Nestle in Chinese medicine deal

Nestle in Chinese medicine deal ZURICH: The world’s biggest food group Nestle is moving into traditional Chinese medicine by joining forces with Chinese pharma group Chi-Med, the Swiss group said. The new entity, called Nutrition Science Partners (NSP), is to be owned equally by the two parties, Nestle said in a statement, without revealing any of the financials behind the deal. NSP will research, develop, make and sell nutritional and medicinal products derived from botanical plants, it said. The joint venture will also hand Nestle’s Health Science division, which is handling the deal, access to Chi-Med’s traditional Chinese medicine library, which with more than 50,000 extracts from more than 1,200 different herbal plants is one of the world’s largest, the statement said. GM opens China research center SHANGHAI: General Motors Co. has unveiled its latest global research center in China, where it hopes to take advantage of the country’s vast supply of engineering graduates to drive its development of a new generation of electric vehicles. China’s auto market has grown rapidly — it has been the world’s largest since 2009 — and one of the new center’s primary roles is to ensure the requirements and preferences of consumers in China are integrated into GM’s global product development. But the new facilities in Shanghai — the GM China Advanced Technical Center — will look after not just China’s auto market. Norsk Hydro sees higher aluminum demand OSLO: Norwegian aluminum group Norsk Hydro hopes to pay an unchanged dividend on 2012 earnings as the global market continues to recover from a slump. The market outside China could grow 2-4 percent next year after this year’s 2 percent rise as demand recovers, producers reduce capacity, and bloated stock levels are reduced, Hydro also said on Thursday in a presentation to investors. Big producers cut output after aluminum dipped below $ 2,000 per ton at the start of the summer, helping it recover above $ 2,200 before some idled production was restarted, leading prices back down toward $ 2,000. From : Arabnews