Here is a look at some of Tuesday's top business stories:
Universities cut venture-capital investments
NEW YORK, Jan. 21 (UPI) -- An important funding source for venture capitalists -- allocations from U.S. institutions of higher education -- has fallen sharply.
Colleges and universities, which have been among VC firms' "most reliable partners," are cutting back, the Wall Street Journal reports. A survey by the National Association of College and University Business Officers, the paper says, "shows that contributions to venture funds are half of what they were in 2000.
"More significant, the group that invests the lion's share in venture capital -- institutions with endowments of over $1 billion -- has slashed its venture-capital allocation by half to 3.9 percent of its total allocations for fiscal 2002 from 6.2 percent in 2001, after falling from 12.6 percent in 2000," it says.
The reductions have been caused by a decline in the value of the investments and a shift by these institutions away from VC investment. Universities have lost money over the past couple of years, like most investors: endowments lost money for the second year in a row, for the first time since the association launched its annual survey in 1971.
Many now are focusing on capital preservation, and that means shunning the sort of risk that many VC investments represent.
The survey drew responses from 654 institutions with a $222 billion investment pool.
Japan recovery isn't expected until 2005
TOKYO, Jan. 21 (UPI) -- Given a deep domestic recession and a cloudy outlook for the world economy, Japan's economy probably won't recover for another two years.
The Japan Times reports Tuesday that a key government panel has postponed the target year of an expected economic recovery from this year until 2005. The new projection is in the 5-year outlook by the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, of which Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is chairman.
The group's previous report, issued a year ago, said Japan would experience an end to deflation and achieve slight positive growth in fiscal 2003.
The report also says banks' bad debt remain high after a surge in the business year that ended March 31, 2002. The latest version of the report is expected to be approved by the Cabinet on Friday, the Times says in its Tuesday editions.
Vacancies jump as rents slump in Florida
MIAMI, Jan. 21 (UPI) -- With many problems depressing the property market in the Miami area, the possibility of a war with Iraq is yet another negative influence.
The general economic downturn and stock market plunge have had an impact, as have the problems in Latin America that particularly affect Florida's exporters and traders, the Miami Herald reports. "Commercial landlords are itching for a reversal of fortune, but vacancy rates are up across south Florida while rents are creeping down," the paper says.
Office vacancy rates in Coral Gables, for example, rose from 14 percent in 2001 to 22 percent last year, while Fort Lauderdale's office vacancy rates jumped by 7 percentage points to 22 percent. Vacancies in Miami edged up from 14 percent in 2001 to 16 percent.
"A lot fewer companies are willing to make decisions,'' Andrew Ansin, vice president of Sunbeam Properties, told the newspaper. His company owns the 500-acre Miramar Park of Commerce, where rents are down 20 percent this year.
The Herald says a year ago, "industry watchers were predicting the doldrums would end by now. That hasn't happened -- in fact, it has gotten worse -- and there appears to be little optimism for a short-term recovery."
Strike looms at leading European car factory
LONDON, Jan. 21 (UPI) -- Nissan's factory in Sunderland, England, which is Europe's most productive car plant, could soon face its first strike over pay.
According to The Guardian, the Amicus engineering union has warned that a strike is possible. The union said pay talks broke down during arbitration on Friday and the plant, which employs 4,500, was "dangerously close" to its first strike since opening in 1984.
Nissan, while admitting that it was the first time it had been forced to make use of the arbitration process, insisted talks were continuing and that it still hoped to reach a deal.
The newspaper says the plant's works council, a largely non-union body and crucial to the dispute, "has so far rejected a 3-percent pay raise offer for this year and 2004, pressing instead for 6 percent in 2003 as a reward for consistently delivering productivity records."
Under Nissan's complex bargaining procedure, the works council will Tuesday put its final offer to the workforce without a recommendation. If that is rejected, Amicus will call a strike ballot among its 800 members at the plant, the paper says.
The dispute comes as Britain's car industry marks a 9.1-percent increase in output last year to 1.63 million units, with a 17-percent rise in exports to 1.05 million.
Sunderland, where management is seeking a 30 percent cut in costs to offset the impact of the strong pound, exports most of its output to mainland Europe.
Canadian executives 'back cut in dividend tax'
DON MILLS, Ontario, Canada, Jan. 21 (UPI) -- The move by U.S. President George W. Bush to eliminate double taxation on dividends is finding approval among Canadian business leaders, most of whom feel Canada should probably follow suit.
The National Post newspaper says 48 percent of those polled said Canada should make further cuts in its dividend tax. The newspaper poll found that 61 percent of respondents believed moving the U.S. dividend tax to zero would lead to modest economic growth.
"Dividends from Canadian corporations are taxed twice: once on the corporation's books and again when shareholders pay tax on the income -- although a dividend tax credit offsets some of the personal tax burden. In the United States, the situation is the same but without the credit," the Post reports.
Of the respondents, 36 percent said a federal reduction of taxes on Canadian dividends would "probably" lead them to invest more, while 21 percent said it would "definitely" prompt them to do so.
The Web-based survey of chief executives and business leaders of small, medium and large corporations and local and national Chamber of Commerce executives was conducted Jan. 14-16.
However, Finance Minister John Manley has said the Canadian government wouldn't copy the kind of aggressive tax-cutting program announced by Bush, because Ottawa is unwilling to risk running a deficit.
BP's Vietnam project delivers first natural gas
HOUSTON, Jan. 21 (UPI) -- A British Petroleum project in Vietnam, the $1.3 billion Nam Con Son fields, has delivered its first natural gas.
According to Oil & Gas Journal, BP Pipelines Vietnam has begun operations from the field. BP is the operator and major shareholder in the project, an integrated gas-to-power project that's located in the southern part of the country. The project centers on the Lan Tay and Lan Do fields, which have estimated reserves of 2 trillion cubic feet and are expected to supply gas for 20 years.
Those reserves, according to the company, are sufficient for generating 40 percent of Vietnam's current annual power needs. The project includes a 400-kilometer pipeline to bring the gas ashore and construction of a 700 megawatt gas-fired power plant.
Other partners are Viet Nam Oil and Gas Corp., Oil and Natural Gas Corp. of India's NGC Videsh Ltd. unit, and ConocoPhillips Vietnam.
