News

  Bloomberg London’s housing market underperformed the rest of the UK for the first time in eight years as buyers increasingly found themselves stretched by affordability, according to Nationwide Building Society. Home prices in the capital rose 3.7 percent in 2016 from a year earlier, down from 12.2 percent in 2015, the mortgage lender said on Thursday. Across the U.K., ...

  Bloomberg Volkswagen AG bought North American parking-payment operator PayByPhone in the latest move by Europe’s biggest carmaker to expand from manufacturing into mobility services. The purchase of Vancouver-based PayByPhone, which processed more than $250 million in transactions this year, will turn the German company’s Volkswagen Financial Services unit into the leader in mobile payments for parking, the automaker said ...

  Berlin / AFP Britain’s chief financial officers are turning optimistic as they head into the new year, though they intend to be cautious amid the cloudy economic outlook, according to Deloitte. The number of CFOs that are more positive about the prospects for their companies outweigh those who are more pessimistic by the most in 18 months, the fourth-quarter ...

  Berlin / AFP German state rail operator Deutsche Bahn said on Thursday it planned to significantly ramp up cargo transport to China following a record year, using the world’s longest train line in a modern-day revival of the Silk Road route. More than 40,000 containers were transported between the two countries in 2016, up from 35,000 a year earlier ...

  DUBAI / WAM Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD) on Wednesday announced its consolidated financial results for the six-month period ended June 30, showing revenues of AED82.5 billion and a net profit of AED10.3 billion. These results were achieved against a backdrop of lower oil and commodity prices, a strong US Dollar against other major currencies, and lackluster global economic ...

  ABU DHABI / WAM In an effort to enhance co-operation in various fields, particularly in the parliamentary sphere, Dr Amal Abdullah Al Qubaisi, Speaker of the Federal National Council (FNC), signed a number of Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with women speakers of the parliaments of Fiji, Gabon, Peru, as well as Andean Parliament. The MoUs were aimed at promoting ...

  TOKYO / WAM Japan oil imports from the UAE totalled 23.12 million barrels of crude in November 2016, according to data released by the Agency of Energy and Natural Resource in Tokyo. This accounted for 24.5 percent of Japan’s total crude imports for the period, the agency, part of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, said. Saudi Arabia ...

  Dubai / WAM The UAE is playing a vital role in deepening the values of tolerance, peace and harmony among the members of the community, said Nurlan Yermekbayev, Minister for Religious and Civil Society Affairs, Kazakhstan. The minister praised the UAE’s commitment to the principles of dialogue, peace, co-operation, and mutual respect and understanding, and highlighted the country’s efforts to ...

  Abu Dhabi / WAM The Abu Dhabi Oil Refining Company (TAKREER), an ADNOC Group company, announced on Wednesday the awarding of two major contracts for its Gasoline and Aromatics Project (GAP), that will significantly increase its gasoline production capacity. As part of ADNOC’s growth strategy, TAKREER plans to expand production of gasoline to 9.4 mtpa, by 2022, to maintain Abu ...

  Dubai / WAM One hundred and fifty journalists from various media organisations operating in the UAE attended two workshops, held in Abu Dhabi and Dubai to highlight the topic of the foundations of creative leadership in journalism and new media. The two-day workshops which concluded yesterday were organised by the National Media Council (NMC) and the UAE Journalists Association in ...