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  DUBAI / EMIRATES BUSINESS The Middle East and North Africa’s leading shopping mall, retail and leisure pioneer, Majid Al Futtaim, on Wednesday unveiled a strategic development plan that will see the company increase its total investment in the UAE by AED 30 billion by 2026, taking its total investment in the country to AED 48 billion. The investments, which ...

  Tokyo / AFP Japan’s prime minister said on Wednesday that he will delay a consumption tax hike that threatened the fragile economy, but analysts said the move highlighted his failure to spark growth. Shinzo Abe announced his decision to members of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) in televised remarks ahead of a press briefing expected around 6:00 pm ...

  Paris / AFP Transport chaos hit France again on Wednesday, just nine days ahead of Euro 2016, as railway workers went on strike in the latest salvo of a months-long battle between the government and unions. Between a third and half of France’s trains were expected to grind to a halt, as workers from railway operator SNCF launched their ...

Near Fallujah / AFP Iraqi forces struggled on Wednesday to break into Fallujah city centre where hundreds of fighters from the IS group and some 50,000 increasingly desperate civilians were holed up. Fighting also raged hundreds of kilometres further up the Euphrates Valley in Syria, as US-backed Kurdish and Arab fighters opened a new front against the extremists in the ...

  RITIKA SHARMA / Emirates Business As technology continues to change the way in which payments are made across the Middle East, improved application performance and flexibility are expected to play an important role in making the region’s digital economy mature. Experts at the Cards and Payments Middle East, and its co-located exhibitions — Retail Show Middle East 2016 and ...

  ALKESH SHARMA Emirates Business ‘Go Green’ is the new corporate mantra of enterprises worldwide in their eco-friendly pursuit to ensure a sustainable tomorrow. Following this green path, UAE-based Al Ghurair Investment — one of the largest diversified industrial enterprises in the Middle East — has unveiled its environmental and sustainability plan for the next three years. Various entities, active ...

  DUBAI / Emirates Business Over the last decade, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a country with a population of over 9 million, has consistently attracted the world’s attention. With a host of benefits ranging from excellent infrastructure to top-notch services and access to the world’s leading brands, this country is a haven for the highly skilled workforce in the ...

  Paris / AFP The world risks getting caught in a low-growth trap, denting the future of generations to come, unless governments step up spending quickly, the OECD warned on Wednesday. Tepid worldwide recovery since the global economic crisis in 2008 “has precipitated a self-fulfilling low-growth trap” said the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s chief economist Catherine Mann said ...

  Geneva / AP Just like Hannibal in ancient times, Swiss engineers have conquered the Alps. More than 2,200 years after the commander from the ancient North African civilization of Carthage led his army of elephants and troops over Europe’s highest mountain chain, Swiss leaders have completed another gargantuan task — and on time: Burrowing the world’s longest railway tunnel ...

  Bloomberg Canada’s economy was already on track to crumble in the second quarter as the Alberta wildfires last month took more than 1 million barrels of oil a day out of production. When you add in details from Tuesday’s report on first-quarter gross domestic product, the outlook becomes dismal. Here are some of the reasons the economy doesn’t appear ...