programme (barely begun) which pushes enterprises into t he private sector - though there are signs that the state favours worker-own ership, with which the Fund would be unhappy. It will also trade on its few assets - wool; fruit and vegetables; hydro-electric power; natural beauty; m inerals including gold; and a relatively well-educated population. A final a sset is the harsh realism of people and leaders alike. Says Mr Chyngyshev: ' We have things we can sell, but they are not yet of world quality. We haven' t got the equipment or the experience, and we lack the money to buy the equi pment. It's going to be very hard - it's inevitable.' Countries :- KGZ Kyrgyzstan, East Europe. Industries:- P9311 Finance, Taxation, and Monetary Policy. P9611 Administration of G eneral Economic Programs. Types:- CMMT Comment & Analy sis. The Financial Times London Page 5 ============= Transaction # 183 ============================================== Transaction #: 183 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:15:38 Selec. Rec. #: 31 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT932-13472 _AN-DDWC9ABPFT 930 423 FT 23 APR 93 / World Trade News: Cuba in barter deal with Italians By HAIG SIMONIAN MILAN Italgrani, the Italian cereals and foods group based in Naples, has signed a L100bn (Pounds 42m) agreement with the Cuban g overnment to supply semi-finished food products in return for sugar, writes Haig Simonian in Milan. Companies:- Italgrani. Countries:- CUZ Cuba, Caribbean. Industries:- P2043 Cereal Breakfast Foods. Types:- COMP Buy- in & Buy-out. The Financial Times London Page 7

============= Transaction # 184 ============================================== Transaction #: 184 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:15:51 Selec. Rec. #: 31 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT932-13472 _AN-DDWC9ABPFT 930 423 FT 23 APR 93 / World Trade News: Cuba in barter deal with Italians By HAIG SIMONIAN MILAN Italgrani, the Italian cereals and foods group based in Naples, has signed a L100bn (Pounds 42m) agreement with the Cuban g overnment to supply semi-finished food products in return for sugar, writes Haig Simonian in Milan. Companies:- Italgrani. Countries:- CUZ Cuba, Caribbean. Industries:- P2043 Cereal Breakfast Foods. Types:- COMP Buy- in & Buy-out. The Financial Times London Page 7

============= Transaction # 185 ============================================== Transaction #: 185 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:15:52 Selec. Rec. #: 31 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT932-13472 _AN-DDWC9ABPFT 930 423 FT 23 APR 93 / World Trade News: Cuba in barter deal with Italians By HAIG SIMONIAN MILAN Italgrani, the Italian cereals and foods group based in Naples, has signed a L100bn (Pounds 42m) agreement with the Cuban g overnment to supply semi-finished food products in return for sugar, writes Haig Simonian in Milan. Companies:- Italgrani. Countries:- CUZ Cuba, Caribbean. Industries:- P2043 Cereal Breakfast Foods. Types:- COMP Buy- in & Buy-out. The Financial Times London Page 7

============= Transaction # 186 ============================================== Transaction #: 186 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:15:55 Selec. Rec. #: 32 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT932-13478 _AN-DDWC9ABJFT 930 423 FT 23 APR 93 / World Trade News: Cuba barters its su gar By HAIG SIMONIAN MILAN < /DATELINE> ITALGRANI, the Italian cereals and foods group based in Na ples, has signed a L100bn (Pounds 42m) agreement with Cuba to supply semi-fi nished food products in return for sugar, writes Haig Simonian in Milan. The deal is a further sign of the current revival in countertrade for countries with problems obtaining hard currencies or in economic difficulties. The Cu ban economy has faced a growing crisis following the gradual withdrawal of a id and supplies from the former Soviet Union. It has also suffered from the fall in price of some raw-material exports, notably sugar. Italgrani will su pply cereals, vegetable oils and pasta products, worth about L100bn, in retu rn for Cuban sugar of a similar value. Italgrani's deal, double the size of a similar one between July and November last year, will take effect in the s econd half of this year. Companies:- Italgrani. Countries:- CUZ Cuba, Caribbean. Industries:- P2043 Cereal Breakfast Foods. Types:- COMP Buy -in & Buy-out. The Financial Times London Page 7 ============= Transaction # 187 ============================================== Transaction #: 187 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:16:11 Selec. Rec. #: 33 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT932-14052 _AN-DDUCWABIFT 930 421 FT 21 APR 93 / World Trade News: Cuba makes progress in regional trading links By CANUTE JAMES KINGSTON THE Cuban government's attempts t o broaden trade links with its neighbours in Latin America and the Caribbean have been given a fillip by a series of joint venture agreements with sever al privately-owned Brazilian companies, following a visit to the island by B razilian businessmen. The agreements coincided with a decision by the heads of government of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) to establish a joint comm ission with Cuba to improve trade and other relations with the island, follo wing statements by some Caribbean leaders that it was time the US ended its 30-year trade embargo on Cuba. The Brazilian businessmen ended five days of talks in Havana with agreements in principle on 10 ventures which will be fu rther studied by both parties. The island's struggling nickel industry, trou bled by inefficient plants and insufficient fuel, is of particular interest to the Brazilians, who want to buy the product from Cuba. The agreements als o cover Brazilian-funded citrus plants in Cuba, production of sugar cane har vesters in Brazil, and the creation of a shipping line to operate between th e two countries. The decision of the Caricom heads of government to establis h the joint commission with Cuba follows the island's application for the st atus of an observer to the 13-nation community. Several of Cuba's Caribbean neighbours have been upset by the implementation of legislation six months a go by the US to prevent foreign subsidiaries of US companies from trading wi th Cuba and penalising shipping companies calling at Cuban ports. Dame Eugen ia Charles, the prime minister of Dominica, and traditionally among the more conservative of the region's leaders, has argued in favour of an end to the trade embargo. Privately-owned Dominica Coconut Products has become a leadi ng exporter to Cuba, and is planning the construction of a processing plant in Cuba. Cuba's attempts to develop economic ties with its neighbours have a lso benefited from the island's admission to the Caribbean Tourism Organisat ion after three years of trying. There is, however, likely to be US objectio n to Cuba's growing trade links with Brazil and those it is developing with its neighbours in the Caribbean archipelago. The island gained entry to the regional tourism body over the objections of two members, Puerto Rico and th e United States Virgin Islands, both US possessions. Caricom countries have been warned against closer ties with Cuba by Ms Sally Cowal, US ambassador t o Trinidad and Tobago. Countries:- CUZ Cuba, Caribbe an. DMZ Dominica, Caribbean. BRZ Brazil, South America. Industries:- P1099 Metal Ores, NEC. P0133 Sugarcane and Sugar Beets. P0174 Citrus Fruits. P4449 Water Transportation of Freight, NEC. P4481 Deep Sea Passenger Transportation, Ex Ferry. P0173 Tree N uts. Types:- COMP Strategic links & Joint venture. The Financial Times London Page 6 ============= Transaction # 188 ============================================== Transaction #: 188 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:16:33 Selec. Rec. #: 34 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT932-15243 _AN-DDNB2AE9FT 930 414 FT 14 APR 93 / Commodities and Agriculture: Fox halt s trade in raw sugar as volumes plunge By DAVID BLAC KWELL TRADING IN London's raw sugar contract was suspended yesterday by the London Futures and Options Exchange (Fox). But the search i s on for a replacement contract, which it is thought could be launched this summer. Mr Robin Woodhead. Fox chief executive, said a report by Landell Mil ls Commodities Studies had suggested that no single factor had been behind t he sharp decline in the exchange's raw sugar volumes. But moves from sterlin g to dollars, from floor to screen and back again, and the addition of Cuba as a country of deliverable origin had all done harm. Business switched to t he relatively young and very liquid New York market. Last month London raw s ugar volume fell to 1,399 lots compared with 4,384 lots in March last year. In January 1991, when trading was switched to screens in a bid to boost volu mes, the contract traded 120,176 lots. Sugar trading, which began in London in the late 1880s, will go on in the screen-based white contract - probably the world's most successful screen-traded commodity. But Mr Woodhead reporte d a groundswell of support from trade and brokerage houses for the exchange to create a new raws contract. Response from the trade in London and New Yor k yesterday was mixed. 'It is essentially the main sugar trade in London who dropped the contract in the first place. Why do they now say they want it c ontinued?' asked one seasoned observer. Changing any contract was always a s ure way to lose volume, he said, pointing out that London's virtually untouc hed cocoa contract was Fox's most successful market. However, another London trader said reports of the death of raw sugar trading in London were greatl y exaggerated. He suggested that a new contract -possibly screen based - wo uld attract arbitrage business with New York. Several US traders pointed out that their companies had stopped using London when it decided to accept Cub an sugar for delivery, as dealing in Cuban sugar was against US law. They wo uld welcome a revived London market, especially in the light of recent renew ed interest in sugar. Countries:- GBZ United Kingdom , EC. USZ United States of America. Industries:- P 0131 Cotton. P6231 Security and Commodity Exchanges. Types:- MKTS Market data. CMMT Comment & Analysis. The Fi nancial Times London Page 32 ============= Transaction # 189 ============================================== Transaction #: 189 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:16:50 Selec. Rec. #: 35 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT933-8084 _AN-DHRCGABJFT 9308 18 FT 18 AUG 93 / World Trade News: Caribbean pact with Cuba draws US fire - A look at the regional repercussions of plans for trade and technical co-operation By CANUTE JAMES SEVERAL Central American states have stepped into a simmering diplo matic dispute between the US and the Caribbean Community (Caricom) over a re cent trade and technical co-operation agreement between the community and Cu ba. Amid indications of increasing US concern over the agreement, Central Am erican diplomats in Washington told US congressmen their governments opposed the pact. They fear the region could suffer from any action taken by the US against the Caribbean countries. Earlier this month a US House of Represent atives foreign affairs subcommittee sent a letter to the governments of the 13 members of Caricom condemning the Cuban agreement. It said that the pact could have adverse implications for future trade agreements between the Cari bbean and the US, and that Caricom should rescind its decision. The US gover nment says the agreement does not oblige Cuba to improve its human rights re cord or move towards democratic government. But leaders of Caricom - set up in 1973 and consisting of English-speaking countries in the Caribbean basin, Belize in Central America and Guyana in South America - have rejected the U S criticism. They say the agreement is part of a programme to improve relati ons with all countries in the region, and that they have not asked other cou ntries with which they have concluded similar pacts for commitments on human rights and democracy. Discontent in Washington has been fuelled by revelati ons that the draft of the agreement setting up a joint commission between Ca ricom and Cuba did contain references to human rights and democracy. The sch eduled signing of the pact in Havana in April was aborted when Cubans object ed to the 'political' nature of the draft. But at the annual summit in the B ahamas last month, Caricom's leaders agreed to the changes. 'Clearly we are disappointed that the agreement signed by Caricom with Cuba did not include any human rights or democracy conditions,' Ms Donna Hrinak, deputy assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs in the US State Department, s aid in a radio interview. 'I think it is particularly unfortunate as it is c oming from Caribbean countries which have their own, very strong democratic traditions, and which have been supporting efforts to restore democracy in H aiti.' While some Caricom leaders, including Mr P J Patterson, the Jamaican prime minister, say that they understand the reaction, they are not moved by it. 'I think there are particular groups in the US which will have reservat ions, but we have to decide on our own affairs,' Mr Patterson said. 'The col d war is over. Countries in Europe are negotiating with Cuba. It is appropri ate for us to have agreements with Cuba in the framework of a joint commissi on.' The community represents a market of 5.5m people and is attempting to c reate a customs union and a common market by next year. The setting up of th e joint commission with Cuba to oversee co-operation in several areas follow s several years of Cuban efforts - with little reward - to improve relations with its neighbours. The commission is aimed at increasing the volume of tr ade between Cuba and Caricom, enhancing sugar cane yields, boosting co-opera tion in developing livestock and fisheries, and will combine research in bio technology, particularly for agricultural and technical applications. Carico m officials say the wording of the agreement was changed to make it consiste nt with that of similar agreements signed with countries such as Venezuela a nd Mexico, and one which is being negotiated with Colombia. 'People will nee d to have it explained to them why Caricom believed that Cuba should, in eff ect, be given a bye on democracy,' said Ms Hrinak. US officials had earlier complained that Caricom was 'rewarding' Cuba by improving links without winn ing commitment to political change. 'I do not expect the US to be happy with what Caricom has done,' said Mr John Compton, the prime minister of St Luci a. 'But the Caribbean is consistent in its position. Mexico and Canada never broke ties with Cuba, yet the US has embraced both of these countries warml y in the North American Free Trade Agreement.' US President Bill Clinton has invited the leaders of Bahamas, Guyana, Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago to discuss hemispheric issues on August 30. 'The meeting will provid e an opportunity for the president and the Caribbean leaders to advance thei r common agenda of promoting democracy and good governance, stimulating trad e opportunities and job creation, protecting the environment and fighting dr ug trafficking,' a statement from the White House said yesterday. Meanwhile, Cubans are clearly happy that the agreement with their neighbours has been concluded to their satisfaction. Mr Lazaro Cabezas, Cuba's ambassador to the eastern Caribbean, said it represented a deepening of links between his cou ntry and others in the region. 'Cuba has been training doctors from Caricom countries and providing technical assistance to many,' he said. 'But the pro spects for trade between Cuba and the Caricom states has increased significa ntly with this agreement on the joint commission.' Countries:- USZ United States of America. CUZ Cuba, Caribbean. Industries:- P9721 International Affairs. P8651 Political Or ganizations. P01 Agricultural Production-Crops. P9311 Finance, Tax ation, and Monetary Policy. Types:- ECON Economic Indi cators. MKTS Market data. The Financial Times London Page 7 ============= Transaction # 190 ============================================== Transaction #: 190 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:17:25 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 57 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 191 ============================================== Transaction #: 191 Transaction Code: 15 (Terms Cleared) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:17:30 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 192 ============================================== Transaction #: 192 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 14:19:43 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 3 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(topic {birth rates}) and (topic {decline})" ============= Transaction # 193 ============================================== Transaction #: 193 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:19:46 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 93 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 194 ============================================== Transaction #: 194 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:19:51 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT911-3399 _AN-BDYBFAATFT 9104 25 FT 25 APR 91 / Survey of Greece (12): Tribal feelings strained - The pressure of immigrants from Albania and the Soviet Union By KIERAN COOKE DOWN AMONG the newspap er booths and merchant stalls in Omonia Square in central Athens, clusters o f thin, weather-beaten men chat quietly. Any time of the day and much of the night they are there, dressed in old-fashioned jackets and ragged bell-bott omed trousers. These are the Albanians, some of the many thousands who have crossed over into Greece in recent months. The Greek authorities say that to date more than 20,00 Albanians have arrived in Greece. Some have returned b ut at least 12,000 look like becoming permanent residents. Most of the new a rrivals are members of the Greek minority in southern Albania - a region tha t for long has been claimed by Greece and that is referred to as north Epiru s in the political textbooks. For years, Greece had expressed its concern ab out the Greek minority in Albania. Now, with the government in Tirana no lon ger capable of, or willing to, implement rigid border controls, the minority is flooding out. To the Greeks, their arrival is something of a mixed bless ing. However, Greece cannot turn back its north Epirot brethren. Athens is a lso aware that the new immigrants will at least bolster the Greek population . That is now a little over 10m. The birth rate is declining and there is mu ch concern about what is called 'the shrinking of Hellenism'. But the immigr ants from Albania arrive with only the clothes they wear and with few skills . Most are farm workers in their early 20s. Greece faces enormous economic p roblems and is ill-equipped to deal with an immigrant influx. Athens estimat es the Greek minority in Albania to be more than 350,000 though the governme nt in Tirana says it is 57,000. Mr Constantine Mitsotakis, the Greek Prime M inister, has appealed to the Greek minority to stay at home and await the ou tcome of political reforms. Greece also faces pressures in dealing with othe r immigrants, both legal and illegal. Thousands of Bulgarians have entered G reece from the north. There are numbers of Poles living for the most part il legally in various parts of the country. Members of Turkey's Kurdish communi ty regularly ask for political asylum. The Pontians are one of the more intr iguing groups to arrive on Greek soil in recent months. Pontians are an ethn ic minority of Greek origin who once inhabited an area on the southern coast of the Black Sea - referred to as 'Pontos' in ancient Greek. According to t he Greek government up to 500,000 Pontians are now dispersed through the sou thern Soviet Union. With the freeing of Soviet emigration controls, more tha n 25,000 Pontians have already arrived in Greece. Few speak modern Greek but this group is unlikely to be a heavy burden on the state. Pontians are the butt of Greek jokes in much the same way as the Irish are to the English or the Poles in some parts of the US. But the Pontians are a resourceful group who through even the toughest times in the Soviet Union survived and often p rospered. In many parts of Athens, Pontians have set up stalls selling goods brought from the Soviet Union. As new residents of Greece, they have taken advantage of entitlements on car imports, buying luxury models and selling t hem for handsome profits. To cope with these new immigrant groups, the gover nment has set up a special bureau to co-ordinate educational and resettlemen t activities. It is a formidable task, fraught with social and political dan gers. Already, some concern has been raised about government plans to settle several thousand Pontians in Thrace - a region where Muslims predominate an d one of the poorest in the country. Greece wants to welcome its 'returnees' . But it is fully aware that its resources are severely limited. In some way s the homecoming could not have come at a worse time. The Finan cial Times London Page V ============= Transaction # 195 ============================================== Transaction #: 195 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:20:21 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT911-3399 _AN-BDYBFAATFT 9104 25 FT 25 APR 91 / Survey of Greece (12): Tribal feelings strained - The pressure of immigrants from Albania and the Soviet Union By KIERAN COOKE DOWN AMONG the newspap er booths and merchant stalls in Omonia Square in central Athens, clusters o f thin, weather-beaten men chat quietly. Any time of the day and much of the night they are there, dressed in old-fashioned jackets and ragged bell-bott omed trousers. These are the Albanians, some of the many thousands who have crossed over into Greece in recent months. The Greek authorities say that to date more than 20,00 Albanians have arrived in Greece. Some have returned b ut at least 12,000 look like becoming permanent residents. Most of the new a rrivals are members of the Greek minority in southern Albania - a region tha t for long has been claimed by Greece and that is referred to as north Epiru s in the political textbooks. For years, Greece had expressed its concern ab out the Greek minority in Albania. Now, with the government in Tirana no lon ger capable of, or willing to, implement rigid border controls, the minority is flooding out. To the Greeks, their arrival is something of a mixed bless ing. However, Greece cannot turn back its north Epirot brethren. Athens is a lso aware that the new immigrants will at least bolster the Greek population . That is now a little over 10m. The birth rate is declining and there is mu ch concern about what is called 'the shrinking of Hellenism'. But the immigr ants from Albania arrive with only the clothes they wear and with few skills . Most are farm workers in their early 20s. Greece faces enormous economic p roblems and is ill-equipped to deal with an immigrant influx. Athens estimat es the Greek minority in Albania to be more than 350,000 though the governme nt in Tirana says it is 57,000. Mr Constantine Mitsotakis, the Greek Prime M inister, has appealed to the Greek minority to stay at home and await the ou tcome of political reforms. Greece also faces pressures in dealing with othe r immigrants, both legal and illegal. Thousands of Bulgarians have entered G reece from the north. There are numbers of Poles living for the most part il legally in various parts of the country. Members of Turkey's Kurdish communi ty regularly ask for political asylum. The Pontians are one of the more intr iguing groups to arrive on Greek soil in recent months. Pontians are an ethn ic minority of Greek origin who once inhabited an area on the southern coast of the Black Sea - referred to as 'Pontos' in ancient Greek. According to t he Greek government up to 500,000 Pontians are now dispersed through the sou thern Soviet Union. With the freeing of Soviet emigration controls, more tha n 25,000 Pontians have already arrived in Greece. Few speak modern Greek but this group is unlikely to be a heavy burden on the state. Pontians are the butt of Greek jokes in much the same way as the Irish are to the English or the Poles in some parts of the US. But the Pontians are a resourceful group who through even the toughest times in the Soviet Union survived and often p rospered. In many parts of Athens, Pontians have set up stalls selling goods brought from the Soviet Union. As new residents of Greece, they have taken advantage of entitlements on car imports, buying luxury models and selling t hem for handsome profits. To cope with these new immigrant groups, the gover nment has set up a special bureau to co-ordinate educational and resettlemen t activities. It is a formidable task, fraught with social and political dan gers. Already, some concern has been raised about government plans to settle several thousand Pontians in Thrace - a region where Muslims predominate an d one of the poorest in the country. Greece wants to welcome its 'returnees' . But it is fully aware that its resources are severely limited. In some way s the homecoming could not have come at a worse time. The Finan cial Times London Page V ============= Transaction # 196 ============================================== Transaction #: 196 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:20:23 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT911-3399 _AN-BDYBFAATFT 9104 25 FT 25 APR 91 / Survey of Greece (12): Tribal feelings strained - The pressure of immigrants from Albania and the Soviet Union By KIERAN COOKE DOWN AMONG the newspap er booths and merchant stalls in Omonia Square in central Athens, clusters o f thin, weather-beaten men chat quietly. Any time of the day and much of the night they are there, dressed in old-fashioned jackets and ragged bell-bott omed trousers. These are the Albanians, some of the many thousands who have crossed over into Greece in recent months. The Greek authorities say that to date more than 20,00 Albanians have arrived in Greece. Some have returned b ut at least 12,000 look like becoming permanent residents. Most of the new a rrivals are members of the Greek minority in southern Albania - a region tha t for long has been claimed by Greece and that is referred to as north Epiru s in the political textbooks. For years, Greece had expressed its concern ab out the Greek minority in Albania. Now, with the government in Tirana no lon ger capable of, or willing to, implement rigid border controls, the minority is flooding out. To the Greeks, their arrival is something of a mixed bless ing. However, Greece cannot turn back its north Epirot brethren. Athens is a lso aware that the new immigrants will at least bolster the Greek population . That is now a little over 10m. The birth rate is declining and there is mu ch concern about what is called 'the shrinking of Hellenism'. But the immigr ants from Albania arrive with only the clothes they wear and with few skills . Most are farm workers in their early 20s. Greece faces enormous economic p roblems and is ill-equipped to deal with an immigrant influx. Athens estimat es the Greek minority in Albania to be more than 350,000 though the governme nt in Tirana says it is 57,000. Mr Constantine Mitsotakis, the Greek Prime M inister, has appealed to the Greek minority to stay at home and await the ou tcome of political reforms. Greece also faces pressures in dealing with othe r immigrants, both legal and illegal. Thousands of Bulgarians have entered G reece from the north. There are numbers of Poles living for the most part il legally in various parts of the country. Members of Turkey's Kurdish communi ty regularly ask for political asylum. The Pontians are one of the more intr iguing groups to arrive on Greek soil in recent months. Pontians are an ethn ic minority of Greek origin who once inhabited an area on the southern coast of the Black Sea - referred to as 'Pontos' in ancient Greek. According to t he Greek government up to 500,000 Pontians are now dispersed through the sou thern Soviet Union. With the freeing of Soviet emigration controls, more tha n 25,000 Pontians have already arrived in Greece. Few speak modern Greek but this group is unlikely to be a heavy burden on the state. Pontians are the butt of Greek jokes in much the same way as the Irish are to the English or the Poles in some parts of the US. But the Pontians are a resourceful group who through even the toughest times in the Soviet Union survived and often p rospered. In many parts of Athens, Pontians have set up stalls selling goods brought from the Soviet Union. As new residents of Greece, they have taken advantage of entitlements on car imports, buying luxury models and selling t hem for handsome profits. To cope with these new immigrant groups, the gover nment has set up a special bureau to co-ordinate educational and resettlemen t activities. It is a formidable task, fraught with social and political dan gers. Already, some concern has been raised about government plans to settle several thousand Pontians in Thrace - a region where Muslims predominate an d one of the poorest in the country. Greece wants to welcome its 'returnees' . But it is fully aware that its resources are severely limited. In some way s the homecoming could not have come at a worse time. The Finan cial Times London Page V ============= Transaction # 197 ============================================== Transaction #: 197 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:20:25 Selec. Rec. #: 2 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT911-4795 _AN-BDQBPADPFT 9104 17 FT 17 APR 91 / Survey of Telford & Shropshire (9): Tw in attractions of rural idyll and industrial heritage - Efforts to encourage tourism By STEWART DALBY LIKE othe r parts of the old industrial north of England, Telford and Shropshire have realised that tourism is big business and that they have a number of assets which can be turned to good account to attract visitors. Telford itself coul d hardly be described as a tourist attraction. It is a modern town, which in its present form has been built by the Development Corporation. But some of the scenes of dereliction have been transformed by imaginative landscaping and other improvements, so visitors staying in business hotels such as the H oliday Inn or the Moat House will not find Telford unappealing. As well as t he modern shopping area with sports grounds and an ice rink in the new centr e, there are 450 acres of open countryside in the middle of the town. There is a miniature steam railway and lakeside amphitheatre, the award winning Ch elsea garden and the Maxell Japanese Cherry garden. What Telford may lack in historical perspective is more than made good by nearby Ironbridge. The ind ustrial revolution was born at nearby Coalbrookdale, where in 1709 the Quake r ironmaster Abraham Darby discovered the secret of smelting iron ore using coke, which was cheap and plentiful, instead of the more expensive charcoal - a discovery which opened the way to large-scale industrial production of i ron. The presence of coal, iron ore and limestone turned east Shropshire int o the centre of Britain's iron trade. It was at Coalbrookdale the first iron rails were made for railways, together with the first iron cylinders for st eam engines and, of course, the world's first iron bridge in the appropriate ly named village of Ironbridge. Other industries sprang up alongside iron an d coal, particularly pottery and porcelain at Coalport, before the region be gan to decline in the mid-19th century. The industrial past is commemorated by the Ironbridge Gorge Museum which has seven sites spread over six square miles of stunning scenery. These include Blists Hill, which is a reconstruct ion of a Victorian working community. At Coalbrookdale, the Great Warehouse contains the story of ironmaking, while the Rosehill House shows how the Dar by family lived. Mr Richard Bifield, tourism officer at Wrekin District Coun cil, estimates that in 1989 the area (Wrekin covers greater Telford and the towns around Ironbridge) had 800,000 visitors, compared with 250,000 ten yea rs ago. These visitors spent around Pounds 20m, and more than half of that w as spent by leisure tourists. The reason that the district council started t o take tourism seriously, however, was that it provided jobs in an area of t raditionally high unemployment. Although still a small employer compared to other more established areas, tourism now accounts for 1,400 jobs, or just u nder 2 per cent of the work force. Ten years ago the sector employed only 17 0 people. Like Bradford with its photography museum, Burton with its beer mu seum and Liverpool with the Albert Dock complex, Telford has used its indust rial past to establish revenue producing assets, giving it a foothold in an important, growing industry. Of course, there is more to Shropshire than Tel ford. The county is largely rural, with rolling hills and vales, quiet, pict uresque villages and hamlets, medieval castles, ancient churches and grand c ountry houses. Shrewsbury is perhaps England's finest remaining Tudor town, while Ludlow has its Norman castle. There are other 'products' (as such site s are known in the tourism business) dotted around the county, including the renowned Severn Valley Steam Railway and the new Childhood and Costume Muse um, both at Bridgnorth; the Midland Motor Museum at Weston Park; and the aer ospace museum at Cosford. Charles Darwin, of theory of evolution fame, and R obert Clive - Clive of India - both sprang from Shropshire and their respect ive birth places are well noted. Although final figures have not yet been es tablished, there were probably more than 1.5m visitors to Shropshire and its attractions in 1990, and they spent a total of Pounds 49m. Shropshire has t he beginnings of modest tourism industry, which probably accounts for over 5 ,000 jobs or around 5-6 per cent of the workforce. The county and district a uthorities have been examining whether more could be done to encourage extra business. Together with the English Tourist Board and the Heart of England Tourist Board (which covers six counties in the middle of England), the coun ty council and the six district councils have been engaged in a Tourism Deve lopment Action Plan. The TDAP, which cost Pounds 300,000 and is now coming t o an end after three years, looked at ways of improving standards, at signpo sting and raising awareness of the county's heritage, at setting up informat ion centres and in training and business advice. It also examined ways in wh ich tourism might move forward. Two main areas were identified: more could b e done to develop and widen business tourism and, in the leisure field, more overseas staying visitors could be attracted. Only around 7-8 per cent of v isitors to Telford and Wrekin are from overseas. Unlike Chester, York or Str atford-upon-Avon, Shropshire is not on the 'circuit' for visiting Americans. Yet evidence of a rich past is as abundantly evident in Shrewsbury as it is in Chester. A strong promotion in the US might enable the county to tap thi s potential vein of business. In business tourism, while Telford gets many v isitors for strictly business purposes, the idea should be get them to bring their wives and children and stay for weekends. Telford should also try and develop gatherings such as board meetings and conferences. It has the hotel s, but should try and broaden their use. While occupancy rates in other main hotels are down to around 50 per cent in the current tourism climate, they were running at over 70 per cent a year ago. With the Gulf war over and peop le beginning to travel again, there is no reason why Telford and Shropshire should not gain a larger share of niche markets. The Financial Times London Page 28 Photograph (Omitted). Photograph Blists H ill, left, and Shrrewsbury, right, not yet on the major tourist circuit (Omi tted). ============= Transaction # 198 ============================================== Transaction #: 198 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 14:20:48 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 3 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(topic {"birth rates"}) and (topic {decline})" ============= Transaction # 199 ============================================== Transaction #: 199 Transaction Code: 37 (General (non-Tcl) Error) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:20:49 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: extra characters after close-quote ============= Transaction # 200 ============================================== Transaction #: 200 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 14:20:54 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 3 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(topic {birth rates}) and (topic {decline})" ============= Transaction # 201 ============================================== Transaction #: 201 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:20:57 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 93 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 202 ============================================== Transaction #: 202 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:20:58 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT911-3399 _AN-BDYBFAATFT 9104 25 FT 25 APR 91 / Survey of Greece (12): Tribal feelings strained - The pressure of immigrants from Albania and the Soviet Union By KIERAN COOKE DOWN AMONG the newspap er booths and merchant stalls in Omonia Square in central Athens, clusters o f thin, weather-beaten men chat quietly. Any time of the day and much of the night they are there, dressed in old-fashioned jackets and ragged bell-bott omed trousers. These are the Albanians, some of the many thousands who have crossed over into Greece in recent months. The Greek authorities say that to date more than 20,00 Albanians have arrived in Greece. Some have returned b ut at least 12,000 look like becoming permanent residents. Most of the new a rrivals are members of the Greek minority in southern Albania - a region tha t for long has been claimed by Greece and that is referred to as north Epiru s in the political textbooks. For years, Greece had expressed its concern ab out the Greek minority in Albania. Now, with the government in Tirana no lon ger capable of, or willing to, implement rigid border controls, the minority is flooding out. To the Greeks, their arrival is something of a mixed bless ing. However, Greece cannot turn back its north Epirot brethren. Athens is a lso aware that the new immigrants will at least bolster the Greek population . That is now a little over 10m. The birth rate is declining and there is mu ch concern about what is called 'the shrinking of Hellenism'. But the immigr ants from Albania arrive with only the clothes they wear and with few skills . Most are farm workers in their early 20s. Greece faces enormous economic p roblems and is ill-equipped to deal with an immigrant influx. Athens estimat es the Greek minority in Albania to be more than 350,000 though the governme nt in Tirana says it is 57,000. Mr Constantine Mitsotakis, the Greek Prime M inister, has appealed to the Greek minority to stay at home and await the ou tcome of political reforms. Greece also faces pressures in dealing with othe r immigrants, both legal and illegal. Thousands of Bulgarians have entered G reece from the north. There are numbers of Poles living for the most part il legally in various parts of the country. Members of Turkey's Kurdish communi ty regularly ask for political asylum. The Pontians are one of the more intr iguing groups to arrive on Greek soil in recent months. Pontians are an ethn ic minority of Greek origin who once inhabited an area on the southern coast of the Black Sea - referred to as 'Pontos' in ancient Greek. According to t he Greek government up to 500,000 Pontians are now dispersed through the sou thern Soviet Union. With the freeing of Soviet emigration controls, more tha n 25,000 Pontians have already arrived in Greece. Few speak modern Greek but this group is unlikely to be a heavy burden on the state. Pontians are the butt of Greek jokes in much the same way as the Irish are to the English or the Poles in some parts of the US. But the Pontians are a resourceful group who through even the toughest times in the Soviet Union survived and often p rospered. In many parts of Athens, Pontians have set up stalls selling goods brought from the Soviet Union. As new residents of Greece, they have taken advantage of entitlements on car imports, buying luxury models and selling t hem for handsome profits. To cope with these new immigrant groups, the gover nment has set up a special bureau to co-ordinate educational and resettlemen t activities. It is a formidable task, fraught with social and political dan gers. Already, some concern has been raised about government plans to settle several thousand Pontians in Thrace - a region where Muslims predominate an d one of the poorest in the country. Greece wants to welcome its 'returnees' . But it is fully aware that its resources are severely limited. In some way s the homecoming could not have come at a worse time. The Finan cial Times London Page V ============= Transaction # 203 ============================================== Transaction #: 203 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:21:00 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT911-3399 _AN-BDYBFAATFT 9104 25 FT 25 APR 91 / Survey of Greece (12): Tribal feelings strained - The pressure of immigrants from Albania and the Soviet Union By KIERAN COOKE DOWN AMONG the newspap er booths and merchant stalls in Omonia Square in central Athens, clusters o f thin, weather-beaten men chat quietly. Any time of the day and much of the night they are there, dressed in old-fashioned jackets and ragged bell-bott omed trousers. These are the Albanians, some of the many thousands who have crossed over into Greece in recent months. The Greek authorities say that to date more than 20,00 Albanians have arrived in Greece. Some have returned b ut at least 12,000 look like becoming permanent residents. Most of the new a rrivals are members of the Greek minority in southern Albania - a region tha t for long has been claimed by Greece and that is referred to as north Epiru s in the political textbooks. For years, Greece had expressed its concern ab out the Greek minority in Albania. Now, with the government in Tirana no lon ger capable of, or willing to, implement rigid border controls, the minority is flooding out. To the Greeks, their arrival is something of a mixed bless ing. However, Greece cannot turn back its north Epirot brethren. Athens is a lso aware that the new immigrants will at least bolster the Greek population . That is now a little over 10m. The birth rate is declining and there is mu ch concern about what is called 'the shrinking of Hellenism'. But the immigr ants from Albania arrive with only the clothes they wear and with few skills . Most are farm workers in their early 20s. Greece faces enormous economic p roblems and is ill-equipped to deal with an immigrant influx. Athens estimat es the Greek minority in Albania to be more than 350,000 though the governme nt in Tirana says it is 57,000. Mr Constantine Mitsotakis, the Greek Prime M inister, has appealed to the Greek minority to stay at home and await the ou tcome of political reforms. Greece also faces pressures in dealing with othe r immigrants, both legal and illegal. Thousands of Bulgarians have entered G reece from the north. There are numbers of Poles living for the most part il legally in various parts of the country. Members of Turkey's Kurdish communi ty regularly ask for political asylum. The Pontians are one of the more intr iguing groups to arrive on Greek soil in recent months. Pontians are an ethn ic minority of Greek origin who once inhabited an area on the southern coast of the Black Sea - referred to as 'Pontos' in ancient Greek. According to t he Greek government up to 500,000 Pontians are now dispersed through the sou thern Soviet Union. With the freeing of Soviet emigration controls, more tha n 25,000 Pontians have already arrived in Greece. Few speak modern Greek but this group is unlikely to be a heavy burden on the state. Pontians are the butt of Greek jokes in much the same way as the Irish are to the English or the Poles in some parts of the US. But the Pontians are a resourceful group who through even the toughest times in the Soviet Union survived and often p rospered. In many parts of Athens, Pontians have set up stalls selling goods brought from the Soviet Union. As new residents of Greece, they have taken advantage of entitlements on car imports, buying luxury models and selling t hem for handsome profits. To cope with these new immigrant groups, the gover nment has set up a special bureau to co-ordinate educational and resettlemen t activities. It is a formidable task, fraught with social and political dan gers. Already, some concern has been raised about government plans to settle several thousand Pontians in Thrace - a region where Muslims predominate an d one of the poorest in the country. Greece wants to welcome its 'returnees' . But it is fully aware that its resources are severely limited. In some way s the homecoming could not have come at a worse time. The Finan cial Times London Page V ============= Transaction # 204 ============================================== Transaction #: 204 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:21:09 Selec. Rec. #: 11 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-1803 _AN-CCWA7AACFT 9203 23 FT 23 MAR 92 / Survey of Republic of Cyprus (3): Sign s of overheating - The economy By KERIN HOPE THE unofficial indicators of prosperity in eastern Mediterranean c ountries - weekend traffic jams, supermarkets filled with well-groomed shopp ers and crowded seaside restaurants - are much in evidence in Cyprus. A heav y emphasis on consumer spending is one enduring consequence of the upheaval in 1974 when about 180,000 Greek Cypriots were driven from the north of the island, leaving behind hotels, factories and citrus orchards that represente d more than 60 per cent of the island's resources. Another is the Greek Cypr iot insistence on acquiring skills abroad, a reflection both of high unemplo yment in the early years of rebuilding and the sense of security derived fro m being able, if necessary, to earn a living outside the island. In fact, ec onomic recovery came swiftly in the south, with priority given to short-term infrastructure projects financed through foreign aid and borrowing. It took only five years for incomes to return to pre-1974 levels. Exports rose as n ew, labour-intensive manufacturing exploited demand in the Gulf states durin g the oil boom, while services benefited from Beirut's decline as a business centre. When mass tourism took off in the south, the growth rate also soare d, averaging more than 5 per cent in the late 1980s. However, the Gulf war d ealt the tourist industry a harsh blow last year. Although bookings picked u p as the season advanced, hoteliers were obliged to accept sharply reduced p rices to ensure occupancy rates that would cover the year's costs. Exports w ere also affected with a number of small plants dependent on orders from the Gulf being forced to shut down, while port activity at Limassol, a regional transhipment centre, slowed down. As if this were not enough to contend wit h, a severe drought hit Cyprus last winter. With little water available for irrigation despite a sustained conservation effort, agricultural output fell by 10.1 per cent. The economy grew by just 1.5 per cent in 1991. Yet this a ppears to have been only a temporary setback, according to the government pl anning bureau. Projected growth for 1992 is 7 per cent, led by a recovery in exports and what seems likely to be a record year for tourism. But as Cypru s heads into an election year, signs of overheating are emerging. Inflation reached 6 per cent last year; the introduction of value added tax this summe r may bring it to 7.5 per cent this year. While exports remained steady at C Pounds 390m in 1991, imports surged by 20 per cent as consumers launched a s pending spree in advance of VAT. This, coupled with a decline in tourism ear nings, transformed a current account surplus of CPounds 40m in 1990 into a C Pounds 110.8m deficit, equivalent to 3.8 per cent of GDP. With collective wa ge agreements in several sectors coming up for renewal this year, the unions will be asking for larger rises on top of index-linked increases twice a ye ar. Their bargaining power is enhanced by a labour shortage which has forced employers to import short-term contract workers, mostly from eastern Europe . 'Real increases of 3-4 per cent a year are standard now, and the unions ar e a militant bunch. It will be hard to restrain demand in an election year,' says one analyst. The government has little room to manoeuvre, after being forced by Parliament not only to limit VAT to a single 5 per cent rate but t o postpone its introduction for six months. In the meantime, a new tax packa ge, including across-the-board cuts in income tax, had already come into eff ect. The resulting budget deficit amounted to 5.1 per cent of GDP, double th e previous year's figure. But given the pre-electoral commitment to spending on high profile projects such as port and road improvements, the deficit is unlikely to shrink much this year. Still, whatever the imbalances in southe rn Cyprus, they pale into insignificance against the problems facing the sel f-styled Turkish Cypriot republic. The collapse in 1990 of the fruit-to-elec tronics empire of Mr Asil Nadir, a Cypriot by birth, cut short a brief perio d of optimism about the future. About 8,000 Turkish Cypriots, some 12 per ce nt of the workforce, were employed in a dozen companies he controlled in nor thern Cyprus, from citrus exporting to packaging, hotels and newspaper publi shing. With three-quarters of Mr Nadir's employees now out of work, northern Cyprus again relies heavily on aid from Turkey, amounting to more than Doll ars 60m yearly. Over the years, Turkish state banks have also financed const ruction of roads, two airports and expansion at Kyrenia port. Yet per capita income in the north is less than one-third that in internationally-recognis ed Cyprus and appears to be falling further behind. No official figures are available, but growth last year is thought to have been negative, after a 5. 5 per cent rise in 1990. While crossing the Green Line that divides Cyprus i s officially forbidden, several hundred Turkish Cypriots slip into the south daily to put in a few hours of work on a Greek Cypriot construction site. A s in the south, tourism is the mainstay of the economy, with some 600,000 vi sitors from Turkey last year but only 42,000 foreign tourists. Northern Cypr us was also hit badly by cancellations due to the Gulf crisis. This year, a 30 per cent increase in foreign arrivals is forecast, the result of more eff ective marketing in western Europe, and receipts may rise to Dollars 25m. Bu t sharing a currency with Turkey means that northern Cyprus imports a Turkis h inflation rate of more than 70 per cent. Index-linking of wages now lags s everal months behind, adding to the gloomy mood. With each year that passes, it becomes clearer that without a political settlement, the economic gap be tween Greek and Turkish Cypriots can only continue to widen. Th e Financial Times London Page II ============= Transaction # 205 ============================================== Transaction #: 205 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 14:22:18 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 2 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(topic {birth}) and (topic {decline})" ============= Transaction # 206 ============================================== Transaction #: 206 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:22:20 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 148 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 207 ============================================== Transaction #: 207 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:22:27 Selec. Rec. #: 2 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT911-4795 _AN-BDQBPADPFT 9104 17 FT 17 APR 91 / Survey of Telford & Shropshire (9): Tw in attractions of rural idyll and industrial heritage - Efforts to encourage tourism By STEWART DALBY LIKE othe r parts of the old industrial north of England, Telford and Shropshire have realised that tourism is big business and that they have a number of assets which can be turned to good account to attract visitors. Telford itself coul d hardly be described as a tourist attraction. It is a modern town, which in its present form has been built by the Development Corporation. But some of the scenes of dereliction have been transformed by imaginative landscaping and other improvements, so visitors staying in business hotels such as the H oliday Inn or the Moat House will not find Telford unappealing. As well as t he modern shopping area with sports grounds and an ice rink in the new centr e, there are 450 acres of open countryside in the middle of the town. There is a miniature steam railway and lakeside amphitheatre, the award winning Ch elsea garden and the Maxell Japanese Cherry garden. What Telford may lack in historical perspective is more than made good by nearby Ironbridge. The ind ustrial revolution was born at nearby Coalbrookdale, where in 1709 the Quake r ironmaster Abraham Darby discovered the secret of smelting iron ore using coke, which was cheap and plentiful, instead of the more expensive charcoal - a discovery which opened the way to large-scale industrial production of i ron. The presence of coal, iron ore and limestone turned east Shropshire int o the centre of Britain's iron trade. It was at Coalbrookdale the first iron rails were made for railways, together with the first iron cylinders for st eam engines and, of course, the world's first iron bridge in the appropriate ly named village of Ironbridge. Other industries sprang up alongside iron an d coal, particularly pottery and porcelain at Coalport, before the region be gan to decline in the mid-19th century. The industrial past is commemorated by the Ironbridge Gorge Museum which has seven sites spread over six square miles of stunning scenery. These include Blists Hill, which is a reconstruct ion of a Victorian working community. At Coalbrookdale, the Great Warehouse contains the story of ironmaking, while the Rosehill House shows how the Dar by family lived. Mr Richard Bifield, tourism officer at Wrekin District Coun cil, estimates that in 1989 the area (Wrekin covers greater Telford and the towns around Ironbridge) had 800,000 visitors, compared with 250,000 ten yea rs ago. These visitors spent around Pounds 20m, and more than half of that w as spent by leisure tourists. The reason that the district council started t o take tourism seriously, however, was that it provided jobs in an area of t raditionally high unemployment. Although still a small employer compared to other more established areas, tourism now accounts for 1,400 jobs, or just u nder 2 per cent of the work force. Ten years ago the sector employed only 17 0 people. Like Bradford with its photography museum, Burton with its beer mu seum and Liverpool with the Albert Dock complex, Telford has used its indust rial past to establish revenue producing assets, giving it a foothold in an important, growing industry. Of course, there is more to Shropshire than Tel ford. The county is largely rural, with rolling hills and vales, quiet, pict uresque villages and hamlets, medieval castles, ancient churches and grand c ountry houses. Shrewsbury is perhaps England's finest remaining Tudor town, while Ludlow has its Norman castle. There are other 'products' (as such site s are known in the tourism business) dotted around the county, including the renowned Severn Valley Steam Railway and the new Childhood and Costume Muse um, both at Bridgnorth; the Midland Motor Museum at Weston Park; and the aer ospace museum at Cosford. Charles Darwin, of theory of evolution fame, and R obert Clive - Clive of India - both sprang from Shropshire and their respect ive birth places are well noted. Although final figures have not yet been es tablished, there were probably more than 1.5m visitors to Shropshire and its attractions in 1990, and they spent a total of Pounds 49m. Shropshire has t he beginnings of modest tourism industry, which probably accounts for over 5 ,000 jobs or around 5-6 per cent of the workforce. The county and district a uthorities have been examining whether more could be done to encourage extra business. Together with the English Tourist Board and the Heart of England Tourist Board (which covers six counties in the middle of England), the coun ty council and the six district councils have been engaged in a Tourism Deve lopment Action Plan. The TDAP, which cost Pounds 300,000 and is now coming t o an end after three years, looked at ways of improving standards, at signpo sting and raising awareness of the county's heritage, at setting up informat ion centres and in training and business advice. It also examined ways in wh ich tourism might move forward. Two main areas were identified: more could b e done to develop and widen business tourism and, in the leisure field, more overseas staying visitors could be attracted. Only around 7-8 per cent of v isitors to Telford and Wrekin are from overseas. Unlike Chester, York or Str atford-upon-Avon, Shropshire is not on the 'circuit' for visiting Americans. Yet evidence of a rich past is as abundantly evident in Shrewsbury as it is in Chester. A strong promotion in the US might enable the county to tap thi s potential vein of business. In business tourism, while Telford gets many v isitors for strictly business purposes, the idea should be get them to bring their wives and children and stay for weekends. Telford should also try and develop gatherings such as board meetings and conferences. It has the hotel s, but should try and broaden their use. While occupancy rates in other main hotels are down to around 50 per cent in the current tourism climate, they were running at over 70 per cent a year ago. With the Gulf war over and peop le beginning to travel again, there is no reason why Telford and Shropshire should not gain a larger share of niche markets. The Financial Times London Page 28 Photograph (Omitted). Photograph Blists H ill, left, and Shrrewsbury, right, not yet on the major tourist circuit (Omi tted). ============= Transaction # 208 ============================================== Transaction #: 208 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:22:43 Selec. Rec. #: 3 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT911-1199 _AN-BEHBSABAFT 9105 08 FT 08 MAY 91 / Foreign Affairs: Problem awaiting a so lution - After the Gulf war, the west can no longer afford to regard Turkey as an insoluble difficulty By EDWARD MORTIMER President Turgut Ozal must be furious. Since Iraq invaded Kuwait last August, he has acted with bold and imaginative statesmanship, going aga inst the tide of Turkish public opinion to secure long-term strategic advant ages for his country. He used the crisis to reassert not only Turkey's strat egic importance to the west, but also its credentials as a European state. H e called for democracy in Iraq, and took steps to remove some anti-democrati c clauses in the Turkish constitution - notably those banning parties based on group interests and banning press publications in languages (such as Kurd ish) that are forbidden by law. Even more remarkably, Mr Ozal invited Iraqi Kurdish leaders to Ankara, where they were told by senior foreign ministry o fficials that the president would support a federal solution for Iraq, givin g autonomy to the Kurdish and Turkmen minorities. There were even hints that he was contemplating something similar in Turkey itself, as a way to isolat e and defeat the violent separatism of the Workers' Party of Kurdistan. Perh aps most remarkably of all, Mr Ozal has established direct and friendly ties with Soviet Armenia. This week, as if to cap all these efforts, Mr Ozal pub lishes the English edition of his book, Turkey in Europe and Europe in Turke y. Alas, the actions of his local subordinates on the Iraqi frontier have ru ined the effect. The dominant images of the past few weeks, as far as wester n public opinion is concerned, have been those of Turkish soldiers barring t he road to Kurdish refugees, beating and even shooting them. Finally, in a s pectacular public relations own goal typical of Middle Eastern rather than m odern European governments, the authorities in south-east Turkey arrested an d expelled a leading British journalist who had reported, on the evidence of British and American servicemen, that Turkish soldiers were looting refugee supplies. Clearly Turkey has a long way to go before public opinion in west ern Europe will be persuaded that it is a country eligible for EC membership . Many Turks recognise this, including (privately at least) some of those wh ose difficult task it is to represent the Turkish government in other Europe an capitals. 'We have to solve our own problems first,' they say. 'But if we succeed, by 2000 it will be Europe knocking on Turkey's door, not the other way round.' That second part of the proposition remains hard to swallow. Pe rhaps by then Turkey's high growth rate - 9.2 per cent last year - will have significantly narrowed the gap between its purchasing power and the EC aver age, at present a ratio of roughly one to three. Perhaps the birth rate will have begun to fall. (But hardly enough to change the expectation that Turke y will 'eventually have a bigger population than any Community member state' , to which the European Commission referred with some alarm in its avis on T urkey's membership application in December 1989.) Perhaps Turkish inflation - 60 per cent last year - will have been brought under control. Perhaps publ ic opinion in western Europe will by then have grasped the economic case for opening the EC labour market to able-bodied people from relatively backward countries, willing to do the low-paid jobs that no longer find indigenous t akers, and able, through their social security contributions, to support the growing number of old age pensioners. Perhaps the prejudice with which so m any west Europeans currently regard their Moslem fellow-citizens will have b een so far overcome that they will welcome a Moslem country as a leading mem ber of the EC. ('To embrace Turkey,' says Mr Ozal's book, 'Europe's view of her own history will need to be as secular and universal as ours is.') Perha ps the Cyprus problem will have been solved, and Greece will therefore have lifted the veto it currently imposes even on the release of agreed EC aid to Turkey, let alone Turkish membership. Perhaps freedom of expression and ass ociation will have been guaranteed to all Turkish citizens, including those who campaign by non-violent methods for Kurdish independence; and perhaps th e humanitarian standards of Turkish soldiers and policemen will be no worse than those of their counterparts elsewhere in Europe. (There are signs, unfo rtunately, that this convergence is occurring from both sides.) All the abov e developments are highly desirable. Few of them are very likely. The first two may not be more than marginally affected either way by government decisi ons. The others require, as a necessary if not sufficient condition, determi ned action by public authorities - some in Turkey, some in the EC, some in b oth. Up to now the general west European attitude has been to regard Turkey as an insoluble problem, but one which could safely be left unsolved, especi ally once the decline of the Soviet threat seemed to reduce its strategic im portance. The Gulf war, and Turkey's role in it, have made that attitude mor e difficult to sustain. They have led, among other things, to renewed US pre ssure on Europe to accommodate Turkey. 'Turkey has earned the right to join the EC,' an article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs boldly asserts. More immediately, the US wishes to see Turkey, as an important member of Nat o, included in any attempt to organise a 'European pillar' of the Atlantic A lliance, for instance through the Western European Union. This pressure is h otly resented by those, such as the French government, who wish WEU to devel op, if at all, as an arm of the future European Political Union rather than of Nato. They hope to see WEU membership sooner or later coincide with that of the EC, and they do not regard the membership of these European bodies as being any business of the US. Britain, by contrast, opposes any expansion o f WEU membership for the time being, and especially any suggestion that Gree ce be admitted while Turkey is kept out. Europeans are right to feel their i nstitutions should not be treated as mere adjuncts of Nato, but wrong if tha t leads them to ignore Turkey's role in a European 'defence identity' which seems likely to be called on to manifest itself, if anywhere, in the Middle East and/or the Balkans. Turkey's views should be taken seriously in any dis cussion of future European security arrangements, and the question of its re lationship to the future European Union cannot be left to fester. Hard thoug h it is to believe that all the obstacles to Turkish EC membership could be removed within the next nine years, that does not mean we should wait nine y ears before even attempting to solve them. A more positive approach would be an open-ended negotiation on all the issues. In this, Turkey and the EC tog ether would seek to define the long-term relationship that would best suit b oth their interests; the stages by which it could be reached; and the condit ions to be fulfilled before proceeding from one stage to the next. Perhaps, as with economic and monetary union among the 12, they should also assign a target date or deadline to each successive stage. Geographically speaking, T urkey is in eastern Europe; and for Turks, as for other east Europeans, memb ership of the EC is not a purely economic matter. It is the anchor by which they hope to attach themselves to the democratic industrialised world. If we stern Europe were to say 'yes' unconditionally the device would not work. Ha ppily there is no danger of that. But it will fail equally certainly, and pe rhaps disastrously, if western Europe shows no interest and has nothing to o ffer. The Financial Times London Page 19 Illustra tion (Omitted). ============= Transaction # 209 ============================================== Transaction #: 209 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:22:58 Selec. Rec. #: 4 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT911-2291 _AN-BEABLAA0FT 9105 01 FT 01 MAY 91 / Migrants halt decline in Scottish popu lation By JAMES BUXTON, Scottish Correspondent THE long-running gentle decline in the Scottish population was r eversed last year for the first time since the mid-1970s as Scotland, normal ly a reliable source of emigrants, received an influx of migrants. In the ye ar to June 30 1990 the estimated population rose by 11,700 to 5,102,400, acc ording to Scotland's registrar general. A net 13,500 people migrated into Sc otland, most of them from the rest of Britain, but also from abroad. This of fset a natural fall in the population of 1,400 caused by a high number of de aths from influenza in the winter of 1989-90 and a relatively low number of births. The gradual decline in the Scottish population and, until recently, high levels of emigration have long been a matter of concern to the governme nt, as well as a source of political point scoring by opposition parties, no tably the Scottish National party. The Financial Times < PAGE> London Page 8 ============= Transaction # 210 ============================================== Transaction #: 210 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:23:24 Selec. Rec. #: 4 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT911-2291 _AN-BEABLAA0FT 9105 01 FT 01 MAY 91 / Migrants halt decline in Scottish popu lation By JAMES BUXTON, Scottish Correspondent THE long-running gentle decline in the Scottish population was r eversed last year for the first time since the mid-1970s as Scotland, normal ly a reliable source of emigrants, received an influx of migrants. In the ye ar to June 30 1990 the estimated population rose by 11,700 to 5,102,400, acc ording to Scotland's registrar general. A net 13,500 people migrated into Sc otland, most of them from the rest of Britain, but also from abroad. This of fset a natural fall in the population of 1,400 caused by a high number of de aths from influenza in the winter of 1989-90 and a relatively low number of births. The gradual decline in the Scottish population and, until recently, high levels of emigration have long been a matter of concern to the governme nt, as well as a source of political point scoring by opposition parties, no tably the Scottish National party. The Financial Times < PAGE> London Page 8 ============= Transaction # 211 ============================================== Transaction #: 211 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:23:25 Selec. Rec. #: 4 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT911-2291 _AN-BEABLAA0FT 9105 01 FT 01 MAY 91 / Migrants halt decline in Scottish popu lation By JAMES BUXTON, Scottish Correspondent THE long-running gentle decline in the Scottish population was r eversed last year for the first time since the mid-1970s as Scotland, normal ly a reliable source of emigrants, received an influx of migrants. In the ye ar to June 30 1990 the estimated population rose by 11,700 to 5,102,400, acc ording to Scotland's registrar general. A net 13,500 people migrated into Sc otland, most of them from the rest of Britain, but also from abroad. This of fset a natural fall in the population of 1,400 caused by a high number of de aths from influenza in the winter of 1989-90 and a relatively low number of births. The gradual decline in the Scottish population and, until recently, high levels of emigration have long been a matter of concern to the governme nt, as well as a source of political point scoring by opposition parties, no tably the Scottish National party. The Financial Times < PAGE> London Page 8 ============= Transaction # 212 ============================================== Transaction #: 212 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:23:35 Selec. Rec. #: 5 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT911-135 _AN-BENBQAC0FT 91051 4 FT 14 MAY 91 / Survey of Computers in Manufacturing (6 ): Fuzzy logic and robots spell technological advantage - Japan, modifying p roduction philosophies as emphasis shifts back to the human workforce By LORI VALIGRA TOKYO IT seemed laughable at the time: a couple years ago a Japanese manufa cturer replaced some factory line workers with automation machinery, then se t up full-sized cardboard human dummies to keep the remaining workers from g etting lonely. The completely workerless factory is a decade away, but there are a few showcase examples including Fanuc, the machine tool manufacturer' s factory near Mount Fuji, where robots make robots. But until no-human fact ories are realised on a broad scale, factory automation system makers will f ocus their research on bridging the awkward interaction between humans and t he ever increasing number of machines working by their side. In past years m anufacturers put the emphasis on installing labour-saving machines to raise production. They focused on maximising the use of people, money, time and ma terials, and humans had to find a way to fit in with the complex machinery b eginning to surround them. 'Until now humans have had to adapt to use machin es, so the man-machine interface was not well matched,' says Mr Hiroshi Mats uyama, a manager at Omron the programmable controller maker in Tokyo. 'Japan ese industry is now modifying its philosophy. The centre of production has s hifted to human workers, and computers should be matched with humans,' he sa ys. That means designing new software that allows production machinery to be more easily used and changed quickly for different jobs. For example, weldi ng or insertion and using artificial intelligence techniques such as fuzzy l ogic to help robots and computers make better decisions, such as finding an operational failure, through inferences, as humans do. The escalating skille d labour shortage, brought about by a declining birth rate and a more afflue nt and highly educated society, makes robots an important component of facto ry automation, a do-or-die decision for some companies. Strong competition i n industries such as shipping has resulted in waves of investment in labour- saving technology such as steel and aluminium cutting tools, processing mach ines and welding robots. The rise in the labour force is expected to be 0.8 per cent a year until 1993, then it is likely to fall off by half to 0.4 per cent until 2000, according to Japanese government statistics. During that t ime Japan expects to keep about a 4 per cent annual economic growth rate. 'T o achieve this it is necessary to introduce automation technology,' says Mr Kanji Yonemoto, vice-chairman of the Japan Industrial Robot Association (Jir a) in Tokyo. An even more remarkable shift in Japan's economy is the switch from a manufacturing to a service economy. Jobs in services pay better. Mr Y onemoto says there will be 1.5m fewer blue-collar workers in manufacturing b y 2000 than in 1989, when there was a shortage of 715,800 people. Today's yo ung people are a different breed of worker from those who laboured long hour s for little pay to build Japan's industrial miracle. They want to avoid so- called '3K' work: 'kiken' (dangerous), 'kitanai' (dirty) and 'kitsui' (hard) . 'Older men were very patient and had the Bushido (warrior) morale, but it is hard to find these people today,' says Mr Matsuyama. Replacing them with machinery takes time and money. Omron, which produces programmable controlle rs and other electronics products, sees the improvements that can be made in factory automation as almost limitless and including diagnosing system fail ures and other management tasks. The improvements span a broad factory autom ation market valued at almost Y2,000bn and covering every aspect of making a product from design through production and inspection. The important compon ents of automating a factory are numerical controllers, the largest chunk of the market, as well as computer-aided design and manufacturing software and equipment, industrial robots, programmable controllers, automated warehouse s, computers and automatic guided vehicles that transport products throughou t a plant site. Japan leads the world in both producing and using these prod uction components. It has replaced Germany as the biggest exporter of machin e tools, an important indicator of industrial development and economic power . Japan has an estimated 23 per cent of the world market compared to the 16 per cent held by Germany. Five Japanese companies are making machine tools i n Europe. Mazak Yamazaki, for example, has a Dollars 50m factory in Worceste r, in the UK which produces some 100 computer-controlled machines a month, a ccording to industry estimates. Japan's worldwide share of the fast-growing robot market is even more impressive: it has 57.5 per cent of the robot inst allations worldwide, with western Europe having 14.5 per cent and the US 9.5 per cent. Japan's main advantages are that workers in automotive, electroni cs and other factories are accustomed to and readily accept automation techn ology, product demand is still strong in the home market, and Japanese manuf acturers make most of the machines they use for automation, so there is litt le competition from imports. The electronics industry is the biggest user of automation technology. At its Ome design and manufacturing works west of To kyo, Toshiba uses its own laptop computers for design, development and assem bly of new Toshiba laptops. The laptops are used to compute how easily a new computer model can be assembled by a line of 12 workers, who can slap toget her one notebook-size Dynabook computer in a few minutes. That's important, because the company is making about 1m laptops a year at Ome, and the life s pan of each new product is getting increasingly shorter amid hot competition . 'Often it's the case with some products that the effective life span is al ready over by the time it goes to the market place,' says Mr Masao Suga, who heads the personal computer research and development department at Ome. How ever, the shortening product life spans, which run from six months for a Jap anese word processor to about three years for laptops, made it increasingly difficult for Toshiba to continue using robots. Toshiba replicates about 70 per cent of design work from current models in new ones. While it took Toshi ba three years to develop the T3100 and J3100 laptops from scratch, it took only nine months to design the smaller-size Dynabook. Though its factory is about 70-80 per cent automated, visitors to the company often comment about the number of people still present on the manufacturing lines, but Mr Suga s ays that with the fast-paced product life cycles, humans are needed. 'There are problems with automated systems. They can't catch up with new technology , so humans are acting as universal super robots,' he adds. Fuzzy logic may help close the gap. Mr Yonemoto of Jira says fuzzy logic, software that can help make a decision from unclear information, will help increase the versat ility of robots in the future by affording better control of their movements . Omron, a leader in using fuzzy technology, has developed a test robot that can grasp soft or fragile items, such as tofu (bean curd). In a New Year's address to employees, Mr Yoshio Tateisi, company president, identified fuzzy logic as an important research area for the 1990s. By 1994, more than 20 pe r cent of Omron's product line will include some type of fuzzy logic. Accord ing to Mr Matsuyama, fuzzy logic has many benefits. As part of a computer-in tegrated manufacturing (Cim) system it can be used in production and in mana ging the company. 'Another merit of fuzzy technology is to replace a person where computers are hard to use, for example, controlling a nuclear power ge neration plant's circulation control system to clean water and to make decis ions. Perhaps the Chernobyl or Mihama plant accidents could have been avoide d with these systems,' he says. Fuzzy logic, along with more flexible robots and other components, spell another technological advantage for Japan in th e future: being able to change small-scale production quickly, so that multi ple products can be produced on the same factory line in one day. Mr Matsuya ma predicts Japanese manufacturers will become very good at this small-scale production, which is a difficult technology demanding ultimate flexibility. Computerisation would be all the more necessary in production in the sense that market information should be more effectively connected with the produc tion process or with the factory itself. But large-scale flexible production without man will take 8-10 years says Matsushita Electric in Osaka. The com pany believes fuzzy logic, along with neurocomputing technology which more c losely mimics the human brain, will be the main technologies once they are r efined. The Financial Times London Page IV ============= Transaction # 213 ============================================== Transaction #: 213 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:23:41 Selec. Rec. #: 5 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT911-135 _AN-BENBQAC0FT 91051 4 FT 14 MAY 91 / Survey of Computers in Manufacturing (6 ): Fuzzy logic and robots spell technological advantage - Japan, modifying p roduction philosophies as emphasis shifts back to the human workforce By LORI VALIGRA TOKYO IT seemed laughable at the time: a couple years ago a Japanese manufa cturer replaced some factory line workers with automation machinery, then se t up full-sized cardboard human dummies to keep the remaining workers from g etting lonely. The completely workerless factory is a decade away, but there are a few showcase examples including Fanuc, the machine tool manufacturer' s factory near Mount Fuji, where robots make robots. But until no-human fact ories are realised on a broad scale, factory automation system makers will f ocus their research on bridging the awkward interaction between humans and t he ever increasing number of machines working by their side. In past years m anufacturers put the emphasis on installing labour-saving machines to raise production. They focused on maximising the use of people, money, time and ma terials, and humans had to find a way to fit in with the complex machinery b eginning to surround them. 'Until now humans have had to adapt to use machin es, so the man-machine interface was not well matched,' says Mr Hiroshi Mats uyama, a manager at Omron the programmable controller maker in Tokyo. 'Japan ese industry is now modifying its philosophy. The centre of production has s hifted to human workers, and computers should be matched with humans,' he sa ys. That means designing new software that allows production machinery to be more easily used and changed quickly for different jobs. For example, weldi ng or insertion and using artificial intelligence techniques such as fuzzy l ogic to help robots and computers make better decisions, such as finding an operational failure, through inferences, as humans do. The escalating skille d labour shortage, brought about by a declining birth rate and a more afflue nt and highly educated society, makes robots an important component of facto ry automation, a do-or-die decision for some companies. Strong competition i n industries such as shipping has resulted in waves of investment in labour- saving technology such as steel and aluminium cutting tools, processing mach ines and welding robots. The rise in the labour force is expected to be 0.8 per cent a year until 1993, then it is likely to fall off by half to 0.4 per cent until 2000, according to Japanese government statistics. During that t ime Japan expects to keep about a 4 per cent annual economic growth rate. 'T o achieve this it is necessary to introduce automation technology,' says Mr Kanji Yonemoto, vice-chairman of the Japan Industrial Robot Association (Jir a) in Tokyo. An even more remarkable shift in Japan's economy is the switch from a manufacturing to a service economy. Jobs in services pay better. Mr Y onemoto says there will be 1.5m fewer blue-collar workers in manufacturing b y 2000 than in 1989, when there was a shortage of 715,800 people. Today's yo ung people are a different breed of worker from those who laboured long hour s for little pay to build Japan's industrial miracle. They want to avoid so- called '3K' work: 'kiken' (dangerous), 'kitanai' (dirty) and 'kitsui' (hard) . 'Older men were very patient and had the Bushido (warrior) morale, but it is hard to find these people today,' says Mr Matsuyama. Replacing them with machinery takes time and money. Omron, which produces programmable controlle rs and other electronics products, sees the improvements that can be made in factory automation as almost limitless and including diagnosing system fail ures and other management tasks. The improvements span a broad factory autom ation market valued at almost Y2,000bn and covering every aspect of making a product from design through production and inspection. The important compon ents of automating a factory are numerical controllers, the largest chunk of the market, as well as computer-aided design and manufacturing software and equipment, industrial robots, programmable controllers, automated warehouse s, computers and automatic guided vehicles that transport products throughou t a plant site. Japan leads the world in both producing and using these prod uction components. It has replaced Germany as the biggest exporter of machin e tools, an important indicator of industrial development and economic power . Japan has an estimated 23 per cent of the world market compared to the 16 per cent held by Germany. Five Japanese companies are making machine tools i n Europe. Mazak Yamazaki, for example, has a Dollars 50m factory in Worceste r, in the UK which produces some 100 computer-controlled machines a month, a ccording to industry estimates. Japan's worldwide share of the fast-growing robot market is even more impressive: it has 57.5 per cent of the robot inst allations worldwide, with western Europe having 14.5 per cent and the US 9.5 per cent. Japan's main advantages are that workers in automotive, electroni cs and other factories are accustomed to and readily accept automation techn ology, product demand is still strong in the home market, and Japanese manuf acturers make most of the machines they use for automation, so there is litt le competition from imports. The electronics industry is the biggest user of automation technology. At its Ome design and manufacturing works west of To kyo, Toshiba uses its own laptop computers for design, development and assem bly of new Toshiba laptops. The laptops are used to compute how easily a new computer model can be assembled by a line of 12 workers, who can slap toget her one notebook-size Dynabook computer in a few minutes. That's important, because the company is making about 1m laptops a year at Ome, and the life s pan of each new product is getting increasingly shorter amid hot competition . 'Often it's the case with some products that the effective life span is al ready over by the time it goes to the market place,' says Mr Masao Suga, who heads the personal computer research and development department at Ome. How ever, the shortening product life spans, which run from six months for a Jap anese word processor to about three years for laptops, made it increasingly difficult for Toshiba to continue using robots. Toshiba replicates about 70 per cent of design work from current models in new ones. While it took Toshi ba three years to develop the T3100 and J3100 laptops from scratch, it took only nine months to design the smaller-size Dynabook. Though its factory is about 70-80 per cent automated, visitors to the company often comment about the number of people still present on the manufacturing lines, but Mr Suga s ays that with the fast-paced product life cycles, humans are needed. 'There are problems with automated systems. They can't catch up with new technology , so humans are acting as universal super robots,' he adds. Fuzzy logic may help close the gap. Mr Yonemoto of Jira says fuzzy logic, software that can help make a decision from unclear information, will help increase the versat ility of robots in the future by affording better control of their movements . Omron, a leader in using fuzzy technology, has developed a test robot that can grasp soft or fragile items, such as tofu (bean curd). In a New Year's address to employees, Mr Yoshio Tateisi, company president, identified fuzzy logic as an important research area for the 1990s. By 1994, more than 20 pe r cent of Omron's product line will include some type of fuzzy logic. Accord ing to Mr Matsuyama, fuzzy logic has many benefits. As part of a computer-in tegrated manufacturing (Cim) system it can be used in production and in mana ging the company. 'Another merit of fuzzy technology is to replace a person where computers are hard to use, for example, controlling a nuclear power ge neration plant's circulation control system to clean water and to make decis ions. Perhaps the Chernobyl or Mihama plant accidents could have been avoide d with these systems,' he says. Fuzzy logic, along with more flexible robots and other components, spell another technological advantage for Japan in th e future: being able to change small-scale production quickly, so that multi ple products can be produced on the same factory line in one day. Mr Matsuya ma predicts Japanese manufacturers will become very good at this small-scale production, which is a difficult technology demanding ultimate flexibility. Computerisation would be all the more necessary in production in the sense that market information should be more effectively connected with the produc tion process or with the factory itself. But large-scale flexible production without man will take 8-10 years says Matsushita Electric in Osaka. The com pany believes fuzzy logic, along with neurocomputing technology which more c losely mimics the human brain, will be the main technologies once they are r efined. The Financial Times London Page IV ============= Transaction # 214 ============================================== Transaction #: 214 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:23:42 Selec. Rec. #: 5 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT911-135 _AN-BENBQAC0FT 91051 4 FT 14 MAY 91 / Survey of Computers in Manufacturing (6 ): Fuzzy logic and robots spell technological advantage - Japan, modifying p roduction philosophies as emphasis shifts back to the human workforce By LORI VALIGRA TOKYO IT seemed laughable at the time: a couple years ago a Japanese manufa cturer replaced some factory line workers with automation machinery, then se t up full-sized cardboard human dummies to keep the remaining workers from g etting lonely. The completely workerless factory is a decade away, but there are a few showcase examples including Fanuc, the machine tool manufacturer' s factory near Mount Fuji, where robots make robots. But until no-human fact ories are realised on a broad scale, factory automation system makers will f ocus their research on bridging the awkward interaction between humans and t he ever increasing number of machines working by their side. In past years m anufacturers put the emphasis on installing labour-saving machines to raise production. They focused on maximising the use of people, money, time and ma terials, and humans had to find a way to fit in with the complex machinery b eginning to surround them. 'Until now humans have had to adapt to use machin es, so the man-machine interface was not well matched,' says Mr Hiroshi Mats uyama, a manager at Omron the programmable controller maker in Tokyo. 'Japan ese industry is now modifying its philosophy. The centre of production has s hifted to human workers, and computers should be matched with humans,' he sa ys. That means designing new software that allows production machinery to be more easily used and changed quickly for different jobs. For example, weldi ng or insertion and using artificial intelligence techniques such as fuzzy l ogic to help robots and computers make better decisions, such as finding an operational failure, through inferences, as humans do. The escalating skille d labour shortage, brought about by a declining birth rate and a more afflue nt and highly educated society, makes robots an important component of facto ry automation, a do-or-die decision for some companies. Strong competition i n industries such as shipping has resulted in waves of investment in labour- saving technology such as steel and aluminium cutting tools, processing mach ines and welding robots. The rise in the labour force is expected to be 0.8 per cent a year until 1993, then it is likely to fall off by half to 0.4 per cent until 2000, according to Japanese government statistics. During that t ime Japan expects to keep about a 4 per cent annual economic growth rate. 'T o achieve this it is necessary to introduce automation technology,' says Mr Kanji Yonemoto, vice-chairman of the Japan Industrial Robot Association (Jir a) in Tokyo. An even more remarkable shift in Japan's economy is the switch from a manufacturing to a service economy. Jobs in services pay better. Mr Y onemoto says there will be 1.5m fewer blue-collar workers in manufacturing b y 2000 than in 1989, when there was a shortage of 715,800 people. Today's yo ung people are a different breed of worker from those who laboured long hour s for little pay to build Japan's industrial miracle. They want to avoid so- called '3K' work: 'kiken' (dangerous), 'kitanai' (dirty) and 'kitsui' (hard) . 'Older men were very patient and had the Bushido (warrior) morale, but it is hard to find these people today,' says Mr Matsuyama. Replacing them with machinery takes time and money. Omron, which produces programmable controlle rs and other electronics products, sees the improvements that can be made in factory automation as almost limitless and including diagnosing system fail ures and other management tasks. The improvements span a broad factory autom ation market valued at almost Y2,000bn and covering every aspect of making a product from design through production and inspection. The important compon ents of automating a factory are numerical controllers, the largest chunk of the market, as well as computer-aided design and manufacturing software and equipment, industrial robots, programmable controllers, automated warehouse s, computers and automatic guided vehicles that transport products throughou t a plant site. Japan leads the world in both producing and using these prod uction components. It has replaced Germany as the biggest exporter of machin e tools, an important indicator of industrial development and economic power . Japan has an estimated 23 per cent of the world market compared to the 16 per cent held by Germany. Five Japanese companies are making machine tools i n Europe. Mazak Yamazaki, for example, has a Dollars 50m factory in Worceste r, in the UK which produces some 100 computer-controlled machines a month, a ccording to industry estimates. Japan's worldwide share of the fast-growing robot market is even more impressive: it has 57.5 per cent of the robot inst allations worldwide, with western Europe having 14.5 per cent and the US 9.5 per cent. Japan's main advantages are that workers in automotive, electroni cs and other factories are accustomed to and readily accept automation techn ology, product demand is still strong in the home market, and Japanese manuf acturers make most of the machines they use for automation, so there is litt le competition from imports. The electronics industry is the biggest user of automation technology. At its Ome design and manufacturing works west of To kyo, Toshiba uses its own laptop computers for design, development and assem bly of new Toshiba laptops. The laptops are used to compute how easily a new computer model can be assembled by a line of 12 workers, who can slap toget her one notebook-size Dynabook computer in a few minutes. That's important, because the company is making about 1m laptops a year at Ome, and the life s pan of each new product is getting increasingly shorter amid hot competition . 'Often it's the case with some products that the effective life span is al ready over by the time it goes to the market place,' says Mr Masao Suga, who heads the personal computer research and development department at Ome. How ever, the shortening product life spans, which run from six months for a Jap anese word processor to about three years for laptops, made it increasingly difficult for Toshiba to continue using robots. Toshiba replicates about 70 per cent of design work from current models in new ones. While it took Toshi ba three years to develop the T3100 and J3100 laptops from scratch, it took only nine months to design the smaller-size Dynabook. Though its factory is about 70-80 per cent automated, visitors to the company often comment about the number of people still present on the manufacturing lines, but Mr Suga s ays that with the fast-paced product life cycles, humans are needed. 'There are problems with automated systems. They can't catch up with new technology , so humans are acting as universal super robots,' he adds. Fuzzy logic may help close the gap. Mr Yonemoto of Jira says fuzzy logic, software that can help make a decision from unclear information, will help increase the versat ility of robots in the future by affording better control of their movements . Omron, a leader in using fuzzy technology, has developed a test robot that can grasp soft or fragile items, such as tofu (bean curd). In a New Year's address to employees, Mr Yoshio Tateisi, company president, identified fuzzy logic as an important research area for the 1990s. By 1994, more than 20 pe r cent of Omron's product line will include some type of fuzzy logic. Accord ing to Mr Matsuyama, fuzzy logic has many benefits. As part of a computer-in tegrated manufacturing (Cim) system it can be used in production and in mana ging the company. 'Another merit of fuzzy technology is to replace a person where computers are hard to use, for example, controlling a nuclear power ge neration plant's circulation control system to clean water and to make decis ions. Perhaps the Chernobyl or Mihama plant accidents could have been avoide d with these systems,' he says. Fuzzy logic, along with more flexible robots and other components, spell another technological advantage for Japan in th e future: being able to change small-scale production quickly, so that multi ple products can be produced on the same factory line in one day. Mr Matsuya ma predicts Japanese manufacturers will become very good at this small-scale production, which is a difficult technology demanding ultimate flexibility. Computerisation would be all the more necessary in production in the sense that market information should be more effectively connected with the produc tion process or with the factory itself. But large-scale flexible production without man will take 8-10 years says Matsushita Electric in Osaka. The com pany believes fuzzy logic, along with neurocomputing technology which more c losely mimics the human brain, will be the main technologies once they are r efined. The Financial Times London Page IV ============= Transaction # 215 ============================================== Transaction #: 215 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:24:09 Selec. Rec. #: 7 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-6189 _AN-CB1BLAFUFT 9202 28 FT 28 FEB 92 / The Mood Of Britain: Clearing up after one hell of a party - Michael Cassell concludes his pre-election trip aroun d the UK. He finds a sense of optimism in Essex, in contrast to the deep pes simism that persists in other areas of the country which have lost their pas t and not found a future By MICHAEL CASSELL BOSS CARS, one of the flashier motor dealers out along the Romford Road, stands ominously empty. It seems the customers went first, followed in quick succession by the cars and then the boss. 'We've got more motors to f log than Fergie's got fellas,' claims Trevor Satoretti, one of the surviving cheeky-chappy dealers kicking their heels on car lots to the east of centra l London. 'If you offered a free motor with every gallon of petrol you still wouldn't shift them,' he says. Trade is bad, he adds, but declines to put h is theory to the test. Much of the route from the City out through Bow, Stra tford, Forest Gate and Manor Park towards Essex proper, the land of conspicu ous consumption, is lined by unchanging inner-urban neglect. In spite of app earances the local economy has until recently been thriving. In places like Chadwell Heath the fortunes of first-generation retailers have flourished on the strength of fat pay packets and easy credit. Video super-markets vied f or business with satellite television distributors and camcorder and compute r-game specialists. Beyond Dagenham, with its rows of privatised, customised council homes boasting satellite dishes and festoon curtains, lie Gidea Par k and Harold Wood. Here, people like Henry France, an office equipment suppl ier, have made a 'quick turn' on privatisation share issues and have begun t o worry about inheritance taxes. Driveways are jammed with Mitsubishi Shogun s and Suzuki Vitaras. 'Some of these houses need car park attendants,' mutte rs Nesta Beglan, a cleaning lady heading along The Ridgeway. The good times rolled in Essex in the 1980s. It became a cliche for base materialism and th e butt of jokes in which the local youth are portrayed as sex-crazed simplet ons loaded with cash. (By way of a printable example - Essex girl to friend: 'Do you like Chanel No. 5?' Answer: 'No, I only watch Sky One.') Lynne Tran som is the real thing; a 22-year old Essex girl who lives in Barking and com mutes into the City to work. She says of the jokes: 'Many are based on the i dea we've got above our station, that we're better off but can't handle it. Talk about a classless society - it's pure snobbery.' Lynne and her family r emain optimistic in spite of the recession. 'Times are harder, but we haven' t done badly at all and want to do better,' she says. The Greek island of My konos, not Leigh-on-Sea, is this year's holiday destination. But if the 1980 s saw a materialistic binge, the early 1990s brought the hangover. Mallards, the Ilford jewellers, advertises cash loans against the diamonds or Rolex w atches bought in better times. 'Mrs Thatcher invited everyone to the party, then made them pay for their own drinks and left them to clear up afterwards ,' claims George Wickham, a former police sergeant from Brentwood. 'We had a brief spell of prosperity, but I doubt we've made much real progress.' He p oints to the alienation of the 'have nots' from the 'haves'. The plight of t hose who have temporarily tasted a better life, only to have their aspiratio ns dashed by the recession, can seem particularly hard. At Seven Kings, beyo nd Ilford, the streets are lined with Victorian villas converted into double -glazed castles. Dozens are for sale. Roy Ellis, a 30-year-old toolmaker, wa nts Pounds 67,000 for his three-bedroomed home close to the station. A forme r council tenant, he has no regrets about buying but needs something cheaper to ease the family budget: 'Buying a home was supposed to be a one-way bet. But loads of owners here have had to jack it in.' Ellis is not exaggerating . Mortgage arrears hearings at Ilford County Court rose by more than three q uarters last year, with about half the cases resulting in repossession. With nearly 10,000 jobless people on the Ilford register, local job centres rece ntly had just 64 vacancies. Winston Simms, an unemployed roofer from Hornchu rch, is looking for building work: 'I did well for a bit but I'm right back where I was seven years ago,' he says. 'Isn't everyone?' In spite of reposse ssions and the credit card debts, the answer to that question for most Essex men and women appears to be 'No'. Working people here have invariably asser ted themselves and live their lives the way they want; they rarely reminisce about some past golden age. There may be anger, a feeling of betrayal borne out of a return to relative hardship, but for most there remains more of a sense of delayed advancement which they expect to resume. The optimism is by no means universally shared around the country, and deep pessimism persists in areas which have lost their past and not found a future. It is, however, possible at the end of the journey to draw together some common strands jou rney which will form the backdrop to the coming election. For the majority, most of the 1980s were materially good. Real household incomes rose by more than a quarter; many people surprised themselves and bought homes, shares an d even timeshares. The British became sceptical of government's ability to i ntervene and prevent industrial decline; coalmines and steelworks were shut, eliciting human sympathy but invoking a new realism about the value of stat e-sponsored rescues. About 1m more people became self-employed - though not always because they wanted to. The British were not weaned off the state; th e economic shake-out forced the many jobless to become directly dependent up on it. And though people may yet accept the princi-ple of more choice in the public sector, it is to the state they expect to turn for education, health and public transport. By the end of the 1980s, deep reservations also persi sted about the legitimate parameters of private enterprise. In the end, high er bills and higher boardroom salaries helped give privatisation a rather sh ady reputation. The 'divided nation' of north against south is not a cliche, though this recession has temporarily inverted the old order, with the sout h faring worst. The most notable division, however, is not purely geographic but also economic. Since 1979 the top half of the population raised its inc ome by four times, the poorer half by only one quarter. The solidarity which bound those in and out of work in areas of deprivation has also broken down . Surveys invariably show Britain as a contented nation, but it has the seco nd-highest divorce rate in Europe, a quarter of all households consist of a single person and births outside wedlock have more than doubled in 10 years. The family, another political pedestal of the 1980s, is being redefined. 'L arge numbers of people have no one close to them to talk to, but they now ap pear more prepared to seek out someone who may help,' says Philip Hills, bra nch director of the Samaritans in Colchester, trying to explain the 50 per c ent increase in cases on his books. 'Many have done very well for themselves and their families in recent years. But human hopes and problems remain bas ically the same.' In the 1987 general election, with Thatcherism at its heig ht, Labour made a play for the nation's social conscience. The argument cent red on the case for lower taxes for some or better public provision for all. The Tories claimed they could do both. Five years ago, Labour resoundingly lost the debate and the vote. This time it is trying the same tack, appealin g to the voters' to follow it on to the higher, more expensive moral ground. Its real challenge is to convince the voters that, like them, it no longer has hang-ups about wealth-creation and prosperity and that it can deliver, i n a constructive partnership between state and private enterprise, a better future. Mr John Major, who must strive to sharpen the contrast in political messages when most of the differences seem slight, must demonstrate that unp opular elements of his political bequest have been exorcised. His task is to promote a kinder, gentler Toryism, capable of looking after those knocked o ff the ladder of opportunity, but primarily intent on promoting individual r ights, choices and personal ownership. If the opinion polls are to be believ ed, people from the Isle of Skye to the Isle of Sheppey remain divided on wh ich flag to follow. Other articles in this series: Monday, Skye; Tuesday, Ne wcastle upon Tyne; Wednesday, Lincolnshire; Thursday, Birmingham and the Rho ndda. The Financial Times London Page 7 Map (Omit ted). Photograph Driving a bargain, Essex became the butt of jokes and a cli che for base materialism (Omitted). ============= Transaction # 216 ============================================== Transaction #: 216 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:24:17 Selec. Rec. #: 8 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-7010 _AN-CBYA2ADVFT 9202 25 FT 25 FEB 92 / Russia braced for large output cuts By LEYLA BOULTON MOSCOW A FURTHER sharp fall in Russia's industrial production is inevi table but action will be taken to stimulate sectors which decline by more th an 50 per cent over the next few months, the Russian government said yesterd ay. Mr Andrei Nechayev, head of the newly recreated Economics Ministry, fore cast that output would fall 'significantly' in the next two months as a resu lt of the government's tight monetary and credit policy. The first sector li kely to experience a slump was agricultural machinery, but taxation and othe r financial benefits would be deployed to help. The minister also announced plans to free the domestic price of oil and gas at the end of April as part of the effort to stabilise prices. The step will deal a further blow to indu stry accustomed to cheap energy. The state-controlled domestic price of oil is Rbs350 a tonne. The price of coal is also to be freed on April 15, althou gh the price of coking coal, crucial to the metallurgy industry, is to remai n fixed. Pleading for restraint on the part of workers to help avoid hyperin flation, Mr Nechayev said that the government's agreement under duress to in crease the pay of coalminers in the northern Voruta region was a dangerous p recedent which could spark a chain reaction and torpedo the government's who le reform programme. He said prices this month had risen 10-12 per cent comp ared to last February. The Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs produced figures showing that industrial output in the whole of the former Soviet Union had fallen 17 per cent in January. Although the defence industr y is being cut, the 27 per cent fall in steel production for January will hu rt other industries such as agricultural machinery. Coal output was down 10 per cent and oil 12 per cent. Professor Yeveny Yasin, the industrialists' pr ominent economist, warned that production in the next two months could fall to half last year's level. He said the decline was partly because of the dis ruption of traditional supplies between enterprises, and partly because of t ight credit. Russia, the only one of the former Soviet republics to have mad e debt payments, is refusing to attend debt talks organised by the Ukrainian s in Kiev today. Russian officials said they were irritated by Ukraine's fai lure to send a high-level official to a meeting on the more than Dollars 60b n debt in Moscow yesterday, as well as by the fact it had not taken part in previous debt meetings. Ukraine, which wants to pay its share separately and rejects a memorandum undertaking joint and several responsibility for the d ebt, joined the meeting in Moscow, but did not adhere to any of its conclusi ons. Painful birth, Page 18 The Financial Times L ondon Page 3 Photograph President Boris Yeltsin braves the snow to visit the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexis yesterday at the Danilovsky Monastery in Moscow (Omitted). ============= Transaction # 217 ============================================== Transaction #: 217 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:24:31 Selec. Rec. #: 10 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-10372 _AN-CBFBEAD5FT 920 206 FT 06 FEB 92 / Mohammed is favourite name for Israel i babies By HUGH CARNEGY and REUTER JERUSALEM, WASHINGTON IN ISRAEL last year, the mo st popular name for newborn babies was not Moshe, or Rachel, but Mohammed. T hird most popular, according to Interior Ministry figures, was Ahmed. The ex planation lies in the fact that the birth rate among Israel's Arab minority is much greater, proportionately, than among the Jewish population, a trend which has profound long-term political implications. Official figures show t hat in 1991, Israel's 4.1m Jews produced 71,000 babies, while the Arab popul ation of 900,000 produced 30,000. The official Arab numbers include 150,000 in occupied East Jerusalem but not those in the West Bank and Gaza. Israeli concern to prevent a steady erosion of the Jewish majority is one of the rea sons the country's leaders have rejoiced at the flood of Jewish immigration from the former Soviet Union over the past two years. It is also one of the reasons why there is anxiety over a recent fall in the numbers of olim, or i mmigrants, arriving from the Commonwealth of Independent States. In 1991 and 1990, immigration totalled more than 370,000, the vast majority coming from Russia and other former Soviet states. This boosted annual Jewish populatio n growth to more than 5 per cent, ahead of the Arab rate of about 3 per cent for the first time in some years. With officials confidently predicting the arrival of a further 600,000 to 700,000 Jews from the CIS by mid-decade, th e Israeli fear that the Arab minority would within three decades account fro m more than one quarter of the population - gaining, for example, enough ele ctoral power to make or break governments - receded. Officials talked of the Jewish state gaining 'critical mass'. However, the severe economic difficul ties engendered by immigration, particularly unemployment of 10 per cent and rising, have recently been blamed for a sharp decline in the the numbers of immigrants from the CIS. In January, immigration totalled just under 7,375, of whom 6,237 were from former Soviet territories, the lowest monthly count since the explosion of Soviet emigration in late 1989. 'I think we are on t he verge of missing a big opportunity for immigration because of the hardshi ps of severe unemployment and housing problems,' said Mr Uri Gordon, a senio r official at the Jewish Agency, the body responsible for immigration, last week. 'Continuation of the current situation could slowly extinguish immigra tion.' That view is seen by many as too pessimistic. A few years ago, monthl y Jewish immigration of more than 5,000 would have been seen as a spectacula r achievement by the government. If so, the Jewishness of the Jewish state w ill be cemented. But in the broader context of both Israel and the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, the immigration wave is not expected to delay for very long the catch-up effect of a faster Arab birth-rate. Reuter adds from Washington: Mr James Baker, the secretary of state, said yesterday the US wo uld not grant Israel the Dollars 10bn loan guarantees unless it was sure the money would not be used to promote policies it opposed. Speaking to the Sen ate foreign relations committee, Mr Baker made it clear the US was by no mea ns committed to giving Israel any or all of the aid it has requested to pay for the immigration of hundreds of thousands of people from the former Sovie t Union. He did not mention the word 'settlements' but that clearly was his intent when he said: 'We should give consideration to those things that woul d make it clear that if we were going to do this we would do it in a manner that supported United States policy and not in manner that ran counter to Un ited States policy.' The Financial Times London P age 4 ============= Transaction # 218 ============================================== Transaction #: 218 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:25:04 Selec. Rec. #: 11 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-11463 _AN-CA4AUADKFT 920 131 FT 31 JAN 92 / Survey of World Industrial Review (1) : Engines of growth slow down - The down-turn may be more than merely cyclic al By CHARLES LEADBEATER TWO of the world's youngest and healthiest industries, electronics and the aerospace a nd aviation sector, have reached a painful turning point. Last year there wa s a growing recognition that these industries have reached a moment which co uld change the course of their evolution and their role as engines of growth . The changes sweeping through these industries will profoundly affect the c ompanies which make them up, the people who work within them, their customer s and suppliers in the next few years. Their travails in 1992 will be set ag ainst the backdrop of slower economic growth, intensifying competition in ol der industries such as cars, and painful restructuring in steel and chemical s. Electronics and the aviation/aerospace industry have both enjoyed near pe rmanent growth since their birth after World War Two. They have not suffered the cyclical swings in demand which have become common in older manufacturi ng industries established in the 1920s and 1930s such as chemicals, motor ca rs and electrical goods. In the past year, both electronics and aviation/aer ospace have been hit by slower economic growth, in the wake of the Gulf War. But doubts about their health run deeper than the chill they have caught fr om the recession. Both industries face structural challenges which could sap their dynamism. In electronics, the doubts have been raised largely by succ ess in generating new technology. Semi-conductor manufacturers used to a rea dy demand for their products are cutting production and investment because o f doubts about the demand for their most sophisticated chips. The computer i ndustry has been accustomed to growth rates of 20 per cent a year over the 3 0 years since its birth. In the past year it has come to a shuddering halt. The choices facing computer makers are daunting. The cost of backing a techn ology which proves unpopular is huge. But the costs of success - research on successive generations of hardware and software - are also huge, while marg ins earned on finished products are falling as computing power becomes an ov ersupplied commodity. Computer users who even five years ago might have been so dazzled by new technology have become more dubious about the benefits of information technology. Consumer electronics companies for years they have made money through incremental improvements to familiar products such as tel evisions and hi-fis. Now its growth prospects depend on technological leaps of faith into new products such as high-definition television. In aerospace and aviation the doubts are different. For the first time since World War Tw o, passenger traffic suffered a decline last year. Just as IBM, the heart of the old computer industry, is suffering heavily, so Pan American, the illus trious airline, disappeared last year. Just as significantly for aerospace m anufacturers the end of the Cold War probably spells a permanent reduction i n military funding for expensive aerospace programmes. Meanwhile, there is o nly one major new civil aircraft planned for this decade the Boeing 777. Aro und the world, engine and airframe makers are shedding labour as they adjust to this environment. More mature industries, such as cars, chemicals and st eel are also beset by different degrees of difficulty. In steel, especially in the US and Europe, lower demand has exposed the fragility of the steel ma kers' recovery during the 1980s. The more stable chemical industry is cuttin g costs in a bout of restructuring which has highlighted the strength of pha rmaceuticals. In the western car industry, the lumbering corporate giants su ch as General Motors are still reeling from mounting competition from Japan. None of the problems afflicting these industries will be eased by the econo mic climate in the next year. World growth in 1992 should be marginally stro nger in the second half of the year. However, there are significant risks of a 'growth recession' in the OECD, with the US, UK and Australia taking long er than expected to recover just as Germany and Japan slow down. Painful str uctural change within vital industries combined with slower economic growth will make it more difficult to resolve some of the most pressing political i ssues which will set the framework for industry's development. Five politica l questions will be central. The Japanese economy has grown with its industr ies' exports largely protected by a political umbrella provided by US guardi anship With tension growing over trade in US-Japanese relations, is the Japa nese political class capable of ensuring the umbrella remains in place? The US presidential elections, with the economy still mired in recession, and th e country increasingly troubled by its loss of competitiveness, will test th e strength of protectionism. The next year may prove crucial in European eco nomic integration, determining whether the single market programme succeeds or is overcome by mounting tensions over economic and monetary union. The he alth of the reunified German economy will be central to the rest of Europe. The economic disruption which will flow from the collapse of the Soviet Unio n could impose heavy direct costs upon east European economies as well as gr eat uncertainty in the west. Perhaps the most important issue will be the ou tcome of the Gatt talks to further liberalise world trade. A liberal trading order, enforced by strengthened rules covering virtually all countries and almost all trade flows is within the world's grasp. However, the US is incre asingly attracted to bilateral negotiations to manage trade. In the EC and J apan agricultural lobbies are still powerful. The significance of a failure to secure a Gatt deal would be huge. World trade has led the growth of outpu t through each successive economy cycle since the 1960s, partly because of t he gradual liberalisation of world trade. A failure at Gatt might put in dou bt the role of world trade as an engine of world growth. The Fi nancial Times London Page 11 Illustration (Omitted). < /DOC> ============= Transaction # 219 ============================================== Transaction #: 219 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:25:29 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 148 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 220 ============================================== Transaction #: 220 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:25:33 Selec. Rec. #: 13 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-12447 _AN-CA0BDAA5FT 920 127 FT 27 JAN 92 / Letter: All not lost in family planni ng From Dr MALCOLM POTTS Sir, How d ifficult it is to deal sensibly with family planning. The FT survey on Egypt (January 21) has a story headlined 'Lost: 20m condoms'; but it fails to men tion the progress made in family planning. Few things are more important for the future of Egypt than slowing the growth of human numbers; there are 1m more births than deaths every nine months and the population is likely to do uble by the year 2020. Fortunately, Egyptians want smaller families. Fertili ty is declining and a recent survey found about half of all couples are now using modern contraceptives. This is the result of a successful partnership between the government of Egypt, non-governmental bodies, the private sector and international donors. Indeed, the demand for contraception in the devel oping world is so strong that the lost condoms given such prominence in the FT may have been illicitly sold to neighbouring countries. This is embarrass ing for the monitors of US Agency for International Development, but the con traceptives almost certainly continued to save lives and plan families; it i s neither statistically plausible nor culturally likely that every other Egy ptian is playing with an odd-shaped, lubricated balloon. Malcolm Potts, Fami ly Health International, Cairo, Egypt The Financial Times London Page 13 ============= Transaction # 221 ============================================== Transaction #: 221 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:25:46 Selec. Rec. #: 14 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-12455 _AN-CA0BDAAXFT 920 127 FT 27 JAN 92 / Arts: Milton Keynes, the view from th e grid - Architecture By COLIN AMERY Cities are dense and difficult places. They both elevate and depress the h uman spirit. God and Mammon fight for the city's heart while mere mortals sc urry about their business hoping to find solace from the daily grind. Cities are more than paper diagrams of imposed order. They flower out of adversity and take time to establish their character and culture. They need a purpose higher than mere accommodation, a status beyond statistics. Milton Keynes i n Buckinghamshire is celebrating 25 years of birth pangs this month. It is d escribed as the fastest growing city in Britain - its population when it was designated in 1967 was 18,350, today it is around 150,000. It is the last n ew town to be commissioned in England and in many ways it demonstrates the e asy solution to the problems of our declining cities. It is relatively strai ghtforward to take 22,000 acres of Buckinghamshire farm land and turn it int o an efficient new suburb; it is much harder to plan and organise the rejuve nation of those English cities that exploded in the 19th century and have ne ver quite recovered their equilibrium. No one underestimates the skill and h ard work that goes into persuading people and businesses to relocate to a ne w town. But it cannot be denied that it helps to have a blank sheet, and it certainly helps if your blank sheet can be laid across some desirable meadow s half way between London and Birmingham and near good motorways and railway s. What does Milton Keynes look like after 25 years? How successful is it? C an it be described in any way as a city? When it comes to visibility and civ ic appearances Milton Keynes does not score highly. What you see derives str ictly from the plan created in the late 1960s by Llewelwyn-Davies Weekes For estier-Walker and Bor under the particular guidance of one partner, Richard Llewelwyn-Davies. He was described at the time as 'the intellectual leader o f the scientific wing of English architects'. He was subsequently to become a Labour peer. His plan was for a town dedicated to ease of movement by moto r car. The basis of the plan is a grid of roads; and each kilometre square o f the grid formed the boundary for local development. The grid linked the ex isting settlements at Bletchley, Wolverton and Stony Stratford with the new centre of Milton Keynes. A famous perspective view of the future new city wa s drawn early on by Helmut Jacoby, in which a bubble helicopter hovered over a leafy grid of roads, water and low-rise buildings. His vision was accurat e. You can visit Milton Keynes today and not really notice the town at all b ecause of the effectiveness of the tree planting and landscaping. Actually y ou could just spend your time exploring the double grid: at one level there is the superior network of landscaped roads for cars, and below there is ano ther network of 'Redways', landscaped pedestrian and cycle tracks. In summer , with a bicycle, you could have quite a good day out on the grid. Since the inception of the town, some 15 million trees have been planted, wide plante d verges are everywhere and there must be hundreds of planted roundabouts. B ecause all the buildings are low rise - indeed there was apparently a planni ng instruction that nothing was to be higher than a tree -the town is large ly invisible. Because of this strange sense of arboreal limbo it is quite a shock to dive off the road grid into the housing neighbourhoods. But it is a salutary shock. Here is written the history of British housing design over the last two decades. It is also the history of British architecture. The ne w town assembled good teams of well known architects. Influenced by the grid , early housing like Netherfield ran long, low, flat roofed terraces across half a mile of landscape. Netherfield was designed by Jeremy Dixon, Ed Jones , Chris Cross and Mike Gold. It had aluminium roofs and plastic fins dividin g house from house in the terrace. As the land dropped so did the houses, bu t the long flat roofs continued at one level height throughout, sometimes le aving large gaps between the houses and the roof. Norman Foster's office als o designed some housing for Milton Keynes in the early days at Beanhill. The houses had flat aluminium roofs clad with profiled aluminium panels. This e xperiment failed and after a law suit, pitched roofs were added to the terra ces. Today those sorts of terrible architectural experiments would not be al lowed and the idea of regimented workers' housing - however much part of Lle welwyn-Davies's and others' Leninist dreams - has vanished. A tour of the ho using areas today is, if anything, like a visit to the Ideal Home Exhibition ; 69 per cent of the population are house owners and houses are largely buil t by private developers following standard guidelines. There are good vernac ular 'fishing village' designs by architects like Richard Mac Cormac, Waylan d Tunley, Peter Aldington and Ralph Erskine. There are also mock Tudor house s, Georgian houses, thatched houses, regency houses, and every conceivable v ariety of gingerbread houses. Both Hansel and Gretel would be happy here. Th e town centre and almost all the public and commercial/industrial buildings are in marked contrast to the housing. The enormous shopping centre, which p rovides an indoor street almost as long as Oxford Street, is cool and Miesia n. It has a faint air of Mussolini's new Rome about it, but perhaps that is because of all the travertine. The railway station and offices are mainly gl ass boxes, but there are some more interesting, very new buildings like the polytechnic by Ted Cullinan and the headquarters of Pharmacia by Hobbs Archi tects. There is the brand new ecumenical church, with its dome, at the centr e of the town, designed by PDD architects. This ought to have been much bigg er: the dome does not do what domes are meant to do and sail over the lower buildings. Instead it looks as though it tried to rise above its surrounding s but sighed so deeply that it sank down again. That somehow sums up what I feel about Milton Keynes - it ought to have been wonderful but it isn't. Non e of our really good architects worked on any of the public buildings - and although all the trees are splendid, the built fabric of Milton Keynes is no t of the calibre needed to make it a city. It is the garden suburb adapted f or the car, and oh so carefully planned. The Financial Times London Page 11 Photograph The dome that tried to rise but sighed too deeply, the brand new ecumenical church in the town centre designed by PDD architects (Omitted). ============= Transaction # 222 ============================================== Transaction #: 222 Transaction Code: 6 (Direct Rank Search) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 14:26:14 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 3 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind "(topic @ {birth rate decline})" ============= Transaction # 223 ============================================== Transaction #: 223 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:26:22 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 54452 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 224 ============================================== Transaction #: 224 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:26:26 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT943-11076 _AN-EHBDUAAYFT 940 802 FT 02 AUG 94 / Italian birth rate shrinks By ROBERT GRAHAM ROME Italians risk becoming a vanishing race if current demographic trends con tinue. In 1993 Italy registered a 'birth deficit', with deaths outnumbering the newly born for the first time this century outside the first world war. According to Istat, the national statistics institute, the number of births fell to 538,168 - the lowest level since the unification of Italy. In contra st, the number of deaths rose to 543,433. Compared to 1992, the birth rate f ell from 9.9 to 9.4 per 1,000. If the present trend continues, one recent re search paper suggests Italy's population could fall from 57m to 12m by the y ear 2100. However, the south continues to be prolific and its baby 'surplus' almost compensates for the 'deficit' in the centre and north. Increased wea lth is the main explanation for the decline. But unlike northern European co untries, Italy does not possess an immigrant population with a high birth ra te. Countries:- ITZ Italy, EC. Industries :- P99 Nonclassifiable Establishments. Types:- STATS Statistics. The Financial Times London P age 3 ============= Transaction # 225 ============================================== Transaction #: 225 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:26:34 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT943-11076 _AN-EHBDUAAYFT 940 802 FT 02 AUG 94 / Italian birth rate shrinks By ROBERT GRAHAM ROME Italians risk becoming a vanishing race if current demographic trends con tinue. In 1993 Italy registered a 'birth deficit', with deaths outnumbering the newly born for the first time this century outside the first world war. According to Istat, the national statistics institute, the number of births fell to 538,168 - the lowest level since the unification of Italy. In contra st, the number of deaths rose to 543,433. Compared to 1992, the birth rate f ell from 9.9 to 9.4 per 1,000. If the present trend continues, one recent re search paper suggests Italy's population could fall from 57m to 12m by the y ear 2100. However, the south continues to be prolific and its baby 'surplus' almost compensates for the 'deficit' in the centre and north. Increased wea lth is the main explanation for the decline. But unlike northern European co untries, Italy does not possess an immigrant population with a high birth ra te. Countries:- ITZ Italy, EC. Industries :- P99 Nonclassifiable Establishments. Types:- STATS Statistics. The Financial Times London P age 3 ============= Transaction # 226 ============================================== Transaction #: 226 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:26:36 Selec. Rec. #: 1 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT943-11076 _AN-EHBDUAAYFT 940 802 FT 02 AUG 94 / Italian birth rate shrinks By ROBERT GRAHAM ROME Italians risk becoming a vanishing race if current demographic trends con tinue. In 1993 Italy registered a 'birth deficit', with deaths outnumbering the newly born for the first time this century outside the first world war. According to Istat, the national statistics institute, the number of births fell to 538,168 - the lowest level since the unification of Italy. In contra st, the number of deaths rose to 543,433. Compared to 1992, the birth rate f ell from 9.9 to 9.4 per 1,000. If the present trend continues, one recent re search paper suggests Italy's population could fall from 57m to 12m by the y ear 2100. However, the south continues to be prolific and its baby 'surplus' almost compensates for the 'deficit' in the centre and north. Increased wea lth is the main explanation for the decline. But unlike northern European co untries, Italy does not possess an immigrant population with a high birth ra te. Countries:- ITZ Italy, EC. Industries :- P99 Nonclassifiable Establishments. Types:- STATS Statistics. The Financial Times London P age 3 ============= Transaction # 227 ============================================== Transaction #: 227 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:26:56 Selec. Rec. #: 2 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT943-9226 _AN-EHLDRAC0FT 9408 12 FT 12 AUG 94 / Children neither seen nor heard: A ste ep fall in the birth rate means demographic worries for east Germany By JUDY DEMPSEY The British author, PD Jam es, recently wrote a novel called The Children of Men. It is set in England in 2021 and describes how infertility has spread like a plague. The human ra ce faces extinction as scientists try to reverse the trend. At the end of th e book, a woman gives birth, but whether this is enough to save the human ra ce is left open. German demographers and doctors could identity with this wo rk of fiction: five years since the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the birth r ate in east Germany continues to plummet. Mr Horst Halle, head of the matern ity department at the Charite, east Berlin's largest hospital, first noticed the trend in early 1990. 'You just had to look at the statistics,' he expla ined. 'Before 1989, there were about 16,000 babies born each year in east Be rlin. Today, that figure has slumped to 6,800, a decline of about 60 per cen t. 'In the Charite itself, we used to record about 2,200 births a year. Toda y, we have fewer than 1,800, and we are doing better than most maternity hos pitals in east Berlin.' Such an unprecedented fall in the birth rate would h ave shocked the former communist regime in East Germany. It prided itself on its wide range of social services aimed at providing women with excellent c hildcare facilities to encourage them to have children. Then, day-care centr es were free. Women could take a year's paid maternity leave and return to a guaranteed job, or take off three years with generous state support and sti ll have the same job to go back to. Indeed, more than 90 per cent of the fem ale working population were employed, compared with 49 per cent in west Germ any. By the age of 21, east German women started having children, unlike the ir west German counterparts, who generally started a family in their mid-to- late 20s. Despite these incentives, however, the birth rate in east Germany was relatively low compared with most other east European countries under th e communists. Mr Jurgen Dorbritz, a demographer at the Federal Statistics Of fice, says: 'What we are now seeing in eastern Germany is a birth rate which is falling from a low base. That is the worrying aspect. That's what makes the statistics so extraordinary.' In 1989, there were 198,922 live births in east Germany, the equivalent of 12 births per 1,000, or about 1.6 children per family. This was the same as in west Germany. By 1993, the number of eas t German births had fallen to 79,926 - or about 60 per cent of the 1989 rate - the equivalent of 0.8 children per family, or only half the west German l evel. 'We just don't know how long this trend will continue. One thing is ce rtain. There will be very few children born between the years 2015 and 2020 because of the lack of women of child-bearing age. Can you imagine how diffi cult it is going to be to pay for the number of old people in our country?' said Mr Dorbritz. According to the latest statistics from the German Associa tion for Pension Insurance, the number of people under the age of 20 in east Germany will fall from 3.84m in 1993 to 2.6m in 2020; the number of people aged between 20 and 60 will fall from 8.7m to 7.6m; and those over 60 will r ise from 3m to 4.13m. The percentage of pensioners per 100 contributors to t he state pension insurance system will rise from 26 per cent in 1993 to more than 50 per cent by 2020. Mr Halle, who has worked in the Charite for 28 ye ars, believes there are several reasons why east German women are remaining childless. 'Demographers tend to ignore the fact that we had been expecting a sharp fall in the birth rate in the year 1995, regardless of unification. This is because the east German abortion law of 1972 made abortion available on demand. We knew we were not going to have many child-bearing women in th e mid-1990s,' he explained. In 1972, the birth rate fell to about 6 per 1,00 0, climbing back to about 12 births per 1,000. Today it is fewer than 5.1. B ut Mr Halle also believes that the process of German unification itself has had a profound social effect on east German women. 'A young east German woma n knows that if she becomes pregnant, the chances she will find a job are no w far less, especially given the high level of unemployment,' he said. East German women have borne the brunt of unemployment, which is officially 16 pe r cent of the working population, excluding those on short-time work, early retirement schemes, or job creation programmes. By the end of the first quar ter of this year, more than 790,000 east German women had lost their jobs, r epresenting a female unemployment rate of 23 per cent. In west Germany, 1.1m women, or 9.3 per cent, are out of work. 'East German women today have free dom of choice, but they have lost their status in society,' said Mr Dorbritz . The other pressure arising from unification is that many east German women have had to seek new qualifications, retrain, or change jobs more often, un like the former days when a job was for life. 'There is no more security. Th e widespread sense of uncertainty has played a major role in the decline of the birth rate,' said Mr Dorbritz. The freedom to travel has played its part in the decline of the birth rate as well: young east German women have an u nprecedented chance to go abroad before they settle and start a family. 'The re was hardly anything else to do before 1989,' said Mr Dorbritz. 'East Germ an society was geared towards encouraging young women to procreate. All thos e social planks of free kindergartens, both parents in a job, heavily subsid ised or free children's clothes and shoes, have now disappeared.' Greater mo bility and open borders have led to a sharp rise in migration from east Germ any to west Germany. More than 1.2m from a population of 17m east Germans we nt to live in west Germany between late 1989 and early 1991. 'Many of these people were young and skilled,' said Mr Nicholas Eberstadt, a demographer at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. 'Of the overa ll drop in the birth rate, roughly one-ninth can be attributed to the sheer decline of east Germany's population during those two years.' Staff at the C harite hospital know that, unless the birth rate increases, the obstetrician s, doctors and nurses could be without a job. 'We have 2,000 beds here,' sai d Mr Halle. 'Before unification, we were dealing with more than 2,200 women a year. If we cannot account for all the beds, we will be under pressure to make savings. That means cutting jobs.' But his main concern is the kind of society which will evolve in east Germany in the next century. 'The prognosi s is very bad,' said Mr Halle. 'I do not know how we are going to fend for t he elderly. Who is going to pay for them?' One answer might be to allow immi grants into the country under a quota system to replenish the population - a solution advanced by some liberals. One thing is clear. Mr Eberstadt believ es that, if the present trends in east Germany continue, it will be virtuall y impossible for what he calls 'generational replacement' to occur. 'For gen erational replacement, eastern Germany's women of child-bearing age today wo uld have to give birth to an average of about 2.07 infants over the course o f their lives. They are now having 0.8 children, less than one birth per wom an per lifetime. This is not enough for a net population replacement.' Countries:- DEZ Germany, EC. Industries:- P99 Nonclassifiable Establishments. Types:- CMM T Comment & Analysis. The Financial Times London P age 12 ============= Transaction # 228 ============================================== Transaction #: 228 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:27:30 Selec. Rec. #: 2 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT943-9226 _AN-EHLDRAC0FT 9408 12 FT 12 AUG 94 / Children neither seen nor heard: A ste ep fall in the birth rate means demographic worries for east Germany By JUDY DEMPSEY The British author, PD Jam es, recently wrote a novel called The Children of Men. It is set in England in 2021 and describes how infertility has spread like a plague. The human ra ce faces extinction as scientists try to reverse the trend. At the end of th e book, a woman gives birth, but whether this is enough to save the human ra ce is left open. German demographers and doctors could identity with this wo rk of fiction: five years since the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the birth r ate in east Germany continues to plummet. Mr Horst Halle, head of the matern ity department at the Charite, east Berlin's largest hospital, first noticed the trend in early 1990. 'You just had to look at the statistics,' he expla ined. 'Before 1989, there were about 16,000 babies born each year in east Be rlin. Today, that figure has slumped to 6,800, a decline of about 60 per cen t. 'In the Charite itself, we used to record about 2,200 births a year. Toda y, we have fewer than 1,800, and we are doing better than most maternity hos pitals in east Berlin.' Such an unprecedented fall in the birth rate would h ave shocked the former communist regime in East Germany. It prided itself on its wide range of social services aimed at providing women with excellent c hildcare facilities to encourage them to have children. Then, day-care centr es were free. Women could take a year's paid maternity leave and return to a guaranteed job, or take off three years with generous state support and sti ll have the same job to go back to. Indeed, more than 90 per cent of the fem ale working population were employed, compared with 49 per cent in west Germ any. By the age of 21, east German women started having children, unlike the ir west German counterparts, who generally started a family in their mid-to- late 20s. Despite these incentives, however, the birth rate in east Germany was relatively low compared with most other east European countries under th e communists. Mr Jurgen Dorbritz, a demographer at the Federal Statistics Of fice, says: 'What we are now seeing in eastern Germany is a birth rate which is falling from a low base. That is the worrying aspect. That's what makes the statistics so extraordinary.' In 1989, there were 198,922 live births in east Germany, the equivalent of 12 births per 1,000, or about 1.6 children per family. This was the same as in west Germany. By 1993, the number of eas t German births had fallen to 79,926 - or about 60 per cent of the 1989 rate - the equivalent of 0.8 children per family, or only half the west German l evel. 'We just don't know how long this trend will continue. One thing is ce rtain. There will be very few children born between the years 2015 and 2020 because of the lack of women of child-bearing age. Can you imagine how diffi cult it is going to be to pay for the number of old people in our country?' said Mr Dorbritz. According to the latest statistics from the German Associa tion for Pension Insurance, the number of people under the age of 20 in east Germany will fall from 3.84m in 1993 to 2.6m in 2020; the number of people aged between 20 and 60 will fall from 8.7m to 7.6m; and those over 60 will r ise from 3m to 4.13m. The percentage of pensioners per 100 contributors to t he state pension insurance system will rise from 26 per cent in 1993 to more than 50 per cent by 2020. Mr Halle, who has worked in the Charite for 28 ye ars, believes there are several reasons why east German women are remaining childless. 'Demographers tend to ignore the fact that we had been expecting a sharp fall in the birth rate in the year 1995, regardless of unification. This is because the east German abortion law of 1972 made abortion available on demand. We knew we were not going to have many child-bearing women in th e mid-1990s,' he explained. In 1972, the birth rate fell to about 6 per 1,00 0, climbing back to about 12 births per 1,000. Today it is fewer than 5.1. B ut Mr Halle also believes that the process of German unification itself has had a profound social effect on east German women. 'A young east German woma n knows that if she becomes pregnant, the chances she will find a job are no w far less, especially given the high level of unemployment,' he said. East German women have borne the brunt of unemployment, which is officially 16 pe r cent of the working population, excluding those on short-time work, early retirement schemes, or job creation programmes. By the end of the first quar ter of this year, more than 790,000 east German women had lost their jobs, r epresenting a female unemployment rate of 23 per cent. In west Germany, 1.1m women, or 9.3 per cent, are out of work. 'East German women today have free dom of choice, but they have lost their status in society,' said Mr Dorbritz . The other pressure arising from unification is that many east German women have had to seek new qualifications, retrain, or change jobs more often, un like the former days when a job was for life. 'There is no more security. Th e widespread sense of uncertainty has played a major role in the decline of the birth rate,' said Mr Dorbritz. The freedom to travel has played its part in the decline of the birth rate as well: young east German women have an u nprecedented chance to go abroad before they settle and start a family. 'The re was hardly anything else to do before 1989,' said Mr Dorbritz. 'East Germ an society was geared towards encouraging young women to procreate. All thos e social planks of free kindergartens, both parents in a job, heavily subsid ised or free children's clothes and shoes, have now disappeared.' Greater mo bility and open borders have led to a sharp rise in migration from east Germ any to west Germany. More than 1.2m from a population of 17m east Germans we nt to live in west Germany between late 1989 and early 1991. 'Many of these people were young and skilled,' said Mr Nicholas Eberstadt, a demographer at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. 'Of the overa ll drop in the birth rate, roughly one-ninth can be attributed to the sheer decline of east Germany's population during those two years.' Staff at the C harite hospital know that, unless the birth rate increases, the obstetrician s, doctors and nurses could be without a job. 'We have 2,000 beds here,' sai d Mr Halle. 'Before unification, we were dealing with more than 2,200 women a year. If we cannot account for all the beds, we will be under pressure to make savings. That means cutting jobs.' But his main concern is the kind of society which will evolve in east Germany in the next century. 'The prognosi s is very bad,' said Mr Halle. 'I do not know how we are going to fend for t he elderly. Who is going to pay for them?' One answer might be to allow immi grants into the country under a quota system to replenish the population - a solution advanced by some liberals. One thing is clear. Mr Eberstadt believ es that, if the present trends in east Germany continue, it will be virtuall y impossible for what he calls 'generational replacement' to occur. 'For gen erational replacement, eastern Germany's women of child-bearing age today wo uld have to give birth to an average of about 2.07 infants over the course o f their lives. They are now having 0.8 children, less than one birth per wom an per lifetime. This is not enough for a net population replacement.' Countries:- DEZ Germany, EC. Industries:- P99 Nonclassifiable Establishments. Types:- CMM T Comment & Analysis. The Financial Times London P age 12 ============= Transaction # 229 ============================================== Transaction #: 229 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:27:31 Selec. Rec. #: 2 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT943-9226 _AN-EHLDRAC0FT 9408 12 FT 12 AUG 94 / Children neither seen nor heard: A ste ep fall in the birth rate means demographic worries for east Germany By JUDY DEMPSEY The British author, PD Jam es, recently wrote a novel called The Children of Men. It is set in England in 2021 and describes how infertility has spread like a plague. The human ra ce faces extinction as scientists try to reverse the trend. At the end of th e book, a woman gives birth, but whether this is enough to save the human ra ce is left open. German demographers and doctors could identity with this wo rk of fiction: five years since the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the birth r ate in east Germany continues to plummet. Mr Horst Halle, head of the matern ity department at the Charite, east Berlin's largest hospital, first noticed the trend in early 1990. 'You just had to look at the statistics,' he expla ined. 'Before 1989, there were about 16,000 babies born each year in east Be rlin. Today, that figure has slumped to 6,800, a decline of about 60 per cen t. 'In the Charite itself, we used to record about 2,200 births a year. Toda y, we have fewer than 1,800, and we are doing better than most maternity hos pitals in east Berlin.' Such an unprecedented fall in the birth rate would h ave shocked the former communist regime in East Germany. It prided itself on its wide range of social services aimed at providing women with excellent c hildcare facilities to encourage them to have children. Then, day-care centr es were free. Women could take a year's paid maternity leave and return to a guaranteed job, or take off three years with generous state support and sti ll have the same job to go back to. Indeed, more than 90 per cent of the fem ale working population were employed, compared with 49 per cent in west Germ any. By the age of 21, east German women started having children, unlike the ir west German counterparts, who generally started a family in their mid-to- late 20s. Despite these incentives, however, the birth rate in east Germany was relatively low compared with most other east European countries under th e communists. Mr Jurgen Dorbritz, a demographer at the Federal Statistics Of fice, says: 'What we are now seeing in eastern Germany is a birth rate which is falling from a low base. That is the worrying aspect. That's what makes the statistics so extraordinary.' In 1989, there were 198,922 live births in east Germany, the equivalent of 12 births per 1,000, or about 1.6 children per family. This was the same as in west Germany. By 1993, the number of eas t German births had fallen to 79,926 - or about 60 per cent of the 1989 rate - the equivalent of 0.8 children per family, or only half the west German l evel. 'We just don't know how long this trend will continue. One thing is ce rtain. There will be very few children born between the years 2015 and 2020 because of the lack of women of child-bearing age. Can you imagine how diffi cult it is going to be to pay for the number of old people in our country?' said Mr Dorbritz. According to the latest statistics from the German Associa tion for Pension Insurance, the number of people under the age of 20 in east Germany will fall from 3.84m in 1993 to 2.6m in 2020; the number of people aged between 20 and 60 will fall from 8.7m to 7.6m; and those over 60 will r ise from 3m to 4.13m. The percentage of pensioners per 100 contributors to t he state pension insurance system will rise from 26 per cent in 1993 to more than 50 per cent by 2020. Mr Halle, who has worked in the Charite for 28 ye ars, believes there are several reasons why east German women are remaining childless. 'Demographers tend to ignore the fact that we had been expecting a sharp fall in the birth rate in the year 1995, regardless of unification. This is because the east German abortion law of 1972 made abortion available on demand. We knew we were not going to have many child-bearing women in th e mid-1990s,' he explained. In 1972, the birth rate fell to about 6 per 1,00 0, climbing back to about 12 births per 1,000. Today it is fewer than 5.1. B ut Mr Halle also believes that the process of German unification itself has had a profound social effect on east German women. 'A young east German woma n knows that if she becomes pregnant, the chances she will find a job are no w far less, especially given the high level of unemployment,' he said. East German women have borne the brunt of unemployment, which is officially 16 pe r cent of the working population, excluding those on short-time work, early retirement schemes, or job creation programmes. By the end of the first quar ter of this year, more than 790,000 east German women had lost their jobs, r epresenting a female unemployment rate of 23 per cent. In west Germany, 1.1m women, or 9.3 per cent, are out of work. 'East German women today have free dom of choice, but they have lost their status in society,' said Mr Dorbritz . The other pressure arising from unification is that many east German women have had to seek new qualifications, retrain, or change jobs more often, un like the former days when a job was for life. 'There is no more security. Th e widespread sense of uncertainty has played a major role in the decline of the birth rate,' said Mr Dorbritz. The freedom to travel has played its part in the decline of the birth rate as well: young east German women have an u nprecedented chance to go abroad before they settle and start a family. 'The re was hardly anything else to do before 1989,' said Mr Dorbritz. 'East Germ an society was geared towards encouraging young women to procreate. All thos e social planks of free kindergartens, both parents in a job, heavily subsid ised or free children's clothes and shoes, have now disappeared.' Greater mo bility and open borders have led to a sharp rise in migration from east Germ any to west Germany. More than 1.2m from a population of 17m east Germans we nt to live in west Germany between late 1989 and early 1991. 'Many of these people were young and skilled,' said Mr Nicholas Eberstadt, a demographer at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. 'Of the overa ll drop in the birth rate, roughly one-ninth can be attributed to the sheer decline of east Germany's population during those two years.' Staff at the C harite hospital know that, unless the birth rate increases, the obstetrician s, doctors and nurses could be without a job. 'We have 2,000 beds here,' sai d Mr Halle. 'Before unification, we were dealing with more than 2,200 women a year. If we cannot account for all the beds, we will be under pressure to make savings. That means cutting jobs.' But his main concern is the kind of society which will evolve in east Germany in the next century. 'The prognosi s is very bad,' said Mr Halle. 'I do not know how we are going to fend for t he elderly. Who is going to pay for them?' One answer might be to allow immi grants into the country under a quota system to replenish the population - a solution advanced by some liberals. One thing is clear. Mr Eberstadt believ es that, if the present trends in east Germany continue, it will be virtuall y impossible for what he calls 'generational replacement' to occur. 'For gen erational replacement, eastern Germany's women of child-bearing age today wo uld have to give birth to an average of about 2.07 infants over the course o f their lives. They are now having 0.8 children, less than one birth per wom an per lifetime. This is not enough for a net population replacement.' Countries:- DEZ Germany, EC. Industries:- P99 Nonclassifiable Establishments. Types:- CMM T Comment & Analysis. The Financial Times London P age 12 ============= Transaction # 230 ============================================== Transaction #: 230 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:27:50 Selec. Rec. #: 3 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT941-9688 _AN-EBNCXAAEFT 9402 14 FT 14 FEB 94 / Russia faces population crisis as deat h rate soars By JOHN LLOYD M OSCOW Russia is facing a double population crisis - a dra matic rise in death rates and a sharp fall in the birth rate, according to o fficial figures which have largely been kept hidden from public debate. In t he past year alone, the death rate jumped 20 per cent, or 360,000 deaths mor e than in 1992. Researchers now believe that the average age for male mortal ity in Russia has sunk to 59 - far below the average in the industrialised w orld and the lowest in Russia since the early 1960s. The results, which have been a matter of close concern at the level of Russia's National Security C ouncil, are only now trickling out. Some were given at a conference last wee k at the New York Harriman Institute by Ms Natalia Rimashevskaya, head of th e Institute for Socio-Economic Studies of the Population, while further rese arch into the figures has been done by Ms Judith Shapiro, a British academic working with the macroeconomic and finance unit which was attached to the R ussian finance ministry until last month. Ms Rimashevskaya's findings showed , she said, an 'unprecedented' rise in the death rate, with much of the incr ease due to 'killings, suicides and conflicts'. However, infant mortality ha d also gone up sharply, from 17.4 in 1,000 in 1990 to 19.1 in 1,000 last yea r. The average age of death (for men and women) was now, she said, 'at 66 or lower' - the same level as in the early to mid-1960s and four or five years below the figure that had been achieved more recently. In 1993, 1.4m people were born and 2.2m died - although inward migration of Russians from former Soviet republics compensated to some extent, bringing the net fall in popul ation to 500,000 last year. Ms Shapiro's findings, based like Ms Rimashevska ya's on figures from the state statistical committee Goskomstat, which have had very limited availability, show men to be the main victims of earlier de aths. The average death rate has been brought down to 59, she says, largely through two causes -a higher rate of coronary disease and strokes, and more violent deaths. Of the total of 360,000 extra deaths in 1993, nearly 50 per cent were from heart and circulatory failure and more than 25 per cent were from violent causes. Ms Shapiro says that simple poverty, and the state of the post-Soviet health service, are probably minor causes of the phenomenon. More significant is what she calls a 'psycho-social crisis' with greatly ri sing insecurity. Ms Rimashevskaya says the decline of births is partly due t o a simple shortage of women - but more because women of child-bearing age p ostpone having children or decide not to give birth 'because of the poor sit uation in the society'. Countries:- RUZ Russia, East Europe. Industries:- P99 Nonclassifiable Establishme nts. Types:- NEWS General News. The Financi al Times London Page 1 ============= Transaction # 231 ============================================== Transaction #: 231 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:28:08 Selec. Rec. #: 3 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT941-9688 _AN-EBNCXAAEFT 9402 14 FT 14 FEB 94 / Russia faces population crisis as deat h rate soars By JOHN LLOYD M OSCOW Russia is facing a double population crisis - a dra matic rise in death rates and a sharp fall in the birth rate, according to o fficial figures which have largely been kept hidden from public debate. In t he past year alone, the death rate jumped 20 per cent, or 360,000 deaths mor e than in 1992. Researchers now believe that the average age for male mortal ity in Russia has sunk to 59 - far below the average in the industrialised w orld and the lowest in Russia since the early 1960s. The results, which have been a matter of close concern at the level of Russia's National Security C ouncil, are only now trickling out. Some were given at a conference last wee k at the New York Harriman Institute by Ms Natalia Rimashevskaya, head of th e Institute for Socio-Economic Studies of the Population, while further rese arch into the figures has been done by Ms Judith Shapiro, a British academic working with the macroeconomic and finance unit which was attached to the R ussian finance ministry until last month. Ms Rimashevskaya's findings showed , she said, an 'unprecedented' rise in the death rate, with much of the incr ease due to 'killings, suicides and conflicts'. However, infant mortality ha d also gone up sharply, from 17.4 in 1,000 in 1990 to 19.1 in 1,000 last yea r. The average age of death (for men and women) was now, she said, 'at 66 or lower' - the same level as in the early to mid-1960s and four or five years below the figure that had been achieved more recently. In 1993, 1.4m people were born and 2.2m died - although inward migration of Russians from former Soviet republics compensated to some extent, bringing the net fall in popul ation to 500,000 last year. Ms Shapiro's findings, based like Ms Rimashevska ya's on figures from the state statistical committee Goskomstat, which have had very limited availability, show men to be the main victims of earlier de aths. The average death rate has been brought down to 59, she says, largely through two causes -a higher rate of coronary disease and strokes, and more violent deaths. Of the total of 360,000 extra deaths in 1993, nearly 50 per cent were from heart and circulatory failure and more than 25 per cent were from violent causes. Ms Shapiro says that simple poverty, and the state of the post-Soviet health service, are probably minor causes of the phenomenon. More significant is what she calls a 'psycho-social crisis' with greatly ri sing insecurity. Ms Rimashevskaya says the decline of births is partly due t o a simple shortage of women - but more because women of child-bearing age p ostpone having children or decide not to give birth 'because of the poor sit uation in the society'. Countries:- RUZ Russia, East Europe. Industries:- P99 Nonclassifiable Establishme nts. Types:- NEWS General News. The Financi al Times London Page 1 ============= Transaction # 232 ============================================== Transaction #: 232 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:28:10 Selec. Rec. #: 3 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT941-9688 _AN-EBNCXAAEFT 9402 14 FT 14 FEB 94 / Russia faces population crisis as deat h rate soars By JOHN LLOYD M OSCOW Russia is facing a double population crisis - a dra matic rise in death rates and a sharp fall in the birth rate, according to o fficial figures which have largely been kept hidden from public debate. In t he past year alone, the death rate jumped 20 per cent, or 360,000 deaths mor e than in 1992. Researchers now believe that the average age for male mortal ity in Russia has sunk to 59 - far below the average in the industrialised w orld and the lowest in Russia since the early 1960s. The results, which have been a matter of close concern at the level of Russia's National Security C ouncil, are only now trickling out. Some were given at a conference last wee k at the New York Harriman Institute by Ms Natalia Rimashevskaya, head of th e Institute for Socio-Economic Studies of the Population, while further rese arch into the figures has been done by Ms Judith Shapiro, a British academic working with the macroeconomic and finance unit which was attached to the R ussian finance ministry until last month. Ms Rimashevskaya's findings showed , she said, an 'unprecedented' rise in the death rate, with much of the incr ease due to 'killings, suicides and conflicts'. However, infant mortality ha d also gone up sharply, from 17.4 in 1,000 in 1990 to 19.1 in 1,000 last yea r. The average age of death (for men and women) was now, she said, 'at 66 or lower' - the same level as in the early to mid-1960s and four or five years below the figure that had been achieved more recently. In 1993, 1.4m people were born and 2.2m died - although inward migration of Russians from former Soviet republics compensated to some extent, bringing the net fall in popul ation to 500,000 last year. Ms Shapiro's findings, based like Ms Rimashevska ya's on figures from the state statistical committee Goskomstat, which have had very limited availability, show men to be the main victims of earlier de aths. The average death rate has been brought down to 59, she says, largely through two causes -a higher rate of coronary disease and strokes, and more violent deaths. Of the total of 360,000 extra deaths in 1993, nearly 50 per cent were from heart and circulatory failure and more than 25 per cent were from violent causes. Ms Shapiro says that simple poverty, and the state of the post-Soviet health service, are probably minor causes of the phenomenon. More significant is what she calls a 'psycho-social crisis' with greatly ri sing insecurity. Ms Rimashevskaya says the decline of births is partly due t o a simple shortage of women - but more because women of child-bearing age p ostpone having children or decide not to give birth 'because of the poor sit uation in the society'. Countries:- RUZ Russia, East Europe. Industries:- P99 Nonclassifiable Establishme nts. Types:- NEWS General News. The Financi al Times London Page 1 ============= Transaction # 233 ============================================== Transaction #: 233 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:28:29 Selec. Rec. #: 5 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT943-5793 _AN-EICAFABGFT 9409 02 FT 02 SEP 94 / Falling prosperity hurts family planni ng By PAUL ADAMS LAGOS In a continent where population growth outstrips economic grow th, Nigeria at 90m people is by far the biggest nation in Africa. Until 1988 , when Prof Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, then health minister, launched a national population policy, Nigerians had been so proud of their self-styled tag as t he 'giant of Africa' that, as long as the oil money rolled in, they regarded high population growth as healthy and saw little point in controlling the r ate of growth. Nigeria was then believed to have at least 110m people, putti ng it among the 10 largest populations in the world. The 1991 census caused a surprise: Nigeria had only 88.5m. The over-estimate was a result of inflat ed numbers by tribal chiefs and regional governors hoping to boost their pol itical clout and revenue allocation. The United Nations Population Fund has projected the average population growth rate between 1990 and 1995 as 3.1 pe r cent (which would double the population in about 30 years) with the birth rate at 45 per 1,000 persons and death rate at 14 per 1,000 (including an in fant mortality rate of 96). The UN estimates the fertility rate at 6.1 child ren per woman, while the national policy set a target of only four. Since th e 1970s the urban population has risen from 30 per cent to nearly half and t he rate of growth in the towns is higher at 5.5 per cent. Generalising about Nigeria, a country of over 200 ethnic groups and very diverse cultures, is often deceptive and never more so than in attitudes to education and the rol e of women. In the mainly Christian south, female education and literacy are far higher than in the predominantly Moslem north, where even the discussio n of birth control is not widely accepted. In the south-east there is a high percentage of Catholics especially among the Ibo tribe. The alarming declin e in social services during the 1990s has halted the progress towards family planning clinics and universal primary education, especially in the north, bolstering the influence of the Koranic schools. Even nationally, the UN pai nts a bleak picture. 'The status of women in Nigeria has improved little ove r the last decade. In general, they are considered second-class citizens not by law but because of the social and cultural climate', says the UNFPA's 19 93 review of the national programme. The literacy rate for women was 31 per cent (54 per cent for men) and more than half of all Nigerian women were mar ried at the age of 15. The problem of education lies not just with women. As a prominent women's group in Nigeria points out, there may be a target of f our children per woman, but in a polygamous society many men far exceed that figure. If the prospect of curtailing population growth is limited, the out look for economic growth has become bleak. Despite the massive oil boom in t he 1970s, the GDP income per capita is down to around Dollars 290, about the level of 1963. In the period, Indonesia has risen from a lower per capita i ncome to a level three times that of Nigeria. In January's budget speech the finance minister, Mr Kalu I Kalu, commented on three years of political unc ertainty, capital flight government over-spending, which 'resulted in a furt her decline in GDP growth rate from 4.8 per cent in 1991 to 2.9 per cent in 1993. A comparison with the average growth rate of 5 per cent from 1988-91 d emonstrates the enormity of the task involved in resuscitating the economy i n 1994 and beyond,' concluded Mr Kalu. Since then strikes, shortages and a d earth of foreign exchange have taken the economy further down hill. Nigeria accounts for about half of West Africa's population and whereas Ghanaians on ce poured into Nigeria for a better life, the chances of reverse migration l ook more likely. Countries:- NGZ Nigeria, Africa. Industries:- P9431 Administration of Public Health Progra ms. Types:- NEWS General News. The Financia l Times London Page 4 ============= Transaction # 234 ============================================== Transaction #: 234 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:29:39 Selec. Rec. #: 6 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT931-13724 _AN-DAVB3AA6FT 930 122 FT 22 JAN 93 / N African birth rate falls steeply By EDWARD MORTIMER THE population exp losion in North Africa is over, according to a leading French demographer, P rof Youssef Courbage, writes Edward Mortimer. Birth rates in the region are falling rapidly, and European fears of a flood of Arab immigrants are wildly exaggerated, Mr Courbage told a conference in Brussels yesterday. In fact, he added, the working-age population in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia will le vel off in about 2005, when the number of job applicants will begin to decre ase. 'Just as Europe's bulging baby-boom generation leaves working life for retirement, and will need to rely on a sufficient labour force - foreign wor kers in particular - to finance it, the Maghreb labour markets, where labour will be in short supply, will be hard-pressed to meet export demands.' Mr C ourbage, a senior researcher at the Institut National d'Etudes Demographique s in Paris, was speaking at a workshop on Europe and the Mediterranean at th e Centre for European Policy Studies. The decrease in fertility in the Maghr eb countries is acknowledged by the UN and the World Bank, he said, but thos e organisations had not yet taken the full measure of the decline. The UN ha d significantly overestimated fertility in all three countries. Countries:- XMZ Africa. Industries:- P99 N onclassifiable Establishments. Types:- PEOP Personnel News. The Financial Times London Page 3 ============= Transaction # 235 ============================================== Transaction #: 235 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:30:44 Selec. Rec. #: 6 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT931-13724 _AN-DAVB3AA6FT 930 122 FT 22 JAN 93 / N African birth rate falls steeply By EDWARD MORTIMER THE population exp losion in North Africa is over, according to a leading French demographer, P rof Youssef Courbage, writes Edward Mortimer. Birth rates in the region are falling rapidly, and European fears of a flood of Arab immigrants are wildly exaggerated, Mr Courbage told a conference in Brussels yesterday. In fact, he added, the working-age population in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia will le vel off in about 2005, when the number of job applicants will begin to decre ase. 'Just as Europe's bulging baby-boom generation leaves working life for retirement, and will need to rely on a sufficient labour force - foreign wor kers in particular - to finance it, the Maghreb labour markets, where labour will be in short supply, will be hard-pressed to meet export demands.' Mr C ourbage, a senior researcher at the Institut National d'Etudes Demographique s in Paris, was speaking at a workshop on Europe and the Mediterranean at th e Centre for European Policy Studies. The decrease in fertility in the Maghr eb countries is acknowledged by the UN and the World Bank, he said, but thos e organisations had not yet taken the full measure of the decline. The UN ha d significantly overestimated fertility in all three countries. Countries:- XMZ Africa. Industries:- P99 N onclassifiable Establishments. Types:- PEOP Personnel News. The Financial Times London Page 3 ============= Transaction # 236 ============================================== Transaction #: 236 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:30:45 Selec. Rec. #: 6 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT931-13724 _AN-DAVB3AA6FT 930 122 FT 22 JAN 93 / N African birth rate falls steeply By EDWARD MORTIMER THE population exp losion in North Africa is over, according to a leading French demographer, P rof Youssef Courbage, writes Edward Mortimer. Birth rates in the region are falling rapidly, and European fears of a flood of Arab immigrants are wildly exaggerated, Mr Courbage told a conference in Brussels yesterday. In fact, he added, the working-age population in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia will le vel off in about 2005, when the number of job applicants will begin to decre ase. 'Just as Europe's bulging baby-boom generation leaves working life for retirement, and will need to rely on a sufficient labour force - foreign wor kers in particular - to finance it, the Maghreb labour markets, where labour will be in short supply, will be hard-pressed to meet export demands.' Mr C ourbage, a senior researcher at the Institut National d'Etudes Demographique s in Paris, was speaking at a workshop on Europe and the Mediterranean at th e Centre for European Policy Studies. The decrease in fertility in the Maghr eb countries is acknowledged by the UN and the World Bank, he said, but thos e organisations had not yet taken the full measure of the decline. The UN ha d significantly overestimated fertility in all three countries. Countries:- XMZ Africa. Industries:- P99 N onclassifiable Establishments. Types:- PEOP Personnel News. The Financial Times London Page 3 ============= Transaction # 237 ============================================== Transaction #: 237 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:30:47 Selec. Rec. #: 7 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT942-10784 _AN-EEIC5AC6FT 940 509 FT 09 MAY 94 / Observer: Green surprise Europe's 'green' parties come in all sorts of political shades, but n one comes near to matching the performance of the Hungarian 'greens'. Instea d of campaigning for population control, the Hungarian greens' TV broadcasts call on Hungarian men to do the 'daily triple' with their wives. The party does not spell out in detail what it is Hungarian men should do three times a day. But party officials believe it would 'increase the birth rate and lea d to a decline in homosexuality, prostitution and the divorce rate'. However , this brave rallying cry has yet to capture the imagination of the Hungaria n electorate. Early returns suggest that the party has as much chance of cap turing a seat as Britain's Screaming Lord Sutch. Countries:- HUZ Hungary, East Europe. Industries:- P8651 P olitical Organizations. Types:- NEWS General News. The Financial Times London Page 17 ============= Transaction # 238 ============================================== Transaction #: 238 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:31:18 Selec. Rec. #: 8 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT943-8321 _AN-EHRD3AAZFT 9408 18 FT 18 AUG 94 / Fertility rates are down but not enoug h By BRONWEN MADDOX The UN's popula tion report tells of a dramatic drop in fertility rates in the past 40 years , even in some of the world's poorest countries, Bronwen Maddox reports. In Asia and Latin America the fertility rate has nearly halved from 5.9 to abou t 3 children per woman in that period, although Africa (including northern A frican states) has showed a smaller decline from 6.6 to 5.8. Even in develop ed countries, rates have fallen from 2.8 to 1.7 over that period. These patt erns have forced demographers to modify the old assumption of a link between low birth rates and economic wealth in favour of a more complex picture. So me countries, such as Bangladesh, have achieved steep falls in fertility rat es despite relative lack of economic growth. Others, notably Pakistan and Mi ddle Eastern countries, continue to have large average family sizes despite relatively high levels of economic prosperity. The UNFPA draws a close conne ction between low fertility rates and the availability of contraception, eve n where gross domestic product per head has not risen greatly. It attributes roughly half of the fall in worldwide fertility rates to improved distribut ion of contraceptives. The other half, it says, is due simply to the determi nation of parents to have fewer children, even when contraception is not ava ilable. Even the poorest families, UNFPA officials say, work out that they c an spend more on each child if they have fewer children. Demographers have l ong agreed that improving women's education plays an important part in reduc ing family sizes. But the UN report suggests that newer pressures are also p roviding powerful motivation. When workers move to towns from the countrysid e they tend to delay having children and to have fewer. Anecdotal evidence f rom west African countries also suggests that looming land shortages are cur bing the size of rural families. These new factors may be helping to push do wn fertility rates even in Africa and central America, the regions which hav e persistently had the highest rates, Mr Alex Marshall of UNFPA suggests. Si nce the first half of the 1980s, Tanzania has seen fertility rates drop from 6.7 to 5.9 children per woman, Namibia from 5.8 to 5.3 and South Africa fro m 4.8 to 4.1. Countries:- XOZ Asia. XCZ Latin A merica. XAZ World. Industries:- P9431 Administrati on of Public Health Programs. Types:- STATS Statistics . The Financial Times London Page 3 ============= Transaction # 239 ============================================== Transaction #: 239 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:31:45 Selec. Rec. #: 9 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT943-5357 _AN-EIECYAA8FT 9409 05 FT 05 SEP 94 / Youthful Brazil faces problems of old age: Life expectancy is rising while the birth rate is continuing to fall By ANGUS FOSTER Brazil looks set to e nter the next century with 40m people 'missing'. According to projections ma de in the 1970s, its population would reach 212m by the year 2000. But accor ding to latest predictions, the total will be far less, probably 172m. The r easons for the sharp slowdown in population growth are also seen in other La tin American countries. They include a drastic fall in female fertility rate s, mainly due to increased use of contraceptives and rapid urbanisation. The consequences, which include an ageing society and serious strains on social and employment needs, have not yet been addressed. 'It is the population ab ove 65 which will grow the most in the next decades. Brazil will have to liv e with this phenomenon, which is well known in developed countries, without having overcome typical problems related to under-development,' says demogra phics professor Jose de Carvalho. Brazil's population change started in the 1940s. Improved medical and basic services led to falling mortality rates. F ertility rates remained high until the end of the 1960s, leading to rapid po pulation growth and a society with more than half its members under 20 years old. It also encouraged a belief, still held by many today, that Brazil was blessed with an eternally young and fast growing population. At the first i nternational population conference in Bucharest in 1974, Brazil's population was 100m and expected to double rapidly. But the female fertility rate - th e average number of births per child-bearing woman - began a startling fall from 5.8 in 1970 to 4.3 in 1975 and 3.6 by 1984. In a recent study of Sao Pa ulo state, Brazil's richest, the fertility rate was 2.3, in line with some d eveloped countries. The fall was partly due to rising education and urbanisa tion, as families moved from agricultural to industrial jobs. But the main r eason was increased access to, and demand for, contraception. By 1986, 66 pe r cent of women of child-bearing age said they were using some form of contr aceptive. Of these, about 40 per cent had been sterilised and a further 40 p er cent used the pill. By 1990, contraception use had risen to 69 per cent. These rates are high, considering Brazil is the world's largest Catholic cou ntry with a still conservative church hierachy. Abortion is illegal unless t he woman has been raped or is in medical danger. Officially, the church prom otes the Billings method, which teaches couples to avoid sex during ovulatio n. But very few couples obey, suggesting the church is, unofficially, more l iberal than it appears or losing its sway. Padre Antonio Carlos Frizzo, whos e parish is in the poor suburbs of Sao Paulo, says couples must choose. 'If a couple asked advice on sterilisation, which is rare, I would take into acc ount their economic situation and number of children, the love between them and whether another method is possible. 'But the couple must decide, and tha t's something we should not and cannot try to stop. And their decision has t o be supported, too. This might be criticised in the Vatican, but we are dea ling with people in real situations,' he says. The increasing demand for ste rilisation has a startling side-effect - it has helped make Brazil the world leader for caesarian births. These account for roughly one in three deliver ies, about twice the rate for England and Wales. The reasons are complex. So me women think caesarian section a 'modern' way to give birth, a view hospit als encourage, while others fear the pain involved in vaginal deliveries. An other reason is that when giving birth by caesarian, a woman can request to be sterilised at the same time and the government pays. Outside pregnancy, w omen have to pay to be sterilised, usually at semi-legal clinics. The declin ing birth rate will transform Brazil over the coming decades. Population gro wth, which in the 1970s was 2.4 per cent, has fallen to 1.9 per cent and is still declining. Today, 35 per cent of the country's 157m population is unde r 15 years old. By 2020, the percentage will have fallen to 24 per cent. By about 2040, with a rapidly aging society, the population will reach about 22 0m and stabilise or even fall. This prompts the church and other anti-aborti on groups to argue that population control is now obsolete in Brazil, especi ally given the country's undeveloped agricultural land. A more stable popula tion will also allow better government planning. In the past, rapid populati on growth in cities, for example, has prevented governments developing long- term urban plans. But the changes will also provide some sobering challenges . The number of people of working age is set to grow 2.4 per cent a year for the next decade, adding to pressures on the economy to create jobs. The soc ial security system, established when the average age at death was 45, must be reformed to cope with life expectancies of 64 and 69 for men and women re spectively. The country's under-funded public health system must emphasise p reventative medicine if it is to cope with the increasing demands of an agei ng population. Finally, the growing number of elderly from smaller families will need extra services. Unfortunately, Brazil does not seem greatly aware of these challenges. Because of the government's economic problems, the 1990 census was postponed to 1991. After further spending cuts, only basic findi ngs are available. Countries:- BRZ Brazil, South Ame rica. Industries:- P9431 Administration of Public Healt h Programs. Types:- CMMT Comment & Analysis. The Financial Times London Page 5 ============= Transaction # 240 ============================================== Transaction #: 240 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:31:58 Selec. Rec. #: 9 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT943-5357 _AN-EIECYAA8FT 9409 05 FT 05 SEP 94 / Youthful Brazil faces problems of old age: Life expectancy is rising while the birth rate is continuing to fall By ANGUS FOSTER Brazil looks set to e nter the next century with 40m people 'missing'. According to projections ma de in the 1970s, its population would reach 212m by the year 2000. But accor ding to latest predictions, the total will be far less, probably 172m. The r easons for the sharp slowdown in population growth are also seen in other La tin American countries. They include a drastic fall in female fertility rate s, mainly due to increased use of contraceptives and rapid urbanisation. The consequences, which include an ageing society and serious strains on social and employment needs, have not yet been addressed. 'It is the population ab ove 65 which will grow the most in the next decades. Brazil will have to liv e with this phenomenon, which is well known in developed countries, without having overcome typical problems related to under-development,' says demogra phics professor Jose de Carvalho. Brazil's population change started in the 1940s. Improved medical and basic services led to falling mortality rates. F ertility rates remained high until the end of the 1960s, leading to rapid po pulation growth and a society with more than half its members under 20 years old. It also encouraged a belief, still held by many today, that Brazil was blessed with an eternally young and fast growing population. At the first i nternational population conference in Bucharest in 1974, Brazil's population was 100m and expected to double rapidly. But the female fertility rate - th e average number of births per child-bearing woman - began a startling fall from 5.8 in 1970 to 4.3 in 1975 and 3.6 by 1984. In a recent study of Sao Pa ulo state, Brazil's richest, the fertility rate was 2.3, in line with some d eveloped countries. The fall was partly due to rising education and urbanisa tion, as families moved from agricultural to industrial jobs. But the main r eason was increased access to, and demand for, contraception. By 1986, 66 pe r cent of women of child-bearing age said they were using some form of contr aceptive. Of these, about 40 per cent had been sterilised and a further 40 p er cent used the pill. By 1990, contraception use had risen to 69 per cent. These rates are high, considering Brazil is the world's largest Catholic cou ntry with a still conservative church hierachy. Abortion is illegal unless t he woman has been raped or is in medical danger. Officially, the church prom otes the Billings method, which teaches couples to avoid sex during ovulatio n. But very few couples obey, suggesting the church is, unofficially, more l iberal than it appears or losing its sway. Padre Antonio Carlos Frizzo, whos e parish is in the poor suburbs of Sao Paulo, says couples must choose. 'If a couple asked advice on sterilisation, which is rare, I would take into acc ount their economic situation and number of children, the love between them and whether another method is possible. 'But the couple must decide, and tha t's something we should not and cannot try to stop. And their decision has t o be supported, too. This might be criticised in the Vatican, but we are dea ling with people in real situations,' he says. The increasing demand for ste rilisation has a startling side-effect - it has helped make Brazil the world leader for caesarian births. These account for roughly one in three deliver ies, about twice the rate for England and Wales. The reasons are complex. So me women think caesarian section a 'modern' way to give birth, a view hospit als encourage, while others fear the pain involved in vaginal deliveries. An other reason is that when giving birth by caesarian, a woman can request to be sterilised at the same time and the government pays. Outside pregnancy, w omen have to pay to be sterilised, usually at semi-legal clinics. The declin ing birth rate will transform Brazil over the coming decades. Population gro wth, which in the 1970s was 2.4 per cent, has fallen to 1.9 per cent and is still declining. Today, 35 per cent of the country's 157m population is unde r 15 years old. By 2020, the percentage will have fallen to 24 per cent. By about 2040, with a rapidly aging society, the population will reach about 22 0m and stabilise or even fall. This prompts the church and other anti-aborti on groups to argue that population control is now obsolete in Brazil, especi ally given the country's undeveloped agricultural land. A more stable popula tion will also allow better government planning. In the past, rapid populati on growth in cities, for example, has prevented governments developing long- term urban plans. But the changes will also provide some sobering challenges . The number of people of working age is set to grow 2.4 per cent a year for the next decade, adding to pressures on the economy to create jobs. The soc ial security system, established when the average age at death was 45, must be reformed to cope with life expectancies of 64 and 69 for men and women re spectively. The country's under-funded public health system must emphasise p reventative medicine if it is to cope with the increasing demands of an agei ng population. Finally, the growing number of elderly from smaller families will need extra services. Unfortunately, Brazil does not seem greatly aware of these challenges. Because of the government's economic problems, the 1990 census was postponed to 1991. After further spending cuts, only basic findi ngs are available. Countries:- BRZ Brazil, South Ame rica. Industries:- P9431 Administration of Public Healt h Programs. Types:- CMMT Comment & Analysis. The Financial Times London Page 5 ============= Transaction # 241 ============================================== Transaction #: 241 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:31:59 Selec. Rec. #: 9 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT943-5357 _AN-EIECYAA8FT 9409 05 FT 05 SEP 94 / Youthful Brazil faces problems of old age: Life expectancy is rising while the birth rate is continuing to fall By ANGUS FOSTER Brazil looks set to e nter the next century with 40m people 'missing'. According to projections ma de in the 1970s, its population would reach 212m by the year 2000. But accor ding to latest predictions, the total will be far less, probably 172m. The r easons for the sharp slowdown in population growth are also seen in other La tin American countries. They include a drastic fall in female fertility rate s, mainly due to increased use of contraceptives and rapid urbanisation. The consequences, which include an ageing society and serious strains on social and employment needs, have not yet been addressed. 'It is the population ab ove 65 which will grow the most in the next decades. Brazil will have to liv e with this phenomenon, which is well known in developed countries, without having overcome typical problems related to under-development,' says demogra phics professor Jose de Carvalho. Brazil's population change started in the 1940s. Improved medical and basic services led to falling mortality rates. F ertility rates remained high until the end of the 1960s, leading to rapid po pulation growth and a society with more than half its members under 20 years old. It also encouraged a belief, still held by many today, that Brazil was blessed with an eternally young and fast growing population. At the first i nternational population conference in Bucharest in 1974, Brazil's population was 100m and expected to double rapidly. But the female fertility rate - th e average number of births per child-bearing woman - began a startling fall from 5.8 in 1970 to 4.3 in 1975 and 3.6 by 1984. In a recent study of Sao Pa ulo state, Brazil's richest, the fertility rate was 2.3, in line with some d eveloped countries. The fall was partly due to rising education and urbanisa tion, as families moved from agricultural to industrial jobs. But the main r eason was increased access to, and demand for, contraception. By 1986, 66 pe r cent of women of child-bearing age said they were using some form of contr aceptive. Of these, about 40 per cent had been sterilised and a further 40 p er cent used the pill. By 1990, contraception use had risen to 69 per cent. These rates are high, considering Brazil is the world's largest Catholic cou ntry with a still conservative church hierachy. Abortion is illegal unless t he woman has been raped or is in medical danger. Officially, the church prom otes the Billings method, which teaches couples to avoid sex during ovulatio n. But very few couples obey, suggesting the church is, unofficially, more l iberal than it appears or losing its sway. Padre Antonio Carlos Frizzo, whos e parish is in the poor suburbs of Sao Paulo, says couples must choose. 'If a couple asked advice on sterilisation, which is rare, I would take into acc ount their economic situation and number of children, the love between them and whether another method is possible. 'But the couple must decide, and tha t's something we should not and cannot try to stop. And their decision has t o be supported, too. This might be criticised in the Vatican, but we are dea ling with people in real situations,' he says. The increasing demand for ste rilisation has a startling side-effect - it has helped make Brazil the world leader for caesarian births. These account for roughly one in three deliver ies, about twice the rate for England and Wales. The reasons are complex. So me women think caesarian section a 'modern' way to give birth, a view hospit als encourage, while others fear the pain involved in vaginal deliveries. An other reason is that when giving birth by caesarian, a woman can request to be sterilised at the same time and the government pays. Outside pregnancy, w omen have to pay to be sterilised, usually at semi-legal clinics. The declin ing birth rate will transform Brazil over the coming decades. Population gro wth, which in the 1970s was 2.4 per cent, has fallen to 1.9 per cent and is still declining. Today, 35 per cent of the country's 157m population is unde r 15 years old. By 2020, the percentage will have fallen to 24 per cent. By about 2040, with a rapidly aging society, the population will reach about 22 0m and stabilise or even fall. This prompts the church and other anti-aborti on groups to argue that population control is now obsolete in Brazil, especi ally given the country's undeveloped agricultural land. A more stable popula tion will also allow better government planning. In the past, rapid populati on growth in cities, for example, has prevented governments developing long- term urban plans. But the changes will also provide some sobering challenges . The number of people of working age is set to grow 2.4 per cent a year for the next decade, adding to pressures on the economy to create jobs. The soc ial security system, established when the average age at death was 45, must be reformed to cope with life expectancies of 64 and 69 for men and women re spectively. The country's under-funded public health system must emphasise p reventative medicine if it is to cope with the increasing demands of an agei ng population. Finally, the growing number of elderly from smaller families will need extra services. Unfortunately, Brazil does not seem greatly aware of these challenges. Because of the government's economic problems, the 1990 census was postponed to 1991. After further spending cuts, only basic findi ngs are available. Countries:- BRZ Brazil, South Ame rica. Industries:- P9431 Administration of Public Healt h Programs. Types:- CMMT Comment & Analysis. The Financial Times London Page 5 ============= Transaction # 242 ============================================== Transaction #: 242 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:32:13 Selec. Rec. #: 11 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT922-5103 _AN-CFBA3ADDFT 9206 02 FT 02 JUN 92 / Survey of The Earth Summit (8): Popula tion surge is a crucial issue - There may well be 10bn people on the earth b y the year 2050 By HILARY DE BOERR THE WORLD'S population is growing at an unprecedented rate, consuming more r esources than ever - nearly a billion people will be added to the planet dur ing the 1990s, according to the Worldwatch Institute. As the number of poor people is increasing, human migration is growing and renewable resources, su ch as water and land are increasingly under threat. Such realities make the population issue a crucial one for sustainable development. There are about 5.5bn people in the world, with an average annual increase of 97m projected for the coming decade. International experts agree that population growth ra tes will have to be reduced, and the pattern of human activities changed, if ecological catastrophe is to be averted. The two go hand-in-hand because it is not simply high population growth rates that are threatening the environ ment. Developed countries, with relatively low birth rates, consume most of the world's resources. A Bangladeshi, for example, consumes energy equivalen t to three barrels of oil a year, a US citizen 55 barrels. As Oxfam puts it: 'Industrialised countries generate significantly more damage per person to the global environment than do people in developing countries.' Sustainable development therefore calls for a fairer distribution of the benefits of dev elopment among the world's people. High population growth rates in developin g countries - where 80 per cent of the world's population lives - will, neve rtheless, put even greater pressure on the world's resources. The higher the population in developing countries, the higher their energy use and polluti on, especially as economies develop. More water is needed, more forests are cleared, inappropriate agricultural practices increase and wildlife species disappear. Population growth in developing countries is responsible for abou t 79 per cent of deforestation, 72 per cent of arable land expansion and 69 per cent of the growth in livestock numbers. Such problems are further compo unded by the increasing migration of people - to urban areas and to environm entally sensitive inland areas - in search of productive land and jobs. Addr essing high birth rates means addressing poverty in such countries, say inte rnational agencies. More than 1bn people live in absolute poverty without ad equate food, clothing or housing. North-South relationships regarding debt, trade, aid and technology transfer are seen as longer-term means of tackling poverty. Programmes to tackle high birth rates focus on improving third wor ld health and education, and providing readily available and affordable fami ly planning. Practice shows that birth rates can be reduced voluntarily by r aising the status of women through education and providing them with opportu nities other than the traditional child bearing role. It is thought that mor e than one in five births in developing countries may be unwanted. The worst case scenario for the population explosion is that there could be 12.5bn pe ople in the world by 2050 if immediate action is not taken. The most likely scenario is a figure of 10bn people. Fertility patterns can change in just o ne decade. Development and consumption patterns will have to follow suit, sa ys the United Nations Population Fund. 'World resources are adequate for the sustained development of the planet - if they are carefully used,' it warns . The Financial Times London Page V ============= Transaction # 243 ============================================== Transaction #: 243 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:32:28 Selec. Rec. #: 12 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT921-14657 _AN-CAOBBABPFT 920 115 FT 15 JAN 92 / The Lex Column: UK economy The trouble with declining inflation is that it is a mixed blessing when nominal interest rates are stuck at a high level. Yesterday's UK produ cer price figures showed both a healthy decline - to a year-on-year rate of 3.8 per cent - in underlying output price inflation and a welcome 12-month d rop in input prices. Admittedly the data only cover the manufacturing sector : services inflation is more stubborn, thanks to the likes of British Rail w ith its annual fare increases. But producer price trends still point in theo ry to a gentle economic stimulus from declining manufacturing costs and to s cope for an eventual sharp fall in interest rates as decelerating wholesale inflation feeds through to the retail level. All the more so, since the annu al rate of producer price increases should fall even more sharply next month as last January's exceptionally large 1.2 per cent rise falls out of the eq uation. Unfortunately membership of the Exchange Rate Mechanism means UK int erest rates are affected less by domestic inflation than by their differenti al with those of Germany. Recent French experience suggests that is unlikely to change even if headline UK inflation falls below that of Germany in Febr uary or March. With a showdown over wages looming in the German steel indust ry, the Bundesbank is unlikely to start cutting rates soon. Until it does, d eclining inflation in the UK will simply mean higher real interest rates. Th at in turn is likely to negate any economic benefit from weak commodity pric es. The Financial Times London Page 20 ============= Transaction # 244 ============================================== Transaction #: 244 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:32:37 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 54452 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 245 ============================================== Transaction #: 245 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:32:55 Selec. Rec. #: 15 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT941-9415 _AN-EBODHADOFT 9402 15 FT 15 FEB 94 / Personal View: Positive aspects of Ire land's economy By GARRET FITZGERALD European Union statistics shows that there is one member state whose growth over the past five years is spectacularly ahead of all the others - almost three times faster than the rest of the EU - and which has by far the best E U record in relation to the expansion of manufacturing employment. It also h as the lowest rate of inflation during this period. Moreover, it has for som e years had the lowest level of public borrowing and by far the fastest expo rt growth and biggest external payments surplus in the European Union. This state is also unusual in that the increase in the purchasing power of its av erage wage since 1988 has been matched only by one other EU country - Portug al. Other striking features are that it has the lowest death rate in the wor ld for mothers and for children under five, the highest level of food consum ption and the second-highest rate of home ownership. Its rate of female part icipation in parliament and government is a third higher than in Britain and the EU respectively. The state in question is Ireland. Of course, this is n ot the whole story. There are two other aspects of the Irish state which are equally notable and less positive: its average level of living standards, m easured in terms of its disposable income per head of population, is 22 per cent below that of the EU as a whole, and its unemployment rate is higher th an in any other EU country except Spain. Both of these features are, however , largely time-lagged consequences of a very high birth rate, which as recen tly as the late 1970s was as much as four-fifths higher than in many other E uropean countries. However, this exceptionally high rate is now a thing of t he past. For, despite the increase of more than half in the number of young people in its population during the past two decades, a virtual halving of t he fertility rate has reduced the Irish birth rate by more than a third. Thi s was brought about by the almost universal adoption of contraceptive practi ces, in disregard of the attitude of the Roman Catholic authorities. It is q uite possible that within a few years the rate will have fallen to the kind of very low level that prevails in countries in southern Europe. Why has the Irish birth rate been such a crucial factor influencing ultimately a countr y's living standards as internationally measured? For the simple reason that a country whose birth rate has been very high in the recent past is bound t o have a much higher ratio of dependants to workers: not only children and s tudents, but also, eventually, unemployed. This is because there is a limit to any modern industrial state's ability to absorb very large flows of young people emerging annually from the education system. This is why the Irish s tate's dependency ratio is 215 per 100 workers as against about 130 dependen ts per 100 workers in the UK and 157 per 100 in the EU as a whole. Vis a vis the UK, this factor helps explain the Irish state's lower level of output p er capita. For after a five-year period in which Irish gross domestic produc t has risen by 26 per cent, against a net 2 per cent in the UK, the level of disposable income per worker in Ireland measured at purchasing power pariti es is now the same as that of Britain and higher than that of Scandinavia. T he level of Irish unemployment is also largely a function of the past high b irth rate. Because Ireland's population was a fifth smaller up to 30 years a go, the number of annual retirements is currently relatively low. At the sam e time, the high birth rate up to the 1980s has been yielding - and will con tinue to yield until after 1998 - a high rate of entry into the Irish labour force. The result: a need for a net annual increase of more than 3 per cent in jobs - whereas in the EU as a whole the rate has been only a fifth of 1 per cent. With annual births down from 74,000 in 1980 to fewer than 52,000 i n 1989, and now dropping below 50,000, it is clear that this problem will ha ve largely solved itself within about 15 years. Meanwhile, the short-term gr owth prospects of the Irish economy are probably better even than forecast b y the European Commission. There are now marked signs of a recovery in consu mer demand, which will generate increased employment later this year. This i s the background to the recent Irish budget, which should have a moderately stimulating effect on the economy, mainly through income tax reliefs. The au thor is the former taoiseach (prime minister) of Ireland ------------------ ----------------------------------------------------- CHANGES 1988-1993 % - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ireland UK ---------------------- ------------------------------------------------- GDP +26 +2 GDP per worker +23 +6.5 Total employment manufacturing +3 -4.5 Employ ment +5 -18 Real wages +16 +9 Consumer prices +13 +30.5 Investment +11.5 -7.5 Person al consumption +16 +3.5 ----------------------- ------------------------------------------------ Percentage of GDP 1993 --- -------------------------------------------------------------------- Public borrowing 2.5 7.2 Current external balance +6.5 -2.3 ------------------------------------------ ----------------------------- Countries:- IEZ Irelan d, EC. Industries:- P9311 Finance, Taxation, and Moneta ry Policy. Types:- STATS Statistics. ECON Gross d omestic product. CMMT Comment & Analysis. The Financial Time s London Page 17 ============= Transaction # 246 ============================================== Transaction #: 246 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:33:36 Selec. Rec. #: 15 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT941-9415 _AN-EBODHADOFT 9402 15 FT 15 FEB 94 / Personal View: Positive aspects of Ire land's economy By GARRET FITZGERALD European Union statistics shows that there is one member state whose growth over the past five years is spectacularly ahead of all the others - almost three times faster than the rest of the EU - and which has by far the best E U record in relation to the expansion of manufacturing employment. It also h as the lowest rate of inflation during this period. Moreover, it has for som e years had the lowest level of public borrowing and by far the fastest expo rt growth and biggest external payments surplus in the European Union. This state is also unusual in that the increase in the purchasing power of its av erage wage since 1988 has been matched only by one other EU country - Portug al. Other striking features are that it has the lowest death rate in the wor ld for mothers and for children under five, the highest level of food consum ption and the second-highest rate of home ownership. Its rate of female part icipation in parliament and government is a third higher than in Britain and the EU respectively. The state in question is Ireland. Of course, this is n ot the whole story. There are two other aspects of the Irish state which are equally notable and less positive: its average level of living standards, m easured in terms of its disposable income per head of population, is 22 per cent below that of the EU as a whole, and its unemployment rate is higher th an in any other EU country except Spain. Both of these features are, however , largely time-lagged consequences of a very high birth rate, which as recen tly as the late 1970s was as much as four-fifths higher than in many other E uropean countries. However, this exceptionally high rate is now a thing of t he past. For, despite the increase of more than half in the number of young people in its population during the past two decades, a virtual halving of t he fertility rate has reduced the Irish birth rate by more than a third. Thi s was brought about by the almost universal adoption of contraceptive practi ces, in disregard of the attitude of the Roman Catholic authorities. It is q uite possible that within a few years the rate will have fallen to the kind of very low level that prevails in countries in southern Europe. Why has the Irish birth rate been such a crucial factor influencing ultimately a countr y's living standards as internationally measured? For the simple reason that a country whose birth rate has been very high in the recent past is bound t o have a much higher ratio of dependants to workers: not only children and s tudents, but also, eventually, unemployed. This is because there is a limit to any modern industrial state's ability to absorb very large flows of young people emerging annually from the education system. This is why the Irish s tate's dependency ratio is 215 per 100 workers as against about 130 dependen ts per 100 workers in the UK and 157 per 100 in the EU as a whole. Vis a vis the UK, this factor helps explain the Irish state's lower level of output p er capita. For after a five-year period in which Irish gross domestic produc t has risen by 26 per cent, against a net 2 per cent in the UK, the level of disposable income per worker in Ireland measured at purchasing power pariti es is now the same as that of Britain and higher than that of Scandinavia. T he level of Irish unemployment is also largely a function of the past high b irth rate. Because Ireland's population was a fifth smaller up to 30 years a go, the number of annual retirements is currently relatively low. At the sam e time, the high birth rate up to the 1980s has been yielding - and will con tinue to yield until after 1998 - a high rate of entry into the Irish labour force. The result: a need for a net annual increase of more than 3 per cent in jobs - whereas in the EU as a whole the rate has been only a fifth of 1 per cent. With annual births down from 74,000 in 1980 to fewer than 52,000 i n 1989, and now dropping below 50,000, it is clear that this problem will ha ve largely solved itself within about 15 years. Meanwhile, the short-term gr owth prospects of the Irish economy are probably better even than forecast b y the European Commission. There are now marked signs of a recovery in consu mer demand, which will generate increased employment later this year. This i s the background to the recent Irish budget, which should have a moderately stimulating effect on the economy, mainly through income tax reliefs. The au thor is the former taoiseach (prime minister) of Ireland ------------------ ----------------------------------------------------- CHANGES 1988-1993 % - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ireland UK ---------------------- ------------------------------------------------- GDP +26 +2 GDP per worker +23 +6.5 Total employment manufacturing +3 -4.5 Employ ment +5 -18 Real wages +16 +9 Consumer prices +13 +30.5 Investment +11.5 -7.5 Person al consumption +16 +3.5 ----------------------- ------------------------------------------------ Percentage of GDP 1993 --- -------------------------------------------------------------------- Public borrowing 2.5 7.2 Current external balance +6.5 -2.3 ------------------------------------------ ----------------------------- Countries:- IEZ Irelan d, EC. Industries:- P9311 Finance, Taxation, and Moneta ry Policy. Types:- STATS Statistics. ECON Gross d omestic product. CMMT Comment & Analysis. The Financial Time s London Page 17 ============= Transaction # 247 ============================================== Transaction #: 247 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:33:37 Selec. Rec. #: 15 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT941-9415 _AN-EBODHADOFT 9402 15 FT 15 FEB 94 / Personal View: Positive aspects of Ire land's economy By GARRET FITZGERALD European Union statistics shows that there is one member state whose growth over the past five years is spectacularly ahead of all the others - almost three times faster than the rest of the EU - and which has by far the best E U record in relation to the expansion of manufacturing employment. It also h as the lowest rate of inflation during this period. Moreover, it has for som e years had the lowest level of public borrowing and by far the fastest expo rt growth and biggest external payments surplus in the European Union. This state is also unusual in that the increase in the purchasing power of its av erage wage since 1988 has been matched only by one other EU country - Portug al. Other striking features are that it has the lowest death rate in the wor ld for mothers and for children under five, the highest level of food consum ption and the second-highest rate of home ownership. Its rate of female part icipation in parliament and government is a third higher than in Britain and the EU respectively. The state in question is Ireland. Of course, this is n ot the whole story. There are two other aspects of the Irish state which are equally notable and less positive: its average level of living standards, m easured in terms of its disposable income per head of population, is 22 per cent below that of the EU as a whole, and its unemployment rate is higher th an in any other EU country except Spain. Both of these features are, however , largely time-lagged consequences of a very high birth rate, which as recen tly as the late 1970s was as much as four-fifths higher than in many other E uropean countries. However, this exceptionally high rate is now a thing of t he past. For, despite the increase of more than half in the number of young people in its population during the past two decades, a virtual halving of t he fertility rate has reduced the Irish birth rate by more than a third. Thi s was brought about by the almost universal adoption of contraceptive practi ces, in disregard of the attitude of the Roman Catholic authorities. It is q uite possible that within a few years the rate will have fallen to the kind of very low level that prevails in countries in southern Europe. Why has the Irish birth rate been such a crucial factor influencing ultimately a countr y's living standards as internationally measured? For the simple reason that a country whose birth rate has been very high in the recent past is bound t o have a much higher ratio of dependants to workers: not only children and s tudents, but also, eventually, unemployed. This is because there is a limit to any modern industrial state's ability to absorb very large flows of young people emerging annually from the education system. This is why the Irish s tate's dependency ratio is 215 per 100 workers as against about 130 dependen ts per 100 workers in the UK and 157 per 100 in the EU as a whole. Vis a vis the UK, this factor helps explain the Irish state's lower level of output p er capita. For after a five-year period in which Irish gross domestic produc t has risen by 26 per cent, against a net 2 per cent in the UK, the level of disposable income per worker in Ireland measured at purchasing power pariti es is now the same as that of Britain and higher than that of Scandinavia. T he level of Irish unemployment is also largely a function of the past high b irth rate. Because Ireland's population was a fifth smaller up to 30 years a go, the number of annual retirements is currently relatively low. At the sam e time, the high birth rate up to the 1980s has been yielding - and will con tinue to yield until after 1998 - a high rate of entry into the Irish labour force. The result: a need for a net annual increase of more than 3 per cent in jobs - whereas in the EU as a whole the rate has been only a fifth of 1 per cent. With annual births down from 74,000 in 1980 to fewer than 52,000 i n 1989, and now dropping below 50,000, it is clear that this problem will ha ve largely solved itself within about 15 years. Meanwhile, the short-term gr owth prospects of the Irish economy are probably better even than forecast b y the European Commission. There are now marked signs of a recovery in consu mer demand, which will generate increased employment later this year. This i s the background to the recent Irish budget, which should have a moderately stimulating effect on the economy, mainly through income tax reliefs. The au thor is the former taoiseach (prime minister) of Ireland ------------------ ----------------------------------------------------- CHANGES 1988-1993 % - ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ireland UK ---------------------- ------------------------------------------------- GDP +26 +2 GDP per worker +23 +6.5 Total employment manufacturing +3 -4.5 Employ ment +5 -18 Real wages +16 +9 Consumer prices +13 +30.5 Investment +11.5 -7.5 Person al consumption +16 +3.5 ----------------------- ------------------------------------------------ Percentage of GDP 1993 --- -------------------------------------------------------------------- Public borrowing 2.5 7.2 Current external balance +6.5 -2.3 ------------------------------------------ ----------------------------- Countries:- IEZ Irelan d, EC. Industries:- P9311 Finance, Taxation, and Moneta ry Policy. Types:- STATS Statistics. ECON Gross d omestic product. CMMT Comment & Analysis. The Financial Time s London Page 17 ============= Transaction # 248 ============================================== Transaction #: 248 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:34:02 Selec. Rec. #: 16 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT931-1806 _AN-DCXCKAG8FT 9303 23 FT 23 MAR 93 / Wave of immigration at new peak: Weste rn Europe and North America each take over 1m a year in 1991 and 1992 By BRONWEN MADDOX GENEVA WESTERN Europe and North America each received more than 1m immigr ants in 1991 and 1992, a United Nations Conference on European population, w hich opens today in Geneva, is to be told. The total, mainly relatives joini ng earlier immigrants and a new wave of asylum seekers, is higher than the p revious peak in the early 1960s, according to Mr David Coleman, a demographe r at Oxford University. Immigrants are not generally economically beneficial to their host countries, he argues, although they may solve short-term labo ur problems. 'Only around 60 per cent of the potential workforce in western Europe is actually working and there is plenty of slack to cope with future labour demand,' he says. The past availability of cheap labour may be one fa ctor behind Europe's relative lack of investment in high technology industri es, he adds. The immigration numbers include 250,000 leaving Yugoslavia last year. Germany last year took 438,000 asylum seekers, two thirds of the Euro pean total. But so far 'it is Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia which are t aking the brunt of Russians, gipsies and Romanians from the east,' Mr Colema n says. An outbreak of fighting in Russia could intensify the pressure for w estward migration, and pressure will come too from the projected rise of nea rly 2bn in the populations of the south Mediterranean, tropical Africa and s outh Asia in the next 12 years. The conference, one of five regional debates before next year's UN World Population Conference in Cairo, is expected to call for more money to be spent on family planning to curb high rates of pop ulation growth in developing countries. The UN Population Fund wants the tot al amount of money spent each year to double from the present level of Dolla rs 4.5bn by the year 2000. Developed countries contribute only Dollars 800m of the total, and the Population Fund the main UN family planning agency, ha s seen its budget frozen at Dollars 238m. The conference will also hear warn ings that current projections of the world's population could need considera ble revision. By the year 2050, the world's stable population could be anywh ere between 5bn and 20bn, according to Mr Miroslav Macura, of the UN Economi c Commission for Europe. Present estimates of a doubling in population from the present 5.5bn by that date could be altered by small changes in fertilit y rates, he said. Scientists are also arguing that traditional assumptions b etween economic development and falling birth rates - captured in the phrase 'Development is the best contraception' - no longer appear true. Gulf state s have seen fertility rates - the average family size if the current birth r ate were maintained - of around three, compared to a European average of aro und 1.7, despite a huge increase in wealth. Mr Macura also points out that T hailand, Sri Lanka, and Bulgaria have seen sharp falls in birth rate despite low prosperity levels. Social changes in Europe are causing sharp fluctuati ons in birth rate. East German fertility rates, which were 1.6 before German unification compared to West Germany's 1.4, have now fallen to 0.8 because of uncertainty. However the increasing prosperity of Italy and Spain is thou ght to be responsible for the fall in fertility rates to about 1.2, below We st German levels. Countries:- XGZ Europe. CAZ C anada. Industries:- P9721 International Affairs. Types:- GOVT Government News. The Financial Times International Page 3 ============= Transaction # 249 ============================================== Transaction #: 249 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:34:20 Selec. Rec. #: 18 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT941-13122 _AN-EA0DIACDFT 940 127 FT 27 JAN 94 / Family loses out in social changes: M ore people live alone - Sharp increase in divorce rate By ALAN PIKE, Social Affairs Correspondent An apparently unequal struggle between the conventional family and social and demographic change is shown today in Social Trends, the Central Statistical Office's an nual compendium of British life. Political controversies over the future of the welfare state and the causes of crime have brought the role of tradition al family values into sharp focus. But Social Trends shows that, while the d ebate continues, so does the decline of the traditional family. Couples with dependent children formed the majority of households as recently as the ear ly 1970s. By 1992 they constituted less than 40 per cent, and it is now incr easingly likely that such couples will not be married. One significant reaso n for the change is a growing proportion of people living alone. Single peop le now account for more than a quarter of all households - there has been a threefold increase in the proportion of people living alone during the past 30 years. The biggest recent growth has been among men of working age, but t he ageing of the population is another factor that will fuel a continuing in crease in single-person households. By the year 2031 there will be more than 16m people of pensionable age in Britain's population - more than double th e 1961 number. Recent years have seen an even more striking rise in the prop ortion of lone-parent families - these have quadrupled since the early 1960s . The government's General Household Survey, also published this week, shows that 21 per cent of families were headed by lone parents in 1992. The main increase in single-parent households occurred during the 1970s and 1980s, an d there has been little further change in the proportion since 1990, the gov ernment's household survey adds. Allied to this change is Social Trends' now -familiar soaring graph showing the remarkable rise in births outside marria ge. Unmarried mothers now account for almost one-in-three births - an increa se from the one-in-20 level that, apart from the two world wars, had persist ed throughout the century until the 1960s. In Scotland and the north-east of England, 90 per cent of mothers under 20 were unmarried in 1992. The propor tion of births outside marriage more than doubled during the 1980s alone. Bu t the children do not all grow up in single-parent families - in 1992, 75 pe r cent of babies born outside marriage were registered by both parents. Divo rce, as well as births outside marriage, is contributing to the growth in si ngle-parent households. Marriages have declined by nearly 16 per cent during the past 20 years, while divorces have more than doubled. Some politicians hope that a renewed appreciation of the importance of community involvement will fill the gaps created by fragmenting family relationships. However, evi dence in Social Trends suggests that this may be wishful thinking. Surveys s how that only 4 per cent of the population has taken an active part in a pol itical campaign. The proportion of churchgoers is, at 15 per cent, lower tha n in many other European countries. Almost 75 per cent of the population has done no recent voluntary work. Some of the active minority who do volunteer put in more than 10 hours a month - but this compares with nearly 27 hours a week spent by the average citizen watching television. Social Trends 24. H MSO. Pounds 27. Countries:- GBZ United Kingdom, EC. Industries:- P8732 Commercial Nonphysical Research. Types:- STATS Statistics. The Financial Times London Page 8 ============= Transaction # 250 ============================================== Transaction #: 250 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:34:45 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 54452 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 251 ============================================== Transaction #: 251 Transaction Code: 12 (Record Relevance Feedback) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 14:34:50 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 16:00:00 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: zfind Default:1,2,3,6,9,15 ============= Transaction # 252 ============================================== Transaction #: 252 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:36:17 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 210155 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 253 ============================================== Transaction #: 253 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:36:41 Selec. Rec. #: 7 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT943-808 _AN-EI0DNAGMFT 94092 7 FT 27 SEP 94 / Survey of Business Locations in Europe (3): Later retirement with smaller pensions - Eva Kaluzynska examines the im plications of an ageing population By EVA KALUZYNSKA Europe's workforce is ageing - 15 per cent of the populati on is already aged 65 or over, compared with an average of 6 per cent in the rest of the world. 'We're moving towards the low 20s (%) at the turn of the century,' said Dr David Coleman, a demographer at Oxford University, specia lising in trends affecting Europe. There are relatively minor variations in birth and death rates among the 17 countries in the European Economic Area ( EEA), but the picture is very clear. Any company considering relocation will obviously factor in current levels of social costs, lowest in Portugal, Gre ece, Spain and the UK; highest in Germany, Denmark and Belgium. But employer s must tune into demographic trends now if they want to get a sustainable, l ong-term personnel policy off the ground. 'Companies may be thinking of movi ng now to a country where costs are low, but they must plan now to keep them low,' said employee-benefits specialist David Formosa, of Sedgwick Noble Lo wndes. The baby boom after the war was followed by what demographers at Euro stat, in Luxembourg, call a 'baby bust' in the 1970s. A marked decline in na tural population growth throughout the EEA is continuing, while the death ra te remains stable. In 1993, the birth rate was 11.2 per thousand, down from 11.5 per thousand in 1992; while the death rate stayed at 10.1 per thousand. Women, currently 51.2 per cent of the population in the European Union (EU) , are having fewer children, and they are having them later if at all. Only in Ireland (and Poland, in central Europe) are women still having two or mor e children each. In 1993, there were 4.19m births in the 17 countries of the EEA - 110,000 fewer than the previous year. Demographers are ringing alarm bells about the need to adjust policies now, both at company and government level. 'Germany is the forerunner,' said Harri Cruijsen, team leader at Euro stat's project on demography. 'In the next five to 10 years it is going to h ave the most acute problems in adjusting to an ageing workforce.' Italy and Spain lag by about five to 10 years. The situation is less serious in France , which has had a policy of financial incentives for would-be mothers. The U K could also buck the trend up to a point, due to what Cruijsen calls an abn ormally high rate of teenage pregnancies not seen elsewhere in Europe. The o verall implications are stark. Employers who stay on the continent, rather t han move nearer to markets in Asia, must make the most of the existing pool of potential labour, given the lack of youngsters. Experts agree on the need for two significant shifts in policy and attitude: postponing the age of re tirement, and recruiting more women into the labour force. 'Seniors will sta y on, females will come on,' as Cruijsen puts it. Many employees able to do so have retired early over the past decade, and many still expect to do so. 'This will stop,' said Cruijsen bluntly. Italy and Japan are already plannin g to raise the statutory age of retirement, and other countries will follow suit, experts say. 'The notion of early retirement has overshot its usefulne ss,' said Coleman. 'Active, employable life is getting longer. The notion th at a person is old and past it at 65 is increasingly obsolete.' The idea of older people giving up their places in the workforce to youngsters gathered favour during the recession, though without any significant effect in reduci ng unemployment. Employers encouraged the trend, rejuvenating their workforc es in the belief that younger people adapted better to new technologies. But Formosa urges managers to be innovative in adapting to new realities: 'Empl oyers will have to start thinking differently.' Replacing key staff who have specialised knowledge and experience will become far more difficult, and fl exible solutions, such as part-time schemes for key older employees could be part of the answer. He would recommend phased retirement: 'Maybe people wil l still be doing one or two days a week when they're aged 70.' Employers cas ting round for reserves in the labour force will have to make better use of women, experts say. Women currently make up about 40 per cent of the labour force in the EU. Denmark has the highest rate of female participation, at 46 .6 per cent, followed by France (44.3), Portugal (43.2) and the UK(43.2). Ir eland has the lowest rate, at 34.1 per cent. 'All projections for modest gro wth in the labour force at the turn of the century come from increased level s of female participation,' says Coleman. Formosa thinks employers will come round to offering women with caring responsibilities for children or older people more flexible working arrangements, as they realise the value of doin g so. 'I believe employers will make more of an effort to keep women, as the re is more difficulty in finding replacements.' Coleman estimates that, if a ll EU countries matched Denmark's rate of female participation in the labour force, the recruits would more than make up for any shortfall. 'There is a hidden labour force of at least 30m, which will be mobilised as married wome n increasingly take up work or return to work.' Europe's ageing workforce ca n expect lower statutory pensions, with higher retirement ages as the ratio of taxpayers to recipients descends from the current 2.4:1 to under two. Inc entives to retire early will go, and the prospect of lower incomes will obli ge seniors to work on. Employers are likely to become involved in improving pension provisions, partly through helping employees to set up appropriate s chemes to which they are the main contributors, partly through incentives fo r later retirement. Formosa says there is still time to avoid scenarios in w hich pensions systems collapse under the burden of payments due. Later retir ement will cut the cost of pensions by reducing the duration of payments. So me experts have suggested migration as a potential solution to the imbalance in western Europe's age structure. Coleman is adamant that this is no quick fix. The EEA countries cannot absorb significant numbers of legal migrants, other than those with specific skills for specific periods, he says: 'It se ems eccentric to propose immigration for low-grade labour, especially since future demand emphasises high skills.' Importing cheap young labour would ex acerbate one of Europe's biggest problems, its low productivity. Coleman arg ues that western Europe must deal with the impending crisis through making t he best use of its own resources. It should, he says, retrain to reduce unem ployment and invest in more capital-intensive processes to improve productiv ity. And it should mobilise more of its potential working population by maki ng it easier for women to work, as well as by recruiting those beyond curren t retirement age. Canny employers can start planning now. Count ries:- XGZ Europe. Industries:- P9441 Admini stration of Social and Manpower Programs. Types:- CMMT Comment & Analysis. The Financial Times London Pag e II ============= Transaction # 254 ============================================== Transaction #: 254 Transaction Code: 19 (Record Selected) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:37:39 Selec. Rec. #: 7 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT943-808 _AN-EI0DNAGMFT 94092 7 FT 27 SEP 94 / Survey of Business Locations in Europe (3): Later retirement with smaller pensions - Eva Kaluzynska examines the im plications of an ageing population By EVA KALUZYNSKA Europe's workforce is ageing - 15 per cent of the populati on is already aged 65 or over, compared with an average of 6 per cent in the rest of the world. 'We're moving towards the low 20s (%) at the turn of the century,' said Dr David Coleman, a demographer at Oxford University, specia lising in trends affecting Europe. There are relatively minor variations in birth and death rates among the 17 countries in the European Economic Area ( EEA), but the picture is very clear. Any company considering relocation will obviously factor in current levels of social costs, lowest in Portugal, Gre ece, Spain and the UK; highest in Germany, Denmark and Belgium. But employer s must tune into demographic trends now if they want to get a sustainable, l ong-term personnel policy off the ground. 'Companies may be thinking of movi ng now to a country where costs are low, but they must plan now to keep them low,' said employee-benefits specialist David Formosa, of Sedgwick Noble Lo wndes. The baby boom after the war was followed by what demographers at Euro stat, in Luxembourg, call a 'baby bust' in the 1970s. A marked decline in na tural population growth throughout the EEA is continuing, while the death ra te remains stable. In 1993, the birth rate was 11.2 per thousand, down from 11.5 per thousand in 1992; while the death rate stayed at 10.1 per thousand. Women, currently 51.2 per cent of the population in the European Union (EU) , are having fewer children, and they are having them later if at all. Only in Ireland (and Poland, in central Europe) are women still having two or mor e children each. In 1993, there were 4.19m births in the 17 countries of the EEA - 110,000 fewer than the previous year. Demographers are ringing alarm bells about the need to adjust policies now, both at company and government level. 'Germany is the forerunner,' said Harri Cruijsen, team leader at Euro stat's project on demography. 'In the next five to 10 years it is going to h ave the most acute problems in adjusting to an ageing workforce.' Italy and Spain lag by about five to 10 years. The situation is less serious in France , which has had a policy of financial incentives for would-be mothers. The U K could also buck the trend up to a point, due to what Cruijsen calls an abn ormally high rate of teenage pregnancies not seen elsewhere in Europe. The o verall implications are stark. Employers who stay on the continent, rather t han move nearer to markets in Asia, must make the most of the existing pool of potential labour, given the lack of youngsters. Experts agree on the need for two significant shifts in policy and attitude: postponing the age of re tirement, and recruiting more women into the labour force. 'Seniors will sta y on, females will come on,' as Cruijsen puts it. Many employees able to do so have retired early over the past decade, and many still expect to do so. 'This will stop,' said Cruijsen bluntly. Italy and Japan are already plannin g to raise the statutory age of retirement, and other countries will follow suit, experts say. 'The notion of early retirement has overshot its usefulne ss,' said Coleman. 'Active, employable life is getting longer. The notion th at a person is old and past it at 65 is increasingly obsolete.' The idea of older people giving up their places in the workforce to youngsters gathered favour during the recession, though without any significant effect in reduci ng unemployment. Employers encouraged the trend, rejuvenating their workforc es in the belief that younger people adapted better to new technologies. But Formosa urges managers to be innovative in adapting to new realities: 'Empl oyers will have to start thinking differently.' Replacing key staff who have specialised knowledge and experience will become far more difficult, and fl exible solutions, such as part-time schemes for key older employees could be part of the answer. He would recommend phased retirement: 'Maybe people wil l still be doing one or two days a week when they're aged 70.' Employers cas ting round for reserves in the labour force will have to make better use of women, experts say. Women currently make up about 40 per cent of the labour force in the EU. Denmark has the highest rate of female participation, at 46 .6 per cent, followed by France (44.3), Portugal (43.2) and the UK(43.2). Ir eland has the lowest rate, at 34.1 per cent. 'All projections for modest gro wth in the labour force at the turn of the century come from increased level s of female participation,' says Coleman. Formosa thinks employers will come round to offering women with caring responsibilities for children or older people more flexible working arrangements, as they realise the value of doin g so. 'I believe employers will make more of an effort to keep women, as the re is more difficulty in finding replacements.' Coleman estimates that, if a ll EU countries matched Denmark's rate of female participation in the labour force, the recruits would more than make up for any shortfall. 'There is a hidden labour force of at least 30m, which will be mobilised as married wome n increasingly take up work or return to work.' Europe's ageing workforce ca n expect lower statutory pensions, with higher retirement ages as the ratio of taxpayers to recipients descends from the current 2.4:1 to under two. Inc entives to retire early will go, and the prospect of lower incomes will obli ge seniors to work on. Employers are likely to become involved in improving pension provisions, partly through helping employees to set up appropriate s chemes to which they are the main contributors, partly through incentives fo r later retirement. Formosa says there is still time to avoid scenarios in w hich pensions systems collapse under the burden of payments due. Later retir ement will cut the cost of pensions by reducing the duration of payments. So me experts have suggested migration as a potential solution to the imbalance in western Europe's age structure. Coleman is adamant that this is no quick fix. The EEA countries cannot absorb significant numbers of legal migrants, other than those with specific skills for specific periods, he says: 'It se ems eccentric to propose immigration for low-grade labour, especially since future demand emphasises high skills.' Importing cheap young labour would ex acerbate one of Europe's biggest problems, its low productivity. Coleman arg ues that western Europe must deal with the impending crisis through making t he best use of its own resources. It should, he says, retrain to reduce unem ployment and invest in more capital-intensive processes to improve productiv ity. And it should mobilise more of its potential working population by maki ng it easier for women to work, as well as by recruiting those beyond curren t retirement age. Canny employers can start planning now. Count ries:- XGZ Europe. Industries:- P9441 Admini stration of Social and Manpower Programs. Types:- CMMT Comment & Analysis. The Financial Times London Pag e II ============= Transaction # 255 ============================================== Transaction #: 255 Transaction Code: 22 (Record(s) Saved) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:37:40 Selec. Rec. #: 7 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT943-808 _AN-EI0DNAGMFT 94092 7 FT 27 SEP 94 / Survey of Business Locations in Europe (3): Later retirement with smaller pensions - Eva Kaluzynska examines the im plications of an ageing population By EVA KALUZYNSKA Europe's workforce is ageing - 15 per cent of the populati on is already aged 65 or over, compared with an average of 6 per cent in the rest of the world. 'We're moving towards the low 20s (%) at the turn of the century,' said Dr David Coleman, a demographer at Oxford University, specia lising in trends affecting Europe. There are relatively minor variations in birth and death rates among the 17 countries in the European Economic Area ( EEA), but the picture is very clear. Any company considering relocation will obviously factor in current levels of social costs, lowest in Portugal, Gre ece, Spain and the UK; highest in Germany, Denmark and Belgium. But employer s must tune into demographic trends now if they want to get a sustainable, l ong-term personnel policy off the ground. 'Companies may be thinking of movi ng now to a country where costs are low, but they must plan now to keep them low,' said employee-benefits specialist David Formosa, of Sedgwick Noble Lo wndes. The baby boom after the war was followed by what demographers at Euro stat, in Luxembourg, call a 'baby bust' in the 1970s. A marked decline in na tural population growth throughout the EEA is continuing, while the death ra te remains stable. In 1993, the birth rate was 11.2 per thousand, down from 11.5 per thousand in 1992; while the death rate stayed at 10.1 per thousand. Women, currently 51.2 per cent of the population in the European Union (EU) , are having fewer children, and they are having them later if at all. Only in Ireland (and Poland, in central Europe) are women still having two or mor e children each. In 1993, there were 4.19m births in the 17 countries of the EEA - 110,000 fewer than the previous year. Demographers are ringing alarm bells about the need to adjust policies now, both at company and government level. 'Germany is the forerunner,' said Harri Cruijsen, team leader at Euro stat's project on demography. 'In the next five to 10 years it is going to h ave the most acute problems in adjusting to an ageing workforce.' Italy and Spain lag by about five to 10 years. The situation is less serious in France , which has had a policy of financial incentives for would-be mothers. The U K could also buck the trend up to a point, due to what Cruijsen calls an abn ormally high rate of teenage pregnancies not seen elsewhere in Europe. The o verall implications are stark. Employers who stay on the continent, rather t han move nearer to markets in Asia, must make the most of the existing pool of potential labour, given the lack of youngsters. Experts agree on the need for two significant shifts in policy and attitude: postponing the age of re tirement, and recruiting more women into the labour force. 'Seniors will sta y on, females will come on,' as Cruijsen puts it. Many employees able to do so have retired early over the past decade, and many still expect to do so. 'This will stop,' said Cruijsen bluntly. Italy and Japan are already plannin g to raise the statutory age of retirement, and other countries will follow suit, experts say. 'The notion of early retirement has overshot its usefulne ss,' said Coleman. 'Active, employable life is getting longer. The notion th at a person is old and past it at 65 is increasingly obsolete.' The idea of older people giving up their places in the workforce to youngsters gathered favour during the recession, though without any significant effect in reduci ng unemployment. Employers encouraged the trend, rejuvenating their workforc es in the belief that younger people adapted better to new technologies. But Formosa urges managers to be innovative in adapting to new realities: 'Empl oyers will have to start thinking differently.' Replacing key staff who have specialised knowledge and experience will become far more difficult, and fl exible solutions, such as part-time schemes for key older employees could be part of the answer. He would recommend phased retirement: 'Maybe people wil l still be doing one or two days a week when they're aged 70.' Employers cas ting round for reserves in the labour force will have to make better use of women, experts say. Women currently make up about 40 per cent of the labour force in the EU. Denmark has the highest rate of female participation, at 46 .6 per cent, followed by France (44.3), Portugal (43.2) and the UK(43.2). Ir eland has the lowest rate, at 34.1 per cent. 'All projections for modest gro wth in the labour force at the turn of the century come from increased level s of female participation,' says Coleman. Formosa thinks employers will come round to offering women with caring responsibilities for children or older people more flexible working arrangements, as they realise the value of doin g so. 'I believe employers will make more of an effort to keep women, as the re is more difficulty in finding replacements.' Coleman estimates that, if a ll EU countries matched Denmark's rate of female participation in the labour force, the recruits would more than make up for any shortfall. 'There is a hidden labour force of at least 30m, which will be mobilised as married wome n increasingly take up work or return to work.' Europe's ageing workforce ca n expect lower statutory pensions, with higher retirement ages as the ratio of taxpayers to recipients descends from the current 2.4:1 to under two. Inc entives to retire early will go, and the prospect of lower incomes will obli ge seniors to work on. Employers are likely to become involved in improving pension provisions, partly through helping employees to set up appropriate s chemes to which they are the main contributors, partly through incentives fo r later retirement. Formosa says there is still time to avoid scenarios in w hich pensions systems collapse under the burden of payments due. Later retir ement will cut the cost of pensions by reducing the duration of payments. So me experts have suggested migration as a potential solution to the imbalance in western Europe's age structure. Coleman is adamant that this is no quick fix. The EEA countries cannot absorb significant numbers of legal migrants, other than those with specific skills for specific periods, he says: 'It se ems eccentric to propose immigration for low-grade labour, especially since future demand emphasises high skills.' Importing cheap young labour would ex acerbate one of Europe's biggest problems, its low productivity. Coleman arg ues that western Europe must deal with the impending crisis through making t he best use of its own resources. It should, he says, retrain to reduce unem ployment and invest in more capital-intensive processes to improve productiv ity. And it should mobilise more of its potential working population by maki ng it easier for women to work, as well as by recruiting those beyond curren t retirement age. Canny employers can start planning now. Count ries:- XGZ Europe. Industries:- P9441 Admini stration of Social and Manpower Programs. Types:- CMMT Comment & Analysis. The Financial Times London Pag e II ============= Transaction # 256 ============================================== Transaction #: 256 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:38:29 Selec. Rec. #: 8 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT941-4933 _AN-ECICYACPFT 9403 09 FT 09 MAR 94 / Can Europe Compete?: Balance of econom ic power begins to shift - David Marsh sees opportunities in Europe's laggin g performance By DAVID MARSH Europe ans are no strangers to periods of lagging economic performance. The fortune s of ancient Egypt waxed and waned over 2,000 years, while most of Europe wa s a barbaric wilderness populated by goatherds. The cycles of world history have since accelerated and become interconnected, to a degree barely conceiv able even a generation ago. As it tackles the problem of fading dynamism, Eu rope must weather a phase of unsettling political and economic transition. ' Europe can be under no illusion that it faces very strong competition from t he US and Asia,' says Mr Ernst-Antoine Selliere, vice-president in charge of economic affairs at the French Patronat employers' organisation. 'But, prov ided we loosen constraints on our competitiveness, this can be an opportunit y.' The European nations that launched the manufacturing revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries ceded industrial leadership to the US after the firs t world war. Now, as a result of global upheavals in technology and communic ations, another shift in the balance of economic power may be imminent - thi s time, towards the rapidly expanding economies of the Pacific Rim. Using Wo rld Bank data and its own assumptions about future growth, Union Bank of Swi tzerland (UBS) projects that, in the first decade of next century, purchasin g power income per head in Singapore and Korea will exceed that of the US. I ncomes in Singapore are already close to the west European average. Accordin g to similarly derived projections by UK accountants Coopers and Lybrand, th e share of world GDP taken by Asian developing countries (including both Chi na and India) could rise to 28 per cent in 2010 from 18 per cent in 1990. We stern Europe's share would fall to 17 per cent from 22 per cent, while the U S's would fall to 18 per cent from 23 per cent. This projection assumes annu al growth in both western Europe and the US of 2.5 per cent, against 6 per c ent in Asia. Even if the growth differential is less, Europe will drop down the economic rankings. But Europe's likely decline needs to be put into pers pective. First, it is natural that less well-off countries move closer to we althy ones. Over the past 20 years, the gulf between many rich and poor coun tries has widened. Where gaps have narrowed, they normally remain large. Acc ording to World Bank figures (based on constant dollar exchange rates rather than purchasing power parities), by 2000 the ratio between average GDP per capita in western Europe and east Asia will be an 18 to 1, compared with 48 to 1 in 1970. Second, as living standards rise in less developed countries, wealth should flow back to Europe through increased trade and investment. Pr ovided European companies match international advances in management and tec hnology, Europe can maintain a strong competitive advantage in goods and ser vices the rest of the world wants. This requires that borders remain open an d protectionist pressure is resisted. Professor Richard Portes, director of the London-based Centre for Economic Policy Research, believes a narrowing o f the wealth gap between Europe and the rest of the world need not be disast rous. 'I'm very sceptical about the views of the doomsayers.' Differences in real wages between western Europe and other manufacturing regions will narr ow, he says, in the same way that US wages, relative to those in Europe, hav e fallen since the 1950s. This need not stop European living standards risin g. According to UBS's projections, western Europe's growth rate will pick up early in the 21st century, as the continent benefits from the 'catch up' ph enomenon, under which countries that lag adopt innovations from the leaders. A striking example of 'catch up' has been US success in the 1980s in reacti ng to the competitive threat from Japan by importing 'just-in-time' Japanese production technology, says Mr Bill Gasser, UBS's senior international econ omist. But, as it tries to adapt, Europe has one big disadvantage. The fast- increasing share of GDP taken by government spending in the past decade -a rise well under way before the onset of the European recession in 1992-93 - has imposed a growing burden on business. Social spending is the biggest sin gle portion of these outlays. The OECD says social security transfers in the EU will account for 21.5 per cent of GDP in 1994, up from 16.4 per cent in 1989 - double the percentage rise in the last downturn in 1979-1982. In rela tion to GDP, EU social transfers exceed US and Japanese levels by 50 per cen t and 78 per cent. As a community of nation states, western Europe faces gre ater difficulties than the US did a decade ago in adopting common policies t o recover dynamism. But Europe's diversity is also a trump card. Different p arts of the continent can draw upon varying strengths and specialisations. T here is little disagreement on the diagnosis of Europe's core problems. The task is to implement corrective measures: Growth of public spending on welfa re is placing intolerable strains on budget deficits - one reason for high t axes and interest rates. Beyond simply cutting benefits, governments need a new balance between public and private sector social security provision. The number of old people in Europe could outstrip resources to care for them. I maginative solutions will be required, returning the elderly to family envir onments and using technological advances to moderate medical costs. More fle xible labour markets are needed, including improved possibilities for part-t ime work and less rigid wage-bargaining mechanisms. The collapse in demand f or unskilled labour creates the potential for an integrated tax and welfare system allowing low-paid workers to be paid partly by employers and partly b y tax credits. Europe must overcome its technological lag. Companies at the forefront of scientific advance must improve links both to the markets they serve and the education establishments on which they draw. Europe needs a be tter balance between the costs and benefits of environmental regulation. Env ironmental rules have not yet been a significant spur to innovation or compe titive advantage. Plans for further integration, including widening (early n ext century) to central and eastern Europe, need to be based on liberal, ope n-market principles. Governments know Europe can prosper only if companies t hink globally. This can lead to some sharp modifications. Pointing to the la rge number of German companies shifting production abroad to escape high dom estic costs, Mr Ludolf von Wartenberg, general manager of the Federation of German Industry, says companies are moving away from a 'Made in Germany' tow ards a 'Designed in Germany' concept. German industry will regain competitiv eness, he says. But he admits doubts on how German society will cope with th e strain. This type of corporate reaction can be painful, but the absence of adjustment would have still more disturbing consequences. If European enter prises and employees can muster the flexibility to manage change and the fla ir to master it, salvation is assured. Countries:- US Z United States of America. JPZ Japan, Asia. QRZ European Economi c Community (EC). Industries:- P9311 Finance, Taxation, and Monetary Policy. Types:- CMMT Comment & Analysis. MKTS Market shares. ECON Gross domestic product. ECON Econom ic Indicators. The Financial Times London Page 14 < /PAGE> ============= Transaction # 257 ============================================== Transaction #: 257 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:38:43 Selec. Rec. #: 9 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT924-1590 _AN-CLQCFAC7FT 9212 17 FT 17 DEC 92 / Europe isn't working: As the single ma rket approaches, rising unemployment has pushed inflation out of the limelig ht By DAVID GOODHART In the run-up to next year's single European market, many of the continent's biggest emplo yers are shedding tens of thousands of employees. IBM, British Petroleum and Ford joined the list this week, and the UK government will today unveil fig ures showing more than 30,000 joined the dole queues in November. Unemployme nt in the European Community, consistently higher than elsewhere in the indu strial world and rising rapidly again, is rudely elbowing its way back into the limelight. Between 1985 and 1991 it was tempting to believe that unemplo yment rates could return to the low single figures of the 1960s as, led by t he UK, the EC created 11.4m jobs. That performance was better than the US, J apan and non-EC Europe, but still not good enough to bring EC unemployment r ates down to their levels. One reason is that only a third of the 11.4m jobs went to the registered unemployed, resulting in a disappointingly small fal l in the EC's unemployment rate, from 10.9 per cent at the end of 1985 to 8. 4 per cent at the end of 1990. About 30 per cent of the new jobs went to par t-timers and 70 per cent to women. Many of the women, according to European Commission officials, now form a reserve army of the semi-employed who come on to the jobs market when jobs are plentiful and disappear again when they are scarce. Thanks to the rising level of female participation in the EC wor kforce, a static, or slightly falling, EC birth rate will not lead to a shor tage of workers or the disappearance of unemployment by the end of the centu ry. Indeed, the Commission expects the labour force to grow 15 per cent, req uiring 25m jobs, by 2010, largely because female participation will catch up with the rest of the industrialised world. But the medium-term prospects ar e not good. Industrialists point out that, on top of the unemployment arisin g from slower growth, is the extra loss of jobs that will arise because of t he single market. Companies' profit margins in the new competitive environme nt are coming under pressure so they are cutting overheads in the form of jo bs. The combined result is that for the past year unemployment has been risi ng in almost all countries, with the exception of the Netherlands, and EC-wi de unemployment is now edging back up towards 10 per cent - about 16m people . The UK, where labour-market deregulation has made it easier to hire and fi re, is the leader in the loss of jobs just as it was in job creation, and ac counted for almost 50 per cent of the increase in EC joblessness in the year to August 1992. The continuing rapid increase in the UK will help to propel the EC-wide unemployment rate to a new peak of more than 11 per cent later in 1993, where the Commission expects it to remain until 1996. The total sho uld fall after that, but the continuing underlying upward trend, which began with the first oil shock of the early 1970s, will leave joblessness at the end of the 1990s six times higher than it was in the 1960s. The Commission e stimates that 10m new jobs will be needed by 2000 merely to cut the unemploy ment rate to 7 per cent, something the tough economic convergence criteria o f the Maastricht treaty will almost certainly rule out. EC labour markets we re not always such international laggards. Indeed it was only in the early 1 980s that EC unemployment overtook that of the US, but academics and policym akers seem at a loss to find a convincing explanation for what has gone wron g over the past 20 years. Mr Charles Bean, of the Centre for Economic Perfor mance at the London School of Economics, concluded a recent survey of Europe an unemployment thus: 'The reader may feel that we are not much further on i n understanding the causes of high unemployment than 10 years ago. There are plenty of plausible suspects, quite a few smoking guns, but little really d efinite proof.' The basic pattern of EC unemployment has remained similar fo r 20 years, although the problem is now spreading beyond the unskilled, the young and the old to affect better-qualified, middle-aged workers. But the c urrent wave differs in one important respect from the early 1980s - there is no surge in youth unemployment, which accounted for 45 per cent of total EC unemployment in the early 1980s and now accounts for less than 30 per cent. There remain large differences between countries within the EC - particular ly between northern and southern member states. As Mr John Morley, head of e mployment policy at the European Commission, points out: 'Unlike the United States we do have some very undeveloped parts of the EC with low participati on rates and a large black market.' EC unemployment can be divided into thre e groups: the high-unemployment countries (Ireland and Spain); the medium-un employment countries (the UK, Italy, France, Denmark, Belgium and Greece); a nd the low-unemployment countries (the Netherlands, west Germany, Portugal a nd Luxembourg). In some countries, such as France, Italy and Greece, unemplo yment has remained relatively static for almost a decade; others such as the UK have ridden the rollercoaster up, down and now up again. A virtuous trio of Portugal, the Netherlands and west Germany have seen a consistent downwa rd trend since 1985, although Germany, following reunification, is now start ing to shed jobs rapidly. Southern states such as Spain, Greece and Italy te nd to have lower participation rates, higher youth and female unemployment, and higher self-employment rates. But Spain's very high unemployment rate st ems from its slow growth between 1975 and 1985; inflexible employment rules for employers plus capital-intensive investment have done little to dent thi s. Portugal, on the other hand, enjoys low unemployment because it has low p roductivity. There are other regional differences, such as high graduate une mployment in Spain and Greece which results from people queueing for the bet ter-paid jobs in the public sector. But there is no single explanation for t he EC's poor employment performance which would help policymakers bring the rate down to the low single figures that prevails in Japan, the US and non-E C Europe. The EC's failures compared with other leading industrial countries (see chart) cannot simply be attributed to slower growth. Though growth has been below Japanese levels since the early 1970s it has been comparable wit h the US and non-EC Europe. Neither, as the UK government believes, can the failure be attributed to the over-regulation of EC labour markets. Britain's own laisser-faire hire and fire system is hardly a model - with the third-h ighest unemployment in the EC - while two of the most regulated EC labour ma rkets, the Netherlands and west Germany, have relatively low unemployment. R elated arguments about high unionisation or generous benefit systems are dis proved by the Nordic countries, which have both, as well as historically low unemployment. So was labour market deregulation and the reduction in union influence pursued by some EC countries in the 1980s misconceived? Mr Robert Lindley, of the Institute for Employment Research at the University of Warwi ck, believes that the strategy hit the wrong target. Instead of forcing full -time, well-paid 'insiders', from skilled manual workers to the professions, to share out some of their job security and high pay, it has merely made 'a lready weak workers even weaker and divided up the same amount of work into smaller, part-time, parcels'. The percentage of French workers in part-time employment has increased by 50 per cent over the past decade and one-fifth o f UK employment is now part-time. The dominance of the insiders also helps e xplain the failure of EC wage rates to respond first to the external shocks of the 1970s oil price rises and then to the high unemployment of the early 1980s. Japanese workers took a sharp drop in real wages in the 1970s and, at least for the past 10 years, US workers have had static real wages. By cont rast the EC saw a significant increase in real wages in the 1980s. In Britai n, for example, they rose by 39 per cent and in Italy by 31 per cent. One re ason that the insiders have remained so well-placed in the EC is the high in cidence of people out of work for more than one year who cease to function a s an effective pressure on the employed. The long-term unemployed make up ab out 50 per cent of the EC unemployed, compared with only 6 per cent in the U S and 18 per cent in Japan. The Commission wants a more 'integrated' labour market to accommodate the longer-term unemployed but is unlikely to get it. EC employers are fragmenting the labour market and, where regulations allow, increasing the number of part-time, or temporary, service-sector jobs, whic h are often insecure and low-paid. To overcome the mismatch between the skil ls and aptitudes of the long-term unemployed and the sort of jobs increasing ly on offer, the unemployed will have to adapt to the job market. Mr Morley says governments must help them by adjusting their social security and taxat ion systems to encourage the outsiders back into the labour market, making i t easier for people to combine two part-time jobs for example. Governments s hould also spend less on 'passive' benefits - currently more than two-thirds of the 2.25 per cent of EC gross domestic product spent on the unemployed - and more on retraining, counselling and other active labour market measures . Such reforms could take years to yield benefits. In the meantime it would be unrealistic to expect greater labour mobility in the EC to help reduce st rains - only 2m EC citizens currently work permanently in another EC country , fewer than the number 10 years ago. There are, however, two grounds for op timism about EC unemployment. First, thanks to lower productivity and the gr owth of labour-intensive services, it now requires EC growth of only about 1 .5 per cent to create jobs, compared with 3 to 4 per cent 10 years ago. Seco nd, a growing number of politicians in the EC are starting to focus on high unemployment as a structural, not just a cyclical, problem. As Mr Morley say s: 'It's not much, but at least it's a start.' The Financial Ti mes London Page 18 ============= Transaction # 258 ============================================== Transaction #: 258 Transaction Code: 14 (Search Results Displayed) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:39:24 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 210155 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 12 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: ============= Transaction # 259 ============================================== Transaction #: 259 Transaction Code: 39 (Full Doc Window --TREC) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:39:32 Selec. Rec. #: 13 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: FT942-6848 _AN-EE0DLAHMFT 9405 27 FT 27 MAY 94 / Survey of Relocation in the UK (3): Po pulation grows grey / A look at how Britain compares with the rest of Europe By PHILIP COGGAN The UK population is growing. And, like that of much of western Europe, it is also greying. B ut while the increase in the pensioner population may cause problems in the middle of the 21st century, there is some good news in the shorter term. The number of people of working age (defined as men aged 16-64, and women aged 16-59) is still increasing, according to the Office of Population Censuses a nd Surveys. From around 35.5m in 1992, the working population is expected to increase to around 37.4m by 2011, while the overall UK population grows fro m just under 58m to 61.25m over the same period. The birth rate in the UK ha s edged up in recent years after the lows of the late 1970s and early 1980s; live births per 1,000 people were 13.5 in 1992, compared with an average of 12.9 in 1981-85. Nevertheless, the fertility rate is still below the replac ement level of 2.1. Children were 25 per cent of the population in 1971, but are expected to be only 18 per cent in 2031. It is only a low death rate, a s life expectancy marches ever upwards, that keeps the population growing. ( Immigration plays a small part. The UK had a net inflow of 34,000 people in 1992.) The average male born in 1990 had a life expectancy of 73 years, comp ared with 67.9 years in 1961; female life expectancy grew from 73.8 to 78.5 years over the same period. The UK's population profile is not too bad in Eu ropean terms. In terms of maintaining a future workforce, the key is the num ber of those aged 0-19 as a proportion of those people of working age. Here the champion is Ireland, which has more than one child for every person of w orking age, while the UK ranks seventh out of 17 countries surveyed by the O PCS in 1990-91. Bottom of the league is Germany, which has only one child fo r every three people of working age. The number of 16-year-olds joining the UK workforce has been steadily declining from a peak of 936,000 in 1981 and may have reached a trough of 628,000 in 1993. It is now expected to rise gen tly during the rest of the century. The UK does not rank quite so well on th e greying factor. There were 39 people aged over 60 for every 100 of working age in 1990-91, the third highest total of the European nations studied. (S weden was the greyest with 43 people over 60 for every 100 of working age.) According to the OPCS, there were 8.93m people of pensionable age in England and Wales in 1981, 18 per cent of the total; by 1991, there were 9.45m, 18. 5 per cent of the total. And within the ranks of the pensioners, the number of people aged over 75 increased from 2.93m (5.9 per cent of the total popul ation) in 1981 to 3.62m (7.1 per cent) in 1991. The growing numbers of the e lderly will undoubtedly create social costs (particularly in terms of health and pensions provision) which will probably be reflected in higher taxes fo r the working population. However, greying is a European-wide problem. About a fifth of the European Union's 320m citizens are aged over 60 (with 20m ag ed over 74). By 2010, the proportion of over-60s is projected to grow to 23 per cent and to 25 per cent by 2040. The only countries expected to have a p ensioner population of less than 20 per cent in 2010 are Portugal and Irelan d. Steps may be taken to alleviate potential problems by increasing the pens ionable age. In the UK, the plan is for the retirement age for women to be i ncreased to 65, to match that of men. This change will be phased in between the years 2010 and 2020. The effect, according to the OPCS, is that the numb er of pensioners in the UK will peak at 15.2m in 2038, compared with a total of 16.8m had the change not occurred. Within England, population rose in ev ery region bar two between 1981 and 1991. The exceptions were the north and the north-west, which experienced a fall of 0.1 per cent per year. East Angl ia and the south-west saw the fastest growth rates, at 0.9 and 0.7 per cent a year respectively. In 1992, the English region with the highest proportion of people of working age was the south-east with 61.2 per cent (64.1 per ce nt in greater London itself). The region with the lowest proportion was the south-west, with 59.2 per cent. In terms of the future, the region with the highest proportion of those under 16 is the north-west, with 21.2 per cent, while the south-west is the lowest with 19.2 per cent. Looking at the rest o f the UK, Northern Ireland has a higher proportion of children than any Engl ish region, at 25.7 per cent, while Scotland beats all the English regions i n terms of the proportion of people of working age, at 62 per cent. OPCS pro jections show that, in 2011, the south-east region will still have the lowes t proportion of pensioners and the highest proportion of those of working ag e in England; the south-west will still be at the opposite end of the scale on both counts. The south-east will also have moved to top the scale in term s of the proportion of children. However, a study of migration flows shows t hat people have been leaving the south-east for the rest of England. In the five years between 1988 and 1992, the south-east experienced a net migration outflow to the rest of the UK of 206,000. In fact, all of that and more was a loss from greater London, which had an outflow of 250,000. The region whi ch saw the biggest inflow was the south-west, which gained 119,000. The east midlands and East Anglia both gained, while the west midlands and the north -west were net losers. Within the UK as a whole, there has been a small migr ation from England to the other three countries. And there has been a steady shift away from cities towards more rural areas. Perhaps as the elderly ret reat from the towns to retire to 'rural bliss', this trend will continue. - -------------------------------------------------------------------- UK population (thousands) --------------------------------- ------------------------------------ Mid-year UK England Wales Scotland N Ireland figures -------------------------------------- ------------------------------- 1961* 52,807 43,561 2,635 5,184 1,427 1971* 55,928 46,412 2,740 5,236 1,540 1976* 56,216 46,660 2,799 5,233 1,52 4 1981* 56,352 46,821 2,813 5,180 1,538 1986* 56,850 47,342 2,820 5,121 1,567 1987* 57,008 47,488 2,833 5,112 1,575 1988* 57,159 47,633 2,854 5,094 1,578 1989* 57,352 47,809 2,869 5,091 1,583 1990* 57,561 47,992 2,878 5,102 1,589 1991* 57,801 48,208 2,891 5,107 1,594 1992* 57,998 48,378 2,899 5,111 1,610 o f which, percentages 0-4 6.7 6.7 6.6 6.4 8.0 5-15 13.7 13.5 14.0 13.7 17.7 16-44 42.0 42.0 39.6 42.6 42.1 45-64M/59F 19.3 19.3 19.8 19.5 17.2 65M/60F-74 11 .4 11.3 12.6 11.5 9.8 75 and over 7.0 7.0 7.4 6.4 5.2 -------------------------------------------- ------------------------- Projections (based on mid-1992 population estimate s) 1996 58,784 49,067 2,930 5,146 1,642 2001 59,800 50,023 2,966 5,143 1,667 2006 60,610 50,814 2,993 5,115 1,687 2111 61,257 51,458 3,013 5,077 1,709 of which, percentages 0-4 5.7 5.8 5.6 5.5 6.7 5-15 13.5 13.5 12.9 13.6 15.3 16-44 37.4 37.5 35.9 36.2 39.7 45-64M/59F 23.6 23.6 23.2 24.5 21.2 65M/60F-74 12.0 11.9 13.4 12.4 10.7 75 and over 7.8 7.8 9.0 7.9 6.4 --- ------------------------------------------------------------------ *=Estimat es --------------------------------------------------------------------- So urce: Office of Population Censuses and Surveys --------------------------- ------------------------------------------ Countries:- GBZ United Kingdom, EC. Industries:- P9441 Administr ation of Social and Manpower Programs. Types:- CMMT Co mment & Analysis. STATS Statistics. The Financial Times London Page II ============= Transaction # 260 ============================================== Transaction #: 260 Transaction Code: 15 (Terms Cleared) Terminal ID: 57943 Z39.50 Server ID: 19 (TREC) Session ID: 1 New Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Old Z39.50 Server ID: 0 (Astro/Math/Stat) Usr Interface: Prob Time Cmd Sent: 16:00:00 Rec. Format: Short Time Cmd Complete: 14:40:10 Selec. Rec. #: 0 Boolean Indexes Used: 0 Author 0 Date 0 Rectype 0 X_Corp Author 0 Call # 0 Title 0 Language 0 X_Author 0 Uniform Title 0 Subject 0 ISBN 0 X_Title 0 X_Subject 0 Organization 0 LCCN 0 Topic 0 Host Item 0 Series 0 ISSN 0 Keyword 0 Conf Boolean Conjunctions: Button 1: and Button 2: OR Button 3: or Used?: No Used?: No Used?: No # Keywords: 0 Error Code: 0 # Hits: 0 Help Code: 0 # Displayed: 0 Help ID: 0 Associated Variable Length Text: