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  SHARJAH / WAM Sharjah-based Air Arabia has launched its inaugural service to Baku, marking the airline’s first entrance into Azerbaijan. An official delegation including Sheikh Fahim Al Qasimi, Executive Chairman of the Department of Government Relations of Sharjah, and Dr. Mohammed Ahmed Hamel Al Qubaisi, UAE Ambassador to Azerbaijan as well as Dashgin Shikarov, Ambassador of Azerbaijan to the ...

  Bloomberg A potent blend of pride, economic nationalism and mounting concern over water security have the world’s two biggest cola brands in a bind in southern India. Shopkeepers in drought-hit Kerala state decided to promote local brands over Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc. beverages after counterparts in neighboring Tamil Nadu boycotted the multinational drinks. While retail groups claim the ...

  Bloomberg First it was Japan’s steelmakers, now it’s the nation’s power producers that are set to pay for China’s coal policies. Japanese utilities may pay at least 29 percent more for annual supplies this year after China’s efforts in 2016 to trim overcapacity led to a more than doubling of spot prices, according to UBS Group AG and Morgan ...

  Bloomberg China introduced a new indicator for the services sector to better track the vast range of activity from movies to restaurants that now account for more than half of the economy. The services output index rose 8.2 percent in January and February from a year earlier on growth in technology, transportation, and deliveries, the National Bureau of the ...

  Reuters Saudi Arabia’s King Salman oversaw the signing of deals worth potentially $65 billion on the first day of a visit to Beijing on Thursday, as the world’s largest oil exporter looks to cement ties with the world’s second-largest economy. King Salman, who has overseen the launch of an ambitious economic reform plan since his accession two years ago, ...

  Bloomberg India is set to become a net exporter of steel for the first time in four years, reversing a trend that saw domestic mills battling a flood of cheap imports, according to the Indian Steel Association. Shares of producers surged in Mumbai. “This is a very positive development and it would indicate that the Indian steel industry is ...

  Bloomberg PT Aneka Tambang, one of Indonesia’s biggest nickel producers, is seeking government approval to export 6 million metric tons of low-grade ore, two months after the nation relaxed its ban on shipments. The Jakarta-based company filed an application with the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry this week to export the ore over a year, Senior Vice President Trenggono ...

  Bloomberg President Donald Trump is laying out an explicit quid pro quo for automakers: He’ll cut them a break on environmental standards and wants more hiring in return. “You need to come back and give us big numbers in terms of jobs,” Trump told the chief executive officers of General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles ...

  Bloomberg Toyota Motor Corp. plans to upgrade its UK carmaking plant in a sign that concerns about Brexit won’t derail its investments in the country for now. The world’s second-biggest auto manufacturer will spend 240 million pounds ($294 million) to update equipment and technology at a factory in Burnaston, England to allow the production of models on its latest ...

  Bloomberg Beginning construction of US houses climbed to a four-month high in February, led by the strongest pace of single-family homebuilding in nearly a decade. Residential starts advanced 3 percent to a 1.29 million annualized rate, a Commerce Department report showed on Thursday. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg was 1.26 million. Construction of one-family dwellings rose ...