The Sri Lankan government has come to the aid of local textile firms by agreeing to pay off 4.5 billion Rupees ($67.9 million) in loans they owe to local banks, a government Minister said on Sunday. "In the interest of the local textile industry the government took the decision to pay back their loans from treasury funds," minister for industrial development CV Gooneratne told Reuters by telephone. The decision was taken to ease the financial difficulties faced by local textile manufacturers after textile imports were liberalised in an attempt to boost the garment industry, he said. The move made imported textiles much cheaper than those produced locally. "In the 1998 budget we had to remove the duty on import of textiles to make it possible for Sri Lankan garment manufacturers to compete internationally," he said. "Later we realised that the local textile manufacturers were affected by this measure so we asked them to apply for financial assistance to pay off theirdebt," Gooneratne said. The government in its budget proposals for 1998 waived duty on imports of yarn, fabric and related immediate and capital goods aimed at benefiting the garment export industry. Garment exports are one of Sri Lanka's biggest foreign exchange earners.

Iraq exports 80 m oil barrels

Iraq has exported more than 80 million barrels of crude oil under a fourth phase of its "oil-for-food" deal with the United Nations, a senior Iraqi official said in remarks published on Sunday. Iraqi oil minister Amir Muhammed Rasheed also said Baghdad was currently exporting oil at a level of 1.7 million barrels per day (bpd), far below the amount it should pump to reach the ceiling imposed by the United Nations. The oil deal, which went into effect in December 1996, was expanded in February by the Security Council to allow Iraq to export oil worth $5.25 billion from $2 billion over six months in efforts to further ease sweeping sanctions imposed for Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Rasheed saidIraq's export capacity which was 1.7 million bpd could be raised to two million bpd when spare parts bought by Baghdad arrived in the country. The Iraqi oil industry, heavily bombed during the 1991 Gulf War over Kuwait, needs the spare parts to restore its potential to meet domestic demand as well as exports.

China oil giant aims to make $336 m

Revamped China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) aims to boost output in the second half of the year to achieve profits of 2.79 billion yuan ($336 million) for all of 1998, the China Daily Business Weekly said on Sunday. CNPC had asked its oilfields to raise daily output to 298,500 tonnes by the end of September, the newspaper quoted CNPC President Ma Fucai as saying. CNPC pumped 53 million tonnes in the first six months of this year and planned to produce 107.8 million tonnes of crude oil in the whole of 1998, it said. CNPC also aimed to produce 15.1 billion cubic metres of gas this year. The corporation reduced oil output by 1.27 million tonnes in the firsthalf due to weak domestic demand and a flood of imported and smuggled oil products, it said. CNPC, producer of 67 per cent of China's crude oil, recorded 10.18 billion yuan in profits last year, it said. However, CNPC's earnings this year were hit by the Asian financial crisis and a slump in international oil prices, it said. In the first half, CNPC made profits of only 150 million yuan, 6.24 billion yuan less than in the same period last year, it said.

Floods cut China's Daqing oil output

Floods slashed the output of China's largest oilfield, Daqing in the northeast, by 6,821 tonnes between August 12-16, the official Xinhua news agency said on Sunday. Floodwater inundated 1,217 oil wells, 527 of which were forced to close, Xinhua said. Daqing has more than 25,000 oil wells. "Most of the wells are now operating normally," Xinhua said. It gave no further details. Daqing produced 60.9 million tonnes of oil in 1997, accounting for half of China's total. Official figures more than a week old estimatethat more than 2,000 people have died and 240 million people affected in China's worst floods since 1954. Damage has been estimated at $24 billion and the figure is likely to rise.

Iran to drill for oil in Turkmenistan

Iran will drill four oil wells in the former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan over the next 18 months under a $25 million contract, the official Iranian news agency IRNA reported on Sunday. "In line with the National policy of export of technical services, Iran will drill for oil in Turkmenistan," IRNA quoted Heydat Bahmani, director general of the National Iranian Drilling Company (NIDC), as saying. Iran would send 64 technicians and its "Iran-Khazar" platform to Turkmenistan on Sunday to carry out the drilling in the "Turkmen Bashi" region, IRNA reported. Turkmenistan, which has huge gas reserves but is a minor oil producer, already supplies gas to Iran through a pipeline with capacity for four billion cubic metres a year. The two countries have also started crude swaps which haveallowed Turkmen and international firms to lift crude from Iran's export terminals in the Gulf in exchange for delivering oil produced in Turkmenistan to Iran. Turkmenistan produced an average of around 111,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude in the first half of the year, compared to Iran which produced around 3.6 million bpd.

Farmers strike in Poland

Poland's biggest farmers' union has threatened to bring the country to a standstill on Thursday unless all grain imports are banned or prohibitive customs tariffs imposed, PAP news agency reported on Sunday. "If by August 20 decisions are not taken to immediately halt grain imports from all countries or impose customs duties, farmers will resume their protest activities," the warning, sent to prime minister Jerzy Buzek by Farmers' Solidarity, said. The statement said farmers would block "border crossings by rail, road and sea, as well as internal roads" to back their demands. The purpose of the action, on a bigger scale than ever before, would be todestroy all imported grain, PAP reported the head of the protest committee, Marian Zagorny, as saying. Following a series of earlier protests, in which farmers disrupted traffic in Poland by dumping grain and blocking borders and roads, the government imposed tariffs on grain imports and agreed to intervention purchases of Polish-grown grain.

Malaysia rubber output down

Malaysia's natural rubber production fell 16 per cent in the first six months of 1998 compared to the year-ago period, the statistics department said. Output between January and June was 394,234 tonnes -- a drop of 15.9 per cent or 74,560 tonnes -- from 468,794 in the first half of 1997, the department was quoted as saying by the National Bernama news agency late on Saturday. Bernama, which disseminates all data from the department, said in June alone, rubber production was 22 per cent higher at 70,228 tonnes from a year ago. It said Malaysia, the world's third largest rubber producer, exported 514,038 tonnes in the first half of1998, a rise of 10.2 per cent from the previous corresponding period. The exports were to Germany, Korea, Belgium, Britain,Brazil, Italy and France. The country, which also has a large rubber products industry, imported 288,111 tonnes of rubber in the first six months of this year, up 56.5 per cent from the same period of 1997. The imports were from Thailand, Liberia, Cambodia, the Philippines, Myanmar and Vietnam. Domestic consumption of rubber rose 1.0 per cent to 161,478 tonnes in the first quarter of this year, while workforce in rubber plantations fell 9.7 per cent to 4,574 people.

Swiss gold sale plan intact

Switzerland's controversial plan to create a huge humanitarian fund by selling off excess gold reserves seems to have survived intact despite big banks' whopping $1.25 billion settlement with Holocaust victims. Politicians and influential commentators at the weekend rallied behind the idea, which Berne launched last year in a bid to lift Switzerland above a mire of accusations that theneutral country cynically profited from World War Two. An opinion poll last week also showed two out of three Swiss surveyed still like the plan. The government has said the seven billion Swiss franc ($4.7billion) Solidarity Foundation is not directly linked to the issue of what if anything Switzerland may owe Holocaust victims, but it has always been linked in the popular mind with that thorny issue. Big banks ended three years of confrontation with Jewish groups and averted boycotts by U.S. States and cities by agreeing last week to settle Holocaust victims' claims that they were stonewalled when seeking the return of their wealth.