April, 2016

• 9 April

  Masdar installs 50% of solar home systems in Morocco

  

  Abu Dhabi / WAM Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s renewable energy company, has installed 50 percent of the solar home systems as part of an innovative project to provide power in rural Morocco. The installation of 9,000 out of 17,670 systems across 940 villages comes only a year after the partnership agreement was signed between Masdar and Morocco’s Office National de l’Electricite ...

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• 9 April

  Mashreq’s ‘Happiness Account’ to make customers more happier

  

  Dubai / Emirates Business Reflecting its ongoing commitment to introducing customer-centric financial solutions and unique banking experiences, Mashreq launches the UAE’s first Happiness Account. Available to customers transferring their salary, the Mashreq Happiness Account offers up to AED 2,500 guaranteed cash in the account as soon as the first salary is transferred. Then there is a free AED 25 worth ...

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• 9 April

  UAE administers polio drops to 10.6mn Pak kids

  

  Abu Dhabi / WAM The UAE has successfully vaccinated over 10.6 million children against polio as part of phase-3 of the Project to Assist Pakistan, UAE PAP. UAE PAP has announced the results of the vaccination campaign for the month of March, which successfully administered 10,668,987 doses of the polio vaccination to children under five including in the provinces of ...

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• 9 April

  British economy heads for worst Q1 since 2012

  

  Bloomberg The U.K. economy may have grown at the slowest pace in more than three years in the first quarter, according to new estimates that could put a further cloud over the outlook. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research estimated on Friday that gross domestic product rose 0.3 percent, half the pace recorded in the last three months ...

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• 9 April

  UK’s Serious Fraud office probe Tata after audit

  

  Bloomberg The U.K. Serious Fraud Office opened a criminal investigation after Tata Steel Ltd. identified a lapse in procedures at its Speciality Steels business through an internal audit in 2015, the company said in an exchange filing on Saturday. “Certain inappropriate testing and certification procedures at the South Yorkshire-based Speciality Steels business were identified” in the audit, the company said. ...

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• 9 April

  Spanish bonds’ slide shows ECB stimulus shortcomings

  Bloomberg The first full week of the European Central Bank’s expanded bond buying highlighted the program’s limitations in the face of heightened political risks in the euro area. The extra yield, or spread, that investors get for holding Spain’s 10-year bonds instead of similar-maturity German securities widened to the most in two months. That was even as the ECB increased ...

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• 9 April

  Germany to empower diesel ban with law

  Bloomberg German towns and cities plagued by car and truck pollution will soon get the legal tools they need to ban older diesel vehicles from streets where emissions are highest. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government will remove the legal uncertainty that has made town mayors and councils hesitate to ban older diesels from their streets, said Deputy Environment Minister Jochen Flasbarth, ...

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• 9 April

  Italy to miss debt target as growth forecast cut

  Bloomberg Italy will fail to reduce its debt load this year as much as previously targeted due to lower than expected economic growth. The debt ratio, the euro region’s second-highest, will slip to 132.4 percent of gross domestic product this year from 132.7 percent in 2015, Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan told reporters in Rome after the cabinet met to ...

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• 9 April

  Polish workers in Britain worry about possibility of Brexit

  

  Poland / AP Hundreds of thousands of people whose personal fates hinge on whether Britain leaves the European Union or stays don’t even have a say in the matter: Polish immigrants, a community so numerous that Polish has become Britain’s second most-spoken language. When Poland and many other countries once behind the Iron Curtain joined the EU 12 years ago, ...

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• 9 April

  Rising US labour force belies Republican criticism of Obama

  

  Bloomberg It’s standard Republican criticism of President Barack Obama’s handling of the economy. Sure, unemployment has been halved from 10 percent in 2009 to 5 percent today. But that’s mainly because so many people have gotten so discouraged that they’ve just given up looking for work. Factor that in and real joblessness is a lot higher — 20 percent plus, ...

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