$a's Third-world Performance
Sun Herald
Sunday April 9, 2000
NO wonder the Reserve Bank felt compelled to defend the dollar by jacking up interest rates. It has been one of the worst performing currencies this year according to Craig James, chief economist of Colonial Group. Only the sucre, kip, cedi, metical, rupiah and lira did worse. For the geographically challenged and trivia night organisers, the first four are the respective currencies of Ecuador, Laos, Ghana and Mozambique.
Please press ...
SPEAKING of exotic locations, Dr Paul Twomey, the CEO of the National Office for the Information Economy, posed an interesting question at the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce business lunch on the future of the dot com revolution where, incidentally, he noted he was the only speaker who didn't have stock options. He also looked the happiest. The question was: which four cities boast call centres that speak the most Asian languages? Wrong. The answer is Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Los Angeles.
Buying into competition
MEANWHILE, Sun Microsystems MD Russell Bate pointed out a few home truths about the Internet and e-commerce. The trouble with e-commerce was that ``competition is just a click away" and ``people don't know what they don't know". A warning for employers, too once you're in e-commerce, competition for staff comes from every industry.
10 points for trying
ZCORP has just launched a refinancing loan at 6.85pc (though about to become 7.10pc, still below the banks' standard rate of 7.55pc) that not only waives establishment fees but pays the exit fees of your previous lender, and the stamp duty.
Stan to face Terminator
THE changing of the guard at AMP won't mean an easy passage for new chairman Stan Wallis at next month's AGM. Share agitator Jack (The Terminator) Tilburn, famous for his spats with the outgoing Ian Burgess, doesn't think much of Wallis either, citing his ``dictatorial" track record at Coles Myer.
Check your sources
THE taxpayer-funded Austrade is urging Australian companies to export to Latin America, which it says is the world's second-fastest-growing region. It obviously hasn't spoken to Paul Ramsay, whose Prime Television nearly came to grief from a disastrous investment in Argentina. And it wasn't the asset that was the problem, but the economy.
Latest Harvey surprise
GERRY Harvey is always surprising the market, and his long-mooted expansion into Asia will be no exception. It seems the first Harvey Norman store located outside Australia and New Zealand will be in ... Dili.
© 2000 Sun Herald
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