Sharjah / Emirates Business The talents of the UAE’S traditional craftswomen and its emerging designers have been successfully highlighted on an international stage following a trade delegation to London. The recently concluded mission, organised by Sharjah-based Irthi Contemporary Crafts Council (Irthi), that operates under NAMA Women Advancement Establishment (NAMA) offered a unique opportunity to showcase and support the creative ...

  Dubai / Emirates Business IKEA Al-Futtaim launched the brand’s 65th annual home furnishing Catalogue at a media event at its Dubai Festival City store. ‘Goodbye expectations. Hello you!’ this year’s catalogue theme highlights home furnishing solutions that help to inspire & enable people to live a life free of conventional expectations. Built on the foundation of last year’s theme ...

  Dubai / Emirates Business XTOUCH, the leading new age consumer electronics brand has announced the launch of its special offer, bundling its latest new generation 4G LTE smartphone, A3 featuring touch Fingerprint Sensor technology, Live Photos with the VFit Smart Band for just 599 AED in UAE. Considering, the stand alone price for XTOUCH A3 of 399 AED and ...

  Bloomberg Saudi Arabia’s state oil producer is in a league of its own. The world’s most valuable company, which supplies about one in every nine barrels of crude produced and runs refineries from the US Gulf coast to the South China Sea, is preparing for an initial public offering to raise about $100 billion as soon as 2017. Selling ...

  Reuters Iran’s new oil and gas contracts will need amendments, its oil minister said after a meeting with the speaker of parliament, adding that the new contracts will not be sent to the assembly for final approval. The launch of the Iran Petroleum Contract (IPC) has been postponed several times as hardline rivals of pragmatist President Hassan Rouhani resisted ...

  Reuters An offer of 3 billion riyals ($825 million) of Qatar government bonds, the first domestic government bond offer this year, was successful and showed liquidity in the Qatari banking system is healthy, a central bank official told Reuters on Tuesday. “It was a very successful auction with big demand. It shows liquidity is fine. The demand was fine ...

  Reuters Telecommunications operator Zain Saudi Arabia said on Tuesday it would save 175 million riyals ($46.7 million) by using a Chinese bank to refinance a 2.25 billion riyal loan that it had secured just two months ago. The new, $600 million loan was signed with Industrial and Commercial Bank of China; it has a two-year maturity with an option ...

  Bloomberg Libya’s government appointed a steering committee to head the country’s $60 billion sovereign wealth fund, where rifts have hindered efforts to unite financial institutions in the fractured North African oil exporter. The Libyan Investment Authority’s temporary five-member committee will be headed by one of the fund’s former directors, Ali Mohamed Hassan, according to a statement issued by the ...

  Bloomberg Israel’s faltering industry of tech startups is facing another hurdle amid mounting questions regarding government commitments to funding young companies. A senior official in the technology industry said the chief scientist’s office didn’t receive a 240-million-shekel ($63.5 million) round of additional funding to finish the year as had occurred in the past. Without this sum, which is 15 ...

  Bloomberg The rally in Qatar’s stock market may have been too strong for its own good. The QE Index’s world-beating 2.2 percent advance left it about 7 percent above the average of analysts’ price targets, the most among more than 70 gauges tracked by Bloomberg. The measure’s 14-day relative strength index was at 79 points, above the level of ...