Asian oil refiners are facing slumping profits as China is expected to ramp up exports of diesel and gasoline this quarter. The margin from refining diesel in Asia has fallen almost 10 percent in the last 10 trading days, although it would have to drop another 13 percent to plumb the levels reached just after the first quarter, when the Chinese were last major exporters. While Chinese […]
Bahrain is still in the early stages of a series of bank mergers designed to strengthen the sector in the face of regional competition, the central bank governor said. The tiny kingdom’s banking industry, once the most vibrant in the Gulf, was hit hard by the global financial crisis and, since 2011, by political unrest which has deterred some foreign investment. But Rasheed al-Maraj said there were […]
Protesters marched on Capitol Hill in Washington on Saturday to protest the U.S. government’s online surveillance programs, whose vast scope was revealed this year by former spy agency contractor Edward Snowden. People carried signs reading: “Stop Mass Spying,” “Thank you, Edward Snowden” and “Unplug Big Brother” as they gathered at the foot of the Capitol to demonstrate against the online surveillance by the National Security Agency. Estimates […]
Emirates NBD, Dubai’s biggest bank, raised its estimates for economic growth in the United Arab Emirates this year to 4.4 percent, aided by an increase in oil output. The forecast was raised from 3.8 percent, putting the second-biggest Arab economy on track for a higher growth rate than Saudi Arabia for the first time in at least four years, according to the bank’s quarterly economic report released […]
Mehmood Patel still wakes up early, just as he did when he was a popular heart specialist seeing patients who waited hours for minutes of his time. Instead of surgical scrubs, he climbs into the khaki drabs of the Federal Correctional Complex in Oakdale, Louisiana. He leads health-conscious inmates on a morning walk, then cracks open one of the medical journals on his prison-approved reading list. Counseling […]
Hong Kong restaurant owner Hudson Chang says he can’t lower the bar much further for hiring staff. He warns his employees repeatedly about sending messages on their iPhones during work hours. He pleads with them to be more pleasant to customers. Still, he can’t afford to fire anyone: He can’t be sure of finding a replacement. “We don’t really have much choice,” said Chang, 39, owner of […]
Dubai Holding’s telecom unit could conclude the sale of stakes in two other telecom firms in the next few months, its chief executive said, part of a strategy by state-linked companies to sell assets to repay the emirate’s debt pile. Dubai Holding, owned by the ruler of the emirate, is among a group of state-linked companies trying to recover from a 2009 property crash. The firms face […]
Fosun International Ltd., a Chinese conglomerate that invests in everything from steel to pharmaceuticals to Club Med, has agreed to buy the office tower at 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza from JPMorgan Chase & Co. for a whopping $750 million. This isn’t an isolated incident. Zhang Xin, a billionaire property developer who grew rich building Beijing’s central business district, recently bought about 20 percent of the General Motors […]
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is facing attacks from the opposition for being too soft in trade and border disputes with China ahead of a visit to the world’s second-biggest economy that comes months before a general election. Narendra Modi, the prime ministerial candidate for the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, told an audience four days ago that Singh’s weakness had encouraged China’s army to encroach on […]
Investors are becoming more discerning about where they put their money, shying away from countries such as Brazil, India (SENSEX), Indonesia, Turkey and South Africa. Behind the discrimination is a new-found focus on current-account deficits and structural weaknesses exposed by the likelihood of less stimulus from the Federal Reserve and cooling demand in China, according to economists from HSBC Holdings Plc, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and International […]
President Barack Obama will declare the glitches in a new healthcare website “unacceptable” on Monday and outline ways for consumers to sign up for insurance while his team scrambles to fix problems that have tainted the rollout of his signature healthcare law. Fresh from two weeks of budget battles that have consumed Washington, Obama will hold an event at 11:25 a.m. (1525 GMT) in the White House […]
Dubai International Financial Centre is relying on economic growth prospects in Africa and South Asia as it adds buildings with a value of 15 billion dirhams ($4.1 billion) over a decade. DIFC, whose clients include global banks such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), is seeing a surge in demand from Asian companies and from clients who are using Dubai as a platform to expand into Africa, […]
The United States held out the prospect of quick sanctions relief for Iran on Monday if Tehran moves swiftly to allay concerns about its nuclear program, although both countries said any deal would be complex and take time. Six world powers – the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany – are to hold talks with Iran on its nuclear program in Geneva on Tuesday and […]
Asian shares rose to their highest in nearly five months on Tuesday on heightened hopes for a deal in Washington to reopen the U.S. government and avert a possible debt default, though investors will remain wary until they see the final outcome. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.8 percent to its highest since May 23. Japan’s Nikkei share average added 0.5 percent, hitting […]
International Finance Corp., the World Bank’s investment arm, plans to sell a record $1 billion of rupee bonds offshore to fund its investments as India struggles to lure capital amid the slowest growth in a decade. The bond sale aims to “attract greater foreign investment in a time of renewed economic uncertainty across the world,” the Washington-based IFC said in a statement yesterday. The so-called synthetic debt […]
Kuwait’s new finance minister has issued a stinging criticism of the country’s bloated administration and bureaucratic red tape, saying the economy cannot continue growing robustly in the long term if they are not reformed. The comments by Sheikh Salem Abdulaziz al-Sabah, carried by state news agency KUNA on Monday, were his first extensive public policy statement since he took his job in August. Sheikh Salem left the […]
Gulf Finance House climbed to the highest in more than three months as the Bahrain-based investment bank replaced its chairman. The shares surged 11 percent to 57.3 fils in Dubai, the highest since June 20, bringing the gain this year to 37 percent. Gulf Finance House shares listed in Bahrain rose 7.7 percent and those traded in Kuwait advanced 6.5 percent. The investment company said Chairman Essam […]
Chemical warfare and car bombings are just a few of the hazards working in war-torn countries such as Iraq and Syria. For Supreme Group BV, it’s the cost of doing business. Dubai-based Supreme delivers fuel and food — 100,000 meals a day — to troops stationed in some of the most inhospitable parts of the world, including Liberia, Mali and Sudan. The perilous business, where contractors dodge […]
Anyone who remembers the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. little more than five years ago knows what a global financial disaster is. A U.S. government default, just weeks away if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling as it now threatens to do, will be an economic calamity like none the world has ever seen. Failure by the world’s largest borrower to pay its debt — […]
Asian shares, oil prices and the dollar came under pressure on Monday as politicians in Washington showed no signs of making progress to resolve the U.S. budget standoff, while safe-haven gold inched higher. Financial bookmakers expected European shares to follow Asia lower and open down between 0.4 and 0.5 percent. Democrats and Republicans remained far apart on ending the government shutdown, let alone reaching a deal on […]
President Barack Obama said he expects Congress will reach an agreement to raise the nation’s $16.7 borrowing limit in time to avert a default. “America has never not paid its bills,” Obama said in an interview with the Associated Press. “I don’t expect to get there.” The interview was released today as a partial shutdown of the U.S. government entered its fifth day and less than two […]
A senior Iranian cleric urged Washington and Tehran on Friday to “join hands” to end sanctions, local media reported, underlining the support of Iran’s influential religious establishment for President Hassan Rouhani’s diplomatic offensive. Rouhani made overtures to the West last week during a visit to the U.N. headquarters in New York and then spoke by telephone with U.S. President Barack Obama in the highest-level contact between the […]
Barclays completed its 5.8 billion pound ($9.4 billion) fundraising on Friday to meet a capital shortfall identified by its regulator, after almost 95 percent of the British bank’s investors stumped up more cash. Barclays launched its rights issue three weeks ago, prompted by the British regulator’s demand that it improve its leverage ratio – a measure of its capital to assets – to 3 percent by mid-2014. […]
Gold analysts are bullish for a third consecutive week on speculation that the first U.S. government shutdown in 17 years and a standoff over raising the country’s debt limit will spur demand for the metal as a haven. Eighteen analysts surveyed by Bloomberg expect prices to rise next week, eight are bearish and four neutral. That’s the longest positive run since July. Bullion capped a 7.6 percent […]
