On the World’s Roads, More American Wheels

But a big part of the comeback has also come from an unlikely source: rising exports of vehicles made in the United States for sale in international markets.

Annual exports of American-made vehicles have increased nearly 80 percent from 2009 through 2012. And this year exports are up about 9 percent from last year through the month of October, according to the Commerce Department.

And it is not only the Detroit carmakers that are benefiting from the international appeal of American-made models. Factories owned by Japanese and European auto companies in the United States are also steadily expanding their export business, adding jobs and investment to keep pace with overseas demand.

“It’s becoming a more important part of our business every year,” said Robert S. Carter, senior vice president of Toyota’s United States division. “It is a very robust area of growth.”

Indeed, automakers are adding more new models to their roster of export-ready vehicles.

On Thursday, the Ford Motor Company unveiled the latest version of its iconic Mustang muscle car, and it announced that for the first time it would begin exporting it to global markets in 2015.

The introduction of the new Mustang was a global event, with simultaneous presentations in New York; Los Angeles; Barcelona, Spain; Sydney, Australia; and Shanghai — as well as in Ford’s hometown, Dearborn, Mich.

“We think this car has universal appeal,” said Mark Fields, Ford’s chief operating officer. “We’re really excited to ship it to Europe and China and the Asia-Pacific countries.”

Last year, American factories shipped 1.8 million cars, sport utility vehicles and light trucks for sale in international markets, including Canada and Mexico. That figure should reach two million this year.

While that is still a fraction of the estimated 15.5 million vehicles expected to be sold in the United States this year, the growth of exports underscores how competitive American-made models have become worldwide on manufacturing costs and overall quality.

Since emerging from the recession, automakers are benefiting from lower labor and energy costs, along with slimmed-down, more efficient plants. “We are likely to see a continued growth of exports, as the U.S. has a more competitive cost structure than before, better products and more global platforms that can be shipped elsewhere,” said Xavier Mosquet, an auto specialist with the Boston Consulting Group.

At the same time Ford was showing off the new Mustang, Toyota was starting production of its new Highlander sport utility vehicle in Princeton, Ind. Toyota officials said that key markets for the Highlander were Russia and Australia.

While Ford is looking to broaden its Mustang sales in overseas markets, foreign automakers like Toyota view exporting from the United States as an alternative to higher manufacturing costs in their home countries.

“It’s a hedge against currency fluctuations, but it also shows how attractive our products are in places like China, Russia and the Middle East,” said Mr. Carter of Toyota.

Other automakers are following suit. Nissan expects to export about 14 percent of its United States production overseas this year. And Honda predicts that by next year it will export more vehicles from North America — the bulk of them from American plants — than it will bring into the region from Japan.

Last year, Canada and Mexico accounted for about half of exports of American-made vehicles. A decade ago, the vast majority of exports were limited to Canada and Mexico, but demand for American models in is expanding rapidly in other countries.

Exports to Saudi Arabia, for example, have tripled since 2009. And sales to Chinese customers have increased fivefold over the same period.

Jaclyn Trop contributed reporting.

Merger Is Set To Create World’s No. 1 Ad Company

The two announced a merger on Sunday that would create the world’s biggest family of agencies, with a stock market value of $35.1 billion and more than 130,000 employees.

In the early going at least, the new Publicis Omnicom Group would have co-chief executives: John D. Wren of Omnicom, based in New York, and Maurice Lévy of Publicis, based in Paris. But after 30 months, Mr. Wren, who is 60, would become sole chief executive and Mr. Lévy, 71, would be nonexecutive chairman.

On Sunday, Mr. Lévy and Mr. Wren said their deal sprung from a casual conversation six months ago during a social encounter. Then on further reflection, Mr. Lévy joked, “it looked like it was not that stupid after all.”

If the merger passes muster with shareholders and government officials, the new conglomerate’s combined revenues, which totaled about $23 billion last year, would be far greater than the $16 billion in revenues for WPP of London, the current industry leader.

Publicis is considered a French national champion, and French officials have been active during President François Hollande’s tenure about protecting its business icons from foreign dominance. It was not immediately clear what position Mr. Hollande’s government might take on the merger. Calls to Élysée Palace over the weekend were not returned.

At a news conference, Mr. Lévy said the companies informed the French government of their plans on Saturday and had received “tremendous support” from officials. “We are not owned by the French government,” Mr. Lévy said, “yet we are one of the iconic companies in France.”

He said that the combined companies wanted a neutral third country as the place to register the new holding company. They ruled out Ireland and Luxembourg, Mr. Lévy said, to avoid the appearance that they were seeking a tax haven. They chose the Netherlands — which at 25 percent has a nominal corporate income tax rate that is higher than Ireland’s and Luxembourg’s, but below the 33.33 percent rate in France and the 40 percent rate in the United States, according to the global accounting firm KPMG. Mr. Lévy said the companies would keep their headquarters in both Paris and New York to avoid the impression that Publicis would be “swallowed” by an American company — something that he said would not be accepted in France.

In a statement, Mr. Lévy cited technological advancements in advertising and the rise of so-called Big Data — the ability to amass larger volumes of consumer information and make money from it in various ways — as reasons for the merger.

“The communication and marketing landscape has undergone dramatic changes in recent years including the exponential development of new media giants, the explosion of Big Data, blurring of the roles of all players and profound changes in consumer behavior,” he said. “This evolution has created both great challenges and tremendous opportunities for clients. John and I have conceived this merger to benefit our clients by bringing together the most comprehensive offering of analog and digital services.”

Mr. Wren also stressed the importance of digital technology to advertising’s future. “Everything three years from now is going to be digital,” he said. “Everything that we do, even billboards nowadays are digital or become digital.”

The merger would bring under one roof separate networks of ad agencies — including BBDO, TBWA and DDB under Omnicom, and Leo Burnett and Saatchi & Saatchi under Publicis. Collectively, the conglomerates represent some of the world’s largest brands, including AT&T, Visa and Pepsi at Omnicom and McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Walmart at Publicis.

Shareholders of each company will hold 50 percent of the equity in the new company, which will be listed on the New York Stock Exchange, Euronext Paris and included in the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index and the CAC 40 in Paris. A single board of directors will include Mr. Wren and Mr. Lévy and seven representatives from each of the two merging companies.

The executives said that they hoped the deal would be completed later this year, or early next year, depending on the regulatory approvals.

At least one competitor was willing to comment on Sunday — if only to deride the merger strategy. David Jones, the chief executive of Havas, a competing French advertising holding company, referred the deal as “an industrial merger in the digital age.”

“Clients today want us to be faster, more agile, more nimble and more entrepreneurial — not bigger and more bureaucratic and more complex,” Mr. Jones said in a statement.

Mr. Jones said the advertising industry’s “obsession with mergers and acquisitions” was out of sync with how the other technology companies operate. “The industry’s obsession with mergers and acquisitions still amazes me particularly in a world where digital and technology have made scale irrelevant.”

He noted that the photo-sharing service Instagram has 32 employees, but 140 million users. Facebook, he said, has but 5,000 employees supporting one billion users. “In a people business, mergers and acquisitions rarely create value in the way they do in industrial businesses,” Mr. Jones said.

Earlier this year, France’s industrial renewal minister, Arnaud Montebourg, scuttled a deal by Yahoo to take a 75 percent stake in DailyMotion, a French Web video start-up in which the government holds a 27 percent share. Warning that Yahoo would “devour” DailyMotion, he insisted that Yahoo reduce its stake to 50 percent, causing Yahoo to walk away.

But Mr. Lévy might be in a better position to finesse any government resistance to the loss of a national icon. He is one of the best-connected businessmen in France and has cultivated relationships with each administration since he joined Publicis in 1987.

Despite his clout, Mr. Lévy has been a polarizing figure to the French public, coming under fire for receiving multimillion-euro pay packages that are among the highest of any French executive. His pay — 16 million euros last year — was a flash point during the 2012 presidential elections, when Mr. Hollande slammed what he called excessive executive pay and called on the rich to pay more taxes.

World's Longest High-Speed Rail Line Opens in China

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I.A.T.A. Raises Profit Outlook for World’s Airlines

IATA, which represents about 80 percent of global carriers, now expects the $630 billion airline industry to make a net profit of $4.1 billion this year, up from an earlier forecast of $3 billion but still less than half the $8.4 billion achieved in 2011.

IATA also said in its first forecast for 2013 that industry profits will rise further next year to $7.5 billion, helped by passenger traffic expansion of 4.5 percent and cargo expansion of 2.4 percent as global economic growth quickens to 2.5 percent from an expected 2.1 percent this year.

Profit margins will remain razor-thin at 1.1 percent in 2013 versus an expected 0.6 percent in 2012, the association added.

"The outlook improvement is due to airlines performing better in a difficult environment," Tony Tyler, IATA's director general and CEO said in a statement.

"The European sovereign debt crisis lingers on. China continues to moderate its growth and the impact of recent quantitative easing in Japan and the U.S. will take time to yield growth," he added.

The Geneva-based body said aircraft flew on average 79.3 percent full in the first eight months of this year with passenger demand increasing by 1.4 percentage points ahead of capacity.

"The fact that there are fewer spare seats on flights than would be expected at this point of the business cycle, when lower demand and rising aircraft deliveries tend to lower the proportion of seats sold, suggests airlines have resisted the temptation to win back revenue by increasing capacity," the association said.

ASIA, MIDDLE EAST

IATA's improved outlook is a boost for Asian airlines that have been plagued by weak earnings. In August, the world's largest air freight carrier, Cathay Pacific Airways, posted its worst first-half loss since 2003, hurt by high fuel costs, weak cargo demand and fewer premium passengers.

"Despite a slowdown in the Chinese economy, Chinese domestic demand is still growing at nearly 10 percent," Tyler said. "The demand for regional and long-haul travel has held up better than expected in the face of economic uncertainty."

Australia's Qantas Airways also posted a full-year net loss of A$244 million ($253.74 million) for the first time in 17 years and cancelled orders for 35 Boeing Dreamliner jets to cut costs.

Although Singapore Airlines Ltd, the world's No.2 carrier by market value, posted a net profit of S$78 million ($63.59 million) for the quarter ended June, it warned that profits at its cargo and passenger units remain under pressure.

North American carriers are expected to boost profits to $1.9 billion this year from $1.3 billion in 2011, after extensive restructuring. Asian profits of $2.3 billion continue to drive most of the industry's growth although they will be down from last year's $5.3 billion.

Europe, mired in an ongoing debt crisis, is expected to suffer wider-than-previously-expected losses of $1.2 billion.

Middle Eastern carriers gained market share during the first eight months of the year, with passenger traffic rising 17.1 percent and cargo demand increasing 14 percent from a year ago.

"The region's carriers continue to expand their long-haul market share with connections through their expanding hubs, IATA said.

Emirates Airline and other Middle Eastern carriers had a 11.5 percent share of international passenger traffic in August this year, up from 4.8 percent in 2002, according to IATA data.

The share could rise further as Emirates last month signed a deal where Australia's Qantas Airways agreed to use Dubai instead of Singapore as its hub for European flights from March 2013. Under the deal, Qantas will also end a 17-year old alliance with British Airways.

Globally, IATA raised its forecast for passenger demand despite weak confidence in Europe, but pushed its forecast for cargo into the red. The economically sensitive sector is expected to see a 0.4 percent contraction in 2012 instead of 0.3 percent growth as previously forecast.

About 40 percent by value of internationally shipped goods go by air and cargo demand is seen as a barometer for world trade and the health of the economy.

IATA represents some 240 airlines that in turn account for 84 percent of global air traffic.

(Additional reporting by Tim Hepher in PARIS; Editing by Matt Driskill)