Money world

Mazda’s president believes gasoline engines will still power 80 to 90 percent of the world’s autos even in 20 years time, and remains confident it can grow without electric vehicles.

The comments Thursday from Mazda Motor Corp. President Takashi Yamanouchi contrast with the strategy at Japanese rival Nissan Motor Co., which is banking heavily on its Leaf electric car, one of the first mass-produced EVs on the market.

Yamanouchi said Mazda’s efficient gas engine called “Skyactiv” will be a pillar of its growth strategy as the Hiroshima-based manufacturer seeks to boost sales in emerging markets, where electric vehicles and hybrids aren’t expected to be as popular as in developed nations.

“Skyactiv will be one of the drivers of our growth,” Yamanouchi told reporters at a Tokyo hotel, where Mazda showed a new subcompact.

Mazda currently has no hybrid vehicle in its lineup. It plans to start selling a hybrid by 2013.

Hybrids still require gas engines, and Yamanouchi said they can be counted as part of what will be the 80 or 90 percent of cars that aren’t electric.

Nissan has sold about 8,000 of its Leaf electric vehicles around the world, more than half in Japan, since its gradual global rollout started in December.

That’s a tiny fraction of the world auto market. But Yokohama-based Nissan is targeting production of 250,000 electric vehicles a year globally by 2015, stressing that concerns about global warming and pollution are growing.

Mazda began selling the Demio, known as Mazda2 overseas, in Japan on Thursday, offering a version packed with Skyactiv technology. It is targeting 6,000 overall Demio sales a month.

The automaker said it was not planning to sell the Skyactiv Demio overseas, but was planning the green technology for bigger models Faxless payday loans.

The Skyactiv Demio gets as much as 30 kilometers a liter (71 miles per gallon), according to Mazda. Other features, such as “idling stop,” in which the engine turns off automatically while at a traffic light and other temporary stops, helps boost mileage.

Mazda is building engine and vehicle assembly plants in Mexico for small cars, such as Mazda2 and Mazda3, for markets in Central America and South America.

It has said it will stop building the midsize Mazda6 sedan at its 50-50 joint venture with Ford Motor Co. in Flat Rock, Michigan, but did not specify exactly when that would be, leaving the fate of the plant unclear. Mazda’s output there has been at about 40,000 vehicles a year.

Mazda, which has lost money for the last three fiscal years, is struggling to assert its brand without counting on its longtime partnership with Ford.

No replacement partnership has been announced, and Mazda has repeatedly said Ford remains a key partner.

Dearborn-based Ford bought 25 percent of the Japanese carmaker in 1979, raising it to 33.4 percent in 1996. But Ford began cutting ties in 2008, and last year lowered its ownership to 3.5 percent.

Like other Japanese automakers, Mazda has been hurt by supplier disruptions from the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in northeastern Japan. It is also hurt more than others by the surging yen because it sells vehicles made at overseas plants in Japan.

Yamanouchi reiterated the company’s target for annual global sales of 1.7 million vehicles by the fiscal year ending March 2016. Mazda sold 1.1 million vehicles for the fiscal year ended March 2011.

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Russia’s top sanitary official says the country is ending its blanket ban on vegetable imports from the European Union, starting with the Netherlands and Belgium.

Gennady Onishchenko was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying that he allowed the shipments to begin Tuesday, ending a blanket ban on imports to ensure an E. coli outbreak did not spread east.

He didn’t say when imports of vegetables from other EU nations will resume, but added that Poland, Lithuania, Spain, Denmark and the Czech Republic were to follow free credit report and score.

The EU called the ban disproportionate and the dispute has clouded Russia’s WTO accession talks.

Russia and the EU have reached agreement safety certification, and Onishchenko said EU producers must strictly comply.

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Asian markets dropped Monday amid fears of a spreading European debt crisis after a ratings agency placed Italian banks on a review for a possible downgrade.

Oil prices fell below $91 a barrel as a stronger U.S. dollar made crude more expensive for investors with other currencies. The greenback was higher against the euro and the yen on safe-haven buying.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.7 percent to 9,609.64, South Korea’s Kospi lost 1 percent to 2,069.61, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng slipped 0.7 percent to 22,025.35, amid worries over whether debt-drenched Greece would be able to enact a slew of harsh austerity measures in order to receive a chunk of its multibillion euro bailout.

If those measures fail to win parliamentary approval, the country would be at serious risk of defaulting on its debts, a prospect that could unleash financial shocks globally.

Tey Tze Ming, a trader at Saxo Capital Markets in Singapore, said the European debt crisis _ if it blows up and spreads beyond Greece to a major economy like Spain _ would be felt very keenly by Asian economies that are heavily dependent on exporting to Western Europe.

“In the short term, I think stocks in Asia are going to be in for a bit more pain. I think there’s a lot more downside,” Ming said.

Technology shares followed their U.S. counterparts lower. South Korea’s Hynix Semiconductor, one of the world’s leading computer chip makers, was 4.7 percent down. Japanese chipmaker Elpida Memory slipped 1.7 percent, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing lost 1.4 percent.

But tumbling oil prices, which translate into lower fuel costs, helped sustain airline shares. Air China Ltd. rose 5.3 percent in Hong Kong. Taiwan’s EVA Airways Corp. was 1 percent higher. Korean Air Lines Co. rose 0.4 percent.

Australia’s ASX/S&P 200 lost 1.1 percent to 4,457 amid a banking sector slip. Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the country’s largest lender, dropped 1.3 percent, while Westpac Banking Corp., which ranks No. 2, lost 0.4 percent.

Benchmarks in Singapore, Indonesia and Taiwan were also lower, while mainland China’s Shanghai Composite Index gained 0.4 percent to 2,757.31.

Meanwhile, Italian banks were down sharply Friday on the Milan stock exchange after ratings agency Moody’s said it was considering downgrading their credit worthiness.

Moody’s Investors Service placed the long-term debt and deposit ratings of 16 Italian banks and two Italian government-related financial institutions on review for a possible downgrade.

On Wall Street, stocks fell Friday after poor earnings reports from two major technology companies suggested that companies invested less in new technology as the economic recovery slowed.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 1 percent to 11,934.58. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 1.2 percent to 1,268.45. The Nasdaq composite fell 1.3 percent to 2,652.89.

The U.S. economy has cooled since late April. Recent reports on housing, employment, manufacturing and retail sales all have been weak. The debt crisis in Greece and fears that China’s growth is slowing have also pushed markets lower.

In energy trading, benchmark oil for August delivery was down 81 cents to $90.39 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Crude rose 14 cents to settle at $91.16 on Friday.

In currencies, the euro weakened $1.4125 from $1.4171 on Friday in New York. The dollar ticked up to 80.75 yen from 80.52 yen.

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CHICAGO

Dollar figures in millions

Rank Company Net income Change

1 Perficient $6.5 343%

2 Brown Shoe $37 292%

3 Arch Coal $159 277%

4 Synergetics USA $5.7 259%

5 Insituform Technologies $60 131%

6 Peabody Energy $774 73%

7 LaBarge $15 44%

8 Express Scripts $1,181 43%

9 Reinsurance Group of America $574 41%

10 FutureFuel $23 36%

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Stocks faded to a weak close Wednesday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the drags on the U.S. economy may be worse than previously thought.

Major indexes had been mixed for much of the day but turned lower in mid-afternoon trading as Bernanke spoke at a news conference.

Responding to a reporter’s question, Bernanke said that some of the problems plaguing the economy such as weakness in the financial industry and the housing market and “may be stronger and more persistent than we thought.”

Earlier, the Fed released a slightly lower forecast for U.S. economic growth this year. The Fed said it now expects the economy to grow between 2.7 percent and 2.9 percent this year, down from its previous estimate of 3.1 percent to 3.3 percent after its last meeting in April.

The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged at the end of its two-day meeting Wednesday.

The Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor’s 500 index slumped after Bernanke’s cautious remarks about the economy. Bernanke also said Greece’s debt crisis was a “very difficult situation.”

The Dow closed down 80.34 points, or 0.7 percent, at 12,109.67. The S&P 500 index fell 8.38 points, or 0.7 percent, to close at 1,287.14. The Nasdaq fell 18.07 points, or 0.7 percent, to 2,669.19.

Even with the dimmer outlook, the Fed pledged no new help to boost the economy. The central bank’s $600 billion bond-buying program draws to a close at the end of this month.

Among heavily traded companies, FedEx Corp. reported a 33 percent jump in income and said it expects global economic growth to continue. The package delivery company’s stock rose 2.6 percent.

Analysts consider results from FedEx and its rival UPS Corp. important indicators for the broader economy because they ship orders for all kinds of businesses.

CarMax Inc. rose 7 percent, the biggest gain in the S&P 500 index. The dealership owner said profit rose 25 percent on higher used-vehicle prices.

Jabil Circuit Inc. rose 3 percent after the electronics part maker said its earnings doubled last quarter.

AeroVironment Inc. jumped 21 percent after the maker of unmanned aerial drones and charging systems for electric cars said its income rose 13 percent.

In Greece, the new government narrowly won a vote of confidence. That may help it push through budget cuts and other austerity measures that it needs to secure more emergency loans.

The cash will help the country at least delay a default on its debt, an event that would hurt banks and the European economy. Worries about a Greek default have weighed on global financial markets since May.

Three stocks fell for every two that rose on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday. Volume was light at 3.3 billion shares, below the daily average of 3.9 billion over the previous two months.

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Worries over Europe’s debt crisis kept markets on edge Monday, following a warning over Italy’s credit rating and a failure by eurozone finance ministers to agree an immediate release of bailout funds to Greece.

Though the finance ministers of the 17 countries that use the euro agreed to hand over the next bailout installment, worth euro12 billion ($17 billion), they said they would only do that if the Greek Parliament backed further austerity measures.

With the Greek government facing a confidence vote in Parliament on Tuesday, there’s still an element of political risk and that’s clearly weighing on markets at the start of a week that’s likely to be dominated again by the country’s woes. Though Prime Minister George Papandreou’s newly-reshuffled government is expected to prevail in the confidence vote, there’s still uncertainty over the passage of another euro28 billion in austerity measures.

“Until markets see some solid plans put in place to deal with Greece, the markets are only going to be heading in one direction,” said Simon Furlong, a sales trader at Spreadex.

In Europe, the FTSE 100 index of leading British shares was down 0.7 percent at 5,676 while Germany’s DAX fell 1 percent to 7,093. The CAC-40 in France was 1.1 percent lower at 3,783.

The biggest faller of Europe’s main stock markets was Italy’s FTSE MIB index, which was trading 2.5 percent lower at 19,597, after Moody’s warned Friday that it may downgrade its Aa2 rating on the country.

U.S. markets were also set to shed all the gains posted on Friday, when Germany appeared to back a plan to bailout Greece for a second time. Dow futures were down 0.4 percent at 11,886 while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 futures fell a similar rate to 1,261.

The euro was 0.3 percent lower at $1.4234, having enjoyed a rally Friday after German Chancellor Angela Merkel indicated that private creditors, such as banks, would not be compelled to share any pain in a second bailout of Greece bad credit payday advance. Instead, she backed the line touted by the French government and the European Central Bank that any private sector involvement has to be on a “voluntary” basis.

“The whole concept of voluntary participation of private investors in roll-overs of debt does not appear to have been resolved leaving the financial markets skeptical of the plan that includes true voluntary participation,” said Derek Halpenny, European head of global currency research at The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ.

As the week progresses, attention will shift to the U.S. and the Federal Reserve’s rate-setting meeting. As well as keeping its benchmark rate unchanged at near zero percent, the Fed is expected to confirm that its current monetary stimulus will end as expected at the end of this month.

Earlier in Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 was one of the few benchmarks posting gains for the day. The benchmark gained less than 0.1 percent close at 9,354.32 despite data showing the country’s exports dropped for the third straight month in May due to massive production losses following the March 11 earthquake.

South Korea’s Kospi sank 0.6 percent to 2,019.65, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng shed 0.4 percent to 21,599.51

Mainland Chinese shares extended losses for a fourth straight trading session amid a lack of funds as banks complied with the central government’s latest order to raise the level of deposits they must hold as reserves.

The Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.8 percent to 2,621.25, its lowest close this year, while the Shenzhen Composite Index lost 1.1 percent to 1,073.19.

In the oil markets, worries over the global economy pushed prices lower again. Benchmark oil for July delivery was down $1.24 to $91.77 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

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Pamela Sampson in Bangkok contributed to this report.

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How much are your dollars worth in another country? The World Wide Web can provide a very quick answer.

If you’re interested with dabbling in the currency exchange markets or planning for a business or vacation trip, the following sites will give you the latest exchange rates for the U.S. dollar against a host of other national currencies.

Bloomberg

Provides foreign exchange calculations for more than 200 currencies.

www.bloomberg.com/invest//calculators/currency.html

Concierge.com

Offers handy currency converter for global currencies.

www.concierge.com/tools/currency

Oanda.com

Contains both expansive and limited foreign exchange currency converters.

www.oanda.com/converter/classic

XE.com

Provides easy-to-use Universal Currency Converter with up-to-the-minute rates. www.xe.com/ucc/

International Currency Converter

Features a calculator for determining exchange rates for 270 countries and territories, as well as a snapshot of rates for selected currencies.

www.iccfx.com

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ATHENS