2. Toyota to increase car production in Australia

Toyota yesterday unveiled plans to expand output in Australia, pro­ducing a new family car at its plant in Melbourne from the year 2000.

Australia's prime minister said Toyota's investment "represents large-scale and long-term investment in Australia's manufacturing in­dustry". Last week, he outlined a more interventionist industrial policy, saying certain sectors such as technology and telecommunications would receive assistance.

Earlier this year, Toyota announced plans for a second factory in the Philippines, a further factory in Thailand and expansion in Argen­tina. 3. Grenada, Cuba sign accord

Grenada, the Caribbean island where a US military invasion in 1983 ended four years' rule by a revolutionary government backed by Cuba and the Soviet Union, has moved to revitalise ties with Cuba by signing a co-operation agreement.

The accord was signed by Cuba's President and Grenada's prime minister, during his four-day visit to Cuba.

It covered co-operation in health services, agriculture, tourism and sports, and included plans for Grenadans to train in Cuba. It fore­saw Cuban technical support for farming and the processing of tradi­tional export crops.

4. Britain to expand export trade posts

Britain is to open trade offices in seven Asian and Latin Ame­rican countries to boost the growth of British exports to these growing markets, as well as four embassies and three consulates.

This expansion will be funded by the closure of consulates in Venice, Genoa and Turin, as well as the abolition of 500 domestic posts in the Foreign Office over the next three years. This reorganisation, helped by new savings will create 100 new commercial jobs abroad, and 14 new posts in Asia, Latin America and the former Soviet Union. New embassies will be opened in Georgia, Armenia, Turkmenistan and the Dominican Republic; new consulates will open in Russia, Malaysia

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and Thailand; and new trade offices, staffed by local people, will open in Laos, Japan, Brazil and Mexico.

The changes have been forced on the Foreign Office by the breakup of the Soviet Union, by budget restrictions and also by Brit­ain's determination to take full advantage of the markets in parts of the world where traditionally it has been poorly represented.

5. Cuba, South Africa sign pact

Cuba and South Africa have signed a commercial agreement aimed at boosting bilateral trade. "There are considerable prospects for increased trade," South Africa's trade and industry minister said after signing the deal at the end of a two-day mission to Havana.

The trade agreement, which includes a reciprocal Most Favoured Nation clause, was a further sign of South Africa's determination to strengthen trade and investment links with communist-ruled Cuba de­spite US objections. Pretoria and Havana already have a bilateral in­vestment promotion and protection accord.

6. Aid row threatens free trade pact

Plans to enter into a political and economic pact between the European Union and the Mediterranean countries of North Africa and the Middle East may fail on the issue of aid.

The European Commission's blueprint for a "Euro-Mediterranean partnership", which would establish the world's largest free trade area, also extends the co-operation on foreign and security policy and joint action against terrorism, and would be accompanied by a doubling in EU assistance for the region. One of the Commission's central objectives is to provide an economic underpinning for the Mid­dle East peace process.

The initiative is similar to the plan that led to the creation of the European Economic Area, a free-trade pact between the EU and most of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries, the initia­tive, however, threatens to widen the strategic gulf between the EU's north and its drive to extend the EU towards the east and the south.