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Bloomberg Norway’s economy grew much faster than expected at the end of last year, underpinning bets that its central bank will be the first in the rich world to raise interest rates this year. Mainland gross domestic product, which adjusts for Norway’s offshore industry, expanded 1.9% in the fourth quarter, the statistics office said. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had expected ...

Bloomberg A year of pandemic prudence is giving way to jumbo dealmaking in Europe for deep-pocketed private equity houses. Buyout firms have announced $29 billion of takeovers involving European companies this year, up 60% year-on-year and the most for this period on record, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s after months in which many large buyers, including Blackstone Group ...

Abu Dhabi / WAM His Highness Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, met with Sayyid Badr Hamad al-Busaidi, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Oman, as part of his official visit to Oman. During the meeting, both sides discussed the strong historic ties between the UAE and Oman and ways of strengthening their ...

Dubai / WAM HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai, Minister of Finance and Chairman of the Al Maktoum Foundation, has ordered the donation of $500,000 to the Khartoum-based International University of Africa for the 2020-2021 academic year. The move is in recognition of the university’s role in the field of higher education and Africa and ...

Dubai / WAM Dubai Future Accelerators (DFA), an initiative of the Dubai Future Foundation (DFF), has announced that the second phase of the eighth edition of its flagship programme is well underway to position Dubai as a leading city of the future. Being hosted at the DFF’s innovation ecosystem, AREA 2071, the Fall Cohort’s participating entities include Dubai Roads and ...

Bloomberg Royal Dutch Shell Plc launched arbitration proceedings against the Nigerian government over a long-running community dispute. The oil major’s Netherlands-registered holding company and a Nigerian unit filed a case at the World Bank’s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, according to the Washington-based organisation’s website. Shell brought its claim against Africa’s biggest crude producer under the bilateral investment ...

Bloomberg Former President Donald Trump was acquitted by the Senate on the charge of inciting the January 6 riot at the Capitol after an unprecedented second impeachment trial that exposed a Republican Party deeply divided over Trump’s conduct and uneasy with his continued role in public life. The vote was 57-43, falling short of the two-thirds majority required for a ...

Bloomberg The biggest US homebuilders group urged the Biden administration to help increase lumber supply, saying record-high costs threaten to price potential home buyers out of the market and curb construction. The administration needs to remove import tariffs on Canadian lumber and urge producers to boost output, the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) said on its website. In November, the ...

Bloomberg Economists revised their growth estimates for Canada higher this year, though the recovery is expected to lag the US. Canada’s economy is expected to expand 4.7% in 2021, according to Bloomberg’s latest monthly survey of analysts. That’s up from a previous yearly estimate of 4.4%. Growth in 2022 is seen at 4.1%, little changed from the January survey. The ...

Bloomberg The UK economy grew at double the pace expected in the fourth quarter, showing signs of resilience to coronavirus restrictions at the end of a year that delivered the worst recession since 1709. Figures add some weight to the Bank of England’s view that while the economy will likely shrink in the first three months of the year, a ...