Reuters France expects to take a “first significant step” in the development of a new European fighter jet with Germany later this month, Defence Minister Florence Parly said in remarks. Paris and Berlin first unveiled plans to develop the new warplane in July, two months after President Emmanuel Macron’s election win, burying past industrial rivalries to tighten defence and security. ...

Bloomberg British retailers suffered their biggest sales decline since 2008 last month as two snowstorms dubbed the “beasts from the east” kept shoppers at home. Comparable sales in midmarket stores dropped 10.1 percent in March, the second-worst month on record, business advisory firm BDO LLP said in its monthly report. Several days of subzero temperatures and extraordinary snowfall disrupted Britain’s ...

ABU DHABI / WAM Deposits of non-residents in UAE Islamic banks increased by AED4.2 billion over the first two months of 2018, bringing up to AED17.058 billion their total savings in Sharia-compliant banks operating in the country until the end of February from around AED12.81 billion in December 2017. The growth in non-residents’ deposits in January and February is a ...

ABU DHABI / Emirates Business Shareholders of Adnoc Distribution, the UAE’s largest fuel and convenience retailer, on Sunday approved a AED 735 million (AED 5.88 fils per share) dividend payment, at the company’s landmark first Annual General Meeting (AGM). HE Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, Adnoc Distribution Board Chairman, said, “The IPO and recently announced fourth quarter and 2017 full ...

DUBAI / WAM Two-way trade between GCC countries and the European Union has exceeded EUR143 billion ($175.87 billion) in recent years, according to a senior official of the European Union visiting the UAE to attend the Annual Investment Meeting (AIM) taking place in Dubai from April 9 to 11. This confirms that the European Union is the largest trading partner ...

Bloomberg The Middle East is emerging as a potential beneficiary of the brewing trade war between the US and China as the Asian nation strikes back with retaliatory tariffs on American petrochemical products. If China goes ahead with its proposal to slap a 25 percent tariff on polyethylene and liquid propane, which were among 106 American goods targeted, buyers in ...

DUBAI / WAM With the aim of further strengthening the existing partnership and collab-orating in sustainable agriculture and development, the International Centre for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA) and the Dubai Carbon Centre of Excellence (DCCE), joined forces on Sunday to work together on sustainability projects. Through this partnership, both organisations agreed to cooperate in technical research, the sharing of knowledge, capacity ...

DUBAI / Emirates Business The total value of the top 10 active projects linked to Expo 2020 has exceeded $32.7 billion (AED120 billion) as of March 31, according to BNC Network, the largest project intelligence provider in the MENA region. There are various high value projects across different sectors that are being developed in the UAE which will impact or ...

Sharjah / WAM His Highness Dr Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah, has issued a law on social security in the Emirate of Sharjah, setting the retirement age at 55 years for females and 60 years for males. Law No. 5 of 2018 stipulates that the age of the insured shall not be ...

Abu Dhabi / WAM The Emirates Centre for Strategic Studies and Research (ECSSR), will organise a lecture entitled ‘The Georgia-UAE Partnership: Creating a Shared Future in an Inconsistent World’, on April 10, at the Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan Hall at the ECSSR headquarters in Abu Dhabi. The lecture, which will be delivered by President Giorgi Margvelashvili of Georgia, ...