News

Bloomberg The European Union may beef up a plan to screen foreign investments as China’s pursuit of acquisitions abroad fosters political unease in the bloc, according to a key EU lawmaker. Franck Proust, a French member of the European Parliament, said the assembly and EU governments may reach an agreement by year-end on the first bloc-wide rules meant to prevent ...

Bloomberg Volkswagen AG officials are discussing options to prepare the truck division for access to the capital markets, potentially paving the way for an initial public offering of shares or a bond sale by the unit, according to people familiar with the matter. Deliberations at a recent meeting included changing the division’s legal structure to a private limited company under ...

Bloomberg UK Prime Minister Theresa May spoke to First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon and First Minister of Wales Carwyn Jones after setting out her Brexit priorities and plans for trade relations in a London speech. May told the leaders the UK would seek “customs arrangements that would lead to as frictionless trade as possible with our European neighbours, as ...

Bloomberg Embattled Anbang Insurance Group Co.’s plan to convert much of Manhattan’s Waldorf Astoria hotel into luxury condos has been the subject of speculation from Wall Street earnings calls to the pages of the New York Post. Now, evidence that the project is going forward is emerging from an unlikely source: a moving van owned by a little-known religious group. ...

Bloomberg In case you were wondering why three out of the nine companies attending President Donald Trump’s metal-tariff announcement were foreign, this map has the answer. Steel plants owned by non-American companies such as ArcelorMittal account for a large chunk of total US production, with the Luxembourg-based company’s plants alone representing about 16 percent, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. Other foreign ...

DUBAI / WAM The Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) awarded an AED871 million contract for the construction of a 40 million imperial gallons per day (MIGD), Seawater Reverse Osmosis (SWRO) based desalination plant in Jebel Ali, to a joint venture comprising ACCIONA Agua S A and Belhasa Six Construct (BeSIX). This new SWRO plant is being developed as a ...

ABU DHABI / WAM Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansouri, Minister of Economy, will chair the UAE’s delegation to the UAE-Japan’s Strategic Business Forum, which will be held in Tokyo on March 6 and 7. Abdullah Al Saleh, Under-Secretary for Foreign Trade at the ministry, said the meeting falls within the context of UAE’s efforts to increase its presence in global ...

DUBAI / WAM The Federal Tax Authority (FTA) has clarified the criteria that determine whether it is the supplier or end-consumer that bears the cost of the VAT on goods and services set to be delivered fully or partially in 2018, but had been contracted before the implementation of VAT. In a statement, the Federal Tax Authority clarified that according ...

GENEVA / WAM The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has joined a chorus of international actors in calling for respecting a truce in Syria’s eastern Ghouta and affirmed that the Syrian people had experienced brutal confrontations and systematic targeting and could not tolerate another bloody chapter. Obaid Salem Al Zaabi, Permanent Representative of the UAE to United Nations and other International ...

BAGHDAD / Reuters Iraq’s parliament approved on Saturday a long-delayed 104 trillion Iraqi dinar ($88 billion) 2018 state budget, two lawmakers told Reuters, though lawmakers from the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region boycotted the session. The budget of 104 trillion Iraqi dinars ($88 billion) is based on projected oil exports of 3.8 million barrels per day (bpd) at a price of $46, ...