Business Words in the News Friday 20 December 2002 Vocabulary from the business news. Listen to and read the report then find explanations of difficult words below.
Neste compensation dispute Summary: The world's biggest food company, Nestle, has responded to an international campaign over its demand for six million dollars of compensation from the Ethiopian government. This report from Mike Thomson:
Nestle's claim dates back to 1975 when Ethiopia's then communist government embarked on a mass nationalisation programme. Virtually all foreign owned firms and property were taken over usually without any compensation.
This fate befell an Ethiopian based company called ELIDCO. It was mainly funded by a German firm which later launched a claim for compensation.
In 1986 Nestle bought the German company and took over the compensation claim…which now stands at six million dollars. Ethiopia is offering to pay 1.5 million dollars plus interest but Nestle says it's not enough despite World Bank appeals for it to accept the deal.
Ethiopia's Minister for Finance and Economic Development, Mulu Ketsela told the BBC that her country needs to spend all the money it has on saving lives and she's appealing to Nestle to drop the case and put people before profits.
