Dubai / WAM The UAE government launched the ‘Customer Happiness Formula’ as a new initiative to enrich the happiness and positivity concept by providing employees in customer happiness centers with a range of tools and values that will enable them to implement the government’s initiatives in achieving happiness and positivity. The Formula, which is based on the Customer Service Charter, …

  Abu Dhabi / Emirates Business The Ministry of Finance (MoF) held a meeting on joint Gulf economic integration. The meeting reflects the Ministry’s commitment to review the components of the GCC joint economic action, and the UAE’s role in supporting the Gulf economic integration projects. The meeting was attended by HE Younis Haji Al Khoori, Undersecretary of MoF and …

  BEIJING / AP China’s Cabinet approved measures to boost exports in a move that might inflame tensions with Western trading partners that accuse Beijing of flooding their markets with steel and other goods at improperly low prices. The announcement comes as Beijing struggles to reduce a glut of goods in an array of industries and reverse an export decline …

  Tokyo / Bloomberg Japan will compile a 778 billion yen ($7.2 billion) extra budget to aid the recovery from a series of huge quakes in southern Japan last month, according to ruling party officials with direct knowledge of the spending plan. The government can cover the cost of the supplementary budget because interest payments on Japanese government bonds have …

  New Delhi / AFP India is a global IT powerhouse but a huge majority of the population remains locked out of the benefits brought by the digital economy, the World Bank said on Tuesday. India’s vibrant business process outsourcing sector, centred in the southern hubs of Bangalore and Hyderabad, has made it the leading exporter of IT services and …

  Tokyo / Bloomberg Mitsubishi Motors Corp.’s fraudulent fuel-economy testing and the subsequent plunge in its stock price and sales could cost its second-largest shareholder about 335 billion yen ($3 billion), as the Japanese carmaker’s disclosure reverberates through its business group. Mitsubishi Corp., which owns 10 percent of Mitsubishi Motors, is the first of the automaker’s major shareholders to measure …

  Bloomberg The U.K. economy received no help from its international trade performance in the first quarter, official figures published on Tuesday suggest. The deficit widened to 13.3 billion pounds ($19 billion), the most since the start of 2008, from 12.2 billion pounds in the fourth quarter of 2015, the Office for National Statistics said. The shortfall in goods alone …

Bloomberg Industrial production in the euro area’s three biggest economies disappointed in March, possibly signaling slackening demand in Europe. German production, adjusted for seasonal swings, fell 1.3 percent, its second consecutive decline and exceeding a 0.2 percent drop predicted by economist in a Bloomberg survey. In France, output unexpectedly fell 0.3 percent, and Italy saw production stagnate in March after …

  AFP An International Monetary Fund team arrived in Kiev on Tuesday after the formation of a new Ukrainian government resolved a prolonged political crisis that had stalled the release of vital aid. The mission’s visit was long awaited in the cash-strapped former Soviet country as it grapples with the costs of a two-year conflict in the pro-Russian separatist east …

  Bloomberg AbertisInfraestructuras SA agreed to pay €594 million ($677 million) to buy control of two Italian highways as the Spanish toll-road operator presses ahead with its international expansion plan. Abertis reached an accord with IntesaSanpaoloSpA, AstaldiSpA and the Tabacchi family to buy the two companies that control 51 percent of A4 Holding, which owns the A4 Brescia-Padova and A31 …