U.S. regulators are mobilizing to shore up confidence in America’s generic-drug supply as alarm grows over the quality of products made in India, and the head of the largest U.S.-based maker of the medicines predicted more trouble lies ahead. “It’ll get worse before it gets better,” said Mylan (MYL) Inc. Chief Executive Officer Heather Bresch, whose company has half of its more than 20,000 employees in India. […]
A diplomatic split between Qatar and its wealthy Gulf neighbors may disrupt billions of dollars of investment in the region and slow efforts to make economies more efficient through trade and transport reforms. Qatar’s vast natural gas wealth means the tiny country, with a population of about 2.1 million, could probably continue operating indefinitely despite the displeasure of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. But […]
Dubai World, one of the emirate’s big state-owned conglomerates, has prepaid $284.5 million to creditors under its $25 billion debt restructuring plan, sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. The conglomerate obtained money for the prepayment from asset sales, said the sources, who declined to be named because the matter isn’t public. Under the terms of the restructuring deal, cash raised from asset sales above a […]
|By TAP Staff| The Dubai Mall gets more foot traffic than the Eiffel Tower, Niagara Falls and Disney World combined. Attracting 75 million visitors a year, it is one of the most visited tourist attractions on the planet. The Dubai Mall is no ordinary shopping center. Recognized by Guinness World Records as the world’s largest shopping mall (in terms of total floor space) it is larger than […]
|By TAP Staff|The ruling family of Ras Al Khaimah is exploring a sale of its shares in RAK Ceramics, the global leader in the manufacture of ceramic wall and floor tiles and sanitary ware, Reuters reported quoting a source familiar with the matter. Talks on the possible sale have been going on for the past six months, the source told Reuters, declining to be named because the […]
Abu Dhabi investment fund Mubadala Development Co plans to focus more on U.S. and European markets this year as those economies slowly recover, its deputy CEO said on Tuesday. Mubadala, which has stakes in General Electric and private equity firm Carlyle, shifted some of its focus to emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia, China and Indonesia after the global financial crisis hit the United States and Europe. […]
Saudi tourists played a vital role in boosting the Dubai tourism sector last year. The Kingdom, which has consistently been Dubai’s primary source market, experienced a big boost with guest numbers up by 19.9 percent to 1.35 million. In 2012, Dubai received 1.13 million visitors from Saudi Arabia. In total, Dubai’s hotels welcomed more than 11 million guests in 2013, an increase of just over one million […]
| By TAP Staff| UAE banks outperformed their counterparts in the rest of the GCC in terms of net profits for 2013. The UAE banks were followed by Qatari banks, which took the second overall position. According to an analysis of the GCC banking sector by Global Investment House, profits of banks in the UAE grew 15.8 percent YoY while the banks in Qatar recorded a growth […]
Investor sentiment toward Dubai is about the best it has been since before the Persian Gulf emirate skirted default amid the global credit crisis. The cost of insuring its debt against non-payment with credit-default swaps was quoted at 189 basis points at the end of last month, the least since the 187 reached in May, which was the lowest since the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., […]
Dubai’s benchmark led a retreat among Persian Gulf stock indexes, tracking a decline in emerging markets after Russia’s intervention in Crimea raised concerns of armed conflict. The DFM General Index slipped 1.9 percent, the most since Jan. 26, to 4,105.90 at the close in Dubai. The measure, which more than doubled last year, dropped on 44 percent of three-month average daily volume. Abu Dhabi’s gauge closed 1.8 […]
The ranks of the world’s billionaires continue to scale new heights–and stretch to new corners of the world. Forbes’ global wealth team found 1,645 billionaires with an aggregate net worth of $6.4 trillion, up from $5.4 trillion a year ago. A record 268 new ten-figure fortunes, including 42 new women billionaires, were unearthed, another record. In total, there are 172 women on the list, more than ever […]
United Arab Emirates telecommunications firm du has borrowed $1.17 billion in three separate deals to refinance existing debt and fund equipment purchases, the company said on Tuesday. The deals include a $720 million package reported by Reuters last month and agreements with Standard Chartered Bank and DBS Singapore to refinance and top up existing loans. “The move lowers the company’s funding costs, saving approximately $9 million over […]
Plans by Malaysia, the world’s largest palm oil producer after Indonesia, to increase consumption in biodiesel may support prices, said Douglas Uggah Embas, Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister. Proposals to implement the B7 program next year will result in annual use of 700,000 metric tons of palm methyl ester, said Embas. The B5 version, which involves blending 5 percent of palm methyl ester with 95 percent of […]
Singapore leapt five spots to top a global ranking of the most expensive cities as a stronger currency and price increases made it costlier to live in the island nation, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit. The republic beat Paris, Oslo, Zurich and Sydney, while Tokyo moved down to sixth position from first previously after the yen slid, the EIU’s latest Worldwide Cost of Living Survey released […]
Zack Shahin, a U.S. citizen imprisoned in a Dubai prison cell since March 2008 , declared a hunger strike to protest his continued imprisonment in Dubai and the U.S. government’s unwillingness to publicly intervene for his freedom. In an open-letter addressed to U.S. President Barack Obama, Zack Shahin wrote: “I ask you to use all of your effort to strenuously object to my continued confinement, and given […]
BGC Partners, a global brokerage company servicing the wholesale financial and real estate markets, and the Dubai Multi Commodity Centre announced a partnership to promote a Sharia-compliant Commodity Murabaha mechanism. This marks the first agreement between DMCC and an interdealer broker to jointly market Commodity Murabaha on the DMCC Tradeflow Platform, DMCC said in a statement. Launching shortly, this partnership offers the trading community a faster, more […]
|By TAP Staff| The UAE Banks Federation proposes to soon issue a charter for customer rights, which will incorporate certain minimum standards in banking services and provide for remedial actions open for them in case of failures by the banks. The CEOs Advisory Committee of the Federation has examined the framework and content of the charter at its first meeting this year. The meeting reviewed the Federation’s […]
| By K Raveendran| Dubai is at such an interesting juncture that it lends itself to analyst opinions that are mutually challenging. There are enough silver lines on the horizon for those who tend to approach issues with a sense of optimism. But for those who are inclined to look the other way, there is an uneasy déjà vu setting in. As the local stock market gets […]
Stocks slid while oil prices shot up on Monday, after Russia bloodlessly seized a part of Ukraine, escalating tensions between Russia and the West to a level not seen since the end of the Cold War. U.S. stock futures fell 0.7 percent from a record high hit on Friday while Japan’s Nikkei average tumbled 1.3 percent. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.6 percent. […]
Abu Dhabi National Energy Co. (TAQA) and partners will pay $1.6 billion in cash and assumed debt to buy two hydroelectric power plants in India from Jaiprakash Power Ventures Ltd. (JPVL) in a deal expected to close this year. The state-controlled utility known as Taqa will manage and operate the facilities, it said in an e-mailed statement today. The assets have an enterprise value of $1.6 billion, […]
The new Savills World Cities Live-Work Index reveals that it now costs an average of just under $72,000-a-year per employee to rent residential and office space in Dubai, a thumping 41 per cent increase on a year ago, making the city the world’s seventh most expensive. However, the survey noted that this surge in rents came from ‘a relatively low base’ and that ‘the high costs in […]
The rupee is trading lower at 61.88/89 versus Friday’s close of 61.75/76. It fell to 61.95 in early trades. Global risk aversion on geopolitical tensions in Ukraine weighing on most Asian currencies. China manufacturing PMI hits a seven-month low, further hurting risk currency sentiment. India’s December GDP came in at a below expected 4.7 percent, data released after market hours on Friday showed. The Japanese yen rose […]
Gold gained more than 1 percent on Monday on escalating geopolitical tensions as Ukraine mobilised for war after Russia bloodlessly seized Crimea, an isolated Black Sea peninsula where Moscow has a naval base. The Group of Seven major industrialised nations condemned Russia’s intrusion into Ukraine and cancelled preparations for the G8 summit, that includes Russia, scheduled for Sochi in June, the White House said. Cash and U.S. […]
In a rude jolt to growing virtual currency frenzy in India, bitcoins worth hundreds of millions of rupees held by some Indians have vanished with collapse of Japan-based Mt Gox, which was the world’s largest bitcoin exchange so far. Having filed for bankruptcy, Mt Gox has admitted to have lost 7.5 million bitcoins of its customers and 100,000 of its own, which together are estimated to be […]
