News

  Bloomberg Hillary Clinton’s call to raise the minimum wage for disabled Americans who earn pennies per hour has families and caregivers fiercely debating whether the real benefit of the jobs comes from pay or an intangible sense of self-worth. The lower pay, permitted by a policy in place since 1938, has been scrapped for federally contracted employees, and Clinton ...

  Bloomberg A new fund to stabilize the price that coffee farmers in Colombia receive for their beans may be announced as soon as next month and start operating in 2017, potentially protecting farmers and allowing them to produce profitably at lower international prices. The fund is intended to moderate sharp price drops in the world’s largest producer of mild ...

  Bloomberg Gerdau SA fell the most among peers after police indicted more than a dozen people, including its chief executive officer, for their alleged involvement in a tax evasion scandal linked to Brazil’s No. 2 steelmaker. Shares in Gerdau fell 7.1 percent in Sao Paulo, the steepest loss among 82 members of the Bloomberg World Iron Steel Index, which ...

  Bloomberg Altos Hornos de Mexico SA, the steelmaker known as Ahmsa, is exiting the bankruptcy process in Mexico after 17 years of court protection. A Mexican judge ordered the company’s suspension-of-payments proceedings to be lifted and approved a plan for creditors, effective immediately, the company said in a statement Monday. The court-approved exit calls for Ahmsa to repay $1.7 ...

  Alkesh Sharma / Emirates Business Fuelled by a booming construction sector, the GCC region’s interior and fit-out contracting industry is expected to grow by nearly 20 percent and the market expected to cross the whopping mark of $12.5 billion by the end of 2017. UAE is clearly spearheading this market in the region and is expected to add more ...

  Dubai / Emirates Business Dubai SME, the agency of the Department of Economic Development (DED) in Dubai mandated to develop the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector, has launched a report on the ‘State of SME Equity Investment in Dubai,’ the first initiative of its kind in the Gulf region, to encourage investment in the sector and attract direct ...

    Dubai / Emirates Business A delegation from Smart Dubai Office (SDO) led by H.E. Dr. Aisha Bint Butti Bin Bishr, Director General of SDO, is exerting more efforts to form business partnership by showcasing its smart transformation roadmap to the founding strategic partners of the smart city transformation process. The delegation visited Dubai Land Department (DLD) to discuss ...

  Dubai / Emirates Business Mergermarket, the world’s leading news and intelligence service for mergers & acquisitions, has released its Global M&A Heat Chart that indicates potential future M&A activity based on companies that may be targeted for mergers or acquisitions. The Heat Chart suggests that the Middle East’s Telecoms, Media & Technology (TMT) sector could see the strongest levels ...

  Reuters Saudi Arabia’s largest lender by assets, National Commercial Bank (NCB), plans to expand overseas, growing its Turkey franchise while exploring new markets including Malaysia, Indonesia and Egypt, its chairman said. The move could break the mould of the kingdom’s banking sector, which hosts a range of large and well-capitalised financial institutions but which have traditionally focused on serving ...

  DUBAI / WAM Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company, du, has entered into a ten-year co-location agreement with Emirates NBD to provide the organisation with third party data centre co-location services in the UAE. Emirates NBD will benefit from du’s ‘always-on’ and resilient data centre infrastructure which is supported by high-speed connectivity. Besides optimising operational expenses, Emirates NBD also gains direct ...