action is required in order to eradicate poverty from South Asia. And it could only be achieved through social mobilisation and empowerment of the poor. Recognising the imperative need to address poverty related issues, an Independent South Asian Commission on Poverty Alleviation (ISACPA) was also established in 1991? which is supposed to act as a policy tool to assist governments to tackle poverty.

KLM TO LAUNCH ELECTRONIC FLIGHT BAG ON NEW BOEING 777S

Boeing [NYSE: BA] Commercial Aviation Services' Crew Information Services (CIS) group will install the Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) on board KLM Royal Dutch Airlines' new fleet of Boeing 777s, making the Netherlands-based carrier the launch customer for this revolutionary technology.

The Electronic Flight Bag can contain all documentation and forms carried by pilots - aeronautical charts, manuals for fault reporting and operations, minimum equipment lists and logbooks - in digital format at the crew's fingertips. It also includes a weight-and-balance calculator that allows pilots to calculate the ideal speeds and engine setting for an aircraft instantly, in any weather, on any runway, with any payload. Such instant calculations could increase the payload of a 777 taking off on a wet runway by as much as 9,000 kilograms (20,000 pounds).

LG ELECTRONICS BECOMES GLOBAL PARTNER OF INTERNATIONAL CRICKET COUNCIL

LG Electronics, Global Digital Leader, announced that it has become the Global Partner of the International Cricket Council under one of the largest ever sponsorship agreements in the field of cricket.

The sponsorship agreement extending into the year 2007 covers the upcoming 8th Cricket World Cup in South Africa starting in February 2003, the 9th World Cup in West Indies in 2007 and 6 other major tournaments in between, including Champions Trophies and Under 19 tournaments. ~,

SSGC LAUNCHES CUSTOMER SERVICES CALL CENTER

Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC), a major utility company providing natural gas to homes and businesses in southern region of Pakistan has launched its new call center in Karachi on telephone number 119.

SSGC customer services call center is a 24-hour service center where the agents provide general information to the callers by telephone, related to procedures, new connections, and restoration of supply, products and services. Agents also provide assistance in complaint registration services to the callers. The registered complaints are saved and automatically sent to the back office where they are printed and handed over to the relevant staff for further processing.

ALLIANZ EFU PARTICIPATES IN ALLIANZ OLYMPICS.

Fourth Allianz Olympics were held in Milan, Italy in July 2002 in which 1650 I athletes from Allianz Group companies participated. The games present a unique opportunity for employees from a wide range of social and cultural backgrounds to come together, network, and make friends. For Allianz Group, with its strongly decentralized structure, this is an important way to enhance the corporate identity of the company. The participants were cheered on by Allianz AG board members, top managers and CEOs from the international Group companies, who also presented the medals to the winners. Pakistan was among the 35 countries participating in the Olympics. Mr. Syed Noman Mustafa, System Analyst, Allianz EFU represented Pakistan and participated in the Chess event. He won two games which is a credible performance considering that Mr. Mustafa was up against international ranking players in the tournament.

BIZTEK JOINS HANDS WITH ALLIANZ EFU

A ceremony for signing a memorandum of understanding between BIZTEK Institute of Business and Technology and Allianz EFU was held at the Campus of BIZTEK recently.

The prime objective of this agreement was to make joint efforts for protecting the health of BIZTEK students and to establish long term cordial relationships among each other.

Institute of Business & Technology (BIZTEK) has been established by GEC (Educational Society), which has dedicated itself to provide quality and affordable education in the fields of Business Studies, Information Technology and Management Sciences. With the commitment of providing quality education to the city of Karachi, GEC has built up the campus of BIZTEK to provide degree programs in affiliation with Girne American University (GAU) North Cyprus, which is accredited by the Higher Education Commission in Turkey and its programs are recognized by the University Grants Commission, Pakistan.

BIZTEK is highly committed to maintain strong liaisoning with the Industry in order to provide a Sound ground to its students for their professional grooming. It has always taken a step ahead to create an environment of mutual cooperation with the business Industry that can be utilized as a breeding ground for most R & D work. BIZTEK has always been striving to maintain strong industrial linkage by signing MOUs, with leading institution and organizations of the country.

The recent agreement of BIZTEK with Allianz EFU is a similar step taken for fulfilling this constructive purpose.

Both the parties have entered into a joint venture to provide an attractive and affordable health Insurance Scheme to the students of BIZTEK with comfort and flexibility. It is hoped that this agreement will not only fulfill the health care needs of the students but will also provide them an excess to the best possible medical care facilities.

Moreover it was also decided that BIZTEK and Allianz will further strengthen their bilateral business relationships and will endeavour to create comprehensive health care system for the students community in our society.

UNIQUE HONOUR FOR PSO BY WHARTON BUSINESS SCHOOL

Pakistan State Oil (PSO) has been honoured as the first Pakistani corporate entity to be studied as a case of exemplary corporate transformation by the Wharton Business School of the University of Pennsylvania, USA. Professor

Thomas W. Dunfee, Vice Dean and Director, Joseph Kolodny Professor of the Wharton School, has written a letter to Mr. Tariq Kirmani, Managing Director PSO, requesting permission to prepare a case study focused on PSO for the forthcoming class at Wharton.

Wharton School is part of the University of Pennsylvania, the highly competitive and most prestigious Ivy League School in Philadelphia, which is America's first university. Its faculty includes four Nobel Prize recipients. The Wharton School has been playing a pivotal role in shaping the course of business across the globe based on study of best corporate principles and practices. In this context, selection of PSO as a case study at Wharton is indeed an honour for Pakistan.

PSO's radical and successful corporate transformation has been widely appreciated at various international forums and by world's leading consulting and financial advisory firms including JP Morgan, who in their Information Memorandum acknowledged the significant progress made by PSO towards putting in place the basic framework for corporate reform in line with the modern concepts and practices. This includes streamlining the investment planning process, developing a model for business-wise and product-wise profitability analysis and developing a comprehensive corporate plan.

Further steps in this direction include developing information systems for obtaining and sharing up-to-date information on sales and operations on real time basis, lessening the magnitude of information distortion, streamlining inventory information and establishing common data warehouse across the supply chain.

PSO's corporate structure has evolved into a matrix, which has divided the company's major operations into independent activities supported by the financial, legal, information and other services. These activities operate in an autonomous and collegial manner in the form of Strategic Business Units based on the clear and transparent allocation of responsibility and accountability.

This structural change has been reinforced and related checks and balances have been established by putting in place several corporate monitoring and control systems.

Effective implementation of corporate reform and business development strategies in line with best international practices enabled PSO to maintain its market leadership position in a highly competitive business environment.

Accordingly, PSO increased its market share in key products including Mogas, HSD, lubricants and Jet A-1. During the first quarter of FY-03, PSO's profit after tax rose to Rs 1.04 billion, registering an unprecedented growth of around 176% over the corresponding period of last year. This impressive performance has been a continuation of prior year's all-time record performance when profit after tax had reached Rs 3.2 billion, registering a growth of 42% over the prior year.

ABB AND ICI TO COLLABORATE IN PAKISTAN AND UAE

Memorandum of understanding signed for the provision of engineering services and solutions ABB, the leading power and automation technology group, has signed a memorandum of understanding with ICI Pakistan in London, for the provision of engineering services and solutions consultancy to the petrochemical, chemical, fertiliser, manmade fibres, oil and gas and consumer related Industries within Pakistan, UAE and other mutually agreed Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC).

ABB sees opportunities to provide broad life cycle services and solutions to their target customers in the petrochemical, chemical, and related industries as a result of their acquisition of Eutech Engineering Solutions from ICI in February 2001. ICI Pakistan has key engineering resources and they wish to develop their business portfolio both in Pakistan and the Middle East.

Dinesh Paliwal, head of the Automation Technologies division said, "ABB is very proud of its track record in providing customer services and solutions which span the entire product and plant life cycle. Our relationship with ICI Pakistan will further strengthen this capability — especially in areas such as consulting, asset management, and project delivery "

ICI Pakistan manufactures and sells a range of industrial and consumer products, including polyester staple fibre, soda ash, sodium bicarbonate, paints, specialty chemicals, polyurethanes , and arranges manufacture on a toll basis of pharmaceutical and animal health products. It also markets seeds and agrochemical products and in addition is engaged in trading in various specialized chemicals for use in industries in Pakistan. ICI Pakistan had a turnover of more than Rs 12.8 billion in 2001. ICI Pakistan and ICI plc jointly own Pakistan PTA Ltd, a manufacturer of pure Terephthalic Acid with a turnover of over Rs18 billion in 2001.

ABB is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility and industry customers to improve performance while lowering environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in more than 100 countries and employs about 146,000 people.

In February 2001 ABB acquired Eutech Engineering Solutions Limited, the former Engineering Division of ICI. Eutech is now part of ABB's Automation Technology Division and has around 500 staff based in the UK operating primarily in the petrochemical, chemicals and life science industries, providing engineering services in the areas of consulting, asset management and project delivery. Eutech will coordinate with the other local ABB entities in Pakistan and the UAE that are participating in this collaboration.

EMIRATES TICKETS FOR SHERATON DRAW WINNERS

Award-winning Emirates Airline provided tickets to Dubai for winners of the Scratch Card Promotion at the Karachi Sheraton Hotel during the holy month of Ramadan. Guests attending the Iftar/dinner at the hotel had the opportunity to participate in the Scratch Card promotion where 3 of the lucky winners got free Emirates tickets to the home of the Dubai-based international airline.

Commenting on the promotion scheme, Emirates General Manager, Pakistan, Abdulla Nasser Abdulla said, "Since Emirates started its operations in Pakistan in 1985, we have actively participated in promotions and festive events in the country. In our quest to familiarise customers with our expanding list of global destinations, such opportunities as that offered by the Sheraton Hotel are viewed as a valuable means of reaching potential Emirates clientele."

TERADATA NAMED #1 MOST INFLUENTIAL GLOBAL TECHNOLOGY PROVIDER

Teradata, a division of NCR Corporation (NYSE: NCR), has been selected by Intelligent Enterprise magazine, a CMP Media publication, as the number one most influential global technology provider for its leadership in enabling the "intelligent" enterprise.

"Data warehouses and decision-support systems rise in strategic value the more they can deliver fresh data to decision-makers and speed the application of intelligence to improve critical business processes," said David Stodder, editorial director of Intelligent Enterprise. "We salute Teradata, a division of NCR Corporation, as Number One in the 2003 Dozen for enabling its customers to achieve impressive competitive advantages by leveraging data resources in this way."

"Teradata has always been proactive in identifying the leading trends on the technology curve that will enable our customers to achieve the maximum return on investment," said Stephen Brobst, chief technology officer of Teradata. "It is gratifying to have the thought leaders at Intelligent Enterprise magazine recognize our success in delivering high-performance data warehousing and enabling the 'real-time enterprise' with active data warehousing."