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

Hong Kong / AFP Ratings agency Moody’s downgraded its outlook for Hong Kong on Saturday, citing increasing political riskiness and closer economic ties with China, which is facing a growth slowdown. Moody’s changed Hong Kong’s outlook from “stable” to “negative” as the semi-autonomous city continues to reel from political unease following mass pro-democracy protests in 2014. The city saw violent ...

Beijing / Bloomberg China will combine its biggest state-owned enterprises as part of a sweeping plan to cut overcapacity in the $18 trillion sector but won’t see the widespread layoffs that accompanied a similar overhaul in the 1990s, a senior regulator said. Reform of China’s state-owned enterprises must balance many interests, especially those of employees, Xiao Yaqing, the chairman of ...

Singapore / DPA With fewer contracts to go around and labour costs continuing to rise, construction firms are being squeezed from both sides. The broader effect on the economy may not be dire, with the sector accounting for only about 5 per cent of GDP. But economists expect – and firms fear – that there will be casualties within the ...

Bloomberg U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne is sticking to his guns. Tripped up by an economy proving weaker than forecast and with lower tax revenues as a result, Osborne is set to use his budget on March 16 to deliver even more austerity to meet a legally binding pledge of a fiscal surplus by the end of the ...

Bloomberg The pound’s best rally in eight months against the dollar may be in danger of unraveling as investors brace for the stewards of both monetary and fiscal policy to give sobering messages on the outlook for Britain’s economy. Sterling, still the worst-performing Group-of-10 currency of 2016, got a reprieve in the past two weeks. The gains reflected easing investor ...

Bloomberg Finland had its credit grade cut to AA+ by Fitch Ratings, which cited a limited potential for a pickup in economic growth. “Economic performance remains weak,” Fitch said in a statement Friday announcing the reduction to the second-highest credit grade. Finland had a triple-A rating from Fitch since 1998. The company changed its outlook to negative in March 2015, ...

Bloomberg The bond market’s outlook for inflation is picking up after European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s latest expansion of stimulus. A gauge of German inflation expectations climbed to the highest level since January this week. With Brent crude oil rising for a third week, that’s helping boost optimism among investors before data due on March 17 that, according to ...

Bloomberg Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne will give the green light for driverless cars to be tested on U.K. motorways, helping to make the technology available to consumers by the end of the decade. The government also aims to remove regulatory barriers so that driverless cars can be used on British roads within the current parliamentary term, the Treasury ...

TEXAS / Bloomberg President Barack Obama said that smartphones — like the iPhone the FBI is trying to force Apple Inc. to help it hack — can’t be allowed to be “black boxes,” inaccessible to the government. The technology industry, he said, should work with the government instead of leaving the issue to Congress. “You cannot take an absolutist view ...

Bloomberg Peru’s sol surged the most in almost seven years as a rally in emerging-market currencies erased its losses for this year and prompted traders who had wagered on declines to reverse their bets. The sol rose 2.1 percent to 3.354 per dollar at the close of trading in Lima, its biggest one-day advance since May 2009, according to Datatec ...