ABU DHABI / Emirates Business The Ministry of State for Federal National Council Affairs (MFNCA) has passed the audit process for renewing three International Standardisation Organisation (ISO) Certificates for Integrated Management Systems this week. The audit was conducted remotely using videoconferencing techniques and remote auditing, in line with the precautionary measures enacted in the UAE to ensure public health. The ...

Bloomberg Indonesians have been asked to cancel various gatherings that have been a common tradition during the Ramadan festive season as the number of daily coronavirus cases spiked by the most since the country reported its first case. The world’s fourth most populous nation reported 407 new infections on April 17, taking the total confirmed case count close to 6,000, ...

Bloomberg The coronavirus pushed China’s economy into its first contraction in decades in the first quarter, with the spread of the disease around the world now leaving the nation reliant on fragile local demand to spur a recovery. Gross domestic product shrank 6.8% from a year ago, the worst performance since at least 1992 when official releases of quarterly GDP ...

Bloomberg Quest Ventures, a Singapore venture capital firm, said it completed the first close of a planned $50 million fund. Quest, founded by James Tan, raised the money from investors including Pavilion Capital of Singapore and QazTech Ventures of Kazakhstan. It’s the firm’s second venture fund and its first time tapping institutional investors, after Tan financed the first fund with ...

Bloomberg Coronavirus cases in Singapore soared past the 5,000 mark as authorities detected more infections among foreign workers. Authorities said an additional 623 cases were confirmed on April 17 , bringing the total to 5,050 in the country, according to the health ministry’s statement. The majority of the cases are tied to facilities that house low-wage migrant workers in close ...

Bloomberg Wind turbine makers are finding it increasingly difficult to get parts they need to build their machines, snarling progress on a global shift toward renewables at precisely the time scientists say it needs to speed up. Manufacturers including Vestas Wind Systems A/S and Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy SA are wrestling with their own factory shutdowns and disruptions to suppliers ...

Bloomberg Crude prices in America’s oil capital are getting dangerously close to zero. Buyers bidding for crude in Texas, the birthplace of the shale revolution, are offering as little as $2 a barrel for some oil streams, a precipitous markdown from a month ago. The slumping value of physical barrels is raising the possibility that Texas producers may soon have ...

Bloomberg TC Energy Corp’s Keystone XL oil-sands pipeline was a dealt a setback with a judge’s ruling that the US Army Corps of Engineers improperly approved a streamlined permit process without fully evaluating the impact on endangered species. In a legal challenge brought by environmental groups, a federal judge in Montana ordered the agency to conduct further review and barred ...

Bloomberg Chinese refiners are snapping up low-price oil from all over the world as Asia’s largest economy emerges from a virus-driven slump. Varieties such as Alaska North Slope, Canada’s Cold Lake and Brazil’s Lula have been offered at steep discounts to global benchmark prices as sellers scrambled to secure buyers. Processors in China — where throughput is back to pre-virus ...

Bloomberg Austria became the second European country to eliminate coal power from its electricity grid and said it’s looking towards renewable energy to fuel future economic growth. Verbund AG closed its Mellach coal-fired district heating plant about 200 kilometres (124 miles) south of Vienna, the state-controlled utility said. Austria’s Environment and Infrastructure Ministry said eliminating coal will strengthen the country’s ...