Bloomberg India’s trade ministry is seeking a cut in taxes for overseas diamond miners to boost trading in the world’s largest hub for polishing the gems, people with knowledge of the matter said. The commerce department in a letter to the finance ministry has sought to scrap levies and instead introduce a presumptive tax of 0.25 percent on diamond mining …

Bloomberg Food and resources company Phoenix Commodities Ltd. will buy more rice from India as it expands its business in Africa to meet increasing demand. The company wants to boost its rice trading volumes to between 2 million metric tons and 2.2 million metric tons over the next three to four years, Chairman Gaurav Dhawan said. That compares with 1.5 …

Bloomberg UK business chiefs called for a swift and comprehensive trade agreement with the European Union as Brexit negotiations moved on to shaping the country’s future relationship with the bloc, with just 15 months remaining before Britain is due to leave. A long-awaited breakthrough on issues including a financial settlement clears the way for talks on a trade pact between …

Bloomberg Trade ministers will meet in Argentina with one of the traditional defenders of free markets, the US, questioning the benefits of the international rules it helped to forge. Even though trade volumes are set to grow faster than the world economy this year for the first time since 2014, members of the World Trade Organization will gather in Buenos …

Bloomberg Chevron Corp.’s Senior Economist Adam Karson may have put down a deposit on a Tesla 3 but he doesn’t see electric cars upending his employer’s business any time soon. Given the average life of an vehicle is between 10 and 15 years, every vehicle sold today would have to be electric for the world’s automotive industry to be free …

Bloomberg Apple Inc. is close to acquiring Shazam Entertainment Ltd., the startup whose music recognition app is already built into Apple’s Siri virtual assistant, according to a person familiar with the discussions. A deal for the London-based app maker could be announced as soon as Monday, said the person, who declined to be identified because the details are not yet …

Bloomberg YouTube plans to introduce a paid music service in March, according to people familiar with the matter, a third attempt by parent company Alphabet Inc. to catch up with rivals Spotify and Apple Inc. The new service could help appease record-industry executives who have pushed for more revenue from YouTube. Warner Music Group, one of the world’s three major …

Bloomberg China expressed pessimism about bringing the North Korean standoff to a peaceful resolution, even as Kim Jong Un’s regime touted new United Nations support for “regular” talks. Chinese Foreign Minster Wang Yi said on Saturday “the outlook is not optimistic” on the Korean Peninsula and urged all sides to end what he said was a “vicious cycle” of confrontation. …

BAGHDAD / Reuters An Iraqi military parade celebrating final victory over IS was held in Bag-hdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, an Iraqi military spokesman told Reuters on Sunday. The country’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared final victory over IS after Iraqi forces drove its last remn-ants from the country, three years after the militant group captured about a third of …

Bloomberg Neither the Palestinian Authority president nor the head of the Coptic Church in Egypt plan to meet with US Vice President Mike Pence when he visits the Middle East later this month, to protest the US declaration that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. The rejections emerged as the Anadolu Agency said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and French …