DUBAI / WAM Saudi Arabia’s debut US Dollar-denominated Islamic bond has attracted more than US$25 billion of investor orders so far, according to Bloomberg. The fall in global oil prices has prompted the kingdom to prepare what may be the world’s largest initial public offering of state-owned oil company, Saudi Arabian Oil Co, Aramco. The company last week sold ...

  Abu Dhabi / WAM Arab economies are projected to grow by 2.3 percent in 2017 as a result of the decline in growth rate of the Arab oil-exporting countries to 1.8 percent. This is due to the decline of oil production reflecting the commitment of these countries to the OPEC agreement to adjust production quantities to balance the world oil ...

  Abu Dhabi / WAM In his capacity as Chairman of the Executive Council of Abu Dhabi, His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, issued a resolution restructuring the Abu Dhabi Media Company’s board of directors under the chairmanship of Noura Mohammed Al Kaabi. The resolution ...

  Abu Dhabi / WAM Mashreq, a UAE-based bank, posted a three percent increase in the year 2017’s first quarter net profits, with earning per share reaching AED3.08 as of March 2017. The bank in a statement attributed the increase in net profits to AED 546 to a 15% decrease in impairment allowance, a 3.6 percent year-on-year decline in net interest ...

  Dubai / WAM The existing economic cooperation levels between UAE and Azerbaijan do not reflect the true potential boasted by the two countries, according to Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansouri, UAE Minister of Economy. The minister’s statements came in the run up to the 6th meeting of the UAE-Azerbaijan Joint Commission on Economic, Commercial and Technical Collaboration to be held ...

  Abu Dhabi / WAM Al Qudra Real Estate, the real estate investment arm of Al Qudra Holding, announced its participation at Cityscape Abu Dhabi 2017. The exhibition will be held under the patronage of HH Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, at ADNEC from April, 18-20. It will ...

  Abu Dhabi / WAM The Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan Humanitarian Foundation (KF) is to organise a mass wedding of 888 brides and bridegrooms in Bahrain for the 6th year in a row. The group wedding will be organised in implementation of the directives of President HH Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan and HH Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al ...

  Bloomberg President Vladimir Putin began talks with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at the Kremlin after pushing back against demands that Russia abandon Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad over a chemical-weapons attack. Putin is meeting with Tillerson and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the Kremlin after the two top diplomats held talks on Wednesday in Moscow, presidential spokesman ...

  Bloomberg US President Donald Trump is finding little support among his Asian allies — both publicly and behind the scenes — as he weighs a military attack on North Korea after unilaterally firing missiles on Syria. Any attack on Kim Jong Un’s regime — even a limited strike on weapons facilities — risks catastrophic blowback on some of Asia’s ...

  WARSAW / AP Foreign ministers from Central and Eastern Europe met on Wednesday in Warsaw to discuss the future of the European Union’s ties with its eastern neighbors and prospects for the bloc’s enlargement. The meeting brought together ministers from the EU’s so-called Visegrad Group — Poland, Hungary, The Czech Republic and Slovakia — and six other nations aspiring ...