Abu Dhabi / Emirates Business The growing power of social media influencers and bloggers has been borne out by new research from Dubai-based PR agency BPG Cohn & Wolfe that shows that 71 per cent of UAE residents aged 18-40 are happy to take advice online before purchasing. Beauty, fashion and food are the areas where residents are most ...

  Dubai / Emirates Business ENOC Retail, Emirates National Oil Company’s retail business segment, announced ambitious growth plans of 150 per cent for its Zoom stores network in the UAE by 2025 to cater to increasing customer demand and population growth. The company also aims to triple its turnover in the next 15 years. ZOOM’s growth plans include the opening ...

  Bloomberg Oil fell after the longest run of gains in four years as Iraq sought to increase exports amid a global oversupply and Nigerian militants called an end to hostilities. Futures dropped as much as 2 percent in New York after climbing 16 percent the previous seven sessions. Iraq will boost crude shipments by about 5 percent in the ...

  WAM CEO of Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) Mohammed Ghazi Al-Mutairi announced that a collective KD1.71 billion has been spent on a bio- fuel project, which was locally and internationally financed. In an interview with Al-Rai, carried by state news agency, KUNA, on Sunday, Al-Mutairi said that the funding was possible through loans from local banks which is given ...

  Bloomberg Iran’s central bank is signaling that it will loosen its grip on the rial in an effort to end a dual-exchange rate system seen as an obstacle deterring foreign investment needed to rebuild the economy. Policy makers, in a decision reported earlier this month, allowed commercial lenders to buy foreign currencies using rial rates set by the market ...

  Bloomberg Bahrain’s GFH Financial Group is in talks to buy a majority stake in Islamic lender Bank Alkhair. GFH has signed a memorandum of understanding for the potential acquisition, which is subject to board and shareholder approval, completion of due diligence, agreement on an acquisition structure and regulatory approvals, according to a statement Monday to the Dubai stock market. ...

  Bloomberg OPEC has done it again. Talk of a potential deal to freeze output helped push oil close to $50 a barrel and prompted money managers to cut bets on falling prices by the most ever. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, went from a bear to a bull market in less than three weeks. OPEC is on course ...

  Major media outlets in France have recently decided not to publish the names and faces of terrorists so as not to glorify them and encourage copycats. On the surface, this might seem like reasonable self-imposed discretion in the interests of national security. But it’s actually self-censorship — and it’s dangerous. It reflects a subtly mistaken conception of why extremists ...

  Imagine what could happen if Donald Trump hadn’t turned the presidential campaign into an argument over who founded IS or whether there should be ideological entrance tests for foreign visitors and immigrants. Then he and Hillary Clinton could have a rational debate over taxes, a serious topic on which they have clear differences. Trump wants to cut taxes massively, ...

  The European Union says it wants clarity on whether U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May is serious in her pledge that “Brexit means Brexit.” That clarity would be good for Britain as well as the rest of Europe, and there’s a simple way to get it: Extend the two-year deadline triggered by formal notification of the decision to leave the ...