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ABU DHABI / WAM The United Arab Emirates, in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO), has dispatched an aid plane carrying approximately 27 metric tonnes of medical supplies to Somalia. The aid, which consisted of seven metric tonnes from the UAE and 20 metric tonnes from the World Health Organisation, will help approximately 27,000 healthcare workers in combating the ...

Bloomberg Southeast Asian nations plan to discuss forming a joint fund to combat the coronavirus pandemic with China, Japan and South Korea during a virtual summit on Tuesday, according to a Thai official. The 13-nation special summit initiated by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations comes as the region struggles to contain the Covid-19 outbreak even after it spread to ...

Bloomberg Apple Inc’s iPhone shipments in China rebounded in March as the world’s second-largest economy worked to reboot its manufacturing industry following the disruption caused by the novel coronavirus outbreak. Shipments of Apple’s marquee device jumped 19% in March from a year earlier to 2.5 million units, according to Bloomberg calculations based on monthly data from the China Academy of ...

Bloomberg The coronavirus outbreak will reduce Japanese automakers’ combined operating profit by 38% this fiscal year, but the manufacturers may rebound faster than they did after the global financial crisis more than a decade ago, analysts at Goldman Sachs Group Inc said. Demand could “recover relatively quickly” once the pandemic nears an end, Kota Yuzawa and other analysts wrote in ...

Bloomberg China has started the process of potentially merging its two biggest brokerage firms to create a company that can better compete with the global investment banks as the country opens up its financial markets, according to people familiar with the matter. Citic Securities Co and CSC Financial Co, along with their government shareholders Citic Group and Central Huijin Investment ...

Bloomberg The Philippines is allowing health workers with existing overseas contracts to leave, relaxing an order earlier this month to keep them in the country to reinforce the healthcare system amid the pandemic. Future applications for healthcare jobs abroad are “frozen until further notice,” Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin, who called the ban unconstitutional, said. President Rodrigo Duterte said that ...

Bloomberg Russia’s deepening economic crisis is on the verge of spilling into some of the most remittance-dependent economies in the world. Migrant workers from the former-Soviet Union send $13 billion home each year from Russia, where they are allowed to work visa-free. But now that money is starting to dry up due to lockdowns in Moscow and St. Petersburg that ...

Bloomberg Europe is heading for a double-digit slump in first half of 2020 amid widespread lockdowns to stem the spread of the coronavirus, according to economists. Bloomberg’s monthly survey puts the contraction in the euro area at more than 10% in the January-June period, with most of the hit — 8.3% — in the second quarter. Even with an expected ...

Bloomberg The US federal budget deficit is on track to exceed $3.8 trillion this year even if Congress doesn’t enact any more stimulus spending, and the nation’s debt will rise to levels not seen since the country emerged from World War II, a non-partisan budget watchdog estimated. The projection by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget would put the ...

Bloomberg The French government was forced to revise its economic and financial forecasts for the second time in less than a week after President Emmanuel Macron extended the lockdown to combat the coronavirus. France will base an emergency budget on economic output contracting 8% this year, instead of 6% as it had planned last week. Extra spending to support companies ...