News

  Sharjah / Emirates Business The eighth edition of the Etisalat Award for Arabic Children’s Literature is now open to accept submissions, with its organisers encouraging publishers, authors and illustrators of Arabic children’s and young people’s books from across the world to send in their entries before the end of August. Organised by the UAE Board on Books for Young ...

AFP OPEC member Kuwait has earmarked 34.5 billion dinars ($115 billion) to spend on oil projects over the next five years, despite the slump in oil prices, a senior executive said. “We have earmarked 34.5 billion dinars for spending on oil projects over the next five years,” Wafa al-Zaabi, head of planning at Kuwait Petroleum Corp, told an oil conference. ...

  Shanghai / Bloomberg CRRC Corp., China’s only maker of high-speed locomotives, plans to raise as much as 12 billion yuan ($1.8 billion) in a private share sale in Shanghai to repay debt and to help finance its daily operations. The company’s board has approved the sale of as many as 1.39 billion yuan-denominated. A shares at 8.66 yuan apiece, ...

  New Delhi / Bloomberg Coal India Ltd., the world’s biggest producer of the fuel, missed analysts’ estimates for fourth-quarter profit as oversupply of the fuel and lower international prices trimmed earnings. Net income for the three months ended March 31 rose to 42.5 billion rupees ($634 million) from 42.4 billion rupees a year earlier, the state-run monopoly said in ...

  Tokyo / AFP Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe intends to push back his debt-loaded country’s next tax hike for two and a half years, when he will likely have left office, reports said on Sunday. Abe on Saturday told his close aides, including Finance Minister Taro Aso, that he intends to push back a planned raise in taxes to October ...

  Kampala / AFP South Korea’s president arrived in Uganda, the second leg of her Africa tour during which she is promoting business and trade opportunities. President Park Geun-hye was welcomed at Uganda’s Entebbe International Airport by Foreign Affairs Minister Sam Kutesa. This is the first visit by a South Korean president since the two countries established diplomatic ties in ...

  Kathmandu / AFP Nepal’s government unveiled the first budget drawn up since the country introduced a new constitution last September, with a focus on funding reconstruction and reviving the battered economy. Millions continue to live in temporary shelters after a 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit the Himalayan nation in April 2015, killing nearly 9,000 people. Finance minister Bishnu Prasad Poudel outlined ...

  Bloomberg Bayer AG is close to choosing banks to arrange funds for its proposed acquisition of Monsanto Co., according to people familiar with the matter, after the U.S. company rejected the initial $62 billion bid as too low and sought reassurances on the potential financing. Bayer will probably raise more than $40 billion in short-term bridge financing and most ...

  Frankfurt / AFP Bayer’s chief executive said in an interview published on Sunday he is ready to meet environmental groups to address concerns about his group’s plans to take over US agrochemicals giant Monsanto. In an interview with the Sunday newspaper Frankfurter AllgemeineSonntagszeitung, Werner Baumann also hinted that the Monsanto brand could disappear once the business is integrated into ...

  Frankfurt / AFP The ECB, expected to hold fire on monetary policy at its meeting Thursday, will likely focus instead on welcoming Greece back into the fold of fully-fledged eurozone borrowers after a bailout deal, analysts said. European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi may well also use the lull in the bank’s unprecedented stimulus drive to remind governments that ...