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|By TAP Staff| The Dubai World Trade Centre on Saturday announced that 2.2 million trade delegates and attendees visited exhibitions centre last year – marking the first time the figure has crossed the 2 million milestone. Dubai World Trade Centre hosted 373 meetings, incentives, conferencing, and exhibitions (MICE )and business events throughout 2013, up from 302 in the previous year. Exhibitors from more than 130 nations attended. […]

New York’s highest state court has ruled that a lawsuit by the Algosaibi family conglomerate, claiming that a Saudi billionaire who married into the family committed a $150 million fraud, should be heard in Saudi Arabia. In the lawsuit, Ahmed Hamad al Gosaibi & Brothers Co claimed that Maan al-Sanea, the billionaire head of the Saad Group, used its accounts with Dubai-based Mashreqbank PSC to commit fraudulent […]

Wall Street leaders including Lloyd Blankfein and James Gorman, who have courted business in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, are facing a dilemma as tensions over Ukraine escalate. Their scheduled attendance at Putin’s annual investor showcase in St. Petersburg in May is in doubt as sanctions imposed by the U.S. in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea — and retaliatory moves by Putin — threaten the ties between Russia’s […]

India has decided to block investigations by the United States into its trade policies and patent laws and prepare for a battle at the World Trade Organization (WTO), a move that could escalate already-strained tension between the two countries. New Delhi is furious about a threat of trade sanctions made by the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR) office over its protection of intellectual property rights (IPR), preference for […]

Final approval for .abudhabi and .dubai web addresses may be only months away, with experts predicting widespread uptake. The global authority that controls the launch of new domain names, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), is in the final stages of approval for the two. It is hoped that by linking the web addresses to the geographical location of a website, it will boost […]

DAVOS:  Dubai retailer Majid Al Futtaim, which holds the Carrefour franchise in the Middle East, plans to invest about $2.3 billion in Egypt in the next few years, its chief executive said on Wednesday, a sign of Gulf investors’ growing interest in the Egyptian economy. “Total investments on the plan, including Carrefour, should be around 16 billion Egyptian pounds over the next four to five years,” Iyad […]

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday it was possible to turn more than three decades of enmity with the United States into friendship if both sides made an effort. He was speaking in a Swiss television interview after arriving at the World Economic Forum in Davos where he will court the global business community and meet a series of oil company executives on Thursday. Asked whether […]

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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani will court global business in Davos next week after winning an easing of some economic sanctions, but any trade bonanza depends on the long-term success of nuclear diplomacy. A U.S. stranglehold on Iran’s access to the international financial system, the uncertain future of talks on its nuclear program beyond a six-month initial deal, and vested interests in the Islamic Republic suspicious of Western […]

Fund managers in the Middle East show little sign of taking money off the table as a year of strong gains for Gulf stock markets nears its end, a Reuters survey showed. Dubai’s market, rebounding from the bursting of a real estate bubble in 2008-2010, is up 80 percent so far this year, while Kuwait is up 33 percent and Saudi Arabia has gained 18 percent. While […]

President Barack Obama met with Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress on Wednesday to try to break a deadlock that has shut down wide swaths of the federal government, but there was no breakthrough. After more than an hour of talks, House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner said Obama refused to negotiate, while House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid accused Republicans of […]

Dubai International airport, which is being expanded to handle 90 million passengers a year, could be shut to boost traffic at a new super-hub under construction in the sheikdom with as much as twice that capacity. Dubai Airports won’t retain the existing base if owning two hubs hampers the take up of flights at its new Al Maktoum site, and could find “alternative purposes” for the prime […]

Fund managers in the Middle East are set to pump more money into Saudi Arabia over coming months but may withdraw some funds from Dubai because of concern its red-hot market has risen too fast, a Reuters survey showed.  The survey of 16 leading Middle East-based investment institutions, the first of its kind in the region, was conducted over the past 10 days by Trading Middle East, […]

The deadly attack on a high-end Nairobi shopping mall on Saturday put the safety of malls around the world into the spotlight and could trigger moves to improve security and make it more visible. “They’re obviously going to ramp up security,” said Malachy Kavanagh, a spokesman for the International Council of Shopping Centers, a U.S.-based trade group of mall and shopping center owners, adding that he expected […]

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Thechikkottukavu Ramachandran’s take-home salary would be the envy of many investment bankers. With his majestic ten-and-a-half-foot frame, the elegant Kerala resident is said to earn Rs 1 crore by working just seven months a year. Little wonder then that he’s a Facebook star. Except that the 48-year-old Ramachandran is a large elephant, and a wildly popular fixture in most ceremonial temple processions in the state. His […]

Airports in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) experience local disruptions – such as those that stem from fog – which, annually, affect over 200 flights and 30,000 passengers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) alone. In addition, according to Oxford Economics, disruptions from the 2010 spread of Icelandic volcanic ash over European airspace had a $253 million net impact on the aviation sector in the Middle East […]

By Asa Fitch As Dubai’s economy rebounds, the number of commercial disputes in one of its main courts appears to be waning, too. Perhaps taking a cue from rising real estate prices and an influx of tourists, lawyers say many people are trying to settle their differences and move on. The courts of the Dubai International Financial Centre, Dubai’s main financial free zone, have seen just nine […]

New figures have revealed an addiction to technology amongst UAE residents, with 71% stating that they could not live without their laptops or smartphones. Commissioned by dmg events Middle East as it gears up for the December launch of the region’s largest consumer lifestyle event – The Life & Style Show UAE – the survey provides unique insight into the attitudes of UAE residents towards all-things tech. […]

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RYO YAMADA
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