Bloomberg Hiroshi Iwama and Mitsunori Watanabe used to joke about merging their banks in central Japan. When the Bank of Japan introduced negative interest rates last year, things got serious. The two golfing buddies run Mie Bank Ltd. and Daisan Bank Ltd., two of Japan’s roughly 100 regional lenders. For years, these banks dotted around the nation have faced headwinds ...

Abu Dhabi / Emirates Business Etihad Airways is adding year-round flights between its Abu Dhabi hub and both Cairo and Lagos later this year to cater to growing demand to and from the United Arab Emirates. A fifth daily scheduled service will be introduced on the Cairo route, effective October 1, taking frequency to the Egyptian capital up from 28 ...

Bloomberg Austria plans to transition away from its fleet of Eurofighter Typhoon jets amid a long-running spat over pricing after concluding that sourcing a new squadron of supersonic interceptors would be a cheaper and more effective option. The Austrian Air Force recommends moving to a single type of warplane with 15 single-seat and three double-seat versions from 2020, replacing its ...

RABAT / Reuters A ban on carrying laptop computers and other large electronic devices in aircraft cabins on direct flights between Morocco and the United States will be lifted on Thursday, Morocco’s Royal Air Maroc said in a statement. In March, the United States banned laptops in cabins on flights originating at 10 airports in eight countries — Egypt, Morocco, ...

Bloomberg Tesco Plc faces an in-depth probe into its 3.7 billion-pound ($4.75 billion) bid for food wholesaler Booker Group Plc after regulators expressed concerns that the deal could leave shoppers worse off. The Competition and Markets Authority said that shoppers in more than 350 local areas could face worse terms when buying groceries where there is an overlap between Tesco ...

Bloomberg Air Zimbabwe is firing more than a third of its workforce to prevent the state-owned airline from going bankrupt. The airline has debts of about $330 million, Transport Minister Joram Gumbo said in June. The carrier was also banned from operating in the European Union in May on safety concerns even though it doesn’t currently fly there. As many ...

Bloomberg Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet has signed off on a plan to sell all or part of Air India Ltd, a debt-ridden, state-run carrier with the most unusual baggage. The airline’s balance sheet includes commercial space near London Heathrow, land in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Nairobi, all bought during the heydays when the airline commissioned paintings by Indian modern ...

DUBAI / WAM His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai, in the presence of His Highness Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai and Chairman of the Dubai Creative Clusters Authority, launched Dubai Food Park, the latest addition to Dubai Wholesale City, which ...

Bloomberg Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC) is planning an initial public offering of its service stations unit and may seek a value of as much as $14 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. The company, may appoint investment banks for the share sale, likely to be on the Abu Dhabi stock exchange, as early as this week, ...

Paris / WAM After two years of unprecedented decline, global upstream oil and gas investment is expected to stabilise in 2017, according to a report issued by the International Energy Agency, (IEA). However, an upswing in US shale spending contrasts with stagnation in the rest of the world, signalling a two-speed oil market. At the same time, the oil and ...