THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, March 13, 1995 TAG: 9503120224
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 05 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BUSINESS WEEKLY
LENGTH: Short : 37 lines
The dollar's fall in value overseas had various repercussions in Hampton Roads.
Carol Fling, restaurant division sales manager at Associated Distributors Inc. in Chesapeake, began to inform customers about the rising prices of European wines.
That $50 bottle of fine wine in the restaurant eventually may cost about $57, a 14 percent gain.
Alerted to what was to come by its vendors, Associated ordered a larger than usual volume of wine in advance of the rising prices.
The company plans a sale of its newly expanded inventory. Wine buyers probably will see a large rise in prices by April.
``As soon as the dollar goes down, our exports start increasing,'' said Gunnar Gudjonsson, head of Viking Shipping, a Virginia Beach freight forwarder.
Inquiries are mounting for American cars and carpenter's tools in Iceland, where a dollar's value has fallen against the krona.
``It's obviously a good thing for Virginia exporters to these countries where the dollar has fallen,'' said J.R. Bullington, head of Old Dominion University's Center for Global Studies. ``But remember, our strongest trading partners are Mexico and Canada, and there the dollar has strengthened.''
Many economists expect the dollar's fall will push up consumer prices only about 0.2 percentage points above the 3 percent to 4 percent inflation increase forecast earlier for '95. by CNB