More business news in brief.
After 'trending sideways', oil price slips to under $141 a barrel
OIL HAS retreated to below $141 a barrel, taking a pause from a record-breaking rally that has lifted prices by almost 50 per cent this year.
Investors were eyeing mixed signals from Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil exporter, in its dispute with the West over its nuclear work, and a rise in the value of the dollar against other major currencies.
"The market had been trending sideways for a while and now there's a break downwards," said Christopher Bellew, senior oil broker at Bache Commodities.
"Once it made a break below Friday's lows, that probably sparked off a bit of technical selling." US crude traded at $140.77 a barrel by 1.20pm, below Friday's intra-day low of $143.22. Brent crude fell $2.90 to $141.52.
Ireland 'expensive' to do business
Small companies view labour costs and inflation as their biggest problems, according to a report from the Small Firms Association (SFA).
Publishing its seventh national business survey, director of the SFA Patricia Callan said Ireland was becoming "an expensive and unattractive place to do business".
"We awarded ourselves wage increases three times those of the international competitors" over the past five years, she said, adding that over the period, Irish inflation has been running at almost twice the European average.
Aer Lingus increases passenger numbers
Aer Lingus passenger numbers grew by 7.6 per cent in June 2008 to 958,000 people compared with the same month the previous year. The load factor fell to 81.5 per cent from 82.2 per cent a year earlier, the airline said in a statement yesterday.
The increase in passengers came in the context of 12.8 per cent increase in capacity.
Passenger numbers on short- haul flights rose 7.8 per cent to 831,000 while those on long- haul flights grew by 6.7 per cent to 127,000. On short-haul flights the load factor fell slightly to 81.1 per cent from 81.6 per cent last year.
British output falls more than expected
British industrial output fell much more than expected in May, official data showed, raising fears that economic growth is freezing up.
The weak reading weighed on sterling and the British stock market, as investors scaled back their bets that rising inflation would outweigh economic growth worries and force the Bank of England to raise interest rates this year.
Borrowing costs now seem likely to remain on hold before falling to bolster the economy, economists argue.
The Office for National Statistics said industrial production fell 0.8 per cent on the month, well beyond expectations of a 0.1 per cent decline.
