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Bloomberg After spending August experimenting with a four-day work week in a country notorious for overwork, Microsoft Japan said sales per employee rose 40% compared with the same month last year. The “Work-Life Choice Challenge Summer 2019” saw full-time employees take off five consecutive Fridays in August with pay, as well as shortening meetings to a maximum of 30 minutes ...

Bloomberg China approved a drug to treat Alzheimer’s made by a Shanghai-based pharmaceutical company, the first new therapy endorsed for the disease in 17 years and a major breakthrough in the country’s push to become a leader in scientific research. The National Medical Products Administration said in a statement that it granted conditional approval to Oligomannate. In trials, the drug ...

Dubai / WAM His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, hoisted the UAE flag in the Burj Khalifa area to mark the ‘UAE Flag Day’. A number of students from various schools attended the event. His Highness said: “The UAE flag is a symbol of unity and ...

ABU DHABI / WAM The National Central Cooling Company (Tabreed), released on Sunday its consolidated financial results for the first nine months of 2019, reporting an increase of 3.1 percent in the net profit to AED329.1 million. In a press release issued by Tabreed on Sunday, group revenue increased by 3.5 percent to AED1,127.9 million, compared to AED1,090.0 million in ...

Bloomberg Saudi Arabia finally kicked off what could be the world’s biggest initial public offering (IPO), revealing potential tax cuts and dividends to lure investors. More than three years after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman first raised the idea, oil giant Saudi Aramco announced its intention on Sunday to list shares on the local stock exchange in Riyadh. The shares ...

DUBAI / WAM Dawoud Al Hajri, Director-General of Dubai Municipality and Chairman of the Committee for Developing Building Permits in the emirate of Dubai, expressed his pride in the UAE being ranked first in the Arab world and region, and third in the world, in easing the issuing of building permits, as per the World Bank’s Doing Business 2020 report. ...

Bloomberg Tata Trusts, a philanthropic organisation associated with India’s salt-to-software Tata group, faces a tax liability of about 120 billion rupees ($1.7 billion) after authorities cancelled exemptions to six of its entities, the Business Standard newspaper reported. A trust whose registration is cancelled is required to pay tax on its past exempted income, the newspaper said, citing an official it ...

Bloomberg China Forestry Holdings Co’s liquidators are suing KPMG LLP for more than HK$1.3 billion ($166 million), citing the auditor’s negligence when assisting in the company’s listing in Hong Kong. KPMG failed to detect during the pre-IPO audit that then-executives of China Forestry falsified the company’s plantation assets and revenue, according to information contained in a judgment related to the ...

Bloomberg South Korea’s corporate watchdog is looking into unfair inter-subsidiary transactions of mid-sized enterprises, reported Yonhap News. “We’re seriously monitoring undue intra-group dealings at mid-sized companies with assets worth or under five trillion won ($4.3 billion),” the Fair Trade Commission Chairwoman Joh Sung-wook was quoted as saying in an interview. “We can’t identify them now, but there are a couple ...

Bloomberg India is committed to further improving its people-friendly tax regime, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, as Asia’s third-largest economy seeks to attract more overseas investment to spur growth. The government has cut corporate tax rates and introduced a nationwide goods-and-services charge to integrate the nation’s economy, Modi said in a speech at Aditya Bira Group’s golden jubilee celebrations in ...