News

DUBAI / Emirates Business The UAE is Hong Kong’s 18th largest trading partner as the total trade value between the UAE and Hong Kong amounted to over $4.7 billion in the first half of 2018. Hong Kong’s total export to the UAE amounted to $2.7 billion and total import value from the UAE reached $2 billion, reveal officials in Dubai. …

DUBAI / WAM Nakheel, a property developer based in Dubai, on Wednesday announced a net profit of AED2.51 billion for the first six months of 2018. ‘‘Nakheel handed over 451 units to customers in the first six months of the year. The company’s non-development businesses — retail, leasing, hospitality and asset management – all performed strongly. Annual revenues from these …

DUBAI / Emirates Business GCC sovereign issuance has had another strong first half, with the sovereign bond transactions of over $30 billion in the hard currency market, according to Fisch Asset Management. The Zurich-based asset manager believes that full-year issuance could surpass last year’s levels and reach $50 billion in 2018. Philipp Good, CEO at Fisch Asset Management, said: “This …

Bloomberg Vestas Wind Systems A/S surged the most in two years after the wind turbine maker announced a $227 million share buyback and said its orders rose. “Order intake was very strong, and profitability was clearly above market expectations,” said James Evans, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. It was “aided by Vestas’ new push into co-developing projects, with two US …

Bloomberg India’s trade deficit in July widened to the most in more than five years, worsening the outlook for the rupee that hit a record low after a Turkish lira-led sell-off in emerging-market currencies. The trade deficit — gap between exports and imports — was $18 billion in July, fanned by a higher oil import bill, data released by India’s …

ZANZIBAR / WAM Reem bint Ibrahim Al Hashemy, Minister of State for International Cooperation, headed a UAE delegation to Zanzibar where discussions were held surrounding the enhancing of bilateral relations and cooperation. During the visit, Al Hashemy reaffirmed the UAE’s foreign policy to strengthen bilateral ties and build bridges of cooperation with the African continent based on the principles of …

Bloomberg Saudi Aramco, Air Products and ACWA Power said that they had signed a deal to form an $8 billion gasification and power joint venture in Saudi Arabia. The new entity, which will be located in the kingdom’s Jazan Economic City, will purchase gasification assets, power block and associated utilities from state-owned Aramco for about $8 billion, the companies said …

Bloomberg Careem Networks FZ, the Middle Eastern ride-hailing provider, is testing a bus-booking service ahead of a possible roll-out out across all 14 countries it operates in. Careem Bus — a division aimed at attracting low-income earners — will initially go live in at least four Egyptian cities, and is expected to be rolled out in September, according to people …

AMMAN / WAM Ways of developing cooperation between the UAE and Jordan were the main topic of discussions at a meeting between the UAE Ambassador to Jordan Mattar Saif Sulaiman Al Shamsi and the Chairman of theJordanian-Emirati Brotherhood Committee Samir Abdul Hadi, at the embassy’s premises in Jordan. During the meeting, the two sides discussed means of enhancing aspects of …

Abu DHABI / WAM The number of projects funded by the Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development (KFED) reached 1,364 projects in 2017, of which 27 percent are industrial projects while the total value of funding approved by the fund exceeded AED1.6 billion since its establishment in 2007. In an interview with the Emirates News Agency (WAM), Abdullah Saeed Al Darmaki, …