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DUBAI / WAM His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, approved the Emirates Development Bank (EDB) Strategy to provide a sizeable AED30 billion financial support to businesses and start-ups in a major step to drive the national economy. Launched to support “Operation 300bn”, the EDB Strategy aims to leverage the Bank’s ...

Dubai / WAM Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s representative offices in Africa organised a webinar in cooperation with Oxford Business Group and the Pan African Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which covered some of the key benefits of doing business in Africa. The virtual event, attended by 163 participants from the UAE and Africa, aimed to familiarise UAE companies ...

DUBAI / WAM Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME) on Monday announced the launch of Alternative Crude Ecosystem (ACE) — a new bilateral trading platform to enable participants to trade multiple crude grades through the exchange. DME, which is based in Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), will make the platform available for all participants and will offer traders the opportunity to trade ...

Abu Dhabi / WAM Shareholders of Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) have approved the distribution of a cash dividend of AED20.58 fils per share, representing 46.6 percent of net profits for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2020, as well as the Board of Directors Report, the Auditors Report and Financial Statements for the year. In its 2020 annual report, ...

Bloomberg The US is pressing ahead with plans to hit six nations that tax internet-based companies with retaliatory tariffs that could total almost $1 billion annually. Goods entering the US — ranging from Austrian grand pianos and British merry-go-rounds to Italian anchovies — could face tariffs of as much as 25% annually, documents published by the US Trade Representative (USTR) ...

Bloomberg France’s economy will rebound less than previously expected this year due to the latest four-week nationwide lockdown aimed at halting a surge in coronavirus cases. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire cut the country’s 2021 GDP growth forecast to 5% from 6%, following an 8.1% contraction last year. A Bloomberg survey in March showed economists were expecting the economy ...

Bloomberg Argentine Finance Minister Martin Guzman said finalising a plan with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to repay $45 billion in debt likely won’t happen by May or June. Changing the terms of a previous repayment program would require the support of nations like the US, China, Germany, Japan and France, the finance minister said in an interview with CNN ...

Bloomberg Everyone in England will be urged to take a coronavirus test twice a week as a new system of Covid passports is assessed for wide-scale use, under Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plan to reopen the economy after lockdown. Free test kits will be made available through local pharmacies, community centers and home delivery services, when the new regime goes ...

Bloomberg Germany increased planned bond sales in the second quarter by 2.5 billion euros ($2.9 billion), as the government ramps up borrowing to help offset the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. The federal government will issue 59.5 billion euros of bonds and bills in the April-June period, up from 57 billion euros planned at the end of last year, the ...

Bloomberg The personal data of more than half a billion Facebook Inc users reemerged online for free, a reminder of the company’s ability to collect mountains of information and its struggles to protect these sensitive assets. The leak includes personal information on 533 million Facebook users, such as phone numbers, Facebook IDs, full names, locations, birth dates, bios and in ...