News

New Delhi / AFP A little-known Indian company has launched a smartphone believed to be the cheapest in the world, targeting a market already dominated by low-cost handsets. Set to be priced at under 500 rupees ($7.30), domestic handset maker Ringing Bells’ Freedom 251 smartphone is about one percent of the price of the latest Apple iPhone. Ringing Bells was ...

Yangon / AFP Japanese auto giant Nissan will start assembling cars in Myanmar for the first time this year, the company said on Wednesday, as it expands its presence in one of Asia’s final economic frontiers. Foreign companies have piled into the Southeast Asian nation since reforms began in 2011, eager to tap into a 51.5 million-strong pool of potential ...

Tokyo / Bloomberg With Japan’s economy shrinking, the stock market in turmoil, and a stronger yen threatening export earnings, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’scalculus on whether to call a snap general election this summer has suddenly grown more complicated. Another win in the lower chamber along with an expected victory in the upper house vote set for the summer could allow ...

LONDON / Bloomberg Roll your dice. Pass “Go.” Collect $200. Buy a railway station. In reality, investing in commercial real estate has never been as simple as Monopoly makes it seem. Individuals generally can’t buy directly into commercial property development deals at all. But now U.K. startup BrickVest is seeking to do something vaguely reminiscent — it’s bringing big-time commercial ...

New York / Bloomberg Confidence among U.S. homebuilders dropped in February to a nine-month low as potential buyers stayed away, interrupting the steady progress residential real estate had built over the course of 2015. The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo builder sentiment index decreased to 58 in February from a revised reading of 61 the prior month, figures from ...

DOHA / Bloomberg UrbaCon Trading & Contracting Co., the construction firm building the Mall of Qatar, is considering an initial public offering in Doha that may raise about $1 billion, people familiar with the matter said. UCC, as the Qatari company is also known, has spoken to advisers about managing an IPO, which could occur by the fourth quarter of ...

Riyadh / Bloomberg Saudi Arabia is creating a “one-stop shop” for housing developers as it tries to relieve bureaucratic gridlock that is stalling plans to build half a million affordable homes for its soaring population. The Real Estate Developers Center will bring together various government agencies involved with the review and approval of housing projects, reducing the time and effort ...

NEW YORK / Bloomberg A provision of the 2010 Dodd-Frank law that takes effect in December forces banks to keep a stake in the commercial-property loans they package into securities and sell off to investors. The rule is intended to deter the type of risky lending that helped fuel the last decade’s boom and bust. Under the current business model, ...

Singapore / AFP Airbus and Boeing announced billion-dollar deals at Asia’s largest airshow in Singapore on Wednesday, underscoring the region’s role as a driver of industry growth despite greater caution among plane buyers. Europe’s Airbus said it had won an $1.85 billion deal for the purchase of six A350-900s by Philippine Airlines (PAL), the flag carrier of one of Asia’s ...

Washington / Bloomberg Bombardier Inc. said it planned to cut about 7,000 jobs as it reported fourth-quarter profit that fell short of analysts’ estimates. It also signed a letter of intent for Air Canada to buy at least 45 of the planemaker’s C Series jets. The job cuts, from a workforce of about 64,000, will occur during the next two ...