The Irish Independent reports that the abolition of the Groceries Order will lead to lower retail prices, according to a report by the UK's Institute of Grocery Distribution (IGD).

In its first report on the Irish market, the not-for-profit industry body valued the grocery market at €12.7bn last year, up 5.3pc on 2004.

Although the report acknowledges the relatively high prices of groceries in Ireland, it says that the Groceries Order, which prohibits retailers passing on off-invoice discounts to consumers, is only partly to blame.

It states: "Prices have traditionally been relatively high in Ireland for a range of products, including food and groceries. "A variety of factors have contributed to this, including a high level of VAT at 21pc on selected food and grocery products, the inability to achieve strong economies of scale compared with other countries owing to a low - and relatively disparate - population, and additional transportation costs associated with Ireland's island status.

According to a report in the latest edition of 'Checkout', a retail trade magazine, the IGD report estimates that annual grocery spend per capita was €3,078 last year, up 3.1pc on 2004.

One of the fastest-growing sectors of the market is off-trade alcohol sales, which over the past five years has grown by more than 50pc to €2.6bn. That growth has been accelerated in recent years with off-trade sales accounting for 40pc of total alcohol spend in 2005, compared to 34pc in 2003.

IGD estimates that with the abolition of the Groceries Order, discounters such as Aldi and Lidl will offer consumers cheap beer to drive footfall through their stores.

Although the global retail giant Wal-Mart, which owns Asda in the UK, has not entered the Irish market, IGD estimates that its very presence in Northern Ireland has kept prices in the Republic in check.

Its states: "Even without moving into the South, Asda Wal-Mart can still exert considerable influence on the Irish market. This can manifest itself in two ways.

"Firstly, it will impact the sector through the threat of a market entry. Secondly, it can attract a certain amount of traffic from the Republic to its Northern Ireland stores."

The Irish Independent also reports that advertisers spent over €331m on advertising in newspapers in Ireland last year, according to new figures from National Newspapers of Ireland (NNI).

Ad agencies increased spending on NNI titles by 19pc, as the organisation targeted the advertising community with initiatives to promote the unique strengths of newspapers.

Like-for-like advertising spend on the 12 main advertising titles was up 9pc. Direct and agency spending totalled €331m, representing an increase of 15pc with the inclusion of six new associate member newspapers.

"There is no doubt that newspapers continue to play a vital and vibrant role in the media landscape," said Gavin O'Reilly, chairman of NNI.

Media markets are fast-changing but newspapers are fragmentation-proof and "represent the only true mass media market channel", added Mr O'Reilly.

He said advertisers recognised this, as spending on newspaper advertising increases every year.

The NNI league table, which ranks agencies by spend, showed that the number one spot was taken by Aegis Media with a spend of €21.7m.

In addition, Aegis Media had the highest increase in spending, with an increase of over €5.5m on its spend in 2004.

Mindshare/Mediacom/MEC (Group M) was hot on its heels with a total spend of €20.2m, while Brindley Advertising retained third position with a spend of just over €14m.

The NNI award for Highest Percentage Increase in Spend went to Mediaworks/Owens DDB, with an increase of over 40pc equating to almost €1.4m.

Starcom Mediavest Group, OMD Ireland, Eason Advertising and MCM also featured prominently.

The Irish Times reports that the National Pensions Reserve Fund posted the best annual growth of its five-year history in 2005, rising in value by 19.6 per cent, or €2.4 billion.

This brought the value of the fund to €15.4 billion at the end of December, with the increase due mostly to strength in stock markets around the world.

The fund's goal is to pay for the bulk of social welfare and public service pensions over coming decades. Three in every four people working now are expected to benefit from the fund during their retirement.

The fund's total value included a €1.3 billion contribution from the Exchequer, the equivalent of 1 per cent of economic output.

Since its inception in 2001, the fund has earned €3.3 billion in excess of the State contributions.

Paul Carty, chairman of the National Pensions Reserve Fund Commission, which oversees the fund, said the 2005 result reflected the fund's policy of "averaging in" its investments during the weaker markets of its earlier years. This saw the fund allocate its cash bit by bit into assets such as stocks and bonds, rather than all at once.

Of last year's performance, he said: "We can't expect returns like that every year."

Even with growth of almost 20 per cent, however, the return was slightly behind the average achieved by private-sector fund managers in the Republic last year. Mr Carty attributed the difference to the fund's dollar hedging policy.

"We're very much on target," he added. The commission wants to have a fund of €140 billion by 2025 and, with this in mind, revamped its asset allocation policies last year.

This saw €404 million being committed to property projects around the world, and a further €181 million promised to private-equity funds, structures that take active investments in companies.

This cash will be drawn down over a period of years, with the fund hoping to have allocated €2 billion to both by 2009.

The commission is also examining a possible entry into forestry investment. Just 0.75 per cent of the overall pensions fund was invested in Irish-based assets at the end of 2005, with these including stocks such as AIB, Ryanair, CRH and Anglo Irish Bank.

Mr Carty reiterated the commission's desire to allocate some of the fund's assets to domestic infrastructure projects through public private partnerships (PPPs).

"The commission has a strong desire to invest in PPPs," said Mr Carty, adding that €200 million had been earmarked for this area. Some €20 million had been committed last year to the project to upgrade Dublin's M50, but this fell through when the tendering process was halted. A new tender for the €1 billion project is under way and the commission would like to offer funding to the winner.

"We intend to go back again," said Mr Carty.

The commission is also involved in a tender of its own, following the withdrawal of a €6 billion passive investment mandate from three fund managers, including Bank of Ireland Asset Management, last year.

The Irish Times also reports that a retired Mayo businessman has been given a six-month suspended sentence and ordered to pay a €15,000 fine over his involvement in a home-heating oil cartel.

Judge Katherine Delahunt at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court said JP Lambe, chairman of the Connacht Oil Promotion Federation, had participated fully in this criminal activity and was an experienced businessman.

She said that "without his talent, acumen and knowledge, this kind of distortion could probably not have functioned at any significant level".

The court heard that, as a result of the cartel's price fixing, customers were paying perhaps 10 per cent more than they would have otherwise and were out of pocket by up to €4.4 million.

Lambe (69), of Brookhill, Claremorris, pleaded guilty to two counts of aiding and abetting a named oil company to enter agreements to prevent, restrict or distort competition and thereby directly or indirectly fix the selling price of gas, oil and kerosene.

The former treasurer of Mayo GAA county board and Mayo representative of the Central GAA Council took an unpaid and part-time position as chairman of the federation, which agreed to fix prices. Lambe had a long career in the oil industry and was approached to act as an independent arbitrator to facilitate agreement between oil distributors in Galway.

David McFadden, a solicitor and officer of the Competition Authority, told George Birmingham SC, prosecuting, that he led an investigation into the activities of "the great bulk" of oil distributors in Galway.

Mr McFadden said that ostensibly competing companies in Galway came together under a trade association called the Connacht Oil Promotion Federation and entered agreements to fix prices.

Mr McFadden said that, while the Competition Authority had not gone into the actual effect of the price fixing, the estimated cost to the public was possibly €4.4 million over a 12-month period and it was possible that prices were 10 per cent higher than they would otherwise have been.

The investigation revealed a high level of conformity across many distributors in the area and meetings were held to agree a tiered pricing structure. Between June 2001 and February 2002 Lambe chaired 18 meetings across Galway.

Mr McFadden said there was a "high level of participation" among distributors, although a small number refused to get involved. Lambe sought to induce those not involved to join the cartel.

Roderick O'Hanlon SC, defending, said his client owned his own home, was on a pension and had €250,000 in the bank in his and his wife's name. Mr McFadden agreed with Mr O'Hanlon that Lambe was unpaid, only recovered expenses, and was not party to the illegal gains made.

The Irish Examiner reports that the €10 million savings package pushed though by Irish Continental Group (ICG) on its Irish Ferries operations may not be enough to keep the group competitive in a highly-aggressive market, the group has warned.

The Financial Times reports that the $67bn merger of AT&T and BellSouth to create the world’s largest telecoms company on Monday increased the pressure on rivals including Verizon Communications to join an industry-wide consolidation.

Announcing the deal on Monday, Edward Whitacre, AT&T’s chairman and chief executive, said the tie-up was “a logical fit” that would enable the enlarged group to offer a full range of fixed line, wireless and advanced IP-based services to consumers and businesses. The merger reflected “a realisation that the world is changing and it’s changing faster and faster,” he said. “We saw that the sooner we did this, the better off we’d be.”

AT&T said it expected to cut 10,000 jobs between 2007 and 2009, as part of plans to eliminate $18bn in costs.

Although the Federal Communications Commission said it would “carefully weigh” the proposed deal, senior company executives were confident it could win regulatory approval and be closed within a year. “As a substantive matter, there are no obvious issues that would allow the government to block the deal; there could be things that we see on later, once the companies file their papers,” Michael Powell, a former FCC chairman, told the Financial Times.

Outside experts also expected regulatory scrutiny to be largely a matter of what conditions should be attached.

AT&T said the combined company would be better placed to roll out new services including internet television services and advanced broadband video, in competition with cable companies. Annual savings would average $2bn, starting in 2008.

AT&T said the merger would help position the combined company to roll out new services including IPTV and advanced broadband video services in competition with cable companies. Average annual savings per year would be $2bn starting in 2008.

The BellSouth purchase would also give AT&T sole control of Cingular Wireless, the biggest wireless carrier in the US. As a result, analysts noted, Verizon, its main rival, would be under pressure to buy out Vodafone’s 45 per cent stake in Verizon Wireless.

Shares in Vodafone gained 2.9 per cent in London to close at 125 pence. Verizon’s shares were up 1.25 per cent at $34 at noon in New York.

“Verizon may be pressured more to improve its business mix by becoming increasingly focused on its attempt to buy out the remaining 45 per cent of Verizon Wireless from Vodafone,” said Jason Armstrong of Goldman Sachs in a note to investors.

Verizon acknowledged that getting control of the Vodafone stake – a deal that could be worth up to $50bn – was a priority. It was “working to acquire from Vodafone the remaining 45 percent of Verizon Wireless”. Vodafone reacted cautiously, saying its “position has not changed”.

Verizon declined to say whether active talks with Vodafone were under way. “This a logical and predictable move by AT&T,” said Peter Thonis of Verizon. “This kind of consolidation of assets makes sense, providing new leverage and capabilities as Verizon and AT&T compete against cable.”

Arun Sarin, chief executive, has recently signalled the board would consider selling stake in Verizon Wireless although he insisted last month he thought it was a “good idea” to stay in the US.

Mr Sarin has come under pressure from shareholders, unhappy about the group’s share price performance and overall strategy, to dispose of the stake in Verizon Wireless because Vodafone has no clear path to control.

Instead, Vodafone is looking at exiting the troubled Japanese market, another bone of contention for investors, after confirming at the end of last week it was in talks with Softbank to sell at least a controlling stake in the Japanese subsidiary.

The FT also reports that China is abandoning most numerical economic targets from its decades-old planning system as part of an effort to change the country’s obsession with growth at the expense of social programmes and the environment.

The National Development and Reform Commission, the chief planning agency, said economic targets in the country’s latest five-year plan, released on Monday, had been pared back to give “greater play to market forces”.

Only two economic targets have been included in the plan – an ongoing promise to double per capita gross domestic product in the 10 years to 2010 and a pledge to reduce energy consumption per unit of output in the five years to the end of the decade.

Ma Kai, the commission chairman, said at the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress: “Our economic growth may be increasing but we would like to know the environmental price we are paying to achieve it.”

All other “obligatory” targets in the new plan focus on social spending, in education and health, and on the environment, including the disposal of waste and pollutants.

Fan Jianping, the director of the economic forecasting department of the State Information Centre, said the aim of the reform was to distinguish “which area is the responsibility of the government and which should be left to the market”.

“By setting ‘non-obligatory’ targets, governments will no longer need to announce concrete growth figures for sectors such as steel and autos,” Mr Fan said.

Another, largely unstated, reason for change is that the planning process has become discredited by the reform commission’s off-target predictions in recent years, especially for power generation and coal production.

The old numerical targets have become less relevant in China’s complex economy, which includes a dynamic private sector, forcing the reform commission to recalibrate its role.

Zhu Zhixin, a commission deputy, said: “In order to change the old impression that a plan is of no more use than some kind of drawing that you hang on your wall, we have put a great deal of preparation into the implementation of this plan.”

The scaled-back planning system is also designed to reinforce the government’s emphasis on no longer pursuing GDP growth for its own sake, without regard to the environment.

However, this has been a difficult policy to enforce at a grassroots level, where local officials have been rated by the central government according to economic growth in their locality.

Arthur Kroeber, of China Economic Quarterly in Beijing, said the changes to the five-year plan were “part of the process of reorienting incentives in the system”.

“The problem is that it is not clear how this jibes with the existing evaluation performance criteria, in which all benchmarks, except for family planning, have been economic,” he said.

In 2000, at the start of the previous five-year plan, China predicted annual average growth of 7 per cent until 2005 and hefty increases in coal production and power capacity.

Their predictions were well off the mark. Growth averaged over 9 per cent a year, coal output was almost double what the planning ministry predicted and power capacity was about 20 per cent higher.

Mr Ma said the government’s role now was to “create favourable conditions” so that Beijing’s few binding targets could be achieved.

The New York Times reports that Brian Pickrell, a blogger, recently posted a note on his Web site attacking state legislation that would force Wal-Mart Stores to spend more on employee health insurance. "All across the country, newspaper editorial boards — no great friends of business — are ripping the bills," he wrote.

It was the kind of pro-Wal-Mart comment the giant retailer might write itself. And, in fact, it did.

Several sentences in Mr. Pickrell's Jan. 20 posting — and others from different days — are identical to those written by an employee at one of Wal-Mart's public relations firms and distributed by e-mail to bloggers.

Under assault as never before, Wal-Mart is increasingly looking beyond the mainstream media and working directly with bloggers, feeding them exclusive nuggets of news, suggesting topics for postings and even inviting them to visit its corporate headquarters.

But the strategy raises questions about what bloggers, who pride themselves on independence, should disclose to readers. Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer, has been forthright with bloggers about the origins of its communications, and the company and its public relations firm, Edelman, say they do not compensate the bloggers.

But some bloggers have posted information from Wal-Mart, at times word for word, without revealing where it came from.

Glenn Reynolds, the founder of Instapundit.com, one of the oldest blogs on the Web, said that even in the blogosphere, which is renowned for its lack of rules, a basic tenet applies: "If I reprint something, I say where it came from. A blog is about your voice, it seems to me, not somebody else's."

Companies of all stripes are using blogs to help shape public opinion.

Before General Electric announced a major investment in energy-efficient technology last year, company executives first met with major environmental bloggers to build support. Others have reached out to bloggers to promote a product or service, as Microsoft did with its Xbox game system and Cingular Wireless has done in the introduction of a new phone.

What is different about Wal-Mart's approach to blogging is that rather than promoting a product — something it does quite well, given its $300 billion in annual sales — it is trying to improve its battered image.

Wal-Mart, long criticized for low wages and its health benefits, began working with bloggers in late 2005 "as part of our overall effort to tell our story," said Mona Williams, a company spokeswoman.

"As more and more Americans go to the Internet to get information from varied, credible, trusted sources, Wal-Mart is committed to participating in that online conversation," she said.

Copies of e-mail messages that a Wal-Mart representative sent to bloggers were made available to The New York Times by Bob Beller, who runs a blog called Crazy Politico's Rantings. Mr. Beller, a regular Wal-Mart shopper who frequently defends the retailer on his blog, said the company never asked that the messages be kept private.

In the messages, Wal-Mart promotes positive news about itself, like the high number of job applications it received at a new store in Illinois, and criticizes opponents, noting for example that a rival, Target, raised "zero" money for the Salvation Army in 2005, because it banned red-kettle collectors from stores.

The author of the e-mail messages is a blogger named Marshall Manson, a senior account supervisor at Edelman who writes for conservative Web sites like Human Events Online, which advocates limited government, and Confirm Them, which has pushed for the confirmation of President Bush's judicial nominees.

In interviews, bloggers said Mr. Manson contacted them after they wrote postings that either endorsed the retailer or challenged its critics.

Mr. Beller, who runs Crazy Politico's Rantings, for example, said he received an e-mail message from Mr. Manson soon after criticizing the passage of a law in Maryland that requires Wal-Mart to spend 8 percent of its payroll on health care.

Mr. Manson, identifying himself as a "blogger myself" who does "online public affairs for Wal-Mart," began with a bit of flattery: "Just wanted you to know that your post criticizing Maryland's Wal-Mart health care bill was noticed here and at the corporate headquarters in Bentonville," he wrote, referring to the city in Arkansas.

"If you're interested," he continued, "I'd like to drop you the occasional update with some newsworthy info about the company and an occasional nugget that you won't hear about in the M.S.M." — or mainstream media.

Bloggers who agreed to receive the e-mail messages said they were eager to hear Wal-Mart's side of the story, which they said they felt had been drowned out by critics, and were tantalized by the promise of exclusive news that might attract more visitors to their Web sites.

"I am always interested in tips to stories," said one recipient of Mr. Manson's e-mail messages, Bill Nienhuis, who operates a Web site called PunditGuy.com.

But some bloggers are also defensive about their contacts with Wal-Mart. When they learned that The New York Times was looking at how they were using information from the retailer, several bloggers posted items challenging The Times's article before it had appeared. One blog, Iowa Voice, run by Mr. Pickrell, pleads for advertisers to buy space on the blog in anticipation of more traffic because of the article.

The e-mail messages Mr. Manson has sent to bloggers are structured like typical blog postings, with a pungent sentence or two introducing a link to a news article or release.

John McAdams, a political science professor at Marquette University who runs the Marquette Warrior blog, recently posted three links about union activity in the same order as he received them from Mr. Manson. Mr. McAdams acknowledged that he worked from Wal-Mart's links and that he did not disclose his contact with Mr. Manson.

"I usually do not reveal where I get a tip or a lead on a story," he said, adding that journalists often do not disclose where they get ideas for stories either.

Wal-Mart has warned bloggers against lifting text from the e-mail it sends them. After apparently noticing the practice, Mr. Manson asked them to "resist the urge," because "I'd be sick if someone ripped you because they noticed a couple of bloggers with nearly identical posts."

But Mr. Manson has not encouraged bloggers to reveal that they communicate with Wal-Mart or to attribute information to either the retailer or Edelman, Ms. Williams of Wal-Mart said.

To be sure, some bloggers who post material from Mr. Manson's e-mail do disclose its origins, mentioning Mr. Manson and Wal-Mart by name. But others refer to Mr. Manson as "one reader," say they received a "heads up" about news from Wal-Mart or disclose nothing at all.

Mr. Pickrell, the 37-year-old who runs the Iowa Voice blog, said he began receiving updates from Wal-Mart in January. Like Mr. Beller, of Crazy Politico, Mr. Pickrell had criticized the Maryland legislature over its health care law before Wal-Mart contacted him.

Since then, he has written at least three postings that contain language identical to sentences in e-mail from Mr. Manson. In one, which Mr. Pickrell attributed to a "reader," he reported that Wal-Mart was about to announce that a store in Illinois received 25,000 applications for 325 jobs. "That's a 1.3 percent acceptance rate," the message read. "Consider this: Harvard University (undergraduate) accepts 11 percent of applicants. The Navy Seals accept 5 percent of applicants."

Asked in a telephone interview about the resemblance of his postings to Mr. Manson's, Mr. Pickrell said: "I probably cut and paste a little bit and I should not have," adding that "I try to write my posting in my own words."

In an e-mail message sent after the interview, Mr. Pickrell said he received e-mail from many groups, including those opposed to Wal-Mart, which he uses as a starting point to "do my own research on a topic."

"I draw my own conclusions when I form my opinions," he said.

Mr. Pickrell, explaining his support for Wal-Mart, said he shops there regularly and is impressed with how his mother-in-law, a Wal-Mart employee, is treated. "They go real out of their way for their people," he said.

Wal-Mart's blogging initiative is part of a ballooning public relations campaign developed in consultation with Edelman to help Wal-Mart as two groups, Wal-Mart Watch and Wake Up Wal-Mart, aggressively prod it to change. The groups operate blogs that receive posts from current and former Wal-Mart employees, elected leaders and consumers.

Edelman also helped Wal-Mart develop a political-style war room, staffed by former political operatives, which monitors and responds to the retailer's critics, and helped create Working Families for Wal-Mart, a new group that is trying to build support for the company in cities across the country.

At Edelman, Mr. Manson, who sends many of the e-mail messages to bloggers, works closely on the Wal-Mart account with Mike Krempasky, a co-founder of RedState.org, a conservative blog. Both are regular bloggers, which in Mr. Manson's case means he has written critically of individuals and groups Wal-Mart may eventually call on for support.

Before he was hired by Edelman in November, Mr. Manson wrote on the Human Events Online blog that members of the San Francisco city council were "dolts" and "twits" for rejecting a proposed World War II memorial and that every day "the United Nations slides further and further into irrelevance." After he was hired, Mr. Manson wrote that the career of Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island was marked by "pointless indecision."

Wal-Mart declined to make Mr. Manson available for comment. Ms. Williams said, "It is not Wal-Mart's role to monitor the opinions of our consultants or how they express them on their own time."

In a sign of how eager Wal-Mart is to develop ties to bloggers, the company has invited them to a media conference to be held at its headquarters in April. In e-mail messages, Wal-Mart has polled several bloggers about whether they would make the trip, which the bloggers would have to pay for themselves.

Mr. Reynolds of Instapundit.com said he recently was invited to Wal-Mart's offices but declined. "Bentonville, Arkansas," he said, "is not my idea of a fun destination."