Business and City in Brief

More coal-mining jobs to go

British Coal is to cut 320 jobs at Harworth colliery in Nottinghamshire, where 850 miners are employed. The company also said that it would in future use a 'minimal' number of contract staff at Harworth compared with 400 at present.

British Coal, which the Government hopes to privatise within a year, said that performance at the mine fell short of expectations, even though it had broken its production record this year.

Gilts hand-over

Treasury ministers are to relinquish decision-making over the details of gilt issues to their officials and the Bank of England, the Treasury said yesterday. The Chancellor has decided to publish an annual remit for the Bank of England's operations in the gilts market. This year's remit reiterates the Government's plan to sell pounds 37bn of gilts this year and pounds 47bn next year.

KIO arm fined

Spain's Finance Ministry fined the Kuwait Investment Office's subsidiary Grupo Torras dollars 9.5m over illegal share operations carried out by Torras and its former chief executive, Javier de la Rosa, before it filed for debtor protection in December 1992.

Water warning

Water companies have been warned that they may be referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission unless they submit business plans to the regulator, Ofwat, by midday on 31 March. The plans will be used in deciding new price controls.

German pay deal

German labour unions and employers in the banking sector agreed a wage increase deal of 2 to 2.2 per cent after talks overnight. The agreement affects 450,000 workers.

Sparkling sales

De Beers' Central Selling Organisation's sales of rough diamonds to Belgium jumped 36 per cent last year to dollars 2bn, the Diamond High Council said in its 1993 annual report. It said the CSO took a 47 per cent share of Belgium's dollars 4.3bn rough diamond imports in 1993.

Data moan

The Finance & Leasing Association attacked the Data Protection Registrar's proposals to halt the passing of information about customer accounts from finance houses to credit reference agencies without specific permission, on the grounds that they would 'critically undermine' the value of the data held by agencies.

EMS recruits

Sweden, Finland, Norway and Austria, which this month have signed deals to join the European Union, also agreed to join the discredited European Monetary System once they have merged with the 12-nation bloc. The four - which are due to join the EU on 1 January 1995 - did not set any date.

NY Times price up

(First Edition)

The New York Times has increased the cover price of the national weekday and Saturday editions from 75 cents to dollars 1 from throught the West and Midwest.

WORLD MARKETS

New York: Although today's triple expiry of futures and options weighed on shares the Dow Jones managed a 16.99-point gain to 3,865.14 by the close.

Tokyo: Profit-taking after recent gains left the Nikkei average 85.61 points lower at 20,592.16.

Hong Kong: Concern over US trade relations with China had the Hang Seng index tumbling 207.48 points to 9,513.13.

Sydney: A day of dull trade finished with the All Ordinaries index 9.1 points down at 2,164.4.

Bombay: Volume remained low. The index fell 24.33 to 3,767.63.

Johannesburg: Steel stocks led industrials higher, but with gold shares weaker the overall index eased 14 points to 5,188.

Frankfurt: With interest rates unchanged, the DAX index edged up 2.33 points to 2,175.06.

Paris: Shares slipped from their highs on the German rate decision, leaving the CAC-40 index 5.13 points ahead at 2,247.84.

Zurich: Narrow-range trade ended with the Swiss Performance Index 2.74 firmer at 1,852.05.

London: Report, page 32.