IBT Staff Reporter

Gold declined on Wednesday as investors took profits from a six-week high, but the metal remained supported by good physical buying and firm oil prices.

European shares fell on Wednesday with financial stocks lower on renewed concern about the extent of the credit crisis. This offset gains in oil stocks while investors turned cautious ahead of U.S. economic data.

World stocks slipped and Wall Street looked set for a poor start on Wednesday as investors cut back on risky assets and sought safety to assess how recent market turmoil has affected the real economy.

Oil slipped below $75 on Wednesday but remained within sight of an all-time high ahead of U.S. data expected to show a further tightening of crude stocks in the world's top consumer.

European plane-maker Airbus wants to source more parts from China and grab more market share from arch-foe Boeing in a market it expects to double every five to six years.

General Motors Corp said on Wednesday its vehicle sales in China would exceed 1 million this year but intense competition would keep the heat on prices in the world's fastest-growing car market.

Hitachi Construction Machinery Co Ltd is targeting 70 percent growth in sales and a doubling in profit over four years as demand for earth-moving equipment booms in China, India and Russia, its CEO said.

Shares of Sony Corp jumped on Wednesday after the electronics conglomerate said it would list shares of its financial arm on the Tokyo Stock Exchange next month after raising up to $3 billion in an initial public offering to fund its core electronics business.

More than half China's drug factories will have to improve their waste disposal or face shutdown under the first pollution standards for the industry to be unveiled this year, state media said on Wednesday.

The head of South Korea's Hyundai Motor Group, the world's sixth-largest auto maker, should hear on Thursday the result of his appeal against a 3-year jail sentence for fraud and embezzlement.

U.S. President George W. Bush says nuclear power is a key to tackling climate change, along with new energy technologies, but green groups want Asia-Pacific leaders meeting in Sydney to commit to greenhouse gas reduction targets.

Business leaders in the Asia-Pacific region said on Wednesday they will ask governments to put a price on carbon emissions as soon as possible to combat climate change.

Major international oil companies say carbon capture and storage is a way to curb carbon dioxide emissions while continuing to burn fossil fuels, but their critics say few are actually investing.

Asia-Pacific nations are trying to map out a more robust approach to strengthening the region's food and product safety standards as ministers from the 21-member bloc opened their annual meeting on Wednesday.

Hyping China's food and product safety problem is a sickness in itself, the country's new health minister said on Wednesday, a day after Mattel announced a third global recall of Chinese-made toys.

China on Wednesday relaxed a recently introduced regulation that many exporters say would have added greatly to their cost of doing business.

U.S. President George W. Bush said on Wednesday China could help reduce trade imbalances by floating its currency, and a White House aide said Bush may discuss the thorny issue in a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao.

South Africa's biggest mass-market lender, Abil, has made a firm offer to buy furniture retailer Ellerines in a 10.6 billion rand ($1.46 billion) all-share deal, the groups said on Wednesday.

Hurricane Dean is expected to cost Munich Re less than 100 million euros ($136 million), the reinsurer said on Wednesday, adding that it was sticking to its 2007 earnings forecast.

Citigroup Inc and other banks could find themselves burdened with affiliated investment vehicles that issue 10s of billions of dollars in short-term debt, the Wall Street Journal said in its online edition on Wednesday.

Mortgage insurer MGIC Investment Corp. and bond insurer Radian Group Inc. agreed to terminate their pending merger, the companies said on Wednesday, citing market conditions.

The world's leading toymaker, Mattel Inc, on Tuesday announced a third recall of Chinese-made toys, saying it would take back more than 800,000 units globally that contain impermissible levels of lead. In total, 522,000 U.S. toys and 322,000 outside the United States are being recalled.

Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd said it planned to buy the Dakota, Minnesota & Eastern Railroad Corp for at least $1.48 billion to expand its network and increase its access to U.S. Midwest markets.

He will retire in January from the couture house he founded nearly half a century ago.

Major automakers posted mixed U.S. sales for August on Tuesday, as executives cautioned the embattled industry was facing reverberations from a weaker housing market and the shakeout in subprime lending. Industrywide sales for August were tracking at 16.1 million vehicles on an annualized rate, down from 16.2 million a year earlier.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has made an official request for help to Germany's Justice Ministry in its investigation into suspected bribery and corruption at Siemens, a newspaper said.

Stocks jumped on Tuesday, helped by optimism about the outlook for technology spending and gains in oil prices that lifted energy shares.

HSBC Holdings Plc's Chinese fund arm aims to launch two new funds over the next year amid feverish demand for asset management services fuelled by a bullish local stock market, the venture's head said on Tuesday.

Boeing Co said on Tuesday China will remain its top market outside the United States for the next 20 years, as it vies with arch rival Airbus to supply the country's booming airline industry.