IN BRIEF

Boeing to cut US$1b off 787 production costs

NEW YORK: Boeing will try to shave more than US$1 billion off production costs of its new 787 Dreamliner plane, a company executive said Thursday, as the firm battles to turn a profit on the much-delayed plane. Pat Shanahan, Boeing's Commercial Airplanes vice president, told a Florida conference that Boeing was still producing the all-new 787 plane "at a loss" today. Asked to estimate potential cost-cutting gains in the way the lightweight carbon-composite plane is manufactured, Shanahan suggested they could be above US$1 billion.

Procter and Gamble

to slash 5,700 jobs

NEW YORK: US consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble said Thursday it would cut 5,700 jobs, or 10 per cent of its global workforce, by the end of 2013 as part of a four-year restructuring aimed at cutting costs by US$10 billion. About 1,600 jobs will be eliminated this year and 4,100 in 2013, for a savings of US$800 million, P&G said at an investors conference. Under the four-year restructuring, the company said it expects to achieve US$3 billion in savings on fixed costs by boosting productivity. The restructuring through 2015 also is planned to shave off $6 billion in production costs, including a $1 billion reduction for marketing and cuts in research and development.

French consumer confidence up again

PARIS: French consumer confidence improved slightly in February but remains below the long-term average, in a country where domestic demand provides the main reservoir of extra growth, the state statistics office said yesterday. The household sentiment index compiled by the Insee office edged up one point to 82, its second monthly rise in a row following a fall in December last year to 80, the lowest level since December 2008. INSEE appeared not to consider the slight rise statistically significant, as it described it in an accompanying statement as "stable".

Large gas find for Statoil, ExxonMobil

OSLO: Norwegian oil group Statoil and US company ExxonMobil have together discovered a large natural gas field off the coast of Tanzania, Statoil announcedyesterday. The field's gas reserves are estimated at about 140 billion cubic metres, it said. The size of the deposit could turn out to be bigger, since the field's exact contours have not yet been fully determined and exploratory drilling is still underway, Statoil spokesman Baard Glad Pedersen said.

Agencies