Bloomberg China’s thirst for overseas energy investments is slaking, at least by one tally. The nation’s financing for so-called Belt and Road Initiative energy projects dropped 28 percent to $14.3 billion last year from $19.9 billion, according to data released on Monday by Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center. Spending last year included investments in gas pipelines in Malaysia, coal …

DUBAI / Reuters Egypt plans to award the tender for a high-speed railway between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean in the second half of 2018, transport minister Hisham Arafat said on Monday. The project will connect the eastern resort of Ain al-Sokhna to El Alamein, a town west of Alexandria that was scene of a battle in World War …

Bloomberg An agency tasked with cleaning up Nigeria’s murky oil industry says even though financial accountability has improved the state oil company still hasn’t explained billions of dollars of missing revenue. While energy producers have cooperated and complied with requirements to publish payments, the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative has struggled with the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., Waziri Adio, …

BAGHDAD / Reuters Iraq’s oil ministry on Monday said the nation would reduce its petroleum products imports by 25 percent as crude oil refiner­ies are being rehabilitated following fighting with IS militants. Iraq is also producing more oil products by processing natural gas liquids, Oil Minister Jabar al-Luaibi said in a statement, without indicating a specific timeframe for the import …

DUBAI / Reuters Saudi’s Water & Electricity Co (WEC) invited proposals to develop Jubail Phase 3, an integrated water desalination and power plant in the country’s Eastern Province, according to a tender posted on its website. The project, which an industry source estimated to be worth about $5bn, is expected to generate 1.17mn cubic metres of water per day and …

Bloomberg Demand in Hong Kong’s red-hot housing market shows no signs of abating, with Wheelock & Co. selling all 750 apartments offered at its new Kowloon project. Based on buyers’ enthusiasm for the project, where 9,800 applications were made for the 750 units, Wheelock is likely to announce the launch of a further 300 to 400 apartments on Tuesday, said …

Bloomberg London house prices are falling at the fastest pace since the depths of the recession almost a decade ago, with the capital’s most expensive areas seeing the biggest declines. Average prices fell to 593,396 pounds ($820,000) in January, an annual decline of 2.6 percent, according to a report published by Acadata on Monday. That’s the most since August 2009. …

Bloomberg Deutsche Bank AG plans to raise as much as 1.8 billion euros ($2.2 billion) in an initial public offering of its asset-management unit, a key pillar of the German lender’s turnaround strategy. The offering values the asset manager at as much as 7.2 billion euros, a valuation that would align it with its bigger peer Amundi SA. Nippon Life …

Bloomberg VBS Mutual Bank, one of South Africa’s smallest lenders, has been put into administration after it was unable to repay money owed to municipalities, according to the country’s central bank. The management team has been relieved of its duties and a curator from the auditing firm SizweNtsalubaGobodo put in place following a “severe liquidity crisis,” Lesetja Kganyago, governor of …

Bloomberg Agricultural Bank of China Ltd. said it aims to raise as much as 100 billion yuan ($15.8 billion) in what would be the biggest-ever follow-on share offering by a Chinese company as it moves to replenish capital. China’s third-largest lender will sell up to 27.5 billion shares to seven state-linked entities including the country’s Finance Ministry, Central Huijin Investment …