News

Abu Dhabi / WAM The UAE capital will host the second edition of the Festival of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), at the Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (Adnec) from April 24-27. The festival, which is held under the theme, ‘One Nation Unified by Benevolent Cooperation, Justice and Tolerance’, aims to emphasise the message and teachings of Islam in bringing ...

Bloomberg US and Chinese negotiators are discussing adding a concession on cloud computing to their trade agreement that would give foreign companies greater access to the $12 billion Chinese market, people familiar with the talks said. Chinese officials called a meeting this week with representatives of companies including Microsoft Corp, Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc to talk about the proposal ...

Bloomberg India’s top court will review fresh evidence in the multi-billion dollar purchase of French warplanes, a potential setback to Prime Minister Narendra Modi a day before the start of national elections. A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi said the Supreme Court will further hear petitions alleging corruption in a deal to buy 36 Rafale ...

Bloomberg An Asian rewards app that works with Alibaba Group Holding Ltd and major online brands has snagged $45 million from Japan’s Rakuten Capital and other investors. Rakuten Capital and EV Growth are leading the investment round for ShopBack, which offers cashback and other rewards for a plethora of names from Airbnb and Foodpanda to Booking.com and Alibaba’s Taobao. The ...

Bloomberg A Vietnamese conglomerate is entering the cashew market with possible deals in West Africa for more than a 10th of global output, a bold start to take on the $7 billion industry’s dominant buyers such as Olam International Ltd. In a fractured sector with dozens of producers, the purchase of such a large amount of cashews by a single ...

Bloomberg Apart from culture, food and a super-efficient rail system, one of the things that most impresses travellers to Japan are its convenience stores, bursting with sushi and ready-made food available at all hours. Well, maybe not for long. The 24-hour “conbini” experience is starting to show cracks as a labour shortage in the world’s third-biggest economy forces operators to ...

Bloomberg Taiwan’s Kwang Yang Motor Co Ltd will invest 1 billion pesos ($19.3 million) in a new motorcycle plant in the Philippines where the traffic logjam is boosting demand for bikes. KYMCO Philippines Inc’s new plant will boost its monthly capacity to at least 6,000 motorbikes when it opens in 2023, President Allan Santiago said at a briefing in Manila. ...

Bloomberg Investors could get their first look at hundreds of pages of detailed information about Uber Technologies Inc. as soon as Thursday, as the ride-hailing giant gears up to publicly file for an initial public offering. The global ride-hailing company will kick off a road show to market shares to potential investors this month and would begin trading publicly in ...

Bloomberg UK manufacturers and their counterparts across the European Union said they’re “woefully” unprepared for a no-deal Brexit, and called on the bloc to avoid Britain leaving without an agreement. “Neither the EU nor the UK are ready, and as a consequence European industry is also not adequately prepared, for this cliff-edge scenario,” manufacturing lobby groups MakeUK and Ceemet said ...

Bloomberg The UK economy is on course for a stronger-than-forecast first quarter despite an escalating Brexit crisis that’s divided Parliament and the government. Gross domestic product rose 0.2 percent in February after a 0.5 percent jump in January. That means the economy will expand 0.5 percent in the first quarter if GDP is unchanged in March. That’s more than double ...