|By TAP Staff| Bank of Baroda, which identifies itself as India’s international bank on the strength of its global operations, is set to celebrate the milestone of a Ten Trillion Bank, taking it into a unique league of banks with turnover of ten trillion rupees or more. The largest Indian bank, after the State Bank of India, is the only bank in the UAE with a full-fledged […]
Indian politicians are expected to spend around $5 billion on campaigning for elections next month – a sum second only to the most expensive U.S. presidential campaign of all time – in a splurge that could give India’s floundering economy a temporary boost. India’s campaign spend, which can include cash stuffed in envelopes as well as multi-million-dollar ad campaigns, has been estimated at 300 billion rupees by […]
Dubai’s non-oil trade expanded 7.6 percent last year, slowing from 13 percent growth in 2012, but the emirate’s trade with Iran stabilised despite U.S. economic sanctions, according to Dubai customs data released on Sunday. The non-oil foreign trade of Dubai, one of seven members of the United Arab Emirates, rose to 1.329 trillion dirhams ($362 billion) in 2013. The emirate exports small amounts of oil and imports […]
|By TAP Staff| Being in Dubai helps businesses and investors to reap rich rewards, according to findings in a summary report compiled by Dubai FDI, the foreign investment agency in the Department of Economic Development (DED) of Dubai. And the ease and competitiveness of doing business in Dubai is attracting the attention of worldwide investors, it adds. The reports cover such key sectors as logistics, retail, information […]
|By TAP Staff| Dubai stock market is set to see the first initial public offering in five years when a new company under formation for fashion and food retailing will tap the capital market within the next few weeks. The company, named Marka, is still in the process of being formed. It will operate in the UAE’s fashion retailing and food and beverage sectors; its over 100 […]
Drug maker Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd has recalled more than 64,000 bottles of the generic versions of its cholesterol-lowering drug in the United States due to reports of a dose mix-up, U.S. regulators said. Ranbaxy recalled tablets of atorvastatin calcium, the generic name for Lipitor’s active ingredient, after a pharmacist found a 20-milligram tablet in a sealed bottle marked for 10-milligram tablets, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration […]
Emirates airline said its alliance with Australia’s Qantas was working and had helped the Gulf carrier to improve yields, after some analysts questioned the benefits of the partnership. Qantas is reducing its workforce by 15 percent, slashing spending and selling gas-guzzling older planes after stiff competition at home and overseas pushed the Australian flag carrier deep into the red in the first half. The loss in Qantas’s […]
Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which generated one-third of its profit from trading last year, is restarting Middle East and North Africa equity sales in Dubai, according to two people familiar with the matter. The fifth-largest U.S. bank by assets is hiring Veer Ramlugon as part of the plans, one of the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter isn’t public. Ramlugon, who declined to […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Siemens has been awarded a contract valued at QAR 920 million ($253 million) by the Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (KAHRAMAA) for the further expansion of Qatar’s power supply system. The contract includes the construction of nine turnkey substations for Phase 11 of KAHRAMAA’s Qatar Power Transmission System Expansion project. The utility provider’s expansion project aims to ensure stable power supply to all sectors including households, […]
Dubai is considering listing some of its largest and most valuable state-controlled companies such as the Emirates airline in a move that could raise billions of pounds in revenue. Mohammed al-Shaibani, Dubai’s finance chief, revealed that some of the state-owned companies could also be partially floated on the London Stock Exchange and signalled that the emirate views the UK as a strategic location for future investment. “We […]
Citigroup Inc said on Friday that it has discovered at least $400 million in fraudulent loans in its Mexico subsidiary and said employees may have been in on the crime. The bank wrote down bogus loans to a company whose assets Mexican law enforcement officials have now seized. Citigroup’s 2013 profit fell by $235 million to $13.67 billion after the write-down. Citigroup Chief Executive Officer Michael Corbat […]
The London gold fix, the benchmark used by miners, jewelers and central banks to value the metal, may have been manipulated for a decade by the banks setting it, researchers say. Unusual trading patterns around 3 p.m. in London, when the so-called afternoon fix is set on a private conference call between five of the biggest gold dealers, are a sign of collusive behavior and should be […]
A last official link between the Gulf’s colonial era and its commercially dynamic present, Bill Duff devoted his life to Dubai and played a bigger part than any other westerner in the early transformation of the emirate from obscure outpost into global hub. Duff, who has died aged 91, arrived as an economic adviser in 1959 in what were called the Trucial states. His mission came at […]
China’s yuan surpassed the Swiss franc to become the seventh most-used world payments currency in January, global transaction services organization SWIFT said on Thursday. With a market share of 1.39 percent, the yuan remained one of the top 10 most-used currencies for payments worldwide for the third consecutive month. It ranked eighth in December. Yuan payments increased by 30.6 percent while the growth for all payment currencies […]
Manhattan Attorney Preet Bharara has sent subpoenas to Mt. Gox, other bitcoin exchanges, and businesses that deal in bitcoin to seek information on how they handled recent cyber attacks, a source familiar with the probe said on Wednesday. In the attacks – known as distributed denial of service attacks – hackers overwhelmed bitcoin exchanges by sending thousands of phantom transactions. At least three exchanges were forced to […]
First Gulf Bank (FGB) AGM approved a cash dividend of 100% of the capital and 30% bonus shares for the financial year ending 31 December 2013. Owners of FGB shares registered on Sunday 09/03/2014 (buyers on 05/03/2014) are eligible to cash dividends and bonus shares. The AGM also approved the financial statements for the year ending December 31, 2013. Abdulhamid Saeed, Managing Director, said the distribution of […]
Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) is set to welcome 11 international congresses in 2014, spanning a variety of industry sectors. When combined, these congresses will contribute an estimated US$32millon (AED117 million) to the city’s economy. The congresses will attract more than 12,000 international delegates, including global thought leaders in their respective fields, which include healthcare, transportation, legal and technology sectors. “Dubai’s position as a premier international business […]
Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN) helped American customers hide as much as $10 billion in assets from the Internal Revenue Service, more than double the amount previously known, according to a U.S. Senate committee. A report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations criticized the Zurich-based bank for failing to discipline any senior executives in the face of widespread tax evasion fostered by 1,800 Credit Suisse employees […]
