The Gulf Time Newspaper One of the finest business newspapers in the UAE brought to you by our professional writers and editors.

Brussels / AP The quest to prevent Britain crashing out of the European Union faces its moment of truth this week, with EU chief Donald Tusk touring key capitals in a final push for a deal at a crucial Brussels summit. Many of Prime Minister David Cameron’s demands for reforms ahead of a referendum on Britain’s membership of the crisis-hit ...

We have a candour deficit President Obama last week submitted his $4 trillion 2017 budget, using the occasion for self-congratulation. Deficits are down. Employment is up. He plugged proposals to improve cyber-security, early childhood education and “clean” energy. All this is routine political advertising. What’s missing is candor and context. We now have a government that’s doing less and costing ...

While improving the overall infrastructure nationwide which is giving a boost to the healthcare sector, the UAE has been wooing more visitors, including medical tourists who visit the country to spend their holidays and receive medical treatment as well. The UAE has turned into a hub for medical tourism and it has worked very hard to achieve this status. Both ...

President Barack Obama’s proposal this week for a $10-a-barrel tax on oil, which has been overwhelmingly rejected by Republicans, could make it easier for the next president to pass a carbon tax — by demonstrating how not to go about it. Obama made three mistakes. First, he targeted a single industry, and one that many Americans believe he doesn’t like. ...

George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen has an intriguing blog post asking a deceptively simple question: You are an investor with $10 million planning to cash out in 20 years. A genie appears and offers to send you the price of one but only one asset 20 years from now to inform your investment decisions (a stock, currency pair, commodity, ...

ABU DHABI / EMIRATES BUSINESS Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) has reported a net profit of AED 1,934 million for 2015, a 10.5 percent increase from a year earlier. The number of customers increased by over 100,000. This reflects the continued growth of ADIB’s main banking activities across all customer segments, particularly its ongoing penetration and targeting of the UAE’s ...

FUJAIRAH / WAM National Bank of Fujairah (NBF) announced the donation of AED150, 000 to The Angel Appeal, a charitable initiative supporting seafarers anchored off the coast of Fujairah. This is the fourth consecutive year that the bank has reiterated its commitment to the relief programme, further underscoring its ongoing support of the local community. The Angel Appeal is an ...

OMAN / Emirates Business National Bank of Oman (NBO)launched a new initiative, ‘Women@NBO’, to empower women in the workplace and develop a strong pipeline of potential female leaders within the Bank. NBO will invite approximately 50 talented female employees with the potential to take up leadership roles within the Bank, from various branches and divisions, to attend the inaugural ‘Women@NBO’ ...

Dubai / Emirates Business Al Etihad Credit Bureau (AECB) , the UAE’s credit reporting company, launched the Application-to-Application (A2A) advanced feature in January, granting lenders direct access to the Bureau’s database to extract that data they need and use it as direct input into their own decision-making systems. UAE’s Leading financial institution, Mashreq has become the first Bank to enable ...

Jakarta / WAM Electronic money (e-money) transactions conducted in the country in 2015 reached Rp5.2 trillion in value, up from Rp4.3 trillion in 2014, Governor of Bank Indonesia(BI) AgusMartowardojo said. “In 2009, electronic money transactions were valued at about Rp520 billion only, and now they have reached Rp5.2 trillion,” the central bank governor said while opening the National Non-Cash Movement ...