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Abu Dhabi / Emirates Business Plans for self-sufficient greenhouses that enable the production of high-quality plants in sub-tropical regions affected by water scarcity will be unveiled by leading agricultural experts at Abu Dhabi’s Global Forum for Innovations in Agriculture (GFIA) on Tuesday. Saving water while utilising renewable energy sources, such as solar power, wind, biomass and geothermal energy is vital ...

Ritika Sharma / EMIRATES BUSINESS Gains are in for interior fit-out companies in the UAE as real estate in the region is getting a push from the ensuing Expo 2020. The estimated size of the interior and fit-out market grew at a pace of 8.5 percent and reached US$7.98 billion in 2015. On the same lines, Cloisall, the GCC’s leading ...

Sunaina Rana / Emirates Business UAE government enterprises will gain access to some of the world’s smartest applications in 2016 through their new cloud services, according to telecom giant du and software leader SAP. The announcement was made during the World Government Summit held in Dubai. The collaboration between the two organisations will create digitalization and innovation across the country. ...

Sunaina Rana / Emirates Business Economic confidence among CEOs in the MENA region has hit a three-year low in the final quarter of 2015, according to a new survey, which attributes the trend to oil price plunge and political, social unrests in many of the nations. The YPO Global Pulse Confidence Index for the MENA declined for the fifth consecutive ...

Bloomberg World powers agreed on a partial cease-fire in Syria’s civil war, reaching a deal that could forestall a humanitarian crisis around the besieged city of Aleppo even amid skepticism about how broad and lasting the truce might be. Backing the accord were all the major outside powers in the five-year-old conflict, including the US, Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and ...

Bloomberg Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks said Germany’s decision to admit more than 1.1 million refugees within the last year is likely to strain the government’s target to cut greenhouse gas pollution. The minister in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet who also oversees housing asked for 3.9 billion euros ($4.4 billion) in additional spending through 2020 to build homes for asylum seekers. ...

Bloomberg Germany said there’s little progress in fulfilling a peace deal for Ukraine signed a year ago and called on the parties to the conflict to step up efforts after four- nation talks with Ukraine, Russia and France. While the intensity of fighting has declined, “we are still quite far off from implementing” the accord, said Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier ...

Bloomberg Argentina’s new administration wasted little time trying to end US court orders barring the country from paying holders of its restructured debt, as it seeks to set aside its status as a credit-market pariah after 15 years. Representatives of newly seated President Mauricio Macri, after reaching a settlement with some holdout creditors, is urging US District Judge Thomas Griesa ...

KUWAIT/ AFP Kuwait and Italy will finalise a multi-billion-euro deal next week for the Gulf state to purchase Eurofighter jets, Kuwait’s defence minister has said. Sheikh Khaled Jarrah Al-Sabah did not specify the number of planes involved in the deal but the Eurofighter consortium said in September that Kuwait had agreed to buy 28 fighter jets. “Italian Defence Minister Roberta ...

New York / AFP US aerospace giant Boeing’s shares dived amid speculation that regulators are investigating its accounting for its 787 and 747 aircraft. In midday trade, shares in the Dow member were down about 10 percent at $104.44. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has opened a probe on Boeing’s profitability forecasts for the long-haul 787 and 747 jetliners, ...