Reuters GFH Financial Group hopes to largely complete the acquisition of Bahrain’s Bank Al Khair in the first quarter of next year and is at an advanced stage of exploring a merger with another Bahraini bank, its chief executive said on Tuesday. “The recent merger we announced was Bank Al Khair – we hope during the first quarter of 2017 ...

  Reuters Oman’s Finance Ministry is looking at cutting expenditure again in the state budget for next year to reduce a deficit caused by low oil prices, sources briefed on the ministry’s thinking told Reuters on Tuesday. A draft budget for 2017 foresees a 5 percent cut in spending from this year’s budget, and no increase in revenues, the sources ...

  Bloomberg Oil retreated from the highest close in 16 months as OPEC pumped a record amount of crude in November, partly led by members exempt from cutting output as part of last week’s deal to curb supply. Futures slid as much as 1.7 percent in New York after advancing 15 percent over the previous four sessions. The Organization of ...

  Bloomberg OPEC’s mission to implement last week’s historic deal to curb production for the first time in eight years just got a little bit harder after three of its African members increased output in November. Crude production from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries rose to a record 34.16 million barrels a day in November with gains led by ...

  Seoul / AFP South Korea’s most powerful tycoons, including de facto Samsung chief Lee Jae-Yong, stammered and squirmed on Tuesday under a verbal assault from a parliamentary committee probing a corruption scandal that has riveted the nation. Millions watched in astonishment as the televised hearing showed the heads of the country’s eight largest conglomerates being publicly chastised over donations ...

  Bloomberg Cyrus Mistry, the ousted chairman of Tata Group, accused its biggest shareholders of eroding governance at India’s largest business empire and portrayed himself as a defender of independent decision-making in a letter to investors in Tata companies. The conglomerate refuted his allegations. Mistry made his appeal on Monday before a series of extraordinary general meetings from Dec. 13 ...

  Bloomberg The death knell sounding for a US-led Pacific trade pact creates a vacuum that a separate Asia deal being championed by China should quickly fill, according to the Asian Development Bank. Negotiators at the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership meeting this week in Indonesia would normally hold talks without much public scrutiny. But the latest round comes after U.S. ...

  Bloomberg Investors and companies are getting a preview of how the Taiwan government’s plan to become “Asia’s Silicon Valley” might fare. Uber Technologies Inc., one of Silicon Valley’s most disruptive companies and valued at more than $60 billion, launched services in Taiwan in 2013. The app has been downloaded by more than a million people in four cities and ...

  Bloomberg Japan’s aging and shrinking population is causing labor shortages that should be helping workers win higher pay. But it’s not working out that way, in part because of low productivity in the areas of the greatest shortage, according to economists including Hideo Kumano at Dai-ichi Life Research Institute in Tokyo. Labor intensive sectors like hotels, restaurants and elderly ...

  Brussels / AFP EU and US consumer watchdogs announced they are filing complaints against a clutch of smart toys that can “spy” on children and their homes, for allegedly breaching privacy and data protection laws. The complaints target smart toys My Friend Cayla, i-QUE Intelligent Robot and Hello Barbie, according to the European Consumer Organisation BEUC and US groups ...