Beijing / Bloomberg China is stepping up support for the economy by ramping up spending and considering new measures to boost bank lending. The nation’s chief planning agency is making more money available to local governments to fund new infrastructure projects, according to people familiar with the matter. Meantime, China’s cabinet has discussed lowering the minimum ratio of provisions that ...

New Delhi / AFP A little-known Indian company has launched a smartphone believed to be the cheapest in the world, targeting a market already dominated by low-cost handsets. Set to be priced at under 500 rupees ($7.30), domestic handset maker Ringing Bells’ Freedom 251 smartphone is about one percent of the price of the latest Apple iPhone. Ringing Bells was ...

Yangon / AFP Japanese auto giant Nissan will start assembling cars in Myanmar for the first time this year, the company said on Wednesday, as it expands its presence in one of Asia’s final economic frontiers. Foreign companies have piled into the Southeast Asian nation since reforms began in 2011, eager to tap into a 51.5 million-strong pool of potential ...

Tokyo / Bloomberg With Japan’s economy shrinking, the stock market in turmoil, and a stronger yen threatening export earnings, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’scalculus on whether to call a snap general election this summer has suddenly grown more complicated. Another win in the lower chamber along with an expected victory in the upper house vote set for the summer could allow ...

ABU DHABI / EMIRATES BUSINESS The Emirates Securities Market Index has increased by 0.16% to close at 4168.24 points. Accordingly the Market Capitalization has gained AED1.09 Billion attaining AED 676.14 Billion. A total of 454.37 Million Shares were traded with a total value of AED0.52 Billion during the trading session of 17-02-2016 through 5465 transactions. The number of companies which has been ...

Hong Kong / AFP Most Asia stock markets went into reverse on Wednesday after a recent rally, with energy firms down and oil unable to hold early gains after an output freeze by top producers Saudi Arabia and Russia left investors disappointed. The commodity had enjoyed a surge from Friday to early Tuesday as Moscow and Riyadh — the world’s ...

New York / AFP Beaten-down technology and banking shares jumped Tuesday as US stocks shrugged off a drop in oil prices to move firmly higher. The Dow Jones Industrial rose 222.57 points (1.39 percent) to 16,196.41. The broad-based S&P 500 climbed 30.80 (1.65 percent) to 1,895.58, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 98.44 (2.27 percent) to 4,435.96. Apple and ...

LONDON / Bloomberg Roll your dice. Pass “Go.” Collect $200. Buy a railway station. In reality, investing in commercial real estate has never been as simple as Monopoly makes it seem. Individuals generally can’t buy directly into commercial property development deals at all. But now U.K. startup BrickVest is seeking to do something vaguely reminiscent — it’s bringing big-time commercial ...

New York / Bloomberg Confidence among U.S. homebuilders dropped in February to a nine-month low as potential buyers stayed away, interrupting the steady progress residential real estate had built over the course of 2015. The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo builder sentiment index decreased to 58 in February from a revised reading of 61 the prior month, figures from ...

DOHA / Bloomberg UrbaCon Trading & Contracting Co., the construction firm building the Mall of Qatar, is considering an initial public offering in Doha that may raise about $1 billion, people familiar with the matter said. UCC, as the Qatari company is also known, has spoken to advisers about managing an IPO, which could occur by the fourth quarter of ...