By Michael Martina and Philip Wen | BEIJING BEIJING Defying pressure for a strong increase in defence spending, China said on Saturday its military budget this year would grow about 7 percent, its slowest pace since 2010. Last year, with China’s economy slowing, the defence budget recorded its lowest increase in six years, 7.6 percent, the first single-digit rise since 2010, following a nearly unbroken two-decade run […]
03 March 2017 Malaysian Rating Corporation Berhad (MARC) entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Hazana Maldives Limited (Hazana) today to provide technical assistance in the areas of credit risk and Islamic finance. Hazana, a Maldives government company specialising in Islamic investment and finance, manages the commercial assets of the government and holds its strategic investments. The MoU was signed by Mohd Razlan Mohamed, Chief Executive […]
By Noel Randewich | SAN FRANCISCO SAN FRANCISCO Technology companies have been a driving force behind the U.S. stock market’s recent record rally, and despite mounting evidence of stretched valuations the sector remains a top pick for investors expecting a wave of capital expenditures by U.S. corporations. Corporate tax cuts and reduced regulations planned by President Donald Trump will give companies reason to spend more on cloud […]
Once upon a time, it was seen as a significant concession to put wheelchair-accessible rooms in a hotel room and organise special assistance for getting off a plane. But things are changing – partly because authorities are introducing more disability-friendly regulations, but mainly because tourism operators have twigged that accessible travel is a lucrative market. And that has led to innovations such as these: Accessible skiing in […]
Deutsche Bank said on Friday night that it was laying the groundwork for a “potential capital raise of approximately €8bn” as well as considering several other strategic adjustments as it aims to revive its fortunes after a torrid 12 months. Alongside the capital increase, Germany’s biggest lender said it could garner further funds by selling a minority stake in its asset management arm. It is also considering […]
Speaking to American state governors this week in the state dining room of the White House, Donald Trump hit on a point that is of no surprise to investors: healthcare is “an unbelievably complex subject”. The Affordable Care Act, one of the two key pillars of the healthcare reform signed into law by former US President Barack Obama in 2010, is 906 pages long — the table […]
Ismail, a 20-year-old Emirati, has rarely ever stepped into a bank branch. “You won’t believe I haven’t visited my branch for over a year. All my transactions are done online,” he says, as he clicks an app on his phone to make a payment. “I just paid my bill and that’s how it works for me. All the services are at my fingertips and I save immense […]
Investors are aggressively betting against US shopping centres using a derivatives index of commercial mortgage-backed securities that has slumped 10 per cent from its peak in January. The health of the US retail industry has been declining for several years but recent lacklustre holiday sales, alongside rising interest rates and a stronger dollar, have reflected the intensifying pressure across the roughly $150bn industry for commercial mortgages tied […]
A tell-tale sign of a booming equity market is a hot technology listing and the blockbuster debut by Snap, duly summoned memories of the dotcom era. Shares in the parent of the popular messaging app surged more than 40 per cent in their New York Stock Exchange debut on Thursday where the fresh-faced co-founders rang the opening bell to cheers from the trading floor. On Friday, they […]
NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO Institutional investors anxious not to be left out of this year’s marquee initial public offering helped Snap Inc (SNAP.N) pull off the biggest U.S.-listed technology share sale this week since Chinese e-commerce juggernaut Alibaba Group Holding Inc (BABA.N) smashed records in 2014. Keen to boost returns and with a dearth of new stocks to buy, the IPO of a buzzy social media group was […]
The National Australia Bank (NAB) faced the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Economics’ review of the performance of Australia’s banking and financial system on Friday, with CEO Andrew Thorburn probed again on the idea of opening up the bank’s application programming interfaces (API) to external parties. By 2018, banks in the United Kingdom will be required to effectively open up APIs to enable consumer data to […]
April 3, 2016 Panama Papers leaked; Sharif family under spotlight The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists made nearly 11.5 million secret documents public. The documents contained confidential attorney-client information for more than 214,488 offshore entities, with the source of these leaks being a Panamanian financial law firm, Mossack Fonseca. Eight offshore companies were reported to have links with the family of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his […]
Total Islamic banking assets in the UAE have increased to about AED520 billion ($141.5 billion), about 7 percent of the global total, it has been revealed. Saif Hadef Al Shamsi, assistant governor for Monetary Policy and Financial Stability at the UAE Central Bank, said that Islamic banking’ assets account for around 20 percent of AED2.6 trillion of the total assets of the state’s banks. He added in […]
Core inflation has returned to Japan for the first time since 2015, with consumer prices excluding fresh food rising by 0.1 per cent in January over the same month a year earlier. The return to positive territory was driven by energy — petrol prices jumped 9.2 per cent year-on-year after big drops in 2016 — but the rise will be welcome news for the Bank of Japan. […]
There was no mistaking the arrival of King Salman Abdulaziz Al-Saud of Saudi Arabia and his entourage in Malaysia on Sunday morning. Traffic stood still for 30 minutes as we waited for the 600-strong royal party to make their way from the airport to the centre of Kuala Lumpur — a near-endless stream of limos, lorries, outliers and ambulances, sirens screaming. This is King Salman’s first trip […]
Saudi Arabia’s main sovereign wealth fund Public Investment Fund (PIF) is looking at taking minority stakes in German technology and financial companies, although any deal is unlikely before 2018, the kingdom’s ambassador to Germany said. Such a move would mirror other Gulf state funds from Dubai, Qatar and Kuwait, which have taken minority stakes in German companies including Daimler, Deutsche Bank and Volkswagen, although Ambassador Awwad Al-Awwad […]
BEIJING China’s leaders are expected to telegraph their willingness at this year’s annual parliament meeting to let reforms overtake policy stimulus as their priority amid concerns over financial instability in the world’s second-largest economy. Pro-growth policies, evident by a lending binge and increased government spending last year, have fueled worries among policymakers about high debt levels and an overheating housing market. Top leaders at the National People’s […]
Software-defined storage (SDS) startup Hedvig has closed $21.5 million in a Series C round of funding, bringing the total amount raised by the Santa Clara, California-based startup to $52 million. Investors in the round include Singapore-based EDBI and Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s (HPE) VC arm Hewlett Packard Pathfinder, Atlantic Bridge Ventures, Oman Technology Fund, True Ventures, and Vertex Ventures. Launched in 2015, Hedvig provides SDS for enterprises building […]
Interested in precious metals investing or storage? Contact us HERE Written by Peter Diekmeyer (CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL) Gold prices have surged (+8.57% EOD Wednesday) since January. However, one expert says that trend could continue. “Shrinking exploration budgets, a dearth of new high-quality deposits and the “fear trade” will provide continuing upside pressure as the year unfolds,” says Brent Cook, editor […]
Australia is concerned about the South China Sea; all Indonesia wants to talk about is economics. By Leo Suryadinata and Mustafa Izzuddin for The Diplomat March 03, 2017 Prior to Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s maiden visit to Australia on February 25-26, The Australian – a conservative-leaning paper in Australia – published its exclusive interview with Jokowi on February 24. Jokowi was reported as saying that he […]
Oman’s government has given itself breathing space from the pressure of financing a large budget deficit by selling $5 billion of international bonds, almost completing its entire foreign borrowing plan for 2017 in a single issue. Wednesday’s bond sale, in tranches of five, 10 and 30 years, was about double the size that most investors had expected and a huge amount for a country which returned to […]
Cars are on their way to becoming ‘mobile phones on wheels’ The car of the future will let you pay for petrol or parking directly from your vehicle and receive traffic alerts and restaurant recommendations from your onboard digital assistant. Connected cars—or “mobile phones on wheels”—will be able to do those things and more, including communicate with each other on the road and with the infrastructure around […]
BERLIN A Christian cleric on Thursday criticised Chancellor Angela Merkel for kowtowing to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and downplaying human rights concerns as she headed to north Africa to expand trade and investment ties. Joachim Schroedel, a German cleric who has worked in Egypt for more than two decades, expressed anger at Merkel’s assertion that Egyptian Copts were in a “very good situation” and her description […]
Middle East fund managers have turned more bullish towards Saudi Arabian equities on hopes that corporate earnings may finally have bottomed out after a slide due to low oil prices, a monthly Reuters poll found. The poll of 13 leading fund managers, conducted over the past week, also found they had become very bearish on Qatari and Egyptian shares. The poll found 62 percent of managers expect […]
