Senior Saudi and Iranian figures clashed behind closed doors at a private meeting convened by the World Economic Forum in Davos this week to try to promote peace in Syria, participants said. The barbed exchange between Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif at an invitation-only meeting on Wednesday underlined the hostility between the two Gulf rivals, who are waging proxy wars in Syria, […]
Ford Motor Company has announced it will include Auto Start-Stop on all Ford F-150 EcoBoost trucks, starting in 2017. Auto Start-Stop is exactly what it sounds like: the engine shuts off when stopped and when the brake is released, the engine quickly restarts. The transition is seamless. Although it depends on how a person drives, overall the feature contributes to better fuel mileage while reducing emissions. It should be noted, Auto Start-Stop does […]
Oil rallied, heading for biggest two-day advance since 2009 after a slump to a 12-year low prompted some investors to buy back record bearish bets. Front-month futures have jumped more than 18 percent after the February contract expired Wednesday at $26.55 a barrel, the lowest settlement since 2003. Speculators this month amassed the biggest-ever short position in U.S. crude amid concern that turmoil in China’s markets would […]
Less than two months after OPEC nations sparred over oil policy in Vienna, they resumed the debate at Davos. Nigeria’s oil minister, speaking on a panel at the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort, said the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries needs to meet soon as crashing prices force the group to reconsider its current laissez-faire policy. Saudi Arabia, represented by the chairman of its national […]
|By Matein Khalid| I had called for Brent crude to fall to $30 in successive columns since the November 2014 OPEC conclave in Vienna, when Saudi Arabia abandoned its traditional role as the “swing producer” the central bank of black gold. The world oil markets now face a supply shock, a demand shock, epic volatility and the loss of the “swing producer”. The world is running out […]
As the chattering chieftains of the global economy gather this week in Davos, Switzerland, they’re facing the darkest outlook since the financial crisis tipped the world into recession seven years ago. The Chinese slowdown and accompanying slide in the yuan are imperiling already sluggish international growth, oil is trading at its lowest level in more than a decade, stocks have suffered their worst January ever, and the […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Decreasing Saudi Arabia’s reliance on oil revenues could include the introduction of VAT and so-called sin taxes, observers say. Other issues under consideration include the partial privatization of selected state assets – including Saudi Aramco – and better utilization of state-owned real estate. The Kingdom has been successfully diversifying its economy over the past decade, with non-oil revenues increasing by 29 percent this […]
Global oil markets could “drown in oversupply,” sending prices even lower as demand growth slows and Iran revives exports with the end of sanctions, according to the International Energy Agency. The IEA trimmed 2016 estimates for global oil demand as China’s economic expansion weakens and raised forecasts for supplies outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. While non-OPEC supply is set to drop 600,000 barrels a day […]
In a world awash with cheap oil, buyers in the world’s biggest consuming region aren’t clamoring for an additional 500,000 barrels a day from Iran. As international sanctions against the country are lifted and Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh looks to make good on his pledge to regain market share lost in Asia, he’ll have to contend with a global glut that’s dragged down prices and spawned […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| A leading player in the Dubai real estate market has predicted a correction in the rental market at a rate faster than expected in 2016 as thousands of new apartments and villas enter the new supplies. Real estate consultancy JLL predicted that average housing rents in the city would continue to fall by as much as 10 per cent over the coming 12 […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| The prospects of $20 for a barrel of oil look a lot more realistic now than ever before as crude futures in the US dipped below $30 this week. According to Bloomberg, crude futures in the U.S. sank into the $20s for the first time in more than 12 years on Tuesday, hours after BP said it would slash an additional 4,000 jobs, Petroleo […]
|By Matein Khalid| This was the ghastliest week for global risk assets since September 2011. Not even 290,000 new US jobs in December could negate the raw fear on Wall Street generated by the 10% fall in Shanghai, a yuan depreciation, market meltdowns of 6 – 7% in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Mumbai and New York. Four months ago, I had published a KT article titled “History’s […]
Oil fell briefly below $30 a barrel on Tuesday, extending a relentless selloff that has wiped almost 20 percent off prices this year amid deepening concerns about fragile Chinese demand and the absence of output restraint. The day’s near 4 percent drop marks a seventh day of losses for oil. Traders have all but given up attempting to predict where the new-year rout will end, with momentum-driven […]
|By Dr Alaa Alghamdi| In a modern, largely secular world, it is remarkable to observe how strongly the interplay between the original ‘big three’ Abrahamic religions, many hundreds of years old and stemming from a common root, still affect world affairs and attitudes toward them. To cite a somewhat whimsical analogy, Rick Riordan’s series of books about a character named Percy Jackson posits that the Greek gods […]
|By Tyler Durden| Back in June 2013, when Deutsche Bank opened a gold vault in Singapore which could hold up to 200 metric tons, the German bank was euphoric about the prospects for storing physical gold: “Gold has traditionally been stored in London, Zurich and New York, but there is a serious shift in dynamics going on as the global financial crisis continues to evolve,” Mark Smallwood, […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Gold seems to be re-discovering its safe haven status in the wake of a turmoil that billionaire investor George Soros describes as the beginning of a global market crisis. Bullion rallied above $1,100 an ounce, rising for a fourth day to a two-month high, after Chinese shares plunged, the yuan slid and the country’s stock exchanges closed early for the second time this […]
Lower power. Longer range. That’s the story behind Wi-Fi HaLow, a new technology the Wi-Fi Alliance has just introduced to help tap into the momentum around low power Wi-Fi solutions that cater specifically to the Internet of Things (IoT). The Wi-Fi HaLow designation, which aims at products leveraging IEEE 802.11ah technology, works at and below the one gigahertz frequency band without sacrificing range. In fact, HaLow promises […]
Ride-sharing app company Lyft today announced that it has raised $1 billion in new funding, including a $500 million investment from General Motors. The additional funds bring to $2 billion the total amount of capital the firm has attracted since it was founded in 2012. Under the new arrangement, Lyft and GM [Image credit: General Motors] will work together to build a network of on-demand, self-driving cars […]
India’s rupee fell the most since November on speculation demand for riskier assets will be hurt as tensions in the Middle East intensify and poor Chinese economic data adds to concern over global growth. Emerging-market stocks and currencies dropped Monday as manufacturing in China weakened for a fifth straight month, the longest such streak since 2009. Saudi Arabia cut ties with Iran and expelled the Islamic Republic’s diplomats, […]
A Samsung logo is seen at Samsung Electronics’ headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, December 18, 2015. Picture taken on December 18, 2015. Reuters/Kim Hong-Ji SEOUL South Korean tech giant Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said it expects a difficult business environment in 2016 due to weak global economic conditions and heightened competition in key businesses including memory chips and smartphones. In a statement on Monday, Samsung said Chief […]
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Saudi rulers will face repercussions after the kingdom executed an outspoken Shiite cleric. “The divine hand of revenge will take the Saudi politicians by the throat,” Khamenei, Iran’s highest authority, said on Sunday. Cleric Nimr al-Nimr “was neither encouraging people to armed protests, nor plotting secretly, all he did was to openly criticize,” said Khamenei, who frequently lashes out at […]
Abu Dhabi: Saudi Arabia’s subsidy scheme is poised for a change as the country announced that they would be reviewing government support for energy, water and electricity prices in the next five years. A 2016 budget document by the Ministry of Finance said that reviewing government support is aimed at achieving efficiency in energy use, conserving natural resources, stopping waste and irrational use, and minimising negative effects […]
MUMBAI Online marketplace Snapdeal, backed by Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp and others, will spend more on logistics and technology to better compete with Flipkart and Amazon’s (AMZN.O) Indian unit, its co-founder said on Monday. Shopping online is becoming more popular in India due to the rising use of cheaper smartphones and e-commerce firms are struggling to cope with the growing demand and make faster deliveries in different […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Buoyed by sharp fall in gold prices globally, India is likely to see a jump of 11 per cent in imports of the metal to 1,000 tonnes this year, according to the All India Gems and Jewellery Trade Federation. The world’s second-biggest gold consumer imported around 900 tonnes in 2014. “Gold import is estimated at around 1,000 tonnes in 2015 calendar year, compared […]
