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HAWAII

State tax revenues jump 10.5% in March

State tax revenues rose 10.5 percent last month, putting $204 million into the state general fund compared to $184.6 million in the previous March.

That brought total general fund revenues for the first nine months of the 2003 fiscal year to $2.37 billion, up 3.4 percent from $2.29 billion in the nine months through March 2002. The Council on Revenues, in its latest estimate March 12, predicted general fund revenues for the full fiscal year will be up 4.3 percent from the previous year.

Last month the biggest tax collected, the general excise tax, brought in $137.3 million, up 25 percent from $109.8 million in the previous March. However, the increase was largely due to the "weekend effect," said the state Department of Taxation when it announced the figures today. The last day of March 2002 was a Sunday and some of the taxes due that day were pushed over into April. That artificially lowered the March 2002 figures.

The general excise and use tax total for the first nine months of the fiscal year was up 10.5 percent at $1.34 billion, from $1.21 billion in the year-earlier period.

MAINLAND

Survey says travelers stay close

ORLANDO, Fla. >> Nearly a third of Americans surveyed about travel plans are not interested in going overseas because of the weak economy and the war in Iraq, according to a poll released yesterday by the Travel Industry Association of America.

The online poll of 1,200 U.S. residents found that 31 percent of those surveyed planned not to travel overseas because of those two factors. The poll, conducted March 20-25 by Greenfield Online, had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

"The trend is traveling shorter distances, being in control by driving one's car," said Betsy O'Rourke, the association's senior vice president of marketing. The survey showed that the economy more than the war caused travelers to change their vacation plans.

Murdock close to DirecTV deal

The board of General Motors is planning to meet today to approve a deal worth about $7 billion that would give control of its Hughes Electronics unit and the DirecTV satellite operation to the News Corp., executives close to the negotiations said yesterday.

The executives said the deal, if approved, could be announced as early as today.

The deal would end a three-year effort by News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch to take over DirecTV and its 11 million subscribers and add a U.S. outlet to his global satellite empire. In 2001, he lost a bidding war for control of Hughes to EchoStar Communications. But antitrust regulators rejected that transaction.

WORLD

Japan economic assessment static

TOKYO >> Japan's central bank warned today that the war in Iraq and the spread of a flu-like virus are clouding the outlook for world economic growth but left its overall assessment of Japan's troubled economy unchanged for the sixth straight month.

In its monthly report for April, the Bank of Japan acknowledged that economic activity remained flat. But it was more upbeat about business investment and said private capital spending is starting to recover. Worries are growing that the war in Iraq combined with the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, may worsen prospects for the world economy, it said.

Office Depot bids on French business

NEW YORK >> Office Depot Inc. yesterday offered to buy a major French office supplies retailer for about $870 million, a move to double its European business, cut costs, and vault past arch-rival Staples Inc. to the top spot globally.

France's Pinault Printemps Redoute SA responded to the offer by agreeing to exclusive negotiations. For PPR, the sale of its Guilbert SA unit's contract sales business would fund expansion of its luxury goods business, which includes a majority stake in Italian designer Gucci.

The deal would double Office Depot's European sales, Chief Executive Bruce Nelson said.