DaimlerChrysler, one of the world's leading car manufacturers, on Wednesday reported a 37 percent profit fall in the third quarter of this year.

The world's biggest coffee chain operator Starbucks (NSDK: SBUX) has bought a 90 percent stake in Beijing Mei Da Coffee Company Ltd., its authorized developer in north China, in an effort to speed up expansion in the country.

Giant U.S. aircraft manufacturer Boeing said it will create an aviation service company in cooperation with the Shanghai Airport Authority and Shanghai Airlines.

General Motors Corp., the world's biggest automaker, said on Wednesday that its loss for the third quarter narrowed to 115 million U.S. dollars, or 20 cents per share.

The U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed) decided on Wednesday to keep the federal funds rate, the interest that commercial banks charge each other on overnight loans, unchanged at 5.25 percent.

- China has been the largest importer of the hardwoods from the United States for last three years, said Michael Snow, Executive Director of the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC) here Wednesday in a press conference.

South Korea and the United States have made progress in cutting tariffs on industrial goods, boosting the chances of a breakthrough in their slow-moving free trade agreement (FTA) talks, the local news agency Yonhap reported Wednesday.

Orders received by South Korea's shipbuilders totaled 12.4 billion U.S. dollars in the third quarter of this year, a government report said Wednesday.

China's airline operators plan to spend 280 billion U.S. dollars to purchase 2,900 new airplanes over the next twenty years, according to a forecast made by the Boeing Company here on Wednesday.

The refined oil pipeline project in west China, one of the country's major national engineering projects, is completed and has gone into operation, according to a report on October 24.