Passenger flows through Dubai’s main airport, the world’s second busiest for international traffic, jumped 15.2 percent in 2013 thanks to expansion of its route network and the use of wide-body planes, airport authorities said on Wednesday. Passenger traffic last year totalled a record 66.4 million people. In December, more than 6 million passengers passed though the airport for the first time, an increase of 13.6 percent from […]
For a bellwether, Emaar Properties — builder of the world’s tallest tower — has done quite well for itself in the past year: reflecting Dubai’s meteoric real estate sector recovery with a 104% gain in 2013 that underpinned the stock market’s stellar performance. On Tuesday, Emaar’s stock rallied another 6.3% to 8.24 dirhams ($2.25) – its highest closing level since early September 2008, when Dubai’s much celebrated […]
The executive suite is not the only place that is greying in India’s 40-year-old information technology sector. As the $108 billion industry enters middle age and its growth slows, the three-million-strong workforce is also getting older, making it harder to extract some of the cost advantages of the young, cheap labour for which it is known. Firms have had to change in order to attract and support […]
Asian markets rallied on Wednesday after Turkey stunned investors with a huge hike in interest rates, stirring hopes drastic action would short-circuit a vicious cycle of selling in emerging markets and revive risk appetite. European shares were expected to ride the wave of optimism, with financial spreadbetters predicting Britain’s FTSE 100 to open 43-48 points higher, or up by as much as 0.7 percent; Germany’s DAX was […]
Gold’s biggest slump in three decades has been a boon for MKS (Switzerland) SA’s PAMP refinery near the Italian border in Castel San Pietro, whose bullion sales to China surged to a record as demand rose for coins, bars and jewelry. As prices plunged 28 percent in 2013, investors dumped a record 869.1 metric tons from gold-backed funds traded mostly in the U.S. and Europe. Much of […]
Lower-than-expected holiday iPhone sales and a weak revenue forecast by Apple Inc renewed fears about Chinese demand and a tepid global market, wiping 8 percent off company stock. This year was to have been Apple Inc’s watershed moment in China, when a long-awaited deal with the nation’s largest carrier was to have propelled it back toward the top ranks of its most crucial market, clawing back ground […]
The Reserve Bank of India unexpectedly raised its policy interest rate on Tuesday by 25 basis points but said that if consumer price inflation eases as projected it does not foresee further near-term tightening. The policy decision was driven by an expectation that consumer price index (CPI) inflation will remain high, an indication that the RBI is looking to adopt a recent proposal to base its policy […]
The head of Dubai’s Chamber of Commerce strongly disagrees with the estimate of how many jobs the city’s 2020 Expo win will bring to the emirate – he thinks it will be way more. Analysts have calculated that Dubai’s world fair triumph will create 277,000 jobs, about 14 per cent of the current population of Dubai. But not only does Hamad Buamim reckon the figure is feasible, […]
Emirates NBD, Dubai’s largest lender, missed analysts’ forecasts despite an 8 percent rise in fourth-quarter net profit as a surge in the amount set aside by the lender to meet loan losses offset increased net interest income. The lender, 55.6-percent owned by state fund Investment Corp of Dubai, made a net profit of 673 million dirhams ($183.2 million) in the three months to Dec. 31, a statement […]
Asian shares tumbled and the yen reached for seven-week highs against the dollar and euro on Monday as emerging markets remained under pressure, with the U.S. Federal Reserve poised to continue tapering stimulus and tighter credit conditions in China raising fears of a sharper economic slowdown. But U.S. stock futures suggested the selloff might abate later in the session. S&P 500 E-mini futures edged up 0.2 percent […]
Barrick Gold Corp’s warning this week that its in-the-ground gold reserves will shrink is widely expected to be echoed in the coming weeks by miners around the globe, spelling more asset writedowns for an already beat-up sector. For the first time in years, miners from Canada to Australia will tell their shareholders that reserves – the future source of production, cash flow and growth – have significantly […]
A third of voters want Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi to be their next prime minister, placing him well ahead of his rivals in general elections due by May, according to the latest in a series of opinion polls that show rising support for the opposition candidate. The survey, conducted by pollsters CSDS for the CNN-IBN television channel, also forecast that Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would win […]
The impact of Saudi Arabia’s crackdown on illegal foreign workers is spreading through its economy, moving beyond the labour-intensive construction industry to sectors as far afield as banking and telecommunications. Nearly 1 million foreign workers, out of a total of roughly 9 million, are estimated to have left Saudi Arabia between last March and November, as authorities enforce work permit rules and corporate quotas for employment of […]
The Reserve Bank of India should make managing inflation its main policy objective and set monetary policy by committee, a central bank panel has recommended, a shift that would bring its practices in line with many other central banks. The recommendations are widely expected to be accepted. They were issued late on Tuesday by the panel set up by RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, which also recommended using […]
Dubai has initiated a series of bold new measures and incentives including fee waivers and reduced approval timeline for three and four star hotel projects to further stimulate the growth of its vibrant hospitality sector. His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE, in his capacity as the Ruler of Dubai, on Monday pronounced a string of directives to this […]
Saudi Arabia helped lift the market to a new five-year high on Wednesday, while other regional shares also gained. Saudi Arabia’s Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) rose 2.9 percent to 88.5 riyals and trading volumes jumped to their highest in three years after the firm beat analysts’ forecasts with an 8.6 percent rise in fourth-quarter net profit. The stock jumped to a seven-year intraday high of 90 riyals but […]
|By Parag Deulgaonkar| A wider economic upturn and rapid population growth will lead to a shortage of residential units in Dubai, believes a market participant. “I see a serious shortage… the government is diversifying into tourism-related projects. Schools, universities, theme parks and shopping centres are coming up and so many people will be employed and they all will require accommodation,” Samir Munshi, Managing Director, Orion Holdings, told […]
Major Dubai-based builder Arabtec Holding said on Tuesday that one of its units had been awarded a 2.59 billion dirham ($705 million) construction contract on Abu Dhabi’s Al Reem Island. The project will house a five-star hotel and a residential tower, and will be built within three years, it said in a bourse statement, adding that the deal had pushed its contract backlog to a record high […]
Volkswagen AG outsold General Motors Co. in China for the first time in nine years to recapture the lead among foreign automakers in the world’s largest car market. VW’s 2013 deliveries in the country climbed to at least 3.27 million vehicles, according to figures released this week by the German automaker’s VW, Porsche, Audi and Skoda brands. Detroit-based GM also said this week that the U.S. automaker […]
Contract chipmaker GlobalFoundries Inc has appointed former Motorola Mobility chief Sanjay Jha as CEO, as it prepares to invest $9 billion to $10 billion over the next two years on next-generation semiconductor manufacturing. Jha, an industry veteran who presided over Motorola’s sale to Google Inc, replaces Ajit Manocha, who was appointed CEO in mid-2011 but now reverts to serving as an adviser to Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology […]
Asian shares fell to a near four-month low on Tuesday, though the dollar rebounded after overnight weakness on disappointing U.S. services sector data that raised concerns about stuttering growth in the world’s largest economy. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan eased 0.3 percent, heading for a fifth straight day of losses. Japan’s Nikkei index shed 0.6 percent, adding to a 2.4 percent slide on Monday, […]
If the medicine tastes bad, it’s probably doing you good. Emerging economies might console themselves with that thought when they’re suffering market cramps and hemorrhaging capital as the U.S. ends its monetary stimulus. The Federal Reserve will begin winding down, or tapering, its $85 billion-a-month money-printing program this month, and emerging markets are seeing foreign investment pull back as a result. Last year, around $30 billion fled […]
Dubai developer Nakheel plans to repay up to 4 billion dirhams ($1.1 billion) of bank debt due in 2015 this year, with around 2.35 billion dirhams earmarked for payment in the first quarter of this year, its chairman said on Saturday. Nakheel was taken over by the government as part of a $16 billion rescue plan completed in 2011, following the bursting of a real estate bubble […]
India’s diversified equity mutual funds rose in 2013 but underperformed the broader markets for the first time in five years, as returns were dampened by the losses in the mid- and small-cap shares as well as financial companies. These funds gained 4.8 percent on average in 2013, according to data from fund tracker Lipper, delivering lesser annual returns than the benchmark BSE Sensex after 2008. The Sensex […]
