DUBAI / Reuters Aluminium Bahrain has approached banks for a $750 million loan towards the financing of its Line 6 expansion project, sources said. Alba will become the world’s largest single aluminium smelter complex, boosting its annual output by 540,000 tonnes to 1.5 million tonnes per year by adding the sixth “potline”, used in producing the metal from raw ...

  CAIRO / Reuters Pharmacies across Egypt are running short of medicines, some of them life-savers, as a plunge in the value of the Egyptian pound coupled with strict government price caps has made scores of products unprofitable to produce or import. The shortages include some cancer treatments as well as basic items like insulin, tetanus shots and contraceptive pills. ...

  The U.S. may have gone too far in pushing the European banking industry to play by American rules. Justified or not, these efforts are causing a protectionist pushback that probably won’t do global finance any good. European banks have been losing market share to U.S. ones, especially in investment banking, for years. Today, U.S. financial institutions are responsible for ...

  Financial markets have been surging the past two weeks, anticipating the potential for more stimulative economic policy after the spate of recent anti-establishment political surprises. Central bankers on both side of the Atlantic, while more restrained, also are preparing for measures that might produce both higher growth and faster inflation. Following his election as U.S. president, Donald Trump and ...

  China is America’s largest trading partner, and the U.S. is the largest partner for China. And while it’s true that our two countries have differences, we know that when we work together, we can accomplish extraordinary things. Cooperation between the U.S. and China, after all, is what made the Paris climate agreement possible. In the wake of the presidential ...

  On Wednesday, Britain’s finance minister Philip Hammond cut UK’s economic growth forecast for next year from 2.2% to 1.4%. The announcement came exactly five months after the June 23 referendum and rattled businesses in London. The UK economy has been in a tailspin as there continues to be ambiguity over the Brexit process. Even though British Prime Minister Theresa ...

  Here’s a suggestion for what should be among President Donald Trump’s priorities in Asia: Negotiate a free-trade agreement with China. You may think I’ve lost my mind. Hasn’t trade with China cost jobs and weakened U.S. industry, as Trump relentlessly argued during his campaign? Wouldn’t a free-trade pact only make matters worse? And isn’t the U.S. trade deficit with ...

  Financial markets have been optimistic since the election of Donald J. Trump in the U.S., in part because investors assume that the incoming administration will pass some sort of business-friendly tax reform. But some of those reforms could hit investors in unexpected ways. One plank of Trump’s business-friendly tax reform, which Hillary Clinton proposed as well, entails giving multinational ...

  Jean-Michel Paul When they were opposition figures, populists could content themselves with provocative slogans. Once in office they must produce concrete policies. The challenge for them — and for those incumbents trying to hold onto office — is to preserve the real gains of globalization while addressing the concerns of the new radical majority. Here are some policy directions ...

  DUBAI / Reuters Saudi Arabia’s index firmed on Wednesday as blue chips resumed their climb and the positive mood flowed into other Gulf bourses, carrying them higher. Egypt’s market edged up, holding near an 8-year peak as foreign funds remained aggressive buyers. Riyadh’s index bounced 3.0 percent to 6,796 points, closing 93 points over technical resistance at the July ...