Orica chief praises Abbott's IR plans

THE head of explosives and chemicals giant Orica has praised Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's industrial relations plans.

He has also called on the Reserve Bank to weaken the Australian dollar.

The local currency fell below parity with the US greenback on Saturday for the first time in 11 months.

But Orica chief executive Ian Smith says the central bank needs to do "everything in their power" to dilute the Australian dollar, which he estimates wiped $3 million from company earnings in the six months to March 31.

"Oh look, we'd love the exchange rate to keep going down," he told ABC Television.

"If the exchange rate was lower then we would have picked up a benefit."

But Bronson and Jacobs, an Orica subsidiary which supplies wholesale chemicals to the cosmetics and food industries is benefiting from a strong Australian dollar, as it pushes out local competitors, Mr Smith said.

"We are picking up a bigger market share because ... we are one of the last big ones left. But the overall state of the economy is being hollowed out," he said.

"A lot of those smaller manufacturers, distributors are being pushed out of business, they can't compete against imports."

While business groups have criticised Mr Abbott's industrial relations plans as being too timid, Mr Smith welcomed the coalition's push for more individual flexibility agreements.

"It's starting to go in the right direction," he said.

"At the moment we have suffered from a few years of a government that wants to institutionalise third party involvement, so that should really be backed off as well."

Orica's first half net profit rose by six per cent to $267 million.

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Orica chief praises Abbott's IR plans

THE head of explosives and chemicals giant Orica has praised Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's industrial relations plans.

He has also called on the Reserve Bank to weaken the Australian dollar.

The local currency fell below parity with the US greenback on Saturday for the first time in 11 months.

But Orica chief executive Ian Smith says the central bank needs to do "everything in their power" to dilute the Australian dollar, which he estimates wiped $3 million from company earnings in the six months to March 31.

"Oh look, we'd love the exchange rate to keep going down," he told ABC Television.

"If the exchange rate was lower then we would have picked up a benefit."

But Bronson and Jacobs, an Orica subsidiary which supplies wholesale chemicals to the cosmetics and food industries is benefiting from a strong Australian dollar, as it pushes out local competitors, Mr Smith said.

"We are picking up a bigger market share because ... we are one of the last big ones left. But the overall state of the economy is being hollowed out," he said.

"A lot of those smaller manufacturers, distributors are being pushed out of business, they can't compete against imports."

While business groups have criticised Mr Abbott's industrial relations plans as being too timid, Mr Smith welcomed the coalition's push for more individual flexibility agreements.

"It's starting to go in the right direction," he said.

"At the moment we have suffered from a few years of a government that wants to institutionalise third party involvement, so that should really be backed off as well."

Orica's first half net profit rose by six per cent to $267 million.

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Recovery in sight, UK bank chief says

The Bank of England boss says recovery is finally in sight for Britain's beleaguered economy. Source: AAP

RECOVERY is finally "in sight" for Britain's beleaguered economy, the governor of the Bank of England says.

Mervyn King said "momentum" was building within the economy, which would become apparent during the course of the current year.

But in an interview with ITV News, he cautioned it did not mean a return to pre-recession levels of private consumption and public spending.

Instead, he said there would have to be a "big shift" in resources towards exports and manufacturing investment as the economy re-balanced.

"There's no point pretending we can go back to the pattern of demand we saw in 2006-2007," he said.

"We need a big shift of resources towards exports, towards manufacturing and business investment. The consequence of that is we have to accept that private consumption and public spending will not grow as rapidly.

"We will get back to the level of unemployment and the path of output, we won't get back to the pattern in which we had a big trade deficit, consumption was high and exports were relatively weak.

"That balance has to be changed. Policies are in place to achieve it. We are on track to achieve it. Recovery is in sight."

He said that the economy would even have grown last year by 1.5 per cent if not for falls in construction and North Sea oil production.

"There is momentum behind the recovery that's coming. And I think that during the course of 2013 we will see the recovering come into sight. When - I can't possibly tell you and it would be silly of me to pretend that I could," he said.

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Foxtel chief slams media reforms

Foxtel's boss says the government's media reforms will end up discouraging industry mergers. Source: AAP

THE federal government's push for a public interest test for media mergers is cumbersome and unnecessary, the boss of Australia's largest pay TV company says.

Foxtel chief executive Richard Freudenstein says under the proposed laws, a media merger could be considered by up to four regulators, which would cause delays and potentially discourage legitimate deals.

"One area that clearly does not require further restrictive regulation is media ownership and control," Mr Freudenstein told the Subscription Television Australia (ASTRA) conference in Sydney on Thursday.

"The problem the government is seeking to solve either does not exist, or to the extent it does, can easily be dealt with normal competition law.

"The solution creates commercial uncertainty and introduces a huge risk of political interference in the media."

Moreover, the reforms miss the point of the digital age, Mr Freudenstein said, given the massive explosion of access to news, information and entertainment.

His comments came as the government introduced a raft of legislation to parliament outlining its major media reforms.

In addition to a yet-to-be-defined public interest test on media mergers, the legislation details plans for a 50 per cent cut in television license fees and a new public interest media advocate to monitor industry self-regulation.

The reforms have been widely attacked by major media companies.

A parliamentary committee will also consider whether the 75 per cent reach rule, which prevents the three major television networks from buying out their regional affiliates, should be abolished.

Mr Freudenstein said the government was better off working to target online piracy, with local law enforcement lagging behind other markets such as the UK and US.

"We need to have appropriate systems in place before the NBN is rolled out," Mr Freudenstein said.

"Because with super fast broadband the floodgates could really open."

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Greece appoints new privatisation chief

GREECE has appointed its third privatisation chief in less than a year as it struggles to speed up delayed state asset sales to meet bailout goals.

The head of Greece's main water provider EYDAP, Stelios Stavridis, was brought in to spearhead a lagging push to raise 2.6 billion euros ($A3.3 billion) in asset sales this year.

The previous privatisation head resigned on Saturday amid an investigation into his previous position as head of Greece's main power group PPC.

A prosecutor had previously pressed criminal charges against the PPC board over a 2007 power plant construction contract that ran over budget.

The general secretaries of the ministries of finance and development - who previously sat on PPC's board - also stepped down.

The blow came as Greece is in the midst of an audit by international creditors over reforms, including privatisations, that are needed to unlock a new slice of loans this month.

The Greek government had previously pledged to meet, if not exceed, its annual privatisation target this year.

The first official tasked with heading the Greek state privatisation agency resigned in July 2012, citing a lack of government support and planning delays.

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Japan to nominate ADB prez as BoJ chief

THE Japanese government of Shinzo Abe is set to nominate Asian Development Bank president Haruhiko Kuroda as governor of the central bank, reports say, sending the dollar surging against the yen.

The greenback surged past 94 yen in early Asian trade on Monday from 93.37 yen in New York on Friday, with investors confident that there will be fresh aggressive easing steps by Abe's administration to boost the flagging economy.

The cabinet plans to submit his nomination to parliament this week, the Nikkei and other newspapers said. The appointment requires parliamentary approval.

If approved, the 68-year-old former finance ministry bureaucrat will succeed incumbent Bank of Japan (BoJ) governor Masaaki Shirakawa, who is stepping down on March 19, several weeks before the end of his term.

Abe has decided to pick Kuroda "as he backs Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's bold monetary easing policies while maintaining good links with the international financial industry", the Nikkei said.

Abe also plans to pick Tokyo's Gakushuin University economics professor Kikuo Iwata as one of the deputy governors, while BoJ executive-director Hiroshi Nakaso is the leading contender for the other deputy position, Nikkei reported.

Immediate confirmation of the reports was not available.

Abe told a news conference on Friday in Washington that his government would start picking nominees on Monday after concluding his US trip, during which he held talks with President Barack Obama.

Kuroda spent decades as a Japanese finance ministry bureaucrat. He was responsible for international affairs and foreign exchange policy between 1999 and 2003 before assuming the post of ADB president in 2005.

A former vice finance minister for international affairs, he is known as an advocate of aggressive monetary easing to overcome Japan's deflation, a stance in line with Abe's economic policy.

Abe had warned he could change a law guaranteeing the bank's independence if it did not follow his prescription of big spending and aggressive monetary easing to rescue the economy from decades of weak growth and deflation.

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