Business and City in Brief
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Your support makes all the difference.Statement on MGN plan due
The fate of a planned pounds 115m investment at Mirror Group Newspapers' Scottish titles is to be made known today. Investment in new printing plant in Glasgow for the Daily Record and Sunday Mail was announced in June but last month the new MGN chief executive David Montgomery ordered a review of the plan.
Murdoch MacLennan, managing director of the Scottish papers, said yesterday that a 'very positive' statement would be made today.
Brittan warns
Sir Leon Brittan, the EC's Competition Commissioner, said Germany was increasingly violating EC competition regulations in the support it provides to eastern Germany. He told the German magazine Capital that the Commission would scrutinise the activities of eastern Germany's Treuhand privatisation agency more closely in the future.
TWA settlement
A US bankruptcy court has approved a deal that ends financier Carl Icahn's control over Trans World Airlines. The judge approved a TWA settlement with Mr Icahn, the airline's creditors, pension guarantors and union, that would wipe out more than dollars 1bn in TWA debt and transfer ownership to employees and unsecured creditors.
Busy line
Europe's telecommunications services industry will grow by an average of 8.5 per cent a year to ecu250bn ( pounds 200bn) by the end of the decade from ecu110bn in 1991, the Daiwa Institute of Research says.
Network sold
Westpac Banking in Australia has completed the Adollars 230m ( pounds 105m) sale of its Ten Network television group to the Oltec consortium led by Canada's CanWest Global Communications.
China growth
China's gross domestic product grew 12 per cent in real terms this year to 2,340bn yuan (dollars 437bn), the State Statistical Bureau said. The estimate compares with growth of 7.7 per cent in 1991.
World markets
New York: Year-end portfolio changes had lifted the Dow Jones Average 10.27 points to 3,321.11 by the close.
Tokyo: Heavy selling pushed the Nikkei average below the key 17,000 level at 16,924.95, down 360.69.
Hong Kong: Bargain-hunting lifted the Hang Seng index 23.76 to 5,467.89.
Sydney: The All Ordinaries index ended barely changed at 1,538.2.
Milan: Demand for blue chips nudged the MIB index 4 ahead to 894.
Madrid: The general index firmed 0.20 to 215.12.
Zurich: The SWI closed at a year's high of 2,104.8, up 17.2, underpinned by weaker interest rates.
Frankfurt: With few buyers about, the DAX index none the less managed a 2.82-point rise to 1,545.05.
Paris: Shares ended lower in a market dominated by futures trading. The CAC-40 index lost 11.51 to 1,858.77.
London: Report, this page.
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