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Arg1998

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<s>[INST] Though there haven't been major problems [/INST] with copycats in the U.S. market, this is serious business. </s>

<s>[INST] The European Union has given denomination of origin status to [/INST] tequila, a protection similar to that given to champagne, which must come from the Champagne region of France. </s>

<s>[INST] BRIEFLY: -- The Global Telecom consortium won a cellular license [/INST] for the southern Brazilian states of Parana and Santa Catarina with a bid of 773.9 million reals ($684 million). </s>

<s>[INST] --- EUROPE Deutsche Telekom Request Is Denied [/INST] Once again, German regulators are cutting Deutsche Telekom down to size. </s>

<s>[INST] Not only are they rejecting as too high the fees the former phone [/INST] monopoly wants to charge consumers that switch to rival phone companies, but they are also nixing the idea of any charge at all. </s>

<s>[INST] Deutsche Telekom proposed a one-time fee of 49 marks [/INST] ($26.62) for households that switch to a competitor but want to keep their old telephone number. </s>

<s>[INST] In denying the request, the regulator [/INST] elevated an individual's phone number to a special status. </s>

<s>[INST] It said customers are entitled to use their phone number in the same [/INST] way they are entitled to use their street address, and that neither Deutsche Telekom nor anyone else has the right to take it away. </s>

<s>[INST] British Coal Firm Comes Under [/INST] Fire Britain's RJB Mining had a tough day yesterday. </s>

<s>[INST] Hours after it announced that earnings dropped 9% last year, the coal concern was [/INST] handed a verbal mauling by an influential parliamentary committee that scoffed at the group's request for a state rescue package for the domestic coal industry. </s>

<s>[INST] 10 Downing Street should attempt to establish a level playing [/INST] field for RJB by confronting European Union members Germany and Spain "diplomatically but forcefully" over their coal subsidies. </s>

<s>[INST] BRIEFLY: -- Honeywell of the U.S. challenged in a European Union court [/INST] the EU's approval of 140 million francs in French government aid to an Anglo-French project to develop a flight-control system for Airbus Industrie. </s>

<s>[INST] -- French hotels group Accor beat its own forecast by turning [/INST] in a 42% increase in earnings last year to 1.51 billion francs ($244.8 million) on a 12% jump in revenue. </s>

<s>[INST] -- France's Dassault Aviation saw earnings jump [/INST] 47% last year to 1.35 billion francs on a 62% jump in revenue. </s>

<s>[INST] -- Swedish forestry group AssiDomaen struck a preliminary deal [/INST] with the Karelian Republic in Russia to sell the group's 57% stake in a paper mill. </s>

<s>[INST] Details weren't disclosed, but the company hopes to [/INST] salvage a sizable part of the $22 million it lent to the Karelian concern. </s>

<s>[INST] -- German chemical and pharmaceutical group Merck AG reported that per-share [/INST] earnings jumped 50% last year to 4.25 marks ($2.31) and said it expects 1998 to be a growth year. </s>

<s>[INST] ___ Document 123 of 500 Argentina, Its Economy Sizzling, Is Cool [/INST] to IMF Author: By Craig Torres Publication info: Wall Street Journal , Eastern edition [New York, N.Y] 02 Apr 1998: A14. </s>

<s>[INST] accountid=28034 Abstract: Argentina's economy is growing at a much faster rate than forecasters expected, but the [/INST] country's trade deficit also appears to be deteriorating toward levels that may cause a team of International Monetary Fund officials visiting the country this week to urge some cool-down measures. </s>

<s>[INST] Leading indicators show the economy expanding at a surprising 6.5% [/INST] to 7% rate in the first quarter compared with the year-earlier period, thanks to robust investment and rising consumption. </s>

<s>[INST] Wall Street economists figured the impact of Asia's economic crisis [/INST] on world demand would slow Argentina's economy down to 4% annual growth from an estimated 8.4% in 1997. </s>

<s>[INST] But Argentina has already set off one alarm at the IMF by [/INST] overshooting a rolling 12-month target on the trade deficit by $385 million in January, says Pedro Lacoste, an independent economist here. </s>

<s>[INST] At current rates of economic growth, Mr. Lacoste estimates the country will also overshoot the [/INST] consensus forecast on the current-account deficit of around 4% of gross domestic product and push it to 5% of GDP, which is a widely perceived limit of investor tolerance. </s>

<s>[INST] (The current account is the widest [/INST] definition of a country's imports and exports of goods and services. </s>

<s>[INST] ) Full text: BUENOS AIRES -- Argentina's economy is growing at a much faster rate than forecasters [/INST] expected, but the country's trade deficit also appears to be deteriorating toward levels that may cause a team of International Monetary Fund officials visiting the country this week to urge some cool-down measures. </s>

<s>[INST] Leading indicators show the economy expanding at a surprising 6.5% [/INST] to 7% rate in the first quarter compared with the year-earlier period, thanks to robust investment and rising consumption. </s>

<s>[INST] Wall Street economists figured the impact of Asia's economic crisis [/INST] on world demand would slow Argentina's economy down to 4% annual growth from an estimated 8.4% in 1997. </s>

<s>[INST] "The numbers are coming in, and in fact we are [/INST] seeing the Asian crisis has had very little effect" on Argentina's growth, Finance Undersecretary Miguel Kiguel said. </s>

<s>[INST] But Argentina has already set off one alarm at the IMF by [/INST] overshooting a rolling 12-month target on the trade deficit by $385 million in January, says Pedro Lacoste, an independent economist here. </s>

<s>[INST] At current rates of economic growth, Mr. Lacoste estimates the country will also overshoot the [/INST] consensus forecast on the current-account deficit of around 4% of gross domestic product and push it to 5% of GDP, which is a widely perceived limit of investor tolerance. </s>

<s>[INST] (The current account is the widest [/INST] definition of a country's imports and exports of goods and services. </s>

<s>[INST] ) With a presidential election year looming in 1999 and [/INST] unemployment still uncomfortably high at 13.8%, finance-ministry officials bristle at suggestions that growth should slow to correct trade accounts. </s>

<s>[INST] "Our view is that the current-account deficit doesn't represent a [/INST] threat to Argentina," Mr. Kiguel told investors and analysts at a conference sponsored by Deutsche Morgan Grenfell this week. </s>

<s>[INST] Mr. Kiguel said the government "might agree" to postpone [/INST] about $400 million in federal expenditures and to a boost in bank-reserve requirements to slow loan growth. </s>

<s>[INST] "But if they [the IMF] want further [/INST] measures, it will be much more difficult to get," he said. </s>

<s>[INST] Such a pugnacious attitude toward the IMF is surprising in light of the fact that just about every major [/INST] Latin nation has tightened policies in some way to adjust to the impact from the Asian economic crisis, which has caused a deep decline in prices of key commodities that many of these countries export. </s>

<s>[INST] Mr. Lacoste notes that Argentina's export sales appear to be flattening [/INST] largely because the average price of products sold abroad has fallen by 13.8% since the third quarter of 1996. </s>

<s>[INST] "Exports are stagnant due to [/INST] the reduction of commodity prices," he says. </s>

<s>[INST] Nobody can say for sure whether the downturn [/INST] in commodity prices is a short-term cyclical phenomenon or a long-term secular trend. </s>

<s>[INST] What matters is how Argentine companies adjust to lower export [/INST] prices, and some companies are showing impressive agility, which may be why business confidence here remains high. </s>

<s>[INST] Officials at Acindar SA, the country's largest producer of nonflat steel with around [/INST] $600 million in sales, say they will recover lost exports to Asia (formerly about 13% of total exports) by focusing more on South American customers. </s>

<s>[INST] "We are looking at extraregional markets [/INST] as opposed to export markets," says Arturo Acevedo, Acindar's president. </s>

<s>[INST] To protect markets from Asian commodity steel producers and to tighten [/INST] its grip on customers, Acindar plans on customizing its products by bending and shaping steel before it arrives on the job. </s>

<s>[INST] Some of that machinery will no doubt be imported, an [/INST] example of why Mr. Kiguel, the finance undersecretary, believes Argentina's trade deficit is a sign of health. </s>

<s>[INST] "A country that grows fast is [/INST] likely to import more capital goods from abroad," said Mr. Kiguel. </s>

<s>[INST] Nevertheless, analysts say, Argentina's economy is growing so strongly today that it [/INST] must opt for corrective measures now or risk instability at the most undesirable time -- during the election year of 1999. </s>

<s>[INST] "This economy has a real momentum of its own, and [/INST] a little tinkering won't do the job," says Geoffrey Dennis, Deutsche Morgan Grenfell's global emerging-market equity strategist. </s>

<s>[INST] "The recommendation [on the stock market] is to sell [/INST] into strength" because Argentina will have to wrench down growth sooner or later, he says. </s>

<s>[INST] ___ Document 143 of 500 Whistle-Blower: P&G Calls the Cops As It Strives to Expand Sales in Latin America --- Noted [/INST] Marketer Tries to Sell Antitrust Notions in Bid To Catch Its Giant Rivals --- Sending In Legal Precedents Author: By Tara Parker-Pope and Jonathan Friedland Publication info: Wall Street Journal , Eastern edition [New York, N.Y] 20 Mar 1998: A1. </s>

<s>[INST] accountid=28034 Abstract: The spots were advertising an obscure toilet-seat [/INST] maker, Ariel del Plata SA, which, P&G learned, has ties to its big rival, Unilever Group. </s>

<s>[INST] Locked in a global brawl with the [/INST] Anglo/Dutch conglomerate, P&G is convinced that the ad campaign was a calculated smear. </s>

<s>[INST] But P&G's response was [/INST] out-of-character: The mighty multinational complained to regulators. </s>

<s>[INST] The maker of Tide, Crest and Pampers employs more than [/INST] two dozen lawyers in Latin America, with fully one-third of their time devoted to exposing practices it considers prejudicial. </s>

<s>[INST] It has systematically collected regulatory rulings from mature markets in the U.S. [/INST] and Europe and turned them over as suggested precedents to guide Latin American regulators trying to interpret newly enacted antitrust laws. </s>

<s>[INST] It also has funneled reams of [/INST] data to trustbusters to show how competitors' practices might harm consumers. </s>

<s>[INST] It is "very, very insistent," says [/INST] Manuel Sandoval, an official of Mexico's Federal Commission on Competition. </s>

<s>[INST] P&G certainly isn't the household name in [/INST] Latin America that it is in the U.S., Europe and Japan. </s>

<s>[INST] At a time when economic-stabilization policies have snuffed out inflation and [/INST] triggered a spending spree by consumers, Latin America accounts for only 6% of P&G's $35 billion in global sales. </s>

<s>[INST] Colgate, by contrast, generates [/INST] 26% of its revenue in the region. </s>

<s>[INST] In terms of market share, [/INST] P&G lags behind Unilever, Colgate and Kimberly-Clark. </s>

<s>[INST] Full text: BUENOS AIRES -- [/INST] Last year, television viewers here saw an extraordinary commercial. </s>

<s>[INST] For more than a year, it [/INST] had been preparing to launch its Ariel laundry detergent in Argentina. </s>

<s>[INST] Suddenly, an ad was telling all [/INST] Buenos Aires that "`Ariel' is synonymous with toilet seats". </s>

<s>[INST] The spots were advertising an obscure toilet-seat maker, [/INST] Ariel del Plata SA, which, P&G learned, has ties to its big rival, Unilever Group. </s>

<s>[INST] Locked in a global brawl with the [/INST] Anglo/Dutch conglomerate, P&G is convinced that the ad campaign was a calculated smear. </s>

<s>[INST] But P&G's response was [/INST] out-of-character: The mighty multinational complained to regulators. </s>

<s>[INST] In fact, P&G is becoming [/INST] the biggest corporate whistle-blower south of the border. </s>

<s>[INST] A latecomer to Latin America, the consumer-goods giant is scrawny in the [/INST] region and is using a blossoming antitrust climate to help it catch up by filing lawsuits and snitching to antitrust cops. </s>

<s>[INST] Although businesses around the world routinely seek to gain advantage over competitors by [/INST] appealing to regulators, the scope and intensity of P&G's efforts to use Latin America's regulatory system to improve its competitive status are extraordinary. </s>

<s>[INST] The maker of Tide, Crest and Pampers employs more than [/INST] two dozen lawyers in Latin America, with fully one-third of their time devoted to exposing practices it considers prejudicial. </s>

<s>[INST] It has systematically collected regulatory rulings from mature markets in the U.S. [/INST] and Europe and turned them over as suggested precedents to guide Latin American regulators trying to interpret newly enacted antitrust laws. </s>

<s>[INST] It also has funneled reams of [/INST] data to trustbusters to show how competitors' practices might harm consumers. </s>

<s>[INST] It is "very, very insistent," says [/INST] Manuel Sandoval, an official of Mexico's Federal Commission on Competition. </s>

<s>[INST] Some early results: In Brazil, P&G helped [/INST] make less valuable Colgate-Palmolive Co.'s $1 billion acquisition of Kolynos do Brasil Ltda. </s>

<s>[INST] And in Mexico, it helped [/INST] derail a tissue-paper near-monopoly created when Kimberly-Clark Corp. </s>

<s>[INST] "It's been an ongoing effort on our part to try [/INST] to get to a level playing field," says Jorge P. Montoya, P&G's point man in Latin America. </s>

<s>[INST] Competitors say P&G simply can't adapt to fluid [/INST] and unfamiliar markets and instead is relying on regulators to shore up its business. </s>

<s>[INST] P&G "is trying to keep false arguments before the public [/INST] in an attempt to justify its lack of commercial success," says Miguel Gonzalez Abella, Unilever's corporate-affairs manager in Argentina. </s>

<s>[INST] What P&G really needs to penetrate the region [/INST] is creative marketing, adds Eduardo Orteu, president of a major Argentine retailer, Supermercados Disco SA. </s>

<s>[INST] "The regulatory system isn't [/INST] a solution to Procter's problems," he says. </s>

<s>[INST] P&G certainly isn't the household name in [/INST] Latin America that it is in the U.S., Europe and Japan. </s>

<s>[INST] At a time when economic-stabilization policies have snuffed out inflation and [/INST] triggered a spending spree by consumers, Latin America accounts for only 6% of P&G's $35 billion in global sales. </s>

<s>[INST] Colgate, by contrast, generates [/INST] 26% of its revenue in the region. </s>

<s>[INST] In terms of market share, [/INST] P&G lags behind Unilever, Colgate and Kimberly-Clark. </s>

<s>[INST] For consumer-goods makers, no emerging [/INST] market is more important than Latin America. </s>

<s>[INST] With Asia in an economic crisis, Latin America is [/INST] the world's fastest-growing region, with gross domestic product expected to grow nearly 4% this year. </s>

<s>[INST] For years, however, P&G steered clear of Latin America and its [/INST] economic and political volatility, even as Colgate and Unilever bought up big local brands and, overnight, acquired market share. </s>

<s>[INST] Until 1987, P&G ran its Latin American business from [/INST] its corporate headquarters in Cincinnati and sold only detergents and a few cleaning products in the region. </s>

<s>[INST] Mr. Montoya, who in 1985 had taken charge of [/INST] the Latin American business at age 39, moved the regional headquarters to Caracas in 1987. </s>

<s>[INST] The Peruvian native bought local Latin American brands [/INST] and started new ones in a decade-long push that expanded sales by 20% a year. </s>

<s>[INST] The buying binge included a detergent maker [/INST] in Colombia, two cleaning-products companies in Argentina and a disposable-diaper maker in Venezuela. </s>

<s>[INST] By 1994, P&G's Latin American [/INST] sales had grown 400% to $2.25 billion. </s>

<s>[INST] Wary of the growing power of big business [/INST] in the wake of market-liberalization programs, legislators began rewriting antitrust and fair-competition laws. </s>

<s>[INST] Their original target was public [/INST] utilities, which had been privatized earlier in the decade. </s>

<s>[INST] But the upshot was to make private [/INST] companies, particularly large ones, more accountable for decisions significantly affecting consumers. </s>

<s>[INST] In Argentina, for example, a plan to make long-distance calls cheaper while [/INST] raising local phone rates stirred up howls of protest, and it has been stymied by lawsuits filed by consumer groups and politicians. </s>

<s>[INST] "The balance of power is shifting," [/INST] says Congresswoman Graciella Fernandez Meijide, a popular opposition politician in Argentina. </s>

<s>[INST] At least six Latin American countries have [/INST] begun revising legislation governing their versions of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. </s>

<s>[INST] One high-profile agency is Conselho [/INST] Administrativo da Defesa Economica, Brazil's antimonopoly commission. </s>

<s>[INST] Newly armed in mid-1994 with sweeping powers to investigate anticompetitive practices, the [/INST] CADE in December 1994 vetoed the sale of an auto-parts maker and a cement-company merger, holding that both deals would create monopolies. </s>