Equity index provider MSCI reclassified equities across a broad spectrum of markets on Wednesday as part of its semi-annual review, adding among others U.S. social networking company Twitter Inc to its world index. It reclassified Qatar and United Arab Emirates to emerging market from frontier-market status as expected. Qatar will have a 0.47 percent weighting in the MSCI Emerging Market index, while UAE will have 0.58 percent. […]
IZMIR, Turkey — Rescuers battled on Wednesday to reach miners trapped underground after more than 200 were killed in one of the worst mining disasters in Turkey in decades. Despite the extensive rescue operation, a senior official said hopes of finding survivors were “dimming.” More than 200 were thought to be still underground after an explosion in a power distribution unit on Tuesday set off a fire […]
With Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. filing to go public, the biggest winner won’t be founder Jack Ma or his fellow executives or even venture capital backers like Silver Lake Management LLC. It’ll be Japan’s Masayoshi Son. Fourteen years ago, Son’s SoftBank Corp. started with a $20 million bet on a then-unknown Web portal connecting Chinese manufacturers with overseas buyers. That site evolved into China’s biggest Internet shopping […]
|By TAP Staff|The Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD), owner of many of Dubai’s corporate jewels, such as the Emirates airline and the airport duty-free business, said its revenues grew 18 percent to $24.8 billion in the second half of 2013. The numbers were revealed in the prospectus released in connection with the plan to raise about $750m in its first Islamic bond issue. The latest full-year revenue […]
|Nicole Arce| Facebook is at the front and center of what could turn out to be an ugly legal battle after ZeniMax Media, parent company of Id Software, sent the social network a legal notice claiming at least part of the intellectual property rights to Rift, a virtual reality headset developed by Oculus VR. In March of this year, Facebook shook up the technology industry by announcing its […]
Low cost airline ‘flydubai’ will start its flights from Dubai to three Indian cities, including Delhi, from next month, doubling the number of its destinations in India. flydubai will start flights to Thiruvanthapuram, Kochi and Delhi from Dubai, taking the number of its services to six Indian cities, airline Chief Executive Officer Gaithal Gaith said here today. From June 1, the airline will start a four times […]
Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways on Sunday said its strategy of buying stakes in European airlines was bringing fresh competition to the region, despite close scrutiny by regulators over whether its investments comply with European ownership rules. State-owned Etihad is building up a network of minority stakes in airlines around the world as it seeks to drive traffic to its Abu Dhabi hub. “We are bringing competition in […]
SAN FRANCISCO — Trying to become even bigger — and make more money — Facebook will allow users to reveal a little less. The social network announced on Wednesday that when its 1.3 billion users log in to other websites or mobile apps through their Facebook identities, they will be able to limit what they reveal to the site or app to just their email addresses and public […]
A sense of euphoria can be felt as you walk onto the Dubai Financial Market’s (DFM) trading floor. Excited investors sit huddled at tables, eyes fixed on trading screens. Occasionally the floor erupts in applause as certain stocks shoot up to target levels. A local investor in his fifties who gives his name as Abu Hany, dressed in the traditional white robes of the Gulf, describes himself […]
Dubai-owned port operator DP World is in talks with lenders to triple the size of an existing $1 billion loan, as well as extend the lifespan and cut the interest rate, seeking to take advantage of investors’ renewed confidence in the emirate. The firm, part of state-owned conglomerate Dubai World , is aiming to raise the loan to $3 billion, four banking sources said, speaking on condition […]
|By TAP Staff| Trade in petrochemicals between Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) states is set for robust growth in the coming years led by the development of the region’s rail and transport network, predicts the Gulf Petrochemicals & Chemicals Association (GPCA), the region’s longest-standing trade association. “An integrated railway network is an important catalyst in driving increased economic integration between GCC countries as it fosters the region’s development […]
|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. […]
Zain Saudi, Saudi Arabia’s third biggest telecoms operator, will buy fixed line capacity from its competitors to expand its service offering in the kingdom and aims to break even in less than five years, it said on Wednesday. The firm, which began operations in 2008, claimed 15 percent of Saudi’s mobile subscribers at 2013-end and has struggled to break the dominance of better-resourced rivals Saudi Telecom Co […]
The U.S. government warned banks and other businesses on Friday to be on alert for hackers seeking to steal data exposed by the “Heartbleed” bug, as a German programmer took responsibility for the widespread security crisis. On a website for advising critical infrastructure operators about emerging cyber threats, the Department of Homeland Security asked organizations to report any Heartbleed-related attacks, adding that hackers were attempting to exploit […]
MasterCard , eServGlobal and BICS announced the successful closing of its joint venture HomeSend. HomeSend will provide an important link between developed and financially underserved emerging markets, particularly for foreign workers in need of an instantaneous and cost-effective solution for funds transfer. The World Bank estimates that the world’s 232 million international migrants are expect to remit over US$700 billion annually by 2016. The company will be […]
SpiceJet Ltd., the Indian budget carrier headed for its third straight annual loss, said it sees little chance of luring investment soon amid elevated debt and intensifying competition. Although the airline’s owners have injected more than 5 billion rupees ($83 million) in equity in recent quarters, that “has not been adequate” to reduce the carrier’s dependence on debt, S.L. Narayanan, the chief financial officer of SpiceJet’s parent […]
Qatar Airways Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker said he’s pursuing acquisitions after reviving an investment strategy that saw the company offered stakes in carriers including Italy’s Alitalia SpA. The second-biggest Gulf airline is “actively discussing opportunities” with other passenger carriers, Al Baker said in an interview, without specifying where talks are focused. “I would not like to pre-empt our decision,” he said. “We would rather […]
The U.S. National Security Agency has infiltrated servers in the headquarters of Chinese telecommunications and internet giant Huawei Technologies Co, obtaining sensitive information and monitoring the communications of top executives, the New York Times reported on Saturday. The newspaper said its report on the operation, code-named “Shotgiant,” was based on NSA documents provided by Edward Snowden, the former agency contractor who since last year has leaked data […]
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 […]
Google Inc has settled a landmark copyright lawsuit in which Viacom Inc accused the Internet search company of posting its programs on the YouTube video service without permission. The settlement ends seven years of litigation that drew wide attention from Hollywood, the music industry and Internet companies, and which tested the reach of a federal law designed to thwart piracy while letting people find entertainment online. “This […]
|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 […]
|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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
