Women are the drivers of the nation’s economy, pointed out HH Dr. Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, the Ruler of Sharjah, at the inauguration of the ‘Investing in the Future’ (IFFMENA) conference on Wednesday. Women’s participation in economic activities is crucial as it ensures that they play a huge role in the decision-making process and implement policies effectively. ...

  This week, Samsung representatives are standing by at some of the world’s busiest airports, ready to exchange Galaxy Note 7 phones for something new and less combustible. After dozens of fires, two recalls and the complete cancellation of the product, the U.S. government on Saturday warned that anyone knowingly bringing a Galaxy Note 7 and its potentially explosive battery ...

  In autumn 2007, Jorma Ollila, who had stepped down the year before as Nokia’s chief executive officer but was still the chairman, polled 12 top company executives on whether they thought Apple’s new iPhone posed a big threat. Two said no, Ollila recalls in “Against All Odds,” a surprisingly engrossing memoir first published in Finland in 2013 but just ...

  What do you do when you’ve been given a death sentence? Do you live your remaining time to the fullest, or do you spend that time taking long-shot chances at a cure? No, this isn’t a column about cancer. It’s a column about businesses whose core industries are doomed. The perennial staple of such discussions is the venerable buggy-whip ...

  DUBAI / Reuters Saudi Arabia’s stock market rose sharply on Thursday as banks rallied after the kingdom’s mammoth international bond sale, which could help to unclog liquidity bottlenecks in the economy. Egypt bounced as investors bought into recent dips. The Saudi index gained 2.3 percent in sharply higher turnover as all but one of the banks advanced, with Samba ...

  London / AFP Stock markets in Europe trod higher on Thursday ahead of an eagerly-awaited monetary policy decision by the European Central Bank. Frankfurt and Paris both rose 0.2 percent ahead of the interest rate call due at 1145 GMT, while London flatlined on news of steady retail sales for September. ECB chief Mario Draghi is likely to prep ...

  Bloomberg Qatar is considering investing in the $100 billion global technology fund formed by SoftBank Group Corp. and Saudi Arabia, according to people familiar with the matter. SoftBank Chairman Masayoshi Son has visited Doha and other parts of the Gulf region in recent months to discuss investments with global investors, one of the people said, asking not to be ...

  DUBAI / Reuters Saudi Arabia’s two biggest telecom operators reported weaker third-quarter earnings on Wednesday, as the cost of implementing a government initiative to register fingerprints with phone numbers weighed on both providers. A 7.5 percent drop in profit at market leader Saudi Telecom Co’s (STC) represented a continuation of an earnings slump which has now seen it report ...

  Reuters Egypt’s economy is likely to grow 3.5 percent in the 2016/17 fiscal year, missing the government’s target of around 5 percent and falling below last year’s growth rate, a Reuters poll showed. The poll, which surveyed 17 analysts, found growth would pick up only slightly to reach 3.7 percent the following fiscal year. Egypt has been struggling to ...

  Bloomberg Saudi Electricity Co., the dominant electricity provider in the Arab world’s biggest economy, reported its best quarterly profit in more than a decade after the state-controlled utility raised prices following subsidy cuts. Third-quarter net income surged to 4.4 billion riyals ($1.2 billion) from 2.92 billion riyals in the year-earlier period, the company said in a statement to the ...