Foreign Investments

Daewoo Corp. said it will increase its investment in Poland to up to $2.2 billion by 2001 and double its planned car production to 550,000 a year. Under Daewoo's previous plan, the South Korean company was to invest $1.5 billion in Poland. "We are proving we are not only able to keep our promise, we are making efforts to go much further than the promise," J.C. Suk, president of Daewoo's car venture in Poland, Daewoo-FSO, said at a news conference.

The chairman of New Orleans-based Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. said the company will participate in an Indonesian mining venture--once thought to be the world's richest find--only if new testing proves that the project will be economically viable. The test results are expected by the end of the week of the Busang field on the island of Borneo. Early tests by Freeport-McMoRan have indicated the mine holds only a fraction of the gold originally anticipated.

Unocal Corp. said Wednesday that it will develop a $350-million power plant in Thailand with Westinghouse Electric Corp., marking the first time private companies will own a generating facility there. El Segundo-based Unocal will have 24% of the plant, Thai Oil Power Co. will own 56% and Westinghouse Electric will have 20%. The plant to be built is expected to start production in 1999. Unocal is expanding into Asian power sales as it exits California's oil market.

Private investment in emerging markets surged 33% in 1996 and is expected to remain strong even if interest rates edge up in the U.S., World Bank Chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz said Sunday. Stiglitz, who joined the Bank last month after serving as the chairman of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors, said he expects rates to go up but not to levels that would significantly divert investment from developing countries.

Occidental Petroleum Corp. said an internal review of financial dealings with foreign government and business officials prompted it to overhaul policies in an effort to "strengthen internal controls." Westwood-based Oxy was responding to a Wall Street Journal report Monday that the company might have overpaid foreign middlemen and engaged in "questionable overseas transactions." Oxy declined to confirm or deny any details in the report, which said that one Lebanese businessman, Hany M.

Philippine President Fidel Ramos visited Silicon Valley to praise a high-tech alliance he hopes will catapult his nation into the 21st century. Ramos watched as the heads of Oracle Corp. and Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. signed a preliminary agreement to build a telecommunications and computer network. The project, called Phil-Net, initially will put Oracle's low-cost network computers on college students' desks, giving them access to the Internet and satellite educational programs.