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Malaysia's
Proton cars have been rated as one of the
five most reliable brands on the road in the United
Kingdom, according to an independent survey. Proton
cars were ranked alongside Honda, Toyota, Mazda
and Nissan as being the least likely to suffer
mechanical breakdowns. Proton also made its debut
in the small-car market with the launch of the
1.2 liter Proton Savvy hatchback.
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Saudi
based Sabic, a global petrochemical leader,
has developed a new acetic acid technology at
its Ibn Rushd complex in Yanbu. It holds the patent
on the system developed.
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Turkey's
Leading GSM Operator, Turkcell, Ranked
14th Overall in Business Week's "INFO Tech 100"
List and 8th According to Shareholder Return.
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US
research house JPMorgan is calling five Malaysian
companies "world beaters" who are venturing
abroad in search of growth. It is recommending
that investors buy shares of shipping firm Malaysia
International Shipping Corp Bhd, utility YTL
Power, air cargo operator Transmile Group, construction
firm IJM Corp and glove maker Top Glove Corp.
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Turkey's
Isbank has agreed to sell a 54.68 percent
stake in steel maker Izmir Demir Celik
to Mittal Steel's Global Steel Holdings Limited
(GSHL), for $78.45 million. Mittal Steel -- the
world's largest steel maker -- has previously
expressed interest in buying Turkey's largest
state-owned steel maker, Eregli Demir Celik (Erdemir).
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Pakistan
postponed its sale of a $1.5 billion stake in
state telecoms firm PTCL after employee
protests, but said the nation's biggest state
sell-off would go ahead by the end of June. PTCL
earned Rs 14.523 billion (US$245.5 million) after-tax
profit for first half of the fiscal 2005 as compared
to Rs 13.276 billion, an increase of 9.39 per
cent.
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Turkey's
giant petroleum refinery, Tupras, which
has a combined processing capacity of 27.6 million
tonnes per annum. is up for privatization of 51
percent of its shares. Four local firms, Zorlu
Group, Petrol Ofisi, Oyak and Opet, and seven
international firms, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC),
Russia's Repsol, Poland's PKN, Italy's ENI Spa,
Austria's OMV and some joint consortiums involving
US firms and Shell are vying for the sale.
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Iran
signed a $20-billion gas deal deal to sell liquefied
natural gas, or LNG, to India over a period of
25 years starting 2009. Under the contract, the
National Iranian Oil Company will supply
the gas from the South Pars - the world's largest
gas field - through three of India's state-owned
oil firms.
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Malaysia's
second-largest banking group, Commerce Asset-Holding,
has restructured expanding the group to have combined
assets of about 100bn ringgit ($26.3bn) compared
with the current 15bn ringgit. Leadership sees
expansion opportunities within Singapore, Indonesia
and Thailand.
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Nigerian
National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is planning
a local petroleum electronic marketplace to reduce
accusations of corruption in contract bidding
processes in the Nigerian upstream petroleum industry.
The system is also meant to absorb more materials
and services from the local economy as part of
the measures to fast-track economic development.
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Malaysia's
business group, DRB-HICOM Bhd plans to
raise about RM1bil through an inaugural Islamic
debt offering. The funds will be used to refinance
part of the company's debt as a means to increase
profitability.
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Emaar
Properties, a development venture backed by
the government of Dubai, is expecting to spend
spend $1.5 billion to build hotels with fashion
designer Giorgio Armani. According to the Company,
each of the 15 hotels planned, in cities including
Miami, Milan and Shanghai, will cost about $100
million.
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Turkey's
largest conglomerate, Koç Holding, gave
its annual Vehbi Koç Award to Fazıl Hüsnü Dağlarca
for his accomplishments in literature. The award
is given to persons or institutions for their
service to the Turkish people in the fields of
education, culture, and health.
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Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris and founder
of Orascom Telecom (OT), has agreed to
pay 3 billion euros to take control of Wind, Italy's
third-largest mobile operator. OT already has
mobile-phone services in nine countries including
Iraq and Algeria.
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