BUSINESS BRIEFS
Interest rate rising in Japan
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TOKYO — The Bank of Japan will raise a key interest rate to 0.25 percent from zero next week, a news report said yesterday.
The BOJ has "decided in principle" to raise the rate by a quarter point — the first hike in almost six years — at a two-day policy meeting that starts July 13, Kyodo News agency reported, citing unidentified sources.
The report came after banking and economy minister Kaoru Yosano said the conditions were beginning to fall into place to allow the bank to lift borrowing rates after keeping them at zero for five years.
AUTO ALLIANCE TALKS CONTINUE
A proposed worldwide auto alliance between General Motors, Renault and Nissan inched another step forward yesterday when GM said its board of directors will discuss the proposal at a meeting on Friday.
Carlos Ghosn, the 52-year-old Brazilian-born executive who rescued Japanese carmaker Nissan from near-bankruptcy in 1999 and is now CEO of Nissan and France's Renault, has expressed interest in an alliance with GM and has been given approval from his boards to pursue it.
CHAVEZ NEW KID ON TRADE BLOC
CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez marked Venezuela's entry into the South American trade bloc Mercosur with a six-nation summit yesterday, an alliance that he says should be a common front against U.S. free trade deals.
Chavez and the leaders of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay were set to formalize the bloc's expansion to include Venezuela, which Chavez claims as a victory against Washington's "imperialistic" economic plans for the hemisphere. Bolivian President Evo Morales, a Chavez ally, was to attend the ceremony as an observer.
