Bloomberg South African Airways’ (SAA) administrators will be asked to suspend a legal process to dismiss the airline’s entire workforce, a labor union said. Unions with members at the state-owned airline met with South Africa’s public enterprises, labour and tourism ministers in a video conference today after the administrators said they would start talks on retrenchments after the government cut ...

Bloomberg Australian retail sales soared by the most on record in March as households embarked on a buying frenzy, led by massive purchases of toilet paper, ahead of an expected lockdown to contain the coronavirus. Preliminary sales advanced 8.2% last month, exceeding the previous record of 8.1% ahead of the introduction of a consumption tax in 2000, the Australian Bureau ...

Abu Dhabi / WAM Abu Dhabi’s Hub71, the tech ecosystem powered by Mubadala, has been selected by the top US data residency hosting platform, InCountry, to be the home of its Middle East headquarters. This new development marks a strategic move to capitalise on the UAE’s growing cloud market, which Gartner predicts is set to increase by 21 percent year ...

Bloomberg The Kremlin put on a brave face as prices for Russia’s benchmark crude closed in on levels last seen in a devastating 1998 financial crisis. “The pandemonium with futures is absolutely speculative, just a trading issue,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday, referring to negative prices on some US futures contracts. “There’s no need to give this ...

Dubai / Emirates Business Emirates is stepping up precautionary measures at the airport and on board to ensure the health and safety of its employees and customers. All cabin crew, boarding agents and ground staff in direct contact with passengers will now don personal protective equipment (PPE) which includes a protective disposable gown over their uniforms, and a safety visor, ...

Bloomberg Indonesia is hiring tankers to store refined fuels at sea as it seeks to take advantage of plunging prices of oil products such as gasoline and diesel. State-owned PT Pertamina has provisionally chartered at least three long-range tankers to store clean fuels, said people with knowledge of the matter. The move comes as Indonesia, one of Asia’s biggest refined ...

Bloomberg Sasol Ltd’s shares, down more than 80% in 2020, are trading as if the market expects years of bad news around oil and that the South African fuel and chemicals giant will struggle to escape its balance sheet constraints. Old Mutual Investment Group doesn’t share that pessimism, said Meryl Pick, a money manager who helps oversee the firm’s 10 ...

Bloomberg Germany’s solar panels produced record amounts of electricity, exacerbating market forces that were already hammering the profitability of the country’s remaining coal plants. Gin-clear skies over central Europe helped photovoltaic plants produce 32,227 megawatts on April 20, beating the previous record on March 23. Bright conditions are expected to continue this week, according to Germany’s DWD federal weather service. ...

Bloomberg The oil and gas industry shed nearly 51,000 drilling and refining jobs in March, a 9% reduction that is likely to get worse as futures prices fell into negative territory Monday. March’s job losses rose by 15,000 when ancillary jobs such as construction, manufacturing of drilling equipment and shipping are included, according to BW Research Partnership, a research consultancy, ...

Bloomberg Clean energy is gaining a greater share of India’s energy mix, a silver lining amid the country’s prolonged virus lockdown that has cut power demand by about a quarter. Electricity generated from renewable sources, nuclear and hydropower made up 27% of India’s total generation as of April 15, data from grid operator National Load Despatch Centre show. That’s up ...