Japan may have seen first growth in a year

TOKYO >> Japan's economy probably grew for the first time in a year in the first quarter, driven by an increase in exports and factory production, an index designed as a proxy for gross domestic product showed.

The all-industry index, which measures demand for services, factory production and government spending, rose 0.6 percent in the three months ended March 31 from the previous quarter, a government report showed.

The increase is the latest evidence the world's second-biggest economy is emerging from 18 months of recession, economists said. A recovery may be slow to take hold because Japan is relying on exports for growth, according to a Bloomberg News report.

"Japan's economy has bottomed out, there's no question about that," said Yasukazu Shimizu, a senior economist at Aozora Bank Ltd.

UH hires software firm to create student network

The University of Hawaii hired e-business software provider SCT to create a student information network to serve the system's seven community colleges and three universities.

The Pennsylvania company said yesterday it signed a contract for about $12 million for services to integrate the two-year community colleges and four-year universities.

The university's nearly 45,000 students will be able to move across the various campuses but still be treated as students within one system, said Alan Yang, dean of student services. He said the university currently has four separate computer systems controlling student information, and transferring information between campuses is not an automatic process.

UH Chief Financial Officer Wick Sloane said SCT is a stronger company than Buzzeo, Inc., which failed to deliver a student information system for which the university paid $4.7 million.

The university is managing skepticism that this project will encounter similar problems by moving slowly and carefully, with further added assurances, such as a performance bond.

Unlike Buzzeo, which received an upfront payment, "they don't get paid until they've completed the work in various stages," Sloane said.

The project is "still big and difficult and humbling, but everything we can think of covering now, we've covered," he said.