PepsiCo Inc. plans to cut 8,700 jobs and boost marketing spending for its brands by as much as $600 million as Chief Executive Officer Indra Nooyi works to turn around the world’s largest snack-food maker.

The job cuts, which represent about 3 percent of PepsiCo’s global workforce, and other measures may save about $1.5 billion by 2014, the Purchase, N.Y., company said Thursday in a statement.

Profit this year will decline about 5 percent on a constant-currency basis and then increase at a high single-digit percentage rate starting in 2013, PepsiCo said.

Fourth-quarter net income advanced to $1.42 billion, or 89 cents a share, from $1.37 billion, or 85 cents, a year earlier, PepsiCo said in a separate statement. Excluding some items, profit was $1.15 a share, beating the $1.12 average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

45 Indiana counties get USDA disaster tag

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has designated 45 counties in Indiana as primary natural disaster areas due to losses caused by drought and excessive heat from July 1 through Oct. 18 last year.

The northeast Indiana counties are Allen, Noble and Wells. Farmers in those areas qualify for low-interest emergency loans from the federal government.

Farmers in Adams, DeKalb, Huntington Kosciusko, Steuben and Whitley also qualify for natural disaster assistance because their counties are contiguous to the designated counties.

“Indiana FSA and its employees are committed to helping farmers navigate the multitude of programs that may be available in eligible counties,” Julia Wickard, state executive director of the USDA’s Farm Service Agency, said Thursday.

“The summer of 2011 will not be long forgotten by those producers and their families that were negatively impacted by severe dry weather. USDA is here to assist.”

iPad 3 rollout seen next month: Report

A news report says Apple plans to unveil a new iPad early next month.

AllThingsD, a website affiliated with the Wall Street Journal, says Apple Inc. will have an event in San Francisco the first week of March – the same week Apple announced the iPad 2 last year.

The report cites unnamed people familiar with the device. Apple declined to comment Thursday.

It’s not known whether the new device will be called the iPad 3, and when it will be available for sale. Last year, sales of the iPad 2 began in the U.S. nine days after the announcement.

Holiday hits China auto sales in January

The year of the dragon rolled in with a whimper instead of a roar for China’s auto industry. Car sales in the world’s biggest auto market fell 24 percent in January from a year earlier, industry figures show.

The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said Thursday that 1.16 million passenger cars were sold in China in January, down from a monthly record 1.5 million a year earlier.

It said total vehicle sales, including trucks and buses, dropped 26 percent from a year earlier to 1.39 million. Total vehicle sales in January 2011 were 1.89 million.

China’s weeklong Lunar New Year holiday, which usually falls in February but began in mid-January this year, was the main reason for the sharp drop.