SINGAPORE: India’s state-owned Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd aims to double its refining margins once it completes the expansion and upgrade of its Kochi refinery in southern India to process high sulphur crudes by 2016, a senior company official said. The refiner’s margins dropped to $3 a barrel this year, from $4.50 to $5 a barrel last year, but levels will increase by a about $3 to […]
By Anjan Roy It began with a bang and appears to be ending with a whimper. The huge noise about cash stashed away in Swiss banks by Indians, hoodwinking the tax authorities had kept the media and the common man salivating. There was this utter glee about knowing the names of those –presumably high and mighty—who might have salted away the nation’s money. We were seeing the […]
NEW DELHI: The government has relaxed the norms for allowing foreign direct investment (FDI) in the construction development sector. It is expected the move will boost affordable housing projects and smart cities across the country. At a Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday, the minimum built-up area required to attract FDI was reduced from 50,000 sq m to 20,000 sq m, while […]
Mumbai: Credit in the banking system slipped marginally despite the festive season. Data from the Reserve Bank of India suggests that in the period between October 3 and 17, bank credit slipped 0.7 per cent. However, in the past one year, credit growth was up 11 per cent. In the period ended October 17, it was Rs 62,20,004 crore, up from Rs 55,97,985 crore a year before. […]
ERP platform….improve company’s overall performance Qapco teams with IBM and SAP to drive growth DOHA, 21 hours, 20 minutes ago Qatar Petrochemical Company (Qapco), a leading petrochemical powerhouse in the region and a pioneer in petrochemical production, has teamed up with IBM and SAP for the development and implementation of an innovative enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform that will improve the company’s overall performance. Dr Mohammed Yousef […]
Iran’s revenue from crude sales, the OPEC member nation’s most important export, dropped 30 percent because of the recent drop in global oil prices, according to President Hassan Rouhani. “International conditions are such that the country’s main source of income, i.e. oil revenues, has been cut by some 30 percent,” Rouhani said in remarks to the nation’s parliament that were published today by the Oil Ministry’s news […]
The Federal Reserve said it sees further improvement in the labor market while confirming it will end an asset-purchase program that has added $1.66 trillion to its balance sheet. “Labor market conditions improved somewhat further, with solid job gains and a lower unemployment rate,” the Federal Open Market Committee said today in a statement in Washington. “A range of labor market indicators suggests that underutilization of labor […]
Abu Dhabi’s new financial free zone said it has hired a veteran executive from Singapore to head its regulatory body, its second senior appointment this year and a step towards opening the zone for business as soon as next year. Richard Teng, most recently chief regulatory officer at the Singapore Exchange, will be chief executive of the regulator at the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), overseeing the […]
Alongside the Dubai Mall, one of the world’s largest shopping centers, sits an ersatz version of what would be an authentic retail experience in most Persian Gulf cities: an Arab souk. If, in the evening, you stroll through this air-conditioned, hassle- and haggle-free caricature of a market, staffed mostly by smiling South Asians, you can amble out onto the shores of man-made Burj Khalifa Lake, named after […]
Rashid bin Ali Al-Mansoori Qatar SE chief named board member of WFE SEOUL, 10 hours, 0 minutes ago Rashid bin Ali Al-Mansoori, CEO of Qatar Stock Exchange, has been elected as a board member of the World Federation of Exchanges (WFE) during the 2014 annual meetings held in Seoul. The meetings also resulted in the election of a new board chairman, vice chairman, chairman of the Working […]
Al Gergawi … Islamic economy aims at developmentof societies Cross-border partnerships crucial to Islamic economy growth DUBAI, 10 hours, 0 minutes ago The growth of the Islamic economy has the ability to unlock economic opportunities and improve socio-economic stability through cross border partnerships, the opening ceremony of the 10th World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF) stated. The opening session was graced by HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al […]
By G. Srinivasan The Modi Government is overly obsessed head over heels with economic reforms so much so that even before the results of the Maharashtra and Haryana Assembly elections were out, it announced the decontrol of diesel price and a higher price for natural gas. These are the boldest reform strokes the stakeholders had been crying for that hold out the desirably salutary and intended impact […]
New Delhi: In a bid to take advantage of the bullish stock market sentiment, the finance ministry has kicked off the exercise to cut government stake in public sector banks to 51% and enable them to raise fresh capital to meet their growth requirements. Sources told TOI that the ministry has moved a cabinet note as the government is keen that banks are well capitalized to meet […]
NEW DELHI: Private-sector power plants with a combined capacity of over 1 lakh MW, including plants of 36,500 MW that have been deprived of their captive coal blocks thanks to a recent Supreme Court verdict will get “firm coal linkage” if the Cabinet approves a plan put forth by the power ministry. Pooling of domestic (Coal India) and imported coal will be done to ensure these […]
NEW DELHI: ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas arm of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp, on Tuesday signed an agreement to pick an up to 50 per cent stake in PetroVietnam’s two exploration blocks in the South China Sea. OVL will take a 40 per cent stake in Block 102/10 and 50 per cent in 106/10 that lie outside the sea territory claimed by China. PetroVietnam, […]
Mumbai: In the first big boost to the government’s “Make in India” initiative, aimed at making India a manufacturing hub, Airbus Defence and Space and Tata Advanced Systems (TASL) on Tuesday announced a joint bid for a government contract to supply military aircraft for the Indian Air Force (IAF). The IAF is looking to replace its fleet of Avro aircraft and the joint venture will supply Airbus’ […]
Global SWFs: Assets under Management (USD billion), 2014 GeoEconomica The sovereign wealth funds of the energy-rich Arab Gulf are some of the world’s largest pools of capital, collectively holding more than $1 trillion of assets. But their strategies, returns and approaches to risk aren’t often disclosed, something political risk consultancy GeoEconomica singles them out for in a new report. Gulf funds lag global peers in compliance with […]
AP It’s not just Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. that got it wrong. Energy consultants and even the U.S. government didn’t foresee the sharp slide in oil prices, which have tumbled 25% since June. Goldman shocked the market yesterday with a call for U.S. prices to fall to $70 a barrel in the second quarter of 2015. Barclays just released its second price update in […]
Look at computer models for the Venice-like Arabian Canal proposed for central Dubai, or the plans for the world’s biggest shopping mall, and it seems as if the collapse of the United Arab Emirates real estate market six years ago never happened. Citibank estimated earlier this year that there were already two thirds of a trillion dollars worth of construction projects underway in the UAE. That was […]
Storage giant EMC is making bold moves in the hybrid cloud market, acquiring three companies in the space and announcing that it has “redefined” the hybrid cloud for the enterprise with the roll out of the Enterprise Hybrid Cloud Solution. First, the acquisitions. EMC grabbed The Cloudscaling Group, Maginatics, and Spanning Cloud Apps for undisclosed amounts. The company said these acquisitions help forward its hybrid cloud vision […]
By Subrata Majumder There were two intent of Prime Minister Modi’s labour reforms. One, it was to protect the lower category of workers who are deprived of their social security after changing the jobs. Second, it was to encourage the entrepreneurs to set up factories by letting them free from factory Inspector Raj. Huge amount of Provident Fund is lying unclaimed because of complex bureaucratic procedures. […]
Shares of Indian companies with key markets in Europe such as Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Bharat Forge, Motherson Sumi and Crompton Greaves have crashed by as much as 19% since mid-September on concerns their earnings may get adversely affected by the slowdown in the region. However, analysts say investors should buy some of these stocks. “We are positive on companies such as Tata Motors, Bharat Forge […]
New Delhi: The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government on Monday scrapped the selection of six chiefs of public sector banks, recommended under the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) regime, following a high-level panel finding irregularities in the process followed. The probe into selections for banks such as Bank of Baroda and Canara Bank followed the arrest of tainted Syndicate Bank Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) S K Jain […]
IMF Middle East director Masood Ahmed says risks associated with Dubai’s property market have decreased, in part due to steps taken by local authorities to stamp out speculation. Reuters A recent surge in Dubai real estate prices has become less of a worry for the International Monetary Fund, its Middle East director said Monday, reversing his earlier calls for additional reforms to prevent another market bubble. An […]
