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  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New York, New York, 19 November 2001....The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the world�s leading provider of global business intelligence, now offers its databases and content collectively online for the first time via Alacra Inc. (www.alacra.com). The two companies announced today that all the EIU full-text publications are available including popular products such as Country Reports, Country Forecasts, and Country Risk and the EIU�s new portfolio of DataServices, CountryData, CountryIndicators and CityData.

The Alacra site is the only online source through which EIU offers its content on 200 countries and regions collectively in full-text and/or numeric table form. Lou Celi, managing director of the EIU explains �The database we have created weds the functionality of Alacra with the EIU�s content. Now users can access our views on countries while downloading and analyzing the numbers behind them.�

Through the partnership, users can now feed forecasts and data into their own planning models and software programs and the users can manipulate, sort and display the data any way they choose. They can access data on a country-by-country or city-by-city basis as well as create customized reports containing user-defined economic series for a selection of countries or geographic regions.

�Alacra�s mission is to provide exceptional business and financial data to users of our service,� said Steven Goldstein, founder and CEO of Alacra. �EIU databases set the industry standard � diverse, comprehensive, current and reliable. The addition of these data from EIU will be of great value to our customers worldwide.�

The databases are available in PDF, Excel or HTML formats.

The four EIU databases accessible via Alacra cover a wide range of current and historical global economic data including:

CountryData: 271 separate economic data series and more than 1 million individual data points on 117 countries, starting from 1980 and forecasting out to 2005. Included are data about economic structure, foreign payments, external debt stock and service, external trade and more. CountryIndicators: Economic, demographic, consumption and industry data on 60 major markets worldwide, including the key emerging markets of Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. CityData: Pricing information on 160 products and services across 123 cities worldwide such as a loaf of bread, average household electricity bill, the cost of office rent and median salary levels. Country Analysis: Business and economic environments on more than 200 countries and regions. Analysis includes full-text reports of Country Reports, Country Forecast, Business Newsletters, and EIU ViewsWire.

About the Economist Intelligence Unit

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) is the business-to-business arm of The Economist Group, publisher of The Economist. The world's leading provider of country intelligence, the EIU has over 500,000 customers in corporations, banks, universities and government institutions. Our mission is to help companies do better business by providing timely, reliable and impartial analysis on worldwide market trends and business strategies. Through our global network of over 500 analysts, the EIU continuously assesses and forecasts political, economic and business conditions in 195 countries, and provides insight into how companies are responding.

About Alacra, Inc.

Alacra, Inc. is a leading global provider of business and financial information. A privately held company founded in 1996. Alacra is based in New York City and London. The company provides a diverse portfolio of fast, sophisticated online and offline services that allow users to find, analyze, and present mission critical business information. Its customers include more than 1,000 leading financial institutions, management consulting, law and accounting firms and multinational corporations. For more information about Alacra, visit the company�s Web site (http://www.alacra.com) or call Customer Service at 212-363-9620 in the U.S. or in London at 44-0-20-3059 5765.

For further press information please contact:
Annie Turn, RLM Public Relations, Inc.
(212) 741-5106 x13
[email protected]

Media Contact
Annie Turn
RLM Public Relations, Inc.
(212) 741-5106 x13
[email protected]