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For all the positives in the latest U.S. jobs report, employees and the Federal Reserve didn’t get one thing they’ve been looking for: higher wages. Therein lies a central conundrum of this economic expansion. The February employment report suggests that the economy weathered January’s stock-market turmoil in decent shape. Nonfarm employers added an estimated 242,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate ...

Jonathan Hall-Eastman SPECIAL TO EMIRATES BUSINESS A TV network headquarters that resembles a pair of pants. A newspaper headquarters that bears more than a passing similarity to an erect phallus. An arts center that has been described as a “group of space eggs.” These are just a few of the most famous examples of the many ridiculous looking buildings that ...

CAIRO / EMIRATES BUSINESS Egypt’s Sixth of October Development and Investment Company (Sodic) and Heliopolis Development Housing (Heliopolis Housing) have signed a co-development contract for a major mixed-use scheme in Cairo. Sodic will develop 70 per cent and 69.8 per cent of the residential and commercial units respectively, while Heliopolis House will develop the rest, according to a company statement. ...

MANHATTAN / Bloomberg For Wendy Maitland, Town Residential’s president of sales, an Oscar-winning director client of hers was a typical real estate shopper with typical requests. He had a seven-figure budget and was keen to buy into one of the many new luxury condo complexes sprouting around Manhattan. Maitland showed him multiple locations until they whittled his choice down to ...

DPA Franziska Berra has been plucking coca leaves for 65 years. In scorching heat, from 9 am until at least 5 pm, eight hours almost without a break: just coca. She never learned anything else. “Now the price has hit rock bottom,” says the 80-year-old, who bends down all day to pluck the green leaves and covers her head with ...

AFP The steel plants and cement factories scattered across China’s Shandong province have made it one of the most contaminated areas of the world’s biggest polluter. But for one company, that just makes the business climate better. ASL Masks says it turned out more than 100,000 face coverings last year and aims to more than double that in 2016 as ...

Emirates Business Oman Power and Water Procurement Company (OPWP), the sole buyer of all electricity and desalinated water output in the Oman Sultanate, plans to shortly invite prequalified bidders to submit proposals for the development of Independent Water Projects (IWP) in Sharqiyah and Dhofar governorates, a top official has revealed. Ahmed bin Saleh al Jahdhami, CEO of OPWP , said ...

Dubai / EMIRATES BUSINESS The government of the Republic of Azerbaijan has lifted advance visa requirement for citizens of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi, Japan, Malaysia, People’s Republic of China, Republic of Korea and Singapore. His Excellency Mr. Abulfas Garayev, Minister of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Azerbaijan, has been closely monitoring the lifting of visa process and ...

Beijing / Bloomberg Persistent capital outflows from China since mid-2014 were probably driven more by local companies paying down their dollar-denominated debt — in anticipation a stronger US currency — than investors ditching Chinese assets, according to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). The outpouring of China’s currency “led to two different narratives,” researchers for the Switzerland-based institution said in ...

Beijing / AFP China’s economy “absolutely will not” suffer a hard landing, the chief of its top planning body said on Sunday, as Beijing’s leaders try to reassure global investors about the world’s second-largest economy. Xu Shaoshi, head of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), made the comments to reporters on the second day of the annual meeting of ...