Oak Harbor bank to get $2M for business lending
9/29/2011Indebancorp, an Oak Harbor , Ohio, bank, will receive a $2 million federal loan to increase lending to small businesses.
The funding is provided through the Small Business Lending Fund, a program that helps banks with less than $10 billion in assets to provide loans for small businesses. Loans provided through Indebancorp are expected to promote job creation and economic growth in Ottawa County, according to a statement yesterday from the office of U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio).
Columbia Gas drops October rate a penny
Columbia Gas of Ohio Inc. said yesterday that its customer rate for October will be 56 cents per 100 cubic feet of natural gas, a drop of 1 cent from this month’s rate.
The rate is based on yesterday’s natural-gas commodity closing price of 37 cents on the New York Mercantile Exchange, plus 19 cents for a state-regulated service charge. The utility said that the average customer’s bill in October will be $37.
Unemployment falls in Toledo, Mansfield
WASHINGTON -- Unemployment rates fell in roughly two-thirds of U.S. cities last month, despite zero job growth nationwide.
The Labor Department said yesterday that jobless rates fell in 237 of the nation’s largest metro areas in August from July. They rose in 103 and stayed the same in 32. That’s an improvement from July, when rates fell in 193 areas and rose in 118. Metro Toledo’s fell from 10.2 percent in July to 9.6 percent in August.
The U.S. economy added no net jobs in August, the least amount of hiring in almost a year. The national unemployment rate was 9.1 percent for the second month.
One of the biggest drops in the country was in Mansfield, Ohio, which shrank to 10.2 percent last month from 11.4 percent the month before, mostly because of added manufacturing jobs.
Toyota’s manufacturing increases worldwide
TOKYO -- Toyota Motor Corp. said yesterday its global production rose for the first time in a year in August as Japanese automakers recover from the March 11 quake and tsunami.
Worldwide output at Japan’s biggest automaker climbed 10.6 percent from a year earlier to 626,817 vehicles. Production rose at both domestic and overseas factories. Its exports of passenger cars rose 15 percent, but domestic sales fell more than 25 percent.
Between October and March, 2012, the automaker plans to build an extra 350,000 vehicles.
Meanwhile, Honda Motor Co. posted its seventh straight month of lower production as worldwide output fell 9.3 percent to 261,524 vehicles.
U.S. brewer must share Budweiser trademark
LUXEMBOURG -- “There’s only one Budweiser beer,” according to the Anheuser-Busch advertising jingle. But not in Britain, as an EU court is ruling that Anheuser-Busch and the Czech brewer Budvar can both continue using the Budweiser trademark.
The Czech company introduced its beer in the United Kingdom in 1973; the U.S. brewer a year later. In 2000, both received the right to use the trademark.
In 2005, Anheuser-Busch applied to have the Czech beer’s trademark declared invalid. Last week, the EU’s Court of Justice ruled that both firms had used the name in good faith for nearly 30 years and could continue.