IN BRIEF (Page 17)

Dollar's decline

Billionaire investor George Soros (above) said the fallout from the US subprime crisis will bring about the end of the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency.

"The current crisis is not only the bust that follows the housing boom, it's basically the end of a 60-year period of continuing credit expansion based on the dollar as the reserve currency," Soros said in a debate yesterday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Pfizer falls

Pfizer Inc, the world's largest drugmaker, said net income fell 70 percent, the fourth consecutive quarterly drop since its Norvasc blood pressure pill and Lipitor cholesterol drug began facing generic competition.

Fourth-quarter net income dropped to $2.9 billion, or 42 cents a share, from $9.5 billion, or $1.32, a year earlier when Pfizer sold its consumer-product unit to Johnson & Johnson for $7.9 billion, the New York-based company said yesterday.

United climbs

United Technologies Corp, the maker of Otis elevators, Pratt & Whitney jet engines and Sikorsky helicopters, said fourth-quarter profit rose 23 percent as it benefited from overseas demand for aircraft parts and elevators.

Net income increased to $1.06 billion, or $1.08 a share, from $865 million, or 87 cents, a year earlier, the Hartford, Connecticut-based company said. Sales gained 15 percent to $14.7 billion and the company repeated its earnings outlook for this year.

Agencies

(China Daily 01/24/2008 page17)