Friday saw a meeting between Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer and the company's executives, where Ballmer expressed that the U. S. economy likely will not bottom out until about a year from now, and it will return to a slow growth-track only after a few years

Furthermore, the chief executive of the world's largest software maker made an effort to rally troops at the company-wide meeting but stood by plans to lay off up to 5,000 employees, or about 5 percent of the workforce. The company which announced its biggest-ever job cuts a day earlier thinks the decision taken by it is fine.

New Delhi, Jan. 24 : The China Dairy Industry Association has claimed that 90 percent families of the victims in the country''s tainted milk scandal have been compensated.

Without disclosing the compensation amount, the association said that families of 262,662 children who were sickened after drinking the melamine-contaminated milk products had signed compensation agreements and accepted compensation, the chinaview. com reports.

Kesoram Industries has announced that the company will close production of tyres at its Balasore, Orissa facility to reduce expenditure and cut costs amid tight financial conditions.

B K Birla flagship Kesoram Industries is a leading manufacturer of yarn, tyres and cement and facing low demand from domestic and international market. The ongoing slowdown and liquidity problem are the major reasons cited by the company to halt production at its Orissa facility.

Piramal Glass Ltd announced financial results for the third quarter ended December 2008 reporting net loss of Rs 37.14 crore. The company posted losses worth Rs 1.28 crore in the same period in 2007-08.

Rising raw material cost and foreign exchange losses adversely hit its business for the reporting quarter leading to significant decline in revenue and net profit.

The cost of raw material remained at Rs 63.60 crore as compared to Rs 36.98 crore in Q3 of 2007-08 which increased its expenditures. The company suffered foreign exchange losses of Rs 27.81 crore in the reporting quarter.

Bangkok - Thailand's auto parts industry is at risk of shedding 40,000 permanent jobs this year as domestic and global demand for vehicles shrinks, media reports said Wednesday.

Discussions Tuesday between the Industry Ministry and 1,600 auto parts manufacturers concluded that 20 per cent of 200,000 permanent employees in the sector were in danger of losing this jobs this year, the Bangkok Post reported.

The Q4 saw a decline in PC sales in Asia by 5% compared to a year earlier. It should be noted that it is the region's first such decline in a decade and it has come due to the global downturn causing decline in demand.

The data tracking firm International Data Corp said that the fourth-quarter drop in Asia, excluding Japan, was well ahead of 0.4 percent drop in global PC sales for the period.

It should be specified here that since Q3 of 1998, it was the region's first decline.