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ABU DHABI / WAM ADNOC Distribution on Tuesday launched the pilot phase of its smart self-refueling service (ADNOC SMART) in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, which will run until October 1 and cover four service stations on Abu Dhabi Island. ADNOC SMART also enables registered customers to benefit from a variety of innovative payment methods. The pilot phase of ADNOC ...

Tokyo / Bloomberg The world’s biggest pension fund posted its best quarterly gain in a year as a rebound in stocks helped add $42 billion to the value of Japanese asset manager’s investments. The 139.8 trillion yen ($1.2 trillion) Government Pension Investment Fund (GPIF) delivered a 3.6 percent return in the three months ended December as its holdings rose by ...

New Delhi / Bloomberg India’s biggest gold market was shuttered on Tuesday as jewellers in the country’s commercial capital began an indefinite strike to try to reverse a plan by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to introduce an excise tax. Jewellers in Mumbai’s Zaveri Bazaar have stopped work and want the proposal for a 1 percent levy announced in Monday’s annual ...

Tokyo / Bloomberg Sharp Corp. is facing a potential cash crunch at the end of this month as talks drag on with Foxconn Technology Group for a rescue deal that would inject billions of dollars in new capital into the struggling Japanese electronics maker. Sharp has 510 billion yen ($4.5 billion) in credit lines and loans that are set to ...

Beijing / AFP Manufacturing activity in China shrank at its fastest rate in four years in February, government data showed Tuesday, a fresh sign of sustained weakness in the world’s second-largest economy. The official Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), which tracks activity in factories and workshops, fell to 49.0 last month, figures from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed. It ...

Bangkok / AFP A Thai tuna processing factory has agreed to pay staff $1.3 million compensation for a litany of labour abuses, an official said on Tuesday, a rare victory for migrant workers in the kingdom’s scandal-stricken seafood industry. Hundreds of Myanmar labourers at Golden Prize Tuna Canning, a processing plant in Samut Sakhon that sells fish to markets around ...

New Delhi / Bloomberg It’s not just taxpayers who will make Indian banks whole. Tax cheats are being pressed into service as well. State-run Indian lenders are gasping for breath, as the central bank forces them to recognize bad loans and make provisions. The 250 billion rupees ($3.7 billion) in fresh capital that Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has pledged to ...

Abu Dhabi / Emirates Business In line with its commitment to Emiratisation and developing the local talent pool, RAKBANK has initiated its new two-year Management Associate Programme, ‘IRTIQA’, which was revealed at the Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) Employment and Training exhibition that is being held from March 1-3. As part of the new initiative, fresh Emirati graduates will be part ...

Ras Al Khaimah / Emirates Business Ras Al Khaimah Tourism Development Authority has announced an increase of 23.7 percent in occupancy across the emirate’s hotels and resorts for the month of January 2016. Figures from the industry for the first month of the year show that 2016 is off to a strong start for Ras Al Khaimah’s tourism sector with ...

Dubai / EMIRATES BUSINESS Businesses in the Middle East and Africa region are increasingly looking at sustainable solutions for data management to accelerate decision-making processes, ensure high-levels of data security, and manage workloads. A recent study by Accenture predicts that an effective implementation and use of digital technology can boost the UAE’s economic output by $13.8 Billion by 2020. The ...