Passenger traffic through Dubai International Airport, one of the world’s busiest, rose 13.1 percent from a year earlier in September to 5.4 million people, airport authorities said on Tuesday. The September clip is well down from August, when passenger numbers jumped 23.8 percent to a record 6.0 million, partly because of travel related to the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. In the first nine months of this […]
Doubts are growing over the viability of Dubai’s recently announced plan to build a new oil refinery in the emirate with China Sonangol. The region’s top financial hub last month signed a memorandum of understanding with China Sonangol International, a joint venture between Angola’s state-owned oil company, Sonangol and Hong Kong-based New Bright International Development, to build what will be its second oil refinery. The hope is […]
Tehran’s municipality has torn down billboards in the Iranian capital depicting the U.S. government as dishonest and an untrustworthy negotiator, saying the campaign was “unauthorized,” the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported. A cultural institute installed the posters without seeking consent from the municipality’s cultural council, IRNA cited Hadi Ayazi, a municipal spokesman, as saying yesterday. Ayazi didn’t say who was responsible. Billboards in Farsi and English […]
The UAE financial adviser study, conducted by the Durable Portfolio Construction Research Centre of Natixis Global Asset Management (NGAM), one of the 15 largest asset managers in the world based on assets under management, concludes that the UAE is one of the strongest markets for advisers globally, with great potential for further growth if current challenges are successfully overcome. Forty per cent of UAE advisers say their […]
Emirates NBD, Dubai’s biggest bank, raised its estimates for economic growth in the United Arab Emirates this year to 4.4 percent, aided by an increase in oil output. The forecast was raised from 3.8 percent, putting the second-biggest Arab economy on track for a higher growth rate than Saudi Arabia for the first time in at least four years, according to the bank’s quarterly economic report released […]
Mehmood Patel still wakes up early, just as he did when he was a popular heart specialist seeing patients who waited hours for minutes of his time. Instead of surgical scrubs, he climbs into the khaki drabs of the Federal Correctional Complex in Oakdale, Louisiana. He leads health-conscious inmates on a morning walk, then cracks open one of the medical journals on his prison-approved reading list. Counseling […]
Hong Kong restaurant owner Hudson Chang says he can’t lower the bar much further for hiring staff. He warns his employees repeatedly about sending messages on their iPhones during work hours. He pleads with them to be more pleasant to customers. Still, he can’t afford to fire anyone: He can’t be sure of finding a replacement. “We don’t really have much choice,” said Chang, 39, owner of […]
Fosun International Ltd., a Chinese conglomerate that invests in everything from steel to pharmaceuticals to Club Med, has agreed to buy the office tower at 1 Chase Manhattan Plaza from JPMorgan Chase & Co. for a whopping $750 million. This isn’t an isolated incident. Zhang Xin, a billionaire property developer who grew rich building Beijing’s central business district, recently bought about 20 percent of the General Motors […]
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is facing attacks from the opposition for being too soft in trade and border disputes with China ahead of a visit to the world’s second-biggest economy that comes months before a general election. Narendra Modi, the prime ministerial candidate for the main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, told an audience four days ago that Singh’s weakness had encouraged China’s army to encroach on […]
An international meeting in Paris next month may trigger billions of dollars of fresh investment in Dubai – and, if plans are not handled carefully, contribute to the kind of boom-and-bust cycle which nearly bankrupted the emirate four years ago. Dubai is competing with Izmir in Turkey, Sao Paulo in Brazil and Yekaterinburg in Russia for the right to host the 2020 World Expo. A vote of […]
Investors are becoming more discerning about where they put their money, shying away from countries such as Brazil, India (SENSEX), Indonesia, Turkey and South Africa. Behind the discrimination is a new-found focus on current-account deficits and structural weaknesses exposed by the likelihood of less stimulus from the Federal Reserve and cooling demand in China, according to economists from HSBC Holdings Plc, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and International […]
Hosting World Expo 2020, which requires $7 billion in capital spending, will put relatively little financial pressure on Dubai’s government, EFG-Hermes said. Wael Ziada, head of research at EFG-Hermes, said Dubai’s budgeted $7 billion in capital spending for the Expo bid includes $1.4 billion for a metro extension, most of which is likely to be spent towards the end of the decade. In a research report, Ziada argued […]
Dahabshiil Holdings Ltd., a Somali company that provides access for overseas citizens to send money there, asked a U.K. court to stop Barclays Plc (BARC) from closing its bank account. The bank gave a “dearth of detail” on its decision, Alan Maclean, a lawyer for Dahabshiil, said at a hearing in London today. The bank’s dominant position in the market for remittances means it will breach competition law if it closes […]
Dubai held first place worldwide as the most attractive destination, getting 13 out of 15 points, according to a recent survey on global tourist destinations. London also got the same ranking. The survey, which was conducted by Britain’s Dealchecker Blog and saw the participation of 1.2 million respondents, was based on a range of basic standards for determining the points and rank of each city. These include […]
Dubai International Financial Centre is relying on economic growth prospects in Africa and South Asia as it adds buildings with a value of 15 billion dirhams ($4.1 billion) over a decade. DIFC, whose clients include global banks such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), is seeing a surge in demand from Asian companies and from clients who are using Dubai as a platform to expand into Africa, […]
Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL), owner of the world’s biggest refinery complex, reported the slowest profit growth in four quarters after refining margins declined. Net income rose 1.5 percent to 54.9 billion rupees ($894 million), or 17 rupees a share, in the three months ended Sept. 30, from 54.1 billion rupees, or 16.70 rupees, a year earlier, according to a stock exchange filing yesterday. That beat the 54.2 […]
The United States held out the prospect of quick sanctions relief for Iran on Monday if Tehran moves swiftly to allay concerns about its nuclear program, although both countries said any deal would be complex and take time. Six world powers – the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany – are to hold talks with Iran on its nuclear program in Geneva on Tuesday and […]
Dubai’s Union Properties is planning to replicate the model of Shanzelize Street in Paris (Champs Elysées in French) in its MotorCity master development, Emirates 24/7 can reveal. “We have plans to build a similar project like the Champs Elysées Street in our MotorCity project. The street will have cafes, retail, residential with a waterfront view… we will be working on it in coming years,” said Ahmad Khalaf […]
International Finance Corp., the World Bank’s investment arm, plans to sell a record $1 billion of rupee bonds offshore to fund its investments as India struggles to lure capital amid the slowest growth in a decade. The bond sale aims to “attract greater foreign investment in a time of renewed economic uncertainty across the world,” the Washington-based IFC said in a statement yesterday. The so-called synthetic debt […]
A stampede by competing apartment buyers in Dubai this week may have obscured signs that Dubai’s latest real estate boom is more restrained than the last one, which pushed the government close to default. Dubai’s property spree in the middle of the last decade was built precariously on bank loans, spelling disaster for indebted developers when prices eventually crashed. The crisis shook financial markets around the world. […]
A call for the United Arab Emirates to consider allowing expatriates to apply for citizenship has sparked a debate about national identity in the Gulf Arab state, where foreigners outnumber the local population by more than five to one. Sultan Sooud al-Qassemi, a member of one of the UAE’s ruling families, is one of the federation’s pre-eminent commentators and also one of the most well-known Twitter users […]
Kuwait’s new finance minister has issued a stinging criticism of the country’s bloated administration and bureaucratic red tape, saying the economy cannot continue growing robustly in the long term if they are not reformed. The comments by Sheikh Salem Abdulaziz al-Sabah, carried by state news agency KUNA on Monday, were his first extensive public policy statement since he took his job in August. Sheikh Salem left the […]
A Dubai government-owned firm will refund $24.3 million to a property developer after a land deal turned sour, in a case at a special tribunal set up to settle claims against Dubai World that could help restore investor confidence in the emirate. Nakheel World, part of government-owned Dubai World and separate to Nakheel – builder of Dubai’s palm islands – will repay the money to Saudi-owned Al […]
Family-owned Dubai conglomerate Al Habtoor Group said on Monday that it was launching a $3 billion real estate development in the emirate that would include 3,000 hotel and residential units as well as a water-themed theatre. The group, whose operations span the hospitality, construction, education and automotive sectors, said it expected about 20,000 people would visit Al Habtoor City every day. Chairman Khalaf Al Habtoor told reporters […]
