MANAMA / WAM Bahrain’s Economic Development Board, EDB, has said that it expects Bahrain’s Gross Domestic Product, GDP, to grow by 2.9 per cent in 2016. EDB Chief Economist, Dr. Jarmo Kotilaine, said that the forecast rate will enable Bahrain to maintain the same rate of economic growth which was achieved last year. The Bahrain News Agency, BNA, quoted Kotilaine ...

  AFP Spain and Portugal received unexpected reprieve to meet the EU limits on public deficits on Wednesday as Brussels delayed a decision to slap fines against the rule-breakers until July. The delay put off a potentially embarrassing decision for Spain until after elections on June 26 and gave more time for a new government in Portugal to get on ...

  Bloomberg The U.K. jobs market showed signs of cooling in the first quarter as Britain prepares for an increasingly bitter referendum on its European Union membership. The number of people in work rose by 44,000, less than a quarter of the gain seen at the end of 2015, the Office for National Statistics in London said on Wednesday. Unemployment ...

Bloomberg The Nokia brand is set to return to smartphones two years after the Finnish company sold its handset business amid competition from the iPhone and Android devices. Nokia Oyj will license its brand to a Helsinki-based company run by former Nokia executives to bring new mobile phones and tablets to the market. HMD Global Oy plans investments topping $500 ...

Bloomberg London Stock Exchange Group Plc and Deutsche Boerse AG said they will publish shareholder documents relevant to their planned merger in June. LSE shareholder meetings required in connection with the proposal to combine the exchange groups will take place in July, after U.K. citizens vote on Britain’s membership of the EU. The deadline for Deutsche Boerse shareholders to accept ...

  Bloomberg Volkswagen AG responded to criticism from activist investor Chris Hohn with promises to improve profitability and review management pay, seeking to avoid a confrontation as criticism mounts in the wake of the emissions-cheating scandal. The German carmaker agrees with much of the investor’s analysis and is working on a strategy, including financial targets, that will be presented this ...

  Bloomberg Brexit campaigners crying out for Mark Carney to stop talking should get their wish granted next week. With just nine days until a pre-European Union referendum purdah period begins, the Bank of England governor has a few hurdles to jump in the fraught political race that’s dominated his agenda. After his most recent comments dragged him further into ...

  Bloomberg Petroleo Brasileiro SA, the state-run oil producer at the center of Brazil’s biggest ever corruption scandal, offered record-high interest rates to entice investors to its first international bond sale in a year. Petrobras sold $5 billion five-year notes to yield 8.625 percent and $1.75 billion of 10-year notes to yield 9 percent, according to a person familiar with ...

  Bloomberg Brazil’s ethanol producers may get a boost as the government is said to be mulling a higher gasoline tax as it looks to reduce the nation’s widening fiscal deficit. Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles is considering raising the so-called Cide tax on gasoline prices as an alternative to reinstating taxes on financial transactions, Brazilian newspaper Folha de S. Paulo ...

  Bloomberg Chile’s central bank kept borrowing costs unchanged for the fifth consecutive month as inflation slowed toward the target range, while maintaining its tightening bias. Policy makers, led by central bank President Rodrigo Vergara, left the key rate at 3.5 percent on Tuesday, as forecast by all 20 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The pause in rates comes after two ...