Munich - Germany's biggest engineering group Siemens AG confirmed Wednesday its business year outlook after reporting a surge in both orders and sales in the company's fiscal third quarter.

The Munich-based group said that new orders jumped by 21 per cent to 23.7 billion euros (37.29 billion) with sales rising by 10 per cent to 19.18 billion euros.

Taipei - Taiwan's two major carriers, China Airlines (CAL) and EVA Air, have decided to cut a combined 35 flights per week from September 1 to cut costs amid skyrocketing fuel prices, airline officials said Wednesday.

Under the plan, CAL would cut at least 10 flights per week - four flights to Los Angeles, one or two flights to San Francisco and one flight to New York in the United States as well as four flights to Vancouver in Canada - a CAL spokesman said.

He said the airline would also suspend all four flights per week to Seattle.

EVA plans to cut 25 flights per week, including six flights to Los Angeles, two flights to San Francisco and one flight to Seattle, EVA officials said.

London - Britain's Lloyds TSB bank Wednesday

Nicosia, July 30: The Saudi Basic Industries Corporation ( SABIC), one of the world’s largest petrochemical companies, has reported preliminary consolidated profits of SR 14.5 billion for the first six months of the year, compared with SR 12.8 billion in the corresponding period of 2007.

These profits are the highest ever reported profits in one quarter and represent an increase of 13 per cent.

Tokyo - Japan's automakers posted declines in domestic sales and increases in exports in the first six months of 2008, attributing the falls to surging oil prices and stronger exports to rising demand in other Asian nations, mainly China.

Toyota Motor Corp and its subsidiaries, Daihatsu Motor Co and Hino Motors Ltd, saw a 1.7-per-cent drop in sales in Japan in the January-June period to 1.18 million units, compared with the same period last year.

The company's exports, however, grew 3.6 per cent to 1.47 million units.

Its global production rose 5.8 per cent to 4.98 million units.

Wellington - Another New Zealand finance company announced it was in trouble Tuesday, the 26th victim of the worldwide credit crunch in the last two years.

The New Zealand Guardian Trust Company said it was suspending withdrawals and new investments in its Guardian Mortgage Fund which holds nearly 250 million New Zealand dollars (about 187.50 million US dollars) for 3,700 investors.

"Due to current liquidity difficulties in the market, the fund is currently operating below its target liquidity rate of 5 per cent," the company said.