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

In the eyes of many voters, Boris Johnson stopped being prime minister for the whole of the United Kingdom as soon as the Covid pandemic began to rage last March. Instead he appears to have shrunk to the status of England’s uncertain chief executive, taking orders from technocrats and scientific advisers. North of the border, it is Nicola Sturgeon, leader ...

Supporters and opponents of gentrification seem to agree on one thing: It can’t be stopped. The more important question is whether the process can be managed — its benefits maximised and its costs mitigated. With enough will and engagement at the community level, as well as strong direction and coordination from local governments? The first thing to note is that ...

What would one even call a merged Exxon Mobil and Chevron? Exron sounds a little too much like another former energy powerhouse from Texas. Standard Oil would be a reasonable compromise given it would reunify so many of the baby Rockefellers. But the PR types and the lawyers might think it best not to put that in front of the ...

Bloomberg India unveiled a spending plan of almost $500 billion as the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks to dig Asia’s third-largest economy out of its pandemic-induced slump. His government’s plan relies on taxes, including higher levies on some imports to boost self-reliance, selling state assets and dividend income to partly fund the nearly 35 trillion rupee ($480 billion) ...

Bloomberg Indonesia will receive as many as 23.1 million doses of the AstraZeneca Plc vaccine in the first half, boosting the government’s inoculation efforts as Covid-19 cases and deaths continue to rise by record numbers. The Southeast Asian nation will get the shots of the AstraZeneca vaccine through the World Health Organization-backed Covax initiative, the Indonesian foreign affairs ministry said ...

Bloomberg International companies operating in Asia are considering leaving Hong Kong out of legal contracts amid concerns about China’s growing control, the Financial Times reported, citing people it didn’t identify. Lawyers in the region have received a surge of queries from clients about excluding Hong Kong from governing law and arbitration clauses when conducting business there or entering into joint ...

Bloomberg Hong Kong insurance giant AIA Group and China Strategic Holdings, an investment firm backed by billionaire Henry Cheng, are among final bidders for Bank of East Asia (BEA)’s life insurance unit, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The companies have submitted binding bids for the asset, proceeding into the final stage of negotiations, the people said, asking ...

Bloomberg Factory activity across much of Asia continued to hold up in January even as China’s output showed signs of moderating. Taiwan’s IHS Markit January manufacturing purchasing mangers’ index rose to 60.2 from 59.4 in December, its highest reading since April 2010. South Korea’s rose to 53.2 from 52.9, the most since February 2011. Both were well above the 50 ...

Bloomberg China’s efforts to control a recent resurgence of Covid-19 are undercutting a recovery that’s been one of the bright spots in the global economy. Travel has collapsed ahead of the Lunar New Year holidays after recent lockdowns were imposed in northern China to curb outbreaks and the government took steps to discourage millions of people from making the annual ...

Bloomberg Myanmar’s military detained Aung San Suu Kyi, declared a state of emergency for a year and voided her party’s landslide November election victory in a setback for the country’s nascent transition to democracy. Army chief Min Aung Hlaing’s office said he took the action in response to alleged voter fraud and military would hold a “free and fair general ...