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Bloomberg Chinese policy makers will step up support for the struggling private sector in 2019, with the state council announcing a series of measures for the firms, which have been hit hard by the slowing economy and trade tensions. The central bank will improve policies on targeted reserve-requirement ratio cuts and inclusive finance to further support private companies, according to ...

Bloomberg Japanese PM Shinzo Abe’s cabinet approved a policy document on Tuesday, seeking to deflect criticism of a law that will open the door to foreign guest workers from April. Under the new framework, the number of workers coming from abroad will be limited to 345,150 over five years, according to a document distributed to reporters in advance of the ...

Bloomberg Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration hasn’t assessed the impact of one of history’s most sweeping changes in currency policy. “No Madam,” was the Indian junior finance minister’s reply to a lawmaker’s question in parliament on December 14 on whether the government had studied the aftereffects of the move in November 2016 to invalidate almost all of the country’s currency ...

Bloomberg The total value of fines handed out by the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority fell by almost 75 percent in 2018, after a bumper year in which it had secured penalties against the likes of Deutsche Bank AG, Merrill Lynch International and Rio Tinto Plc. The regulator handed out 60.5 million pounds ($76.6 million) in fines in 2018, more than ...

Bloomberg Acorda Therapeutics Inc rose the most since October after the US Food and Drug Administration approved its therapy for Parkinson’s disease. The drug, which will be sold under the name Inbrija, is an inhaled version of levodopa, an existing therapy that treats the effects of the neurodegenerative disorder. Acorda declined to say how it plans to price the product, ...

Bloomberg Alcoa Corp will further curtail production at a Canadian smelter as the biggest US aluminum producer faces a shortage of workers amid a dispute with unionised workers and the impact of US tariffs on shipments of the metal. The Pittsburgh-based company said it will curtail half of the one operating potline’s 138,000 metric tonne capacity at its majority-owned Aluminerie ...

Bloomberg Canadian gross domestic product grew at the fastest pace in five months on a lift from manufacturing, while oil made an unexpected contribution as prices began to fall for Alberta crude. Output grew 0.3 percent in October, Statistics Canada said from Ottawa, faster than the median forecast in a Bloomberg economist survey of 0.2 percent. Factory production expanded 0.7 ...

ABU DHABI / WAM The assets of UAE conventional banks (CB) amounted to around AED2.275 trillion, accounting for 79.7 percent of total banking assets by the end of November 2018, with Sharia-compliant banks accounting for 20.3 percent of total banking assets, according to statistics released on Monday by the Central Bank of UAE. The total assets of CB increased by ...

CAIRO / WAM The United Arab Emirates is participating in the 32nd meeting of the Unified Arab Customs Law Committee, which began at the Arab League headquarters, under the chairmanship of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The UAE delegation was headed by Ali Rashid Al-Dhanhani, Director of the Legal Affairs Department of the Federal Customs Authority, and included Ibrahim Al ...

Bloomberg National Commercial Bank (NCB), Saudi Arabia’s biggest lender, started initial talks with Riyad Bank for a merger — a deal that would create the Gulf’s third-biggest lender with $182 billion in assets. Talks may not result in a transaction, National Commercial Bank said in a statement. The lender said it has coordinated the move with the central bank and ...