News

  Sharjah / Emirates Business The fourth edition of the Sharjah World Music Festival (SWMF) launched its first ever piano competition recently to find some of the most talented individuals attending the event. The contest, which is open to people of all age groups and nationalities, was an instant hit with the audience who were in awe at the quality ...

  Reuters OPEC’s Secretary-General has confidence in the commitment of oil producers who agreed to an output cut deal last month to ease a global glut that has depressed crude prices and hurt exporting countries’ revenues. Under the accord, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia and other non-members of the producer group will curtail oil output by ...

  Bloomberg For Tata Group’s new chairman, restoring order at India’s largest conglomerate will be atop his agenda after the ouster of his predecessor Cyrus Mistry triggered one of the country’s biggest corporate power struggles in years. The conglomerate picked Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Natarajan Chandrasekaran on Thursday as the next chairman of group holding company Tata ...

  Bloomberg Cash-strapped Chinese companies are ramping up sales of asset-backed securities to raise funds as they face record delays in collecting payments from customers. Structured note sales backed by assets such as receivables jumped 130 percent to 455.2 billion yuan ($65.7 billion) last year, based on official data. They accounted for 54 percent of all asset-backed securities issued in ...

  Bloomberg Beijing’s city government set a new target to cut toxic smog in an address setting the city’s 2017 priorities. Beijing Acting Mayor Cai Qi pledged to control PM2.5 particles — which pose major health risks because they become lodged in the lungs — within an annual average of “around” 60 micrograms per cubic meter in 2017. The target ...

  Bloomberg Asia’s smallest economies are growing faster than giants like China, according to the World Bank. Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar will post the most rapid expansions in Asia after India from 2017 to 2019, sustaining growth rates of close to 7 percent, according to forecasts released this week. Among the least developed countries, the combined size of the three ...

  Bloomberg Indonesia will exceed its coal production target for another year as miners cash in after prices recovered from a five-year collapse. The world’s biggest exporter will produce about 489 million metric tons this year, 18 percent above the government-mandated target, according to energy ministry forecasts. That’s up from last year’s output estimated at 434 million tons and would ...

  Bloomberg Iron ore imports by China surged to a record above 1 billion metric tons last year as unexpectedly strong steel production and lower local mine output combined to fire up demand in the world’s top buyer for cargoes from Australia and Brazil, supporting a rebound in prices. Asia’s top economy imported 1.024 billion tons in 2016, up 7.5 ...

  HONG KONG / AP China’s exports fell back into contraction last month, signaling renewed weakness for the world’s second biggest economy as it faces possible trade tensions under Donald Trump’s presidency. Customs data showed that exports shrank 6.1 percent to $209.4 billion in December compared with the year-ago period. The latest numbers mark a return to a long term ...

  Bloomberg Japan is stepping up its drive to pressure companies into abandoning a culture of long working hours. Prosecutors this week began reviewing whether Mitsubishi Electric Corp. forces its employees to work excessive hours — a move that follows an investigation of Dentsu Inc., Japan’s biggest advertisement agency, where a female worker who put in more than 100 hours ...