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Pacific Press Digest

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MONDAY, APRIL 10 AUSTRALIA: A DOWNTURN in the housing finance figures and last week's relatively low one per cent increase in the number of people unemployed in the March quarter was expected to put upward pressure on interest rates. Citibank economists, like most of the market, did not expect any rise in interest rates to come until later this year.

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- THE AUSTRALIAN THE Australian Stock Exchange said it was encouraged by the first day of trading in low exercise price options launched almost a year late because of a legal dispute with the Sydney Futures Exchange.

- THE AUSTRALIAN MALAYSIA: MALAYSIAN Resources Corp, in league with Mudajaya Corp and United States-based AEG Transportation Systems, has won a M$130.3 million (about HK$403.93 million) deal to build a tracked transit system for the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

- THE SUN BERJAYA Leisure is pursuing a rights issue involving a minimum M$225.7 million and a convertible unsecured loan stocks issue worth $302.7 million to fund investments and construction of property projects.

- THE SUN COOLING tower manufacturer Linear Corp has forecast a group pre-tax profit of M$13.5 million on a turnover of $40 million for this year, increasing to $15 million profit and $48 million turnover for next year. Chairman and managing director Ong Peng Nam said Linear, which posted a pre-tax profit of $10.18 million last year, based the new profits on expansion of the country's infrastructure and cooling tower industry.

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- NEW STRAITS TIMES SARAWAK Oil Palms said reduction of expenses helped its group pre-tax profit jump 225 per cent to M$14.3 million for last year from $4.4 million in 1993. Turnover rose 52.3 per cent to $46.3 million from $30.4 million. The company said better results were expected for this year.

- NEW STRAITS TIMES PHILEO Allied said it was a step closer to becoming an integrated financial services group with the impending revival and expansion of ailing Petra Finance, which it bought earlier this year for M$16.7 million. Chief executive Tong Kooi Ong said Phileo would have to pump an additional $30 million into Petra to make it viable, while boosting its other securities and merchant banking businesses.

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