Newspaper item 9: h & m Market Conditions Improving

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Hennes & Mauritz, the international fashion retailer, yesterday reported stronger-than-expected sales growth in July and said market conditions were improving in its US stores.

Sales in July were 18 per cent above the same month a year earlier and, although the company didn't release like-for-like figures, it said that it had only increased the number of stores by 10 per cent during the period.

The company also said it did not expect any material impact from the floods in Europe – Austria and Germany account for more than a third of sales – which had closed some stores.

Leif Persson, chief financial officer, said the sales increase had been broadly the same across most countries. The group has more than 800 stores in Europe and the US.

In the past year, the company has worked to cut inventories to reduce the need for discounted sales. 'We have probably had the right garments in the shops and we have been able to display them well. We have not had a lot of old garments around and this gives the new item a better visibility, Mr Persson said.

H & M entered the US market in March 2000 and has struggled with costs and lower-than-expected sales. Mr Persson said growth in the first half had been 'a little bit slower' than in the rest of the group, but that it was 'getting better all the time'.

Earlier this year, the company said it was halving the pace of its US expansion in order to focus on existing stores. It now has 34 in the US and is expected to open another eight or nine before the end of the year.

Sagra Maceira de Rosen, analyst at JP Morgan, said: H & M typically outperforms higher-priced rivals in weak market conditions as shoppers seek cheaper purchases.

Newspaper item 10: n Korea Forced to Lift Food Prices Sharply

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Chronic shortages have forced North Korea to implement unprecedented increases in food prices and wages, South Korea's central bank said yesterday, warning that prices could climb even higher, Reuters reports from Seoul.

Rice prices in communist North Korea jumped 5-fold in July as ration coupons used for decades were scrapped and the government boosted prices closer to levels seen on its black market.

This is a first step towards adopting a market economy,' the Bank of Korea said in a report, Seoul's most formal assessment yet of the North's economic reforms.

It added that 'chronic supply shortages' had forced the Pyongyang to raise prices in its centrally planned economy and that the trend would continue. If North Korea did not fully liberalize prices, its efforts to provide rations to its people would meet with further distortions.

A UN official who visited the North this month said that efforts to move prices closer to those on the black market could help the country toward self-sufficiency.

Street vendors have appeared for the first time in a long while and local people certainly understand the value of a dollar,' economist Mike Newton wrote after a recent trip to Pyongyang.

Wordlist

shortage		нехватка, дефицит
to implement		выполнять, осуществлять
to warn		предупреждать
ration		рацион, продовольствие
to scrap		отдавать на слом, выбрасывать
assessment		1) оценка; 2) обложение, сумма обложения
trend		тенденция, направление
distortion		искажение, искривление
sufficiency		достаточность
vendor		продавец