MONEYMAKERS
PANDA Electronics Co, China's leading television manufacturer, has had enough of selling no-frills sets. It is gearing up for a into the satellite dish and telephone businesses. Panda believes that only by expanding into new areas will it be able to keep pace with foreign competitors, who are bound to rush in once China lowers its tariffs in order to join the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. The company hopes to float apublicissuein1une to raise $40 million for this venture.
THE German drug firm Bayer AG is all set to storm the generic medicines market in the US. Its north American unit, Miles International Inc, is buying a 28 per cent stake in the US generic drug company Schein Pharmaceutical Inc, "To maintain our position in the pharmaceutical industry, we must emerge as a force to reckon with in the generics market," says Manfred Schneider; chairperson of Bayer ;However chemical analysts in Germany say Bayer was forced to move westwards because health care reforms and budget restrictions in Germany did not favour brand-name originals.
NO MORE deafening screeches of car tyres, promises the Paris-based company ACIAL. The firm claims it has developed an acoustic barrier that will end traffic noise pollution and simultaneously dispose of used car tyres. It consists of a metal casing with half-tyres stacked inside in the form of shells. The side of the casing focuses the noise towards the shells, which dampens it. According to company sources, this "magic" barrier absorbs upto 85 per cent of heavy traffic noise.
DIGlTAL Equipment Corp of the US was confident that It had struck a gold mine when it developed the Alpha chip -hailed as the world's fastest chip. But it appears to have left its market behind. When the product was introduced in 1993, the sales of its VAX range of systems, which used the chip, plunged by $1 billion and has not picked up since. Consumers do not need the 64-bit device. The standard today is the 32-bit design and even that is not fully utilised. So it will be a long wait for Digital before the demand catches up.