Bloomberg Israel formally invited bids for 24 new oil-and-gas exploration licences off its Mediterranean coast on Tuesday, the first in four years. “We are offering for exploration half of our economic waters in 24 blocks,” Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said, announcing the offer which closes on April 21. “Estimates are that most of the natural gas in Israel’s economic ...

  AFP Demand for natural gas will grow in 2017 but at a slower rate than in recent years, Qatar’s energy minister said on Thursday ahead of a meeting of exporting countries. Mohammed Saleh al-Sada said ministers of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) would discuss “long-term strategy” at Thursday’s meeting in Doha. “The big news, of course, is that ...

  AFP Fatima was already struggling to find cancer drugs for her father when a devaluation of the Egyptian pound this month caused the imported medicine to disappear altogether. “Before, I could still find it if I searched in several pharmacies. Today I can’t,” said the 34-year old teacher, who asked not to be named in full. A dollar crunch ...

  Bloomberg Major wholesalers at Delhi’s largest fruit and vegetable market, which serves most of the capital’s nearly 17 million people, are planning to sell their products at bargain prices in order to move perishable stock as the impact of India’s cash shortages continues to bite. Sales are down by as much as 50 percent at Azadpur Mandi, traders said, ...

  AFP The Philippines became developing Asia’s fastest-growing major economy in President Rodrigo Duterte’s first three months in office, officials said Thursday, even as his fiery rhetoric hit the peso and stock prices. The economy expanded 7.1 percent on-year in July-September, beating the consensus forecast of 6.8 percent, Economic Planning Undersecretary Rosemarie Edillon said. That was faster than China’s 6.7 ...

  AFP Uber warned Taiwan on Thursday that it was scaring away foreign investors as the ride-hailing app faces a potentially massive hike in fines for operating illegally on the island. The US company has been racking up fines since it entered the Taiwan market in 2013 for running a business without the proper registration to operate as a taxi ...

  Bloomberg Japan’s population is declining, deflation has returned, and the nation’s economy is still stuck in cycle of weak, stop-start growth. And yet, there are a number of hidden and underutilized resources that Japan could tap to try and escape this economic malaise. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development notes that while demographics are against it, Japan still ...

  Bloomberg Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc will close the bulk of sites at its marine-engine and ship-design unit and shift some production to emerging economies as the lower price of crude hurts demand for oil-industry exploration and service vessels. The offshore market is showing no sign of recovery, with the outlook bleaker as the backlog shrinks, Rolls, which is better known ...

  Bloomberg Wage growth is on fire. The Atlanta Fed’s Wage Growth Tracker indicates that the median US worker saw pay rise by 3.9 percent year-over-year in October, the fastest rate of growth since November 2008. This number comes on the heels of October’s non-farm payrolls report, which showed average hourly earnings increasing at the fastest annual clip of this ...

  Bloomberg The UK’s National Infrastructure Commission called on the government to press ahead with the reinstatement of a rail line between the university cities of Oxford and Cambridge and for the building of tens of thousands of new homes along the route to maximize its economic potential. “The corridor connecting Cambridge, Milton Keynes and Oxford could be Britain’s Silicon ...