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Business Briefs

Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire

Wednesday, April 26, 2000

Isle flower growers sign deal with FedEx

HILO -- Hawaii flower growers say their industry could get a big boost from a deal with Federal Express to ship isle flowers to the mainland.

The Hawaii Florist and Shippers Association and FedEx Corp. signed the $6 million-a-year contract in Hilo yesterday. The group says the contract will cut transportation costs, which could in turn boost sales and expand markets.

The association represents 330 growers and shippers, more than half of them on the Big Island.

FedEx sales representative Peter Dean said the contract includes changes to conditions that previously made it more expensive to schedule deliveries on Saturdays. The floriculture business is on the rise, thanks in part to Internet sales, Dean said. Florida, California and Hawaii are the nation's principal flower suppliers, he said.

Report shows economy still hot

WASHINGTON -- Orders for big-ticket goods in March posted their first increase this year after two months of decline, providing fresh evidence of an economy hot enough to force another increase in interest rates. Orders for durable goods -- items expected to last at least three years -- rose a bigger-than-expected 2.6 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $215.2 billion, led by a heavy demand for electronic products. That reversed the pattern of the two previous months in which orders declined, the Commerce Department reported today.

In other news . . .

SAN FRANCISCO -- Chevron Corp. earned a record $1.11 billion as surging oil and natural-gas prices lifted first-quarter earnings almost fourfold. Profit from operations was $1.68 a share, up from $281 million, or 43 cents, a year earlier. Chevron's previous highest quarterly earnings were $837 million, or $1.27, in the second quarter of 1997. The San Francisco-based company beat the $1.46 -a-share average estimate of analysts.