The Russian government has approved a sober, and sobering, economic forecast for the next three years. The country’s prospects look so joyless that President Vladimir Putin may finally start listening to the mainstream economists who have stuck with him despite his unconcealed preference for a huge public sector tempered with a dose of crony capitalism. Today’s Russian leaders appear ...

  Du Nhat Dang SPECIAL TO EMIRATES BUSINESS For Vietnam, 2016 seems fated to be a crucial year. Hanoi’s sovereignty disputes and related diplomatic efforts will be impacted by ongoing changes in Russia, China, and Japan and, yes, the results of the United States’ presidential election. The role of Russia is of particular interest for Vietnam. On April 14, Vietnamese ...

  This week’s U.K. Treasury report and last week’s IMF report are the latest in a long line of predictions suggesting doom and gloom if the U.K. leaves the European Union. Are they right? Economists are far more split on the consequences of a U.K. exit than the conventional view suggests. While a number of global investment banks have given ...

  BLOOMBERG Global stocks climbed for the first time in four days amid earnings reports in Europe and America that topped estimates. The yen strengthened a second day ahead of central bank decisions from Japan and the U.S. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index climbed and banks led European shares higher after a three-day slump. The yen rose and Treasuries ...

  ABU DHABI / EMIRATES BUSINESS The Emirates Securities Market Index has decreased by -0.58% to close at 4682.01 points. Accordingly the Market Capitalization has lost AED 4.4 billion attaining AED 759.48 billion. A total of 387.88 Million Shares were traded with a total value of 0.64 Billion AED during the trading session of 26-04-2016 through 5762 transactions. The number of companies ...

  Prague / Reuters Czech lender GE Money Bank set the pricing range for its initial public share offer, potentially Prague’s biggest in eight years despite the valuation falling below some expectations, and said it would change its name to MONETA Money Bank. GE Money, which is being sold by GE as the US group moves away from financial activities, ...

  Hong Kong / AFP Standard Chartered has announced on Tuesday first quarter profits slumped 64 percent year-on-year as revenue for the period also plunged, following a turbulent 2015 in which the troubled bank announced it would axe thousands of jobs. The Asia-focussed bank said profits for the first three months fell to $539 million from $1.49 billion in the same ...

  New York / AFP Goldman Sachs has officially launched an online bank targetting households and small businesses as it expands from its Wall Street base and aims for the masses. The online-only GS Bank permits consumers to open an account for as little as $1, a big shift for a financial powerhouse that has built itself around serving billionaires and ...

  Tokyo / Reuters Japanese government bonds (JGBs) stayed firm on Tuesday, with prices of superlong JGBs rallying after strong results of the Bank of Japan’s (BOJ’s) buying operations. The central bank offered to buy 450 billion yen ($4.06 billion) of JGBs in the 5- to 10-year zone, 220 billion yen of JGBs in the 10- to 25-year zone and ...

  Reuters SWIFT, the global financial network that banks use to transfer billions of dollars every day, warned its customers that it was aware of “a number of recent cyber incidents” where attackers had sent fraudulent messages over its system. The disclosure came as law enforcement authorities in Bangladesh and elsewhere investigated the February cyber theft of $81 million from ...