David A. Welch SPECIAL TO EMIRATES BUSINESS There has been a great deal of commentary recently on Beijing’s strident refusal to participate in the Philippines’ arbitration case and the almost desperate vehemence with which it is preparing to greet the tribunal’s final judgment. This is not terribly surprising, as most analysts agree that the Philippines will win on a ...

  Max Walden SPECIAL TO EMIRATES BUSINESS In late April 1976, a small fishing boat carrying five young Vietnamese refugees sailed into Darwin harbor. Although representing the arrival of Australia’s first “boat people,” the Kein Giang’s landing on Australian shores barely made the newspaper. Boat arrivals during 1976 and 1977 were largely met with similar indifference by the national media ...

  Emirates Business Qatar’s economic diversification strategy continues to create foreign investment opportunities across its burgeoning retail market, despite the sustained low oil prices, according to Links Group, Qatar’s leading provider of commercial facilitation and advisory services. According to Alpen Capital, the Qatari retail market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.8 percent reaching ...

  Reuters Growth in Saudi Arabia’s non-oil gross domestic product is expected to slow to 2.8 percent in 2016 from 3.4 percent in 2015, Saudi central bank governor Ahmed al-Kholifey told state television station Ekhbariya. Kholifey, speaking in an interview broadcast late on Saturday, was responding to a question about Saudi monetary policy and economic growth given global financial market ...

  Bloomberg Rosneft PJSC, the world’s largest publicly traded crude producer, agreed to sell a stake in a key unit to China as Russian President Vladimir Putin seeks to bolster energy ties with Asia. The state-run company committed to negotiating the sale of 20 percent of its Verkhnechonsk unit to Beijing Enterprises Group Co., Rosneft said in a statement. The ...

  London / AFP Will Brexit threaten London’s long-booming economy? The British capital fears investors and bankers could flee the city after the shock nationwide vote, threatening its coveted reputation as a global financial hub. Some 60 percent of Londoners voted to stay in the EU in Thursday’s historic referendum, but the rest of the country cast their ballots overwhelmingly to ...

  Bloomberg Jonathan Hill, sent to Brussels by U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron less than two years ago, resigned as the European Union’s financial-services chief in the wake of Britain’s vote to secede from the bloc. “As we move to a new phase, I don’t believe it is right that I should carry on as the British commissioner as though ...

  Paris / AFP Business groups in France and Germany on Sunday said EU nations should respond to Britain’s decision to quit the bloc by working even more closely together to limit the “turbulence” caused by the Brexit shock. In an joint appeal published in the French Journal du Dimanche, the heads of Germany’s powerful BDI and BDA industry groups and ...

  Rennes, France / AFP A surge in milk production since the EU lifted milk quotas has skimmed profits for dairy farmers, leaving them sour as authorities struggle to get to grips with the crisis. Last year the European Union finally got rid of its three-decade old milk production quotas that it had imposed to eliminate the milk lakes and butter ...

  AFP With property prices in Britain predicted to plummet post-Brexit, foreign investors, especially in Asia, are already poised for a buying spree. It is an ironic twist to the shock referendum result — many who opted to leave the European Union saw their vote as a deterrent to outsiders looking to take advantage of economic opportunities in Britain. The ...