Quickbites

8220;Daewoo wants to give work to South Koreans only and to turn Romanians into buyers. It wants to profit from facilities accorded by the law but without honouring its commitments,8221; the Commission said. Under a law passed in 1994, described by journalists as quot;the Daewoo lawquot;, companies undertaking to draw 60 per cent of parts from Romania benefit from big tax reductions. quot;Daewoo8217;s intention was to fool the Romanians by creating a market for its cars and thereby earning a big profit,quot; the report said.

Olivetti on the way back

Italy8217;s Olivetti group is climbing out of its financial troubles, Chief executive Roberto Colaninno said here Thursday. quot;After six months, Olivetti has gone from an emergency situation to return to normality,quot; he said during a presentation of the group8217;s Olivetti Solutions-Olsy subsidiary to the press.

The consolidated pre-tax loss of 264.2 billion lire 165 million dollars forecast for the first half of this year compared with a loss of 350.2 billion lire in the same period last year. More importantly, the loss for the last quarter was 93 billion lire, down from 171.2 billion lire in the previous quarter. The figures did not include results from Omnitel, the telephone unit of the computer group. Colaninno said that Olsy, which specialises in electronic banking and computerised applications for insurance companies and public administration, was one of the pillars of the group.

Coke tops success survey

US food and beverages giant Coca-Cola Co. is the most successful foreign company doing business in Asia, according to expatriate business executives survey. The survey showed US firms generally beating their Japanese rivals and a number of hi-tech companies scoring well when respondents were asked which company was the most successful and why. International Business Machines Corp IBM received the second largest number of endorsements from regional businessmen, 31 to Coca-Cola8217;s 44, scoring especially well in Japan. Among the hi-tech firms, Motorola Inc. was held in highest esteem by executives surveyed in China, Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore.

The US Citibank was the top-rated foreign financial institution in Asia by far, garnering such plaudits as quot;staying power through problems,quot; quot;global infrastructure quot; and quot;innovative productsquot; among the comments from Asian executives. The American International Group led in the insurance field. McDonalds was deemed the next most successful food company, with 21 votes, including praise for its marketing, quality and cleanliness.