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Bloomberg Nearly three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germany is moving to eliminate the so-called solidarity tax that helped finance reunification. The 5.5% tax that was levied on all but low-income earners is to be abolished from 2021 for 90% of those currently paying it, Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said in Berlin. In 2018 the levy generated ...

Bloomberg Serbia will invest billions of euros in new homes, energy, transportation and digital infrastructure, President Aleksandar Vucic said on Sunday, as the government seeks to boost economic growth prospects. “We are in position to easily ensure at least 10 or even 12 billion euros ($13.4 billion) of funding for new investments,” the president said at a news conference in ...

Bloomberg When two UK power plants shut down almost simultaneously in London’s first major blackout for a decade, it triggered a storm of questions about how to avoid another failure. As National Grid Plc, the regulator Ofgem and plant operators investigate what happened, last week’s failure underlined the need to bolster an electricity grid increasingly fed by intermittent flows from ...

ABU DHABI / WAM The Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) on Wednesday announced a strategic investment in global storage terminal owner and operator VTTI BV (VTTI). As part of this agreement, Adnoc will acquire a 10 percent equity stake in VTTI. Following the transaction, VTTI will be owned 10 percent by Adnoc, 45 percent by IFM Global Infrastructure Fund ...

DUBAI / WAM The Chairman of Ajman Free Zone, Sheikh Ahmed Bin Humaid Al Nuaimi has met with Tielan Peng, Chairman of Hunan Group and Gulf Chinese Trading Corporation to discuss further strengthening trade opportunities between the two organisations. The Gulf Chinese Trading Corporation is a committed investor in Ajman and is the entity behind the China Mall which was ...

Dubai / Emirates Business Adding retail units to its portfolio, Azizi Developments, one of the leading private developers in the UAE, launched the sale of 329 retail units across all of its Dubai developments. Through Azizi Retail, Azizi Developments’ division for outlets, the retail spaces are embedded into its master-planned communities and residential towers, adding leisure, shopping and eatery amenities ...

Dubai / WAM The Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Central Bank of Egypt to enhance the relationship and cooperation between both institutions and facilitate the performance of their respective supervisory tasks. Under the new agreement, the two sides will also work to promote the safety and soundness of banks in their respective ...

Bloomberg Masayoshi Son can’t wait to wash his hands of Sprint Corp. SoftBank Group Corp. will stop consolidating the US carrier in its results starting next earnings report, anticipating a successful merger with T-Mobile USA Inc. despite questions over the deal’s eventual closing. That accounting change will slash SoftBank’s debt load and help it shed its image as a staid ...

Bloomberg A key measure of Japan’s economy fell to a level not seen since the wake of the financial crisis, adding to concerns about the economy ahead of an October sales-tax hike. The leading coincident index dropped to 93.3 in June, the lowest since February 2010, the Cabinet Office said. The index is one of Japan’s broadest indicators of current ...

Bloomberg The escalating trade war between the US and China is nudging the world economy towards its first recession in a decade with investors demanding politicians and central bankers act fast to change course. In the US alone, the recession risk is “much higher than it needs to be and much higher than it was two months ago,” Lawrence Summers, ...