RIYADH / Reuters Saudi Arabia’s King Salman ordered a deposit of $2 billion to be paid into Yemen’s central bank on Wednesday to shore up the weak Yemeni currency, the Saudi government said. The move was made a day after the Yemeni prime minister issued a public plea for funds to prop up the rial and help stave off hunger ...

Bloomberg While the prospect of the European Central Bank’s withdrawal of monetary stimulus is bringing closer the end of an era of record-low borrowing costs in emerging Europe, it isn’t worrying countries both inside the euro area and those just on its eastern fringe. Governments from Slovakia to Croatia say their economies are in much better shape than when investors ...

Bloomberg The Swiss National Bank’s (SNB) somewhat more upbeat inflation view may not necessarily translate into early rate increases, according to a Bloomberg survey. In their first take since the SNB’s December policy meeting, when the central bank adjusted its forecasts, economists still see Switzerland’s deposit rate staying at a rock-bottom minus 0.75 percent until late 2019. A 25-basis point ...

Bloomberg London’s Heathrow Airport put forward proposals for a sloping runway and said the landing strip could be shortened as it seeks to cut 2.5 billion pounds ($3.4 billion) from the cost of expansion plans. Europe’s busiest hub also proposed the phased opening of new terminals and a number of alternative road links as part of a 10-week consultation aimed ...

BLoomberg The UK economy isn’t going to pick up for at least the next two years as consumers struggle to lift spending. Respondents to Bloomberg’s first UK survey of 2018 showed few signs of new year optimism. The median forecast for growth this year was kept at 1.4 percent, and no acceleration is seen in 2019. While gross domestic product ...

Bloomberg Fed up with delays that have plagued production of luxurious jetliner cabins, Boeing Co. is forming its own company with a major seat supplier to the auto industry. The joint venture with Adient Plc will be based near Frankfurt, Germany, along with a technology center and an initial production plant, the companies said in a statement. It will market ...

Bloomberg Qantas Airways Ltd. is the least fuel efficient and burns the most carbon of major airlines that fly across the Pacific Ocean, according to a report by the International Council on Clean Transportation. Qantas burns an average of one liter of aviation fuel to fly a passenger 22 kilometres, 64 percent more than the 36 kilometres achieved by the ...

DUBAI / Emirates Business The 2nd UAE Public Policy For-um has called for developing a national strategy for public-private partnerships that acts as a roadmap for collaboration between the government and the private sector at national level. The two-day forum was organised by the Mohammed Bin Rashid School of Government (MBRSG), the first research and teaching institution focusing on governance ...

DUBAI / Reuters Emirates NBD, Dubai’s largest lender, posted a 17 percent rise in fourth-quarter net profit on Tuesday, buoyed by loan growth, interest rate rises and higher sales. The bank, the first major lender from the United Arab Emirates to report its earnings during the quarter, made a net profit of AED2.18billion ($593.5 million) in the three months to ...

ABU DHABI / WAM The Centre of Waste Management in Abu Dhabi (Tadweer) on Tuesday announced the signing of five new contracts, worth AED165 million, for waste management investment projects in Abu Dhabi with leading firms in the waste sector. The total capital of these projects will be funded by the investors. The contracts were made public at the CWM-Tadweer ...