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Bloomberg Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is taking to social media to defend his economic record, denying his administration manipulated national debt levels and warning the new government against spooking the markets. “The ‘spade’ had always been called a spade,” Najib said on Facebook, hitting back against Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng who said new leaders will tell the ...

Bloomberg Tougher credit rules, increased supply and subdued wage growth are combining to put an end to Australia’s long housing boom. The downturn is most obvious in Sydney, where average home prices were down 3.4 percent in April from a year earlier. The city was previously the epicenter of the boom — as recently as a year ago, Sydney prices ...

Bloomberg The Justice Department has opened a criminal probe into whether traders are manipulating the price of Bitcoin and other digital currencies, dramatically ratcheting up US scrutiny of red-hot markets that critics say are rife with misconduct, according to four people familiar with the matter. The investigation is focussed on illegal practices that can influence prices — such as spoofing, ...

Bloomberg Bayer AG is set to win US antitrust approval for its $66 billion takeover of Monsanto Co. by next week, according to a person familiar with the matter, removing the last major regulatory hurdle to forming the world’s biggest seed and agricultural-chemicals company. The companies and the Justice Department have negotiated a complex agreement that would resolve government’s concerns ...

Bloomberg Automakers including Mazda Motor Corp. and countries led by Mexico should buckle up: their car businesses could be in for a bumpy ride, thanks to US President Donald Trump. Trump instructed his Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross to consider conducting an investigation into whether auto imports are weakening the American economy and may impair national security. The Commerce Department said ...

Bloomberg The poster boy for London’s two-tier property market may be split in two. The board of Capital & Counties Properties Plc is considering dividing the company into a landlord that owns much of the Covent Garden neighborhood and a developer that owns land in the Earls Court district. Both companies would be publicly traded if the demerger goes ahead, ...

Bloomberg Consumers may do as much as regulators to propel the car sector into the electricity-powered age foreseen by Tesla Inc., according to the European Union’s industrial-policy chief. European Commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska said the EU has had a “breakthrough moment” since Germany-based Volkswagen AG admitted in 2015 that it fitted diesel engines with software to cheat US checks on smog-causing ...

Emirates Business The Global Manufacturing and Industrialisation Summit (GMIS) — the pioneering cross-industry forum that aims to unify the world in shaping the future of manufacturing — announced that Russia has secured the rights to host its second edition in 2019 in the city of Yekaterinburg. The announcement was made by the President of the Russian Fedration, Vladimir Putin, during ...

SAN SEBASTIAN / WAM The total contribution of travel and tourism to the nation’s GDP was AED154.1bn, 11.3 percent of UAE’s GDP in 2017 and is forecast to rise by 4.9 percent in 2018, Mohammed Khamis Al Mheiri, Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Economy and Advisor to the Minister for Tourism Affairs, said during the UAE’s participation at the 108th ...

AJMAN / WAM The Ajman Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) in collaboration with Kuwait Business Council in Dubai and the Northern Emirates, organised a Ramadan Majlis in the presence of Abdullah Al Muwaiji, Chairman of ACCI, and Diab Al Rashidi, Consul General of Kuwait. It reflected the chamber’s keenness to strengthen frameworks of joint economic cooperation and explore available ...