February, 2016

• 21 February

  GCC declares backing for Saudi’s halt of US$4bn arms deal for Lebanon

  RIYADH / WAM Members of the Cooperation Council for Arab States of the Gulf (GCC) have declared their full backing for Saudi Arabia’s decision to conduct a comprehensive review of its relations with Lebanon and halt its US$4 billion arms deals for the Lebanese Armed Forces and Internal Security Forces. “The members of the GCC back the decision which the ...

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• 21 February

  Is Abenomics dead?

  

  Critics have already begun writing their obituaries for Abenomics, after the latest disappointing data showed Japan’s economy is yet to get off its hospital bed despite massive monetary stimulus. But for a government searching for more answers, the solution might lie closer to home than in the realm of exotic policy instruments. On Thursday, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and ...

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• 21 February

  Time ripe for a tax overhaul

  Financial Secretary John Tsang Chun-wah is going to announce the government’s fiscal budget for 2016-17 on Wednesday. The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants Hong Kong (ACCA) estimates that the government will record a surplus of approximately HK$70 billion (US$9 billion). Given there has been a significant surplus consistently over the past few years, leading to the accumulation of fiscal reserves ...

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• 21 February

  Britain was never a real EU member anyway

  One could argue — and some, like UKIP leader Nigel Farage, already do — that the concessions British Prime Minister David Cameron obtained late on Friday from other European Union leaders in order to stay in the bloc are meaningless. Or one could rejoice in a victory as Cameron does. That won’t change a fundamental fact: The UK is not ...

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• 21 February

  India Post rides e-commerce wave

  

  Alwar / AFP With his rickety bicycle and sackcloth mail bag, 62-year-old Indian postman Chet Ram does not look like a worker at the vanguard of an e-commerce revolution delivering everything from mobile phones to cow manure. He pedals miles each day in rural Rajasthan state, ferrying packages to villages and takes payments in cash because most of his customers ...

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• 21 February

  Apple ‘spaceship’ gears up for launch

  

  Cupertino / DPA When it’s Apple, you know it’s going to be big and bold. And so it is with its new headquarters or “Spaceship Campus,” which will cover 260,000 square meters and has a circumference of 1.6 kilometres in Cupertino, California. Computer-generated images of what it will look like show something resembling a giant glass doughnut, with a green ...

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• 21 February

  Markets gain in rocky week

  

  New York / AFP Global markets sagged but still turned in one of the strongest weeks of 2016 despite worries about economic growth and weak commodity prices. China’s intervention to support the yen and scare off devaluation speculators, and a deal struck to possibly avert Britain’s pullout from the European Union, reduced some of the risks that had dogged markets ...

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• 21 February

  Emirates Securities Market Index down by 0.16%

  

  ABU DHABI / EMIRATES BUSINESS The Emirates Securities Market Index has decreased by -0.16% to close at 4204.17 points. Accordingly the Market Capitalization has lost AED1.06 Billion attaining AED681.97 Billion. A total of 0.69 Billion Shares were traded with a total value of 0.69 Billion AED during the trading session of 21-02-2016 through 7201 transactions. The number of companies which has been ...

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• 21 February

  Integrated Securities joins Nasdaq Dubai

  DUBAI / WAM Integrated Securities, one of the UAE’s brokerage firms and a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Financial Group (ADFG) has become a Member of Nasdaq Dubai, providing its clients with the opportunity to trade equities on the region’s rapidly expanding international stock exchange. Integrated Securities’ arrival on the market opens a new gateway for both its retail and institutional ...

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• 21 February

  HK realtors under pressure to cut prices amid slowdown

  

  Hong Kong / Bloomberg Hong Kong’s developers, who are throwing in enticements from iPhones to wine coupons in response to the slowest home sales in 25 years, might be running out of gimmicks to stoke demand. Most buyers aren’t biting as property analysts predict prices will fall as much as 25 percent this year after declining 11 percent since September. ...

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