News

Sharjah / Emirates Business Sharjah Commerce and Tourism Development Authority (SCTDA) is participating in the China Outbound Travel and Tourism Market (COTTM) for the third consecutive year. The leading exhibition, now in its 12th year, starts in the Chinese capital Beijing on April 12, and will run until April 14. SCTDA’s presence at COTTM 2016 comes as part of the ...

Beijing / Bloomberg Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. is making its largest overseas investment with a $1 billion deal for control of Lazada Group SA, taking the Chinese e-commerce giant to Southeast Asia and closer to a goal of shedding its home-market reliance. China’s largest online emporium will pay $500 million for new shares in the closely held company and purchase ...

HONG KONG / AP Industry data show that Chinese auto sales rose by nearly 10 percent last month, led by strong demand for SUVs that more than offset slipping passenger car sales. The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said Tuesday that 2.06 million sedans, SUVs and minivans were sold in March in the world’s biggest auto market. That’s 9.8 percent ...

Singapore / AFP Crude prices dipped in Asia on Tuesday but held above $40 as traders awaited a summit of key oil producers next week to discuss freezing output and easing the supply glut. Analysts said prices were expected to see-saw before Sunday’s meeting in the Qatari capital Doha that will bring together both OPEC producers led by Saudi Arabia ...

Beijing / Bloomberg CRRC Corp., China’s only maker of high-speed locomotives, said it’s interested in investing in more US cities after winning a $1.3 billion rail-car contract from Chicago’s transport authorities. The company is bidding for a subway project in Los Angeles and a double-deck train contract in Philadelphia, CRRC Vice-President Yu Weiping said in an interview in Manhattan, without ...

Sydney / AFP It may be the smallest-denominated Australian dollar banknote, but a new design for the Aus$5 bill attracted an outsized amount of criticism when it was unveiled Tuesday, with detractors calling it “hideous” and “like vomit”. The note, which will replace its more bland predecessor from September 1, features a yellow Prickly Moses wattle flower and a colourful ...

Taipei / DPA Indonesia’s Ministry of Tourism announced ambitious plans to boost the number of inbound Taiwanese travellers in 2016. The goal, unveiled during an industry event in Taipei, is to attract 275,000 Taiwanese visitors by the end of the year. Taiwan is already a growing source of travellers for the Southeast Asian country, with the number of Taiwanese visitors ...

Bloomberg U.K. inflation accelerated to a 15-month high in March as an early Easter boosted air fares and clothing prices increased. Consumer prices rose 0.5 percent from a year earlier, the fastest pace since December 2014, the Office for National Statistics in London said on Tuesday. That exceeded the 0.4 percent median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists. Core ...

Bloomberg Russia is planning to offer Saipem SpA a contract to lay a natural gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea in an effort to settle a 760-million euro ($870 million) dispute and strengthen ties with Italy, according to two government officials in Moscow. State-run Gazprom PJSC may sign a deal with Saipem on a planned 10-billion euro offshore link known ...

Bloomberg Mercedes-Benz boosted sales twice as fast as BMW in the first quarter, moving closer to clinching the lead in the world’s luxury-car market for the first time in a decade. The Daimler AG unit’s deliveries soared 13 percent to 483,487 vehicles in the three months through March, compared with a 6 percent increase to 478,743 cars for BMW AG’s ...