Here is a look at some of Thursday's top business stories:
Seoul vows to tackle trade disputes
SEOUL, South Korea, Nov. 1 (UPI) -- South Korea on Thursday said it will use a key World Trade Organization meeting this month to address its trade disputes over several issues, including a U.S. ruling on foreign steel imports.
Trade Minister Hwang Doo-yun said his country will also seek ways to regulate rampant anti-dumping actions at the WTO ministerial meeting scheduled to open in Doha, Qatar, on Nov. 11-13. The United States hopes to launch a new round of trade liberalization talks at the meeting.
"Ambiguous and loose rules have allowed continuous anti-dumping actions all around the world," Hwang told in a news conference hosted by Seoul Foreign Correspondents' Club. "Anti-dumping actions proliferation and ubiquity demonstrate that it has become a convenient too for protectionists," he said.
Hwang also pledged to join U.S. efforts to kick off a new round of trade talks to discuss tariffs cutting on industrial goods. "A successful launch of a new round of the WTO negotiations in Qatar will offer the boost of confidence that we badly need in strengthening multilateral openness in trade," Hwang said.
The trade minister's remarks came as South Korea faced growing trade disputes with the United States, Japan, European Union and others.
The U.S. International Trade Commission ruled last month that subsidized South Korean imports had hurt American steel companies. South Korea is concerned the U.S. rulings may affect 60 percent of the country's steel exports, which have been led by Pohang Iron and Steel Co., the world's largest steel company.
A group of Japanese chipmakers were also reportedly moving to file a dumping complaint against their South Korean rivals, Samsung Electronics and Hynix Semiconductor.
"The abuse of anti-dumping action poses a serious threat to global free trade," Hwang said. "At the new round of WTO trade talks, we need to clarify and improve the WTO anti-dumping rules."
Hwang urged the United States to pursue solutions to the steel issue through the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and other multilateral organizations, rather than resorting to the bilateral mode of issuing safeguards.
"The basic reason for the problem in the U.S. is not caused by imports, but by the delay of the restructuring of the steel industry in the United States," he said. The ITC ruling is "incompatible" with the position of the United States as a global trade leader, Hwang said.
Saudi Arabia to freeze al Qaida assets
WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 (UPI) -- A top Treasury Department official Wednesday said Saudi Arabia had agreed to block financial assets for groups associated with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida network, removing another sticking point between Riyadh and Washington in the war on terrorism.
Treasury's undersecretary for Enforcement, Jimmy Gurule, told reporters Saudi Arabia is one of 81 countries to agree to block assets for 66 entities on a Treasury list of individuals and organizations linked to al Qaida. That list is due to be expanded this week and was initially released in late September by the White House as a new initiative to choke off financial links to bin Laden.
Secretary of State Colin Powell on Wednesday praised the move. "They have now come forward and taken additional action that we had hoped that they would take, and I'm pleased that they have taken that action," Gurule told reporters after meeting with his Kenyan counterpart.
In September the Saudis agreed to freeze a small number of bank accounts from the National Commercial Bank and Faisal al Islamic Bank presented by the Treasury Department, but since then cooperation from Riyadh has been inconsistent despite repeated claims to the contrary from U.S. officials.
In the weeks following the Sept. 11 terror attacks for example, Saudi officials have said they would not allow more U.S. troops to use the Sultan airbase -- a critical military asset if the United States expands its war to Iraq. Saudi officials have also publicly expressed doubts that bin Laden received significant funding from their financial entities.
The Treasury Department was scheduled this month to send in a team of financial experts to Saudi Arabia to provide technical guidance to the regime on this very issue. The team has yet to leave for Riyadh however.
