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DUBAI / WAM Dubai Municipality closed down 53 food establishments during the first quarter of this year for violating Covid-19 protocols. Inspection campaigns are on during Ramadan to ensure that food establishments meet the requirements for transporting, storing, preparing and displaying food products and materials. Sultan Al Taher, Head of Food Inspection Section in the municipality said that the officials ...

Dubai / WAM Smart Dubai announced it collaborated with the UAE Zakat Fund to launch a new and secure Zakat payment service on the government service application DubaiNow in time for the Holy Month of Ramadan. The new service allows users to calculate their Zakat amount per Islamic Sharia law, and then pay the full amount or part of it. ...

Bloomberg The US said China continues to focus its policies on exports, and called on its biggest economic rival to implement forceful measures to boost domestic demand. “China’s recovery has been highly imbalanced” since the hit from the coronavirus pandemic, the US Treasury Department said in its semiannual foreign-exchange report. “Stringent containment measures enabled China to quickly resume manufacturing while ...

Bloomberg Razorpay, an Indian startup that facilitates digital payments, is raising $160 million from Sequoia India, Singapore’s sovereign fund GIC Pte and others, tripling its valuation to $3 billion in six months. The Bangalore-headquartered company, which helps businesses to automate their payment systems, will use the funds to expand into banking and lending, make acquisitions and add services in Southeast ...

Bloomberg Hong Kong billionaire brothers Victor and William Fung are exploring selling their stake in Delvaux, a 192-year-old Belgian luxury leather bagmaker, people with knowledge of the matter said. The Fungs are working with advisers and have reached out to prospective suitors on the potential divestment of the asset, the people said. A sale could value the bagmaker at around ...

Bloomberg After spending $120 million on a stake in an online grocer in Norway, SoftBank Group Corp is laying out the business logic of targeting a market that boasts Europe’s highest hourly labour costs. The deal is an example of how countries that pay average workers really well often come up with some of the smartest technology, according to Paul ...

Bloomberg Japanese exports posted a double-digit gain for the first time in more than three years in March, offering another indication that a recovery in global trade is gaining strength. The value of overseas shipments jumped 16.1% from a year ago, for the biggest increase since November 2017, led by exports of cars, plastics, semi-conductors and chip-making equipment, the finance ...

Bloomberg Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, warned for the first time that trade tensions may disrupt its access to key production equipment and hit its operations, amid increasing friction between the US and China. The company, which produces semiconductors for Apple Inc and other major global tech companies, said in its annual report released that ...

Abu Dhabi / WAM The Federal National Council (FNC) Parliamentary Division presented the country’s counter-terrorism and extremism initiatives and efforts at the virtual International Parliamentary Conference on the Global Challenges and Threats in the Context of the Covid-19 Pandemic: Terrorism and Violent Extremism, organised by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean (PAM). During the event, Dherar Humaid Al Falasi, Vice ...

Sharjah / WAM The operating profits of Sharjah Islamic Bank (SIB) increased before provisions amounting to AED 212.2 million in Q1 2021, compared to AED 167.2 million for the same period last year, with an increase of 26.9 percent. According to the bank’s financial statement, net profit for the three months ended March 31, 2021 amounted to AED164.2 million, compared ...