RECIPROCAL TRADE will be major congressional battleground next year when current laws expire. Protectionists are gaining strength in Congress; they will push hard to wipe out laws under which President Eisenhower can lower many tariffs whenever similar concessions are granted by foreign countries. White House has given notice that it will fight to have laws extended, though it may have to accept some changes.

TANKER BOOM will push U.S. shipyards to new peacetime record this year despite cut-rate foreign competition, post-Suez shipping slump. Domestic shipyards have 99 merchant vessels grossing 2,316,572 tons under construction or on order, v. 44 ships totaling 729,660 tons at this time last year. Of the total, 82 vessels (2,118,672 tons) are tankers.

ELECTRONIC BRAINS are so expensive that businessmen will form co-ops to lease and operate giant computers. In first such move by private enterprise, four fire insurance companies--Springfield, Phoenix, Aetna, National--formed independent SPAN Electronic Data Processing Co. to share $1,300,000 (rental cost: roughly $30,000 per month) IBM 705 computer.

ANTITRUST BATTLE is boiling up over Procter & Gamble's $30 million purchase of Clorox Chemical Co., biggest U.S. seller of household liquid bleach. Federal Trade Commission says that purchase gives P. & G. 48% of liquid-bleach market (v. 16% for nearest competitor), charges that combination of two companies may "substantially lessen competition" or "tend to create a monopoly" in home-laundry business.

DRUG MERGER is in the works be tween Bristol-Myers Co. (1956 sales:

$89 million from Ipana, Bufferin, Mum, Vitalis, etc.) and family-held Grove Laboratories, Inc. (estimated sales: $10 million from Fitch, Bromo Quinine, Four-Way Cold Tablets). In secret talks, Bristol-Myers is offering cash and stock, figures deal would add 25-c- to estimated 1957 per-share earnings of $4.15.

NUCLEAR ELECTRICITY for rural co-ops will be slow in coming because of inflation. With costs zooming, American Machine & Foundry backed out of deal with AEC to construct reactor for proposed rural co-op at Elk River, Minn., and Foster Wheeler Corp. withdrew offer to supply reactor for another co-op at Grand Rapids.

RUHR STEELMEN will make their first big investment in Western Hemisphere ore resources. Group of 13 ore-short West German steel firms, including Krupp complex, will open negotiations this month with Canadian Javelin Ltd., which has huge iron and timber reserves in North. If deal goes through, Germans will put as much as $45 million into new 6,000,000-ton-a-year ore processing plant in southern Labrador.

CHRYSLER CORP. will move assembly lines closer to markets to cut rising transport costs. No. 3 automaker will build 3,500-man plant about 20 miles southwest of St. Louis, planp to have it operating in 1959 to replace two 30-year-old plants in Evansville, Ind. Shift gives Chrysler better national spread; other major plants are in Delaware, Detroit, Los Angeles.

AUTO-EXPORT LEAD goes back to Britain after West Germany held world's top spot for two years. Britain came back fast this year after hard times in 1956, exported 196,000 cars from May through August, v. 178,000 for West Germany, also topped West Germany's sales to U.S. drivers by eight-to-seven margin in heavy midsummer selling period.

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