European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 09, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Tuesday april 9, 1991the stars and stripes a Page 17 Money matters today s tip s x americans bought $815 million Worth of . Savings Bonds in March setting a 50-year record for the month according to the Treasury department. The months total brought sales for the six months of the fiscal year to $4.16 billion 17 percent higher than during the same period the year before. The results were called a return of America. The savings ethic to conversion rates London up a mondays dosing rates for the . Dollar to other currencies figures Are expressed in dollars to the British Pound other local currencies in dollars Gold was quoted at $361.00 an ounce Silver at $3 99. A april 5 april 8 British Pound. .1.7790 1.7715 German Mark .1.6725 1.6905 French franc. 5.6430 5.7235 dutch Guilder .1.8800 1.9042 belgian franc.,.34.3175 34.7450 italian lira .,.1,238.85 1,255.70 a Swiss franc. .1.4095 1.4315 greek drachma. .181.10 183.75 turkish lira.,.,. .3,707.10 3,746.10 saudi arabian Riyal. �?z.3,7503. 3.7503 Spanish peseta. .103.07 104.40 portuguese escudo.,.145.80. 147.95 Canadian Dollar .1.1557 1,1542 a austrian Schilling .11.7300 11.8975 norwegian Krone 6.4880 6.5780 danish Krone i. .6.3940 6.4810 these Are unofficial rates As reported by wire service and banking sources and they Are listed to give some idea of daily currency fluctuations. The Only official rate concerns the Sale of German Marks to . Personnel for personal use and this will be 1.65 tuesday based on mondays noontime Price fixing. Minority firms hard pressed to get part of kuwaiti work by Sam Fulwood Iii the los Angeles times new York a As Harold Martinez sees it when americans minorities were asked to put their lives on the line to liberate a tiny country Halfway around the. World they did More than their share. So it is Only fair Martinez figures that minorities should also get a share in the rebuilding of Kuwait a an undertaking that represents one of the biggest business opportunities Ever. As the owner of a Small los Angeles fabricating company and As president of the City a 700-member latin business association Martinez recently delivered that message in meetings with White House officials and congressional leaders a. A a a a a a a a however he Wasny to Happy with the response he got. A everywhere i went they told me everybody wants to go to Kuwait a Martinez said. A i would have liked to have heard president Bush or someone say to the kuwaiti government a when you hand out those contracts done to forget that our minorities fought to make you  a by some estimates Kuwait May spend up to $100 billion and it has promised that the Lions share of the work will go to the countries that helped most with the War Effort. Minority businesses battered by a declining . Economy and bolstered by a fresh surge of postwar patriotism Are leaning on elected officials to press their Case for a fair share. But there May be a serious mismatch Between the types of work needed in Kuwait and the products and services being offered by Many of the companies that Are lining up. Kuwait needs cars and trucks and heavy machinery. It needs its highways airports and sewer systems rebuilt. It needs its burning Oil Wells capped and its refineries and Oil pipelines restored. The scope of such jobs May Rule out Many Small companies. A a in a a businessman and i understand the contracts Are Complex and i understand that the big companies have More experience a Martinez said. A but the fact remains that the politicians know minorities were among the ones fighting on behalf of the kuwaitis. We should be first in line to receive some of the  department of Commerce officials say that they expect . Companies to receive Between 50 percent and 70 percent of that estimated $100 billion in kuwaiti contracts. But they Point out Kuwait is not legally obligated to employ any particular Market segment or business in its reconstruction Effort. Executives accustomed to . Government set aside fir Grams which ensure that a predetermined amount of government work is allotted to Small or minority companies May be disappointed if they expect the kuwaiti government to do business in a similar fashion said John Winston National assistant director of the . Minority business development Agency. A you can to set aside someone cd see a Money a Winston said. A please accept the fact that the Little Guy with a Hammer and a saw who does internal Home repairs Isnit going to find any business in  to Date no Small or minority owned companies have received contracts or letters of intent to do restoration work in Kuwait. The $45 million Worth of contracts awarded so far have gone to nine Large International companies including a four from the United states. An  corps of engineers spokesman said that none of the contracts signed with those companies set aside work for minority vendors partly because it was necessary to hire companies with Middle East experience and partly because the kuwaiti government insisted that those companies get to the country within 10 Days after the wars end. A doing set asides is very difficult when you have that kind of criteria a the spokesman said. A the concern was to get the services resumed As quickly As  others think that reasoning amounts to a cop out and that minority vendors should be identified in Advance so they can participate when contracts Are handed out the next time. The corps is in fact preparing a set aside program that will include minorities and Small businesses in engineering services for future jobs in the Middle East a spokesman said. One other problem faced by minority businesses is that most have no prior relationship with kuwaiti officials. They often fail to understand a or appreciate a the subtleties of making deals with Arab countries. They have found they cannot do business in Kuwait unless they have a citizen of Kuwait who will act As an agent and for a very expensive fee said Otic  sales slow but German has big ideas by Terrence Petty the associated press Eigen Rieden Germany a Peter Kullas first step on the Road to becoming a tycoon is a combination snack bar and used car lot opened with the help of two partners from Western Germany. A a it a a Humble Start but in be got big ideas a said Kulla 34, who sees his Eastern German Village As the basis for a Fortune. A in a few years in a going to have a big car repair shop Here maybe a franchise to sell new cars and a diploma in management to really secure my future a Kulla said. He gazed on the seeds of his dream about 15 used cars and a prefabricated building where a Helper serves simple fare like sausages cutlets roast Chicken and French Fries. Kulla rolled up his sleeves strode into an empty Structure about the size of a too shed and started painting the Walls of what will be his office. It is a painful time for what used to be East Germany. Factories Are going broke and unemployment lines Are growing. Many Eastern germans have become demoralized but always there Are those like Kulla a ambitious and deter mined to Benefit from the Prosperity that experts predict will eventually come. About 281,000 new businesses have opened since 1990, most of them Small operations like used car lots restaurants cafes and bars. About 26,000 have already failed government officials say. A this is comparable to West Germany in the 1950s, when Many people became entrepreneurs a said Peter Pietsch an economist with the Commer Bank in Frankfurt. He said West Germany is proof to Eastern germans that a you can become successful if you work very  Kullas business is on a Well travelled Road in Eig Enrie Den a Village about a mile from the former Border Between the Germany. Right on the old Frontier in View of a now derelict guard Tower is the Border View restaurant of Josef Hoeppner 43. Just after the communist leadership of East Germany was thrown out in the fall of 1989, Hoeppner was Given Back some Border property expropriated irom his family four decades earlier. Hoeppner glanced around at his customers most of them tourists from the wealthy West. A this is a completely new Start for me a he said a but i think its going to  major businesses also Are settling into Eastern Germany but at a slow Pace. A a supermarket owned by the Aldi Chain is going up in nearby Riihl Hauson. Next to it will be a Kolossa shopping Center Complete with restaurant furniture store travel Agency building supplies store and pharmacy. A area residents Welcome the new businesses which will replace Factor jobs that Are disappearing left and right a a in be heard about these a Miracle Miles in America where Chain stores Are lined up Side by Side As far As the Eye can see a Kulla said. A someday Riihl Hauson will have one of its  Kulla said his snack bar is doing Well but his car lots sales Are held Back by the fact that so Many of his countrymen Are unemployed. A jobless people tend not to buy cars even used ones a he said. He said he works late every Day often not finishing his bookkeeping until 2 a.m., but he does no to mind that. A big problem though is the Lack of a Telephone. A every time i need to consult with my partners in the West i have to drive to a Telephone Booth on the former Border a he said. A a customer with a serious interest in buying a car could show up while in a  economists feel recession by the new York times new York a despite shreds of evidence that suggest otherwise most credit Market analysts say the recession is still very much with us. Hopes that a turnaround May begin in the current Quarter Are merely that they say. The surge in consumer Confidence that followed the end of fighting in the persian Gulf a spurt in housing activity in february falling interest rates and rapid Money growth since the Start of the year All cited As necessary conditions for a recovery a have been All but buried. Fresher statistics show that the Economy went nowhere in March. Car sales remain at Vety Low Levels. Conditions in the manufacturing sector Are still very weak. And As last weeks employment statistics showed the labor Market contracted further in March to close out a Bleak three months. Combined with declines in january and february the 206,000 jobs lost last month bring the total loss of payroll employment to 688,000 in the first Quarter. Economists say that is a bigger quarterly drop than any recorded during the 1981 82 recession. Equally troubling was the fact that factory hours worked a key component of Industrial production that is considered a coincident economic indicator fell for the fifth time in six months. Based on what is now known about the first Quarter economists Are estimating that output fell at an inflation adjusted annual rate of 2.5 to 3.5 percent in the first Quarter after the 1.6 percent decline in the fourth Quarter of 1990. A by almost every measure of economic activity the first Quarter was one of the worst in the postwar period a said Joseph Carson a senior economist at chemical Bank. A i am still looking for another six months of  William n. Griggs a managing director at Griggs amp Santow inc., a financial consulting firm said a in the second Quarter the minus numbers. Should begin to get smaller. But the turnaround will be so modest that in Many respects you wont know things have  in a Survey conducted Friday afternoon by Thompson financial networks More than half of the economists polled said they expected the recovery would begin in the third Quarter or later