News

Dubai / Emirates Business Despite the short-term challenges posed by global macroeconomic factors across the GCC, the region’s tourism and hospitality industry remains on an upward trajectory as govern- ments recognize the potential of the sector in enabling revenue diversification and job creation, and actively invest in its development. Set to be worth $36.7 billion by 2020 according to Euromonitor ...

Dubai / WAM A steppingstone for a unified clearing house in the UAE has been laid by the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX), and Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange (DGCX) to accelerate growth and development of the UAE financial markets and raise the bar in terms of trading and clearing standards. This came through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) ADX ...

Dubai / WAM In line with Dubai Tourism’s vision of attracting 20 million visitors per year by 2020, Atlantis, The Palm, has announced a US$100 million refurbishment programme across Atlantis, The Palm, as well as an expansion with the brands second property, The Royal Atlantis Resort and Residencies also located on The Palm. Atlantis, The Palm shares impressive results during ...

Dubai / WAM The Dubai Health Authority (DHA) has completed its preparations to launch the second phase of the unified electronic system ‘Salama’. The second phase, which will be launched in August, includes Dubai Hospital, Dubai Diabetes Centre, the Family Gathering Centre and all Primary Health Care Centres. The Salama project, which was launched under the patronage of HH Sheikh ...

ABU DHABI / WAM The Abu Dhabi Quality and Conformity Council (QCC), has announced the voluntary recall of 2,363 products in 21 categories including toys, electrical appliances, cosmetics, cigarettes and tobacco products. The recall was an outcome of inspection campaigns on controlled products carried out in the first half of 2017 during which QCC inspectors examined a total of 36,291 ...

Bloomberg Saudi Arabian Oil Co., the world’s largest oil exporter, increased production to an annual record last year before the kingdom led OPEC and other major producers to curb output to counter a global oversupply. Crude production averaged 10.5 million barrels a day compared with 10.2 million barrels in 2015, the state-owned company known as Aramco said in its annual ...

Bloomberg A seven-year, $7.5 billion effort to build a first-of-its-kind “clean coal” power plant in Mississippi is officially over. Mississippi regulators ordered utility owner Southern Co. to come up with a deal that’ll have the Kemper plant — once hailed by the Obama administration as the future of coal — running as a natural gas-fired generator instead. That ratified Southern’s ...

Bloomberg Oil joint ventures that account for about 40 percent of Venezuela’s output are being thrown into question by the man advising President Nicolas Maduro in rewriting the constitution. “We’re going to change it,” Hermann Escarra, a constitutional lawyer who participated in the crafting of the country’s current charter and is advising Maduro on attempts to rewrite it, said on ...

Bloomberg The world’s biggest energy traders are betting shale oil production is here to stay. European trading houses from Trafigura Group Pte. to Mercuria Energy Group Ltd. and Vitol Group have invested in US infrastructure and struck supply deals to secure flows of shale oil and gas. The agreements show the traders see long-term opportunities in an industry that has ...

Bloomberg Investors in India’s bond market are already raising red flags on the potential impact from populist farmer bailouts being engineered by different state governments. Yields on the so-called state development loans, or SDLs, climbed at the most recent auction, widening their spread over sovereign rates. The increase comes amid concern that waiving billions of dollars in farm loans will ...