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Bloomberg India’s ambitious ‘Housing for All’ plan is bumping up against some harsh realities. Prime Minister Narendra Modi set a target in 2015 of building 50 million homes in less than a decade, or about seven million a year. The nation has since added only 180,877 under the scheme, underscoring the challenge in achieving that target. “It was a moon ...

Bloomberg Economists raised their forecasts for China’s economic output after growth in the first half beat estimates. That robust activity is giving policy makers’ room to curb excessive and speculative borrowing. China’s gross domestic product will expand by 6.7 percent from a year ago in the third quarter and 6.6 percent in the fourth quarter, according to the median of ...

Bloomberg The rise of the machines is coming. In technology-proficient Singapore, their integration into the economy could help the domestic growth rate to almost double and significantly lift labor productivity, according to a report by consultancy Accenture. It found that artificial intelligence, once fully adopted, might lift Singapore’s annual growth rate to 5.4 percent in 18 years. That would be ...

BEIJING / Reuters State oil trader Unipec will develop “really strong” ties with China’s independent refiners, said a company executive on Tuesday, even as they present a growing challenge to its parent and Asia’s top refiner, Sinopec Corp. China issued crude oil import quotas to privately run refiners, often called “teapots”, for the first time in 2015, ending decades of ...

Bloomberg Saudi Arabia raised 17 billion riyals ($4.5 billion) from its first local Islamic bond sale this year as the biggest Arab economy seeks funds to bridge a budget deficit amid low oil prices. The government received investor offers in excess of 51 billion riyals, three times the deal size, according to a statement posted on the Ministry of Finance ...

London / Reuters Oil prices extended gains on Tuesday after Saudi Arabia pledged to curb exports from next month and OPEC called on several members to boost compliance with output cuts to help to rein in oversupply and tackle flagging prices. Brent crude futures were up 49 cents at $49.09 a barrel by 0933 GMT. US West Texas Intermediate futures ...

Bloomberg Oil’s bear market may finally be taking its toll on the shale boom. Hours after Halliburton Co. warned that explorers are “tapping the brakes” on drilling, Anadarko Petroleum Corp. said it’s trimming spending in the first earnings report this quarter from a major shale producer. That could make this week a turning point for the troubled global oil market ...

ABU DHABI / WAM Surplus reserves at UAE banks and other financial institutions surged to AED42.8 billion by the end of June, a growth of 77.6 percent, or AED18.7 billion, from AED24.1 billion in the first month of the year 2017, according to UAE Central Bank statistics. The figures reflect the resilience of the UAE banks’ solvency position, not only ...

ABU DHABI / WAM NPCC, a member company of SENAAT – Abu Dhabi, one of the UAE’s largest industrial investment holding companies, is ranked 5th in the annual list of Top 30 Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC), Companies in the Energy sector in the Middle East and North Africa region, as compiled by Oil & Gas Middle East magazine. The ...

DUBAI / Reuters State-owned energy giant Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC) is in talks with regional and international banks to obtain a syndicated loan worth several billion US dollars, banking sources familiar with the discussions said on Monday. The loan will be ‘huge’, two bankers said; a third said it was expected to be in a range of $4 ...