Intercultural Business News

Volkswagen will begin assembling a new compact car at its plant in Mexico early next year following a $1 billion investment, a senior executive said on Monday.

Otto Lindner, head of Volkswagen’s Mexican operations, told reporters that Mexican engineers were developing the model, known internally as the New Compact Sedan.

Iconic Beetle, still being built in Mexico

Volkswagen will spend $400 million of its $1 billion capital expenditure in Mexico on creating a new assembly line at its plant in the central Mexican state of Puebla, Lindner said.

“The rest of the investment will go toward the modernization of existing production lines and the development of the new vehicle,” he said at an event with President Felipe Calderon.

Read More>Reuters

Nissan is to announce that its Wearside factory will start producing batteries for electric cars, which is expected to create 200 new jobs.

The £380m project will be supported by the European Investment Bank and aided in part by government grants.

The plant, near Sunderland, has beaten off competition from other Nissan factories in Europe for the investment.

The move could pave the way for the production of electric vehicles at the North East plant in the near future.

Sunderland may be building Nissan's Electric Vehicles

Last week, Toyota said it would start making its new Auris hybrid vehicle at its Derbyshire plant from mid-2010.

Competition

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson plans a “green revolution” in the North East.

Read More>BBC News

China told some international oil and gas companies to halt exploration in offshore areas that Vietnam considers part of its territory, an American government official told the U.S. Congress.

The U.S. is “concerned about tension between China and Vietnam, as both countries seek to tap potential oil and gas deposits that lie beneath the South China Sea,” said Scot Marciel, a deputy assistant secretary of state, in comments yesterday before a U.S. Senate subcommittee posted on the Web site of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Foreign Rigs Warned Over Territory

Vietnam is among the claimants to all or part of the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, along with Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan, according to the Central Intelligence Agency. Chinese maps also show an international boundary symbol off the Vietnamese coast, the U.S. agency said, in a profile of China on its Web site.

Read More>Bloomberg

All calls to National Rail Enquiries will be handled by Indian call centres from next March, the BBC has learnt.

The Association of Train Operating Companies (ATOC), which runs the service, said it had agreed an exclusive contract with an Indian firm.

ATOC insisted that the change would not reduce the quality of the service.

UK Rail Network

The news came as an outsourcing firm said it was cutting more than 100 jobs at a National Rail Enquiries centre in Yorkshire because of the India move.

Outsourcing firm Ventura said it was in consultations with staff at the facility in Wath-upon-Dearne.

Reduced usage

The number of calls to National Rail Enquiries has fallen in recent years as a growing number of passengers use the internet, or the automated Train Tracker phone system, to access train times.

Read More>BBC News Online

Retired ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2 looks to be headed for South Africa as a floating hotel for next summer’s football World Cup. The current owners, Nakheel, a subsidiary of Dubai World, planned to refurbish the QE2 and have it berthed at the man-made Palm Jumeirah island in Dubai, but the recession has hit the company just like many others. As a result, they are looking for ways to make additional money off the famous ship, and South Africa is in need of additional hotel rooms for the World Cup.

Could Dubai based QE2 be heading to South Africa?

The Johannesburg newspaper Business Day reported that Dubai World is looking to berth the ship at Cape Town, where it is part owner of the V&A Waterfront. However, South Africa’s National Port Authority indicated that several approvals were necessary prior to any decisions being made, according to spokesman Ronel Bester.

Read More>Homes Go Fast