Business and City in Brief

Thames Water wins Mexican deal

A consortium including Thames Water has won a 15-year deal worth dollars 500m to provide services to Mexico's Naucalpan municipality. The first phase, worth about dollars 150m, involves a review of water and sewerage policy and practice, the provision of new trunk sewers and the construction of a new treatment plant. Work is due to begin this autumn at the latest.

Daimler denial

Daimler-Benz, Germany's leading industrial concern, denied speculation yesterday that its chief executive, Edzard Reuter, would be leaving the company earlier than planned. The company said that Mr Reuter would complete his contract until the end of 1995 and that all speculation to the contrary was baseless.

Scottish Power plan

Scottish Power is considering the acquisition of all or part of the Clydesdale electrical retailing group, which is in receivership.

Indian tax cut

India's finance minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, speeded up the pace of his country's economic reforms by announcing in the 1994/5 budget that corporate income taxes would be cut and foreign exchange controls relaxed.

Fresh phone shots

Peoples Phone, the mobile communications company, has entered the telephone price wars with a series of packages including monthly line rentals from pounds 9.99 and peak rate calls from 15p a minute in the M25 area. The company claims that it now offers the UK's cheapest mobile telephone tariffs.

Japan output up

Japan's industrial output rose 0.9 per cent in January following a 1.9 per cent fall in December, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry said.

German ballot

IG Metall, Germany's biggest industrial union, begins balloting members in the state of Lower Saxony today to decide on calling an all-out strike there from 7 March. Results of the ballot will be known tomorrow.

Viacom doubles

Viacom, the victor in the dollars 9.75bn battle for Paramount Communications, reported 1993 operating earnings more than double its 1992 results, thanks largely to strong earnings growth at MTV, its international pop music channel. The media company made dollars 169m last year.

Long haul at Disney

Euro Disney's creditor banks denied weekend reports that they have presented proposals for a Fr13bn ( pounds 1.5bn) debt restructuring plan. They said little progress had been made so far during refinancing talks.

France edges up

France's DGP rose 0.2 per cent in the fourth quarter after a 0.4 per cent increase in the third quarter. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 12.2 per cent in January, unchanged from its December rate after revision.

WORLD MARKETS

New York: Profit taking in economically sensitive stocks dragged the Dow Jones Industrial Average down by 6.76 points as it closed at 3,832.02.

Tokyo: Active foreign interest helped the Nikkei average to close 193.82 points to the good at 19,997.2, a three-week high.

Hong Kong: Bargain-hunting and a rally in the futures market sent the Hang Seng index surging 309.98 points to 10,410.23.

Sydney: A rebound from last week's sharp decline left the All Ordinaries 31.3 better at 2,180.1.

Bombay: Ahead of a budget expected to favour industry, the index added 23.83 to 4,260.79.

Johannesburg: Buoyed by the higher gold price, the overall index climbed 48 points to 4,846.

Paris: In a technical rebound aided by strength in bond markets, the CAC-40 index gained 39.1 points to 2,238.06.

Zurich: A decline in UBS led the market lower, with the SPI 22.02 points weaker at 1,850.25.

Frankfurt: Quiet trade lifted the DAX index 16.65 to 2,091.57.

Milan: Political uncertainty and developments in Bosnia combined to take shares lower.

London: Report, page 30.