December, 2018

• 12 December

  Sharjah keen to enhance economic ties with Kenya

  

  Sharjah / WAM Expo Centre Sharjah held discussions with a number of government officials and representatives of economic sectors in Kenya, where they reviewed ways to enhance the participation of Kenyan institutions, companies, investors, and businesspeople in the global specialised exhibitions that the centre organises throughout the year. These discussions were held during the centre’s participation in the trade mission ...

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• 12 December

  LNG traders in US face a new reality: Expansion exhaustion

  

  Bloomberg Welcome to the new world market for natural gas, where computers never sleep and, apparently, neither do traders. With US liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports set to surge by almost 80 percent in 2019, traders in America face a new reality: expansion exhaustion. As more and more inte- rnational players participate in US gas markets, the price of market ...

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• 12 December

  Alberta output-cut mandate may be driving oil prices up

  

  Bloomberg Alberta’s plan to boost crude prices through mandatory production cuts is working a little too well. Just over a week after Premier Rachel Notley announced that oil producers will be required to curtail output by 8.7 percent, the price of heavy Canadian crude has more than do- ubled, in some ca-ses rendering Wes-tern Canadian Sel- ect too expensive to ...

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• 12 December

  Angola seeks to jumpstart oil exploration

  

  Bloomberg Angola’s state-run oil and gas company is ramping up efforts to lure foreign investors and halt a decline in crude output. Once Africa’s biggest oil producer, output has tumbled in recent years due to under-investment in new projects and natural declines at aging fields. If it fails to halt this decline it will put severe strain on an economy ...

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• 12 December

  SoftBank Vision Fund, Alibaba lead $1.1bn Tokopedia round

  

  Bloomberg SoftBank Vision Fund and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. led a $1.1 billion investment in PT Tokopedia, a financing round that will help Indonesia’s biggest online marketplace venture beyond e-commerce into new areas such as air tickets and insurance. The company was valued at more than $7 billion after the funding, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked ...

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• 12 December

  Trouble for Huawei spells opportunity for Samsung over 5G

  

  Bloomberg Growing security concerns surrounding Huawei Technologies Co. may help Samsung Electronics Co. challenge the Chinese behemoth in the market for fifth-generation wireless communications, an executive at the South Korean giant said. While Samsung remains the world’s biggest smartphone and semiconductor maker, Huawei dominates networking by a large margin. But its market position is under threat as one country after ...

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• 12 December

  China default-risk jumps to 2005 high

  Bloomberg Default risk for Chinese companies has climbed to the highest in 13 years as Beijing seeks to rein in its post-crisis construction boom, according to Moody’s Analytics. The research group’s measure of expected default frequency has risen above early-warning levels for about 25 percent of corporate borrowers. Moody’s Analytics, a separate entity from the ratings agency, uses the gauge ...

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• 12 December

  Australia growth to be hit by housing ‘perfect storm’: AMP

  

  Bloomberg Australia’s tumbling property prices could shave up to 1.2 percentage points from economic growth in 2019 as the decline hits housing construction and consumer spending, according to AMP Capital Investors Ltd. Sydney and Melbourne prices will drop a further 10 percent next year, taking their peak-to-trough fall to 20 percent as a “perfect storm” smacks housing, AMP Chief Economist ...

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• 12 December

  Korea’s minimum wage hikes loom over hurdle to jobs

  

  Bloomberg President Moon Jae-in’s income-led growth campaign will harm South Korea’s economy next year by weakening job creation, according to a majority of economists surveyed by Bloomberg. More than three-quarters of the 30 experts polled forecast employment growth will slow as the government pushes ahead with an 11 percent hike in the minimum wage, adding to the 16 percent increase ...

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• 12 December

  Brexit anxiety grips UK businesses

  

  Bloomberg UK companies are fretting over the prospect of a no-deal departure from the European Union, with the government on the brink of collapse and Brexit negotiations likely delayed into the new year. Facing defeat on her Brexit accord, Prime Minister Theresa May this week postponed a vote on the plan. The delay in the Brexit vote means British businesses ...

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