means there is a clear cut-off point to employment, which is important if you don’t want to embitter the retirement process and trigger an explosion of tribunal claims. Neither employers or employees want people to work forever.”Patricia Hewitt, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, said: “We have listened to strong representations arguing that many companies still rely on default age for business planning purposes; and there is a danger that without one, there could be adverse consequences for occupational schemes and other work-related benefits.”. While we recognise there is a case for some transitional arrangements, the Government today has neither given business any certainty about when the UK will meet its EU obligations, nor given employees any assurance that there will be new rights that will extend retirement choice in practice.”But Dianah Worman, the diversity adviser for the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, said the Government’s new rules would only delay the inevitable scrapping of retirement ages, adding that it was a shame it could not have pushed ahead with its original plans now. In the meantime, she said, many people may suffer from the DTI’s interim plans.The CBI was a lone voice in welcoming the proposals, saying the decision was both “sensible and pragmatic” John Cridland, its deputy director-general, said: “It… Frances O’Grady, the TUC’s deputy general secretary, said she was concerned that the new rules would make it too easy for employers to say no to staff who asked to work longer.”Unions oppose age discrimination and back the EU directive that requires the UK Government to end age-based retirement policies,” she said “We are therefore unhappy with today’s announcement. We still do not have a clear date for ending age-based retirement policies as the directive requires.

Employers will be able to reject the application if they believe there is a good “business” reason why they should not continue working.The new rules will not be enforced until 2010, after which there will be a further review of the issue.Charities and unions rushed to condemn the news yesterday, arguing it was a big step back from the Government’s original plans. When its plans were first laid out at the end of 2002, the DTI insisted retirement ages would be scrapped altogether by October 2006.But under its final proposals released yesterday, employers will now be able to continue retiring employees at 65, on condition they give due consideration to any applications to work longer. Investment into the UK rose by £19bn while flows into Europe fell by £11bn, according to the agency’s figures.. The Government backed down on plans to do away with age discrimination in the workplace yesterday when it extended employers’ rights to impose a maximum retirement age on their staff. The US poured in almost £3bn after taking £2.1bn out of the UK the previous year.The Conservatives seized on the figures, saying they showed the UK was being “suffocated” by higher taxes and red tape. Oliver Letwin, the Shadow Chancellor, said: “This persistent decline in foreign investment shows that companies are finding Britain an increasingly less attractive place to invest their money.”Businessmen the world over are turning their backs on Tony Blair’s Britain.”But the Treasury and the Government’s trade and investment agency dismissed the accusations, saying the stock of foreign investment in the UK was rising. Paul Boateng, chief secretary to the Treasury, said: “Instead of talking down our economy, Oliver Letwin should recognise that the UK maintains the highest stock of foreign direct investment as a proportion of GDP of any G7 country.”Under this government, we now have 300,000 more businesses, business investment at record levels while our economy has continued to grow for the longest continuous period in Britain’s industrial history.”A spokesman for UK Trade and Investment, the Government agency, said the stock of investment had risen to £341.7bn from 2002’s £324.7bn.Investment overseas by UK companies jumped by £7bn to £40.7bn.

Britain suffered its worst year for foreign investment in almost a decade in 2003 as a slump in flows from the anaemic European economy failed to offset a turnaround in interest from US companies.
Overseas companies invested a total of £12.4bn in the UK last year, down from £16bn in 2002 and the lowest since 1994.The main cause was a fall of more than 50 per cent in inflows from the European Union to £7.7bn from 2002’s £15.7bn. In an attempt to calm fears that PPR planned to make the business more commercial – and consequently more mass market – he said: “We will not tinker at all with the current positioning of [Gucci].”. Mr Polet said: “We need to hit the sweet spot where it all comes together [for YSL]. When we get close we will alert you to the fact.”He intends to double the size of the Gucci brand, which had sales of €1.5bn last year, over the next seven years. He pledged to maintain the label’s exclusivity, which fashion industry insiders had feared was under threat, instead driving growth from high-growth categories such as jewellery, watches and men’s ready-to-wear. “It’s an old brand, but not an old man; it has been rejuvenated,” he said.The group is aiming for compound annual sales growth of 10 per cent at constant currency, which would outstrip the market. The luxury goods market is projected to grow by 5 per cent.Mr Polet is still attempting to stamp his authority on Gucci Group, which has been rocked by the departure of more than a dozen senior executives during the past year.

But he ruled out selling them before then.Mr Polet, who was appointed after Gucci’s “dream team” of Domenico De Sole and Tom Ford resigned earlier this year, refused to set a similar goal for Yves Saint Laurent. The ex-director of Unilever, who criticised the former management duo’s “one size fits all” approach to running the group’s 10 separate brands, said he did not want to risk missing a third break-even target for YSL.Gucci’s plans for YSL, which it acquired in 2000, were knocked off course by the economic downturn that followed the terror attacks the following year. Smiths Detection, with annual sales this year of £400m, accounts for only 6 per cent of that and yet it ranks among the world’s top five suppliers.Mr Phipson said that most detection equipment in use belonged in the “stone age” compared with the sophisticated technology being developed now.. The new chief executive of Gucci Group yesterday granted its fledgling Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen and Balenciaga brands a three-year window to hit profitability.