Sharjah / WAM The Higher Committee of National Day Celebrations in Sharjah is organising a special ceremony to celebrate the UAE’s Flag Day on November 2. The ceremony is expected to be the biggest national gathering to celebrate the day in Sharjah, and will take place on Flag Island in the emirate with the theme, ‘The UAE of Giving and ...

Dubai / Reuters All six countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council remain committed to introducing value-added tax, though they will do so at different speeds, a senior International Monetary Fund official said. “My feeling, through my interaction with the authorities, is that they are still committed and they are still preparing implementation,” Jihad Azour, head of the IMF’s Middle East ...

Dubai / Reuters Middle East fund managers have become more cautious about investing in regional bonds while ambitious economic development plans in Saudi Arabia have increased interest in equities there, a monthly Reuters poll shows. Twenty-three percent of regional funds expect to reduce their allocations to fixed income in the next three months while 8 percent expect to increase them, ...

Reuters Oil will likely rally into 2018 with periods of volatility as an anticipated extension of OPEC-led output restrictions offsets higher US production, a Reuters poll showed on Tuesday. Analysts raised their crude price projections, the survey showed, as expectations of an output cut extension were buoyed by comments from officials in Saudi Arabia, the de facto leader of the ...

Reuters Exxon Mobil has pulled out of a major project in Pakistan, in a potential blow to plans to boost imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) after years of winter shortages. Differences among the six-member group behind the project in Port Qasim in Karachi mean French oil major Total and Japan’s Mitsubishi may also quit and join a rival scheme, ...

Riyadh / Emirates Business With retail sales continuing to increase, this could be the first sector to recover in Riyadh real estate market, highlights JLL’s Q3 market overview report. As the government launched the $2.6 billion entertainment company in September, Shoppertainment remains a key concept in the retail industry among entertainment, leisure and F&B tenants. The growing participation by women ...

Bloomberg Samsung Electronics Co. has cleaned out its most senior executives just hours after posting record profit and doubling investor payouts. Lee Sang-hoon has been nominated as the next board chairman while all three co-chief executive officers were replaced in a massive shakeup of the top ranks. The announcement came after Samsung topped profit estimates and said it would boost ...

Bloomberg Megvii Inc., a Chinese developer of facial-recognition technology, has raised about $460 million from investors including billionaire Jack Ma’s Ant Financial and one of China’s largest state-backed venture funds, according to a person familiar with the matter. The Beijing-based company, also known as Face++, has attracted several other investors including the Russia-China Investment Fund, a venture backed by sovereign ...

Bloomberg Tata Steel Ltd.’s India head TV Narendran has been appointed global chief executive officer and managing director as the steelmaker returns to profitability, and sets about implementing an agreement with Thyssenkrupp AG to combine European steel businesses. Narendran has helmed the Indian and South East Asian operations since November 2013, the company said in a filing. It also reappointed ...

­­­­­­­­­­­Bloomberg SoftBank Group Corp.’s talks to merge US unit Sprint Corp. with T-Mobile US Inc. have hit a serious snag, according to people familiar with the matter, throwing the deal into jeopardy after months of talks. In the past three days, the companies have been unable to get past differences over valuation, according to a person close to T-Mobile parent ...