DUBAI / WAM Dubai Land Department (DLD), in cooperation with Property Finder, launched the fourth edition of Mo’asher, Dubai’s official sales price index. The base year for Mo’asher is 2012 and the base month for the monthly index is January 2012, with the base quarter for the quarterly index being Q1 2012. A strong momentum in June laid the foundation ...
Read More »Beit Al Khair Society spends AED119.3mn in H1 2020
DUBAI / WAM The Beit Al Khair Society announced that its overall spending in the first half of 2020 amounted to AED119.3 million which benefitted 24,618 vulnerable families and a total of three million people. Abdeen Taher Al Awadhi, Director General of society, stated that the second quarter witnessed progress in the types and value of aid provided by the ...
Read More »Federal Tax Authority issues guide for e-commerce sector
Abu Dhabi / WAM The Federal Tax Authority (FTA) clarified via a guide that Value Added Tax (VAT) is applied on e-commerce services (also known as “electronic commerce”, sometimes referred to as the “digital economy”) upon their actual use or enjoyment in the UAE. Users should note that although many of the general rules of VAT apply to e-commerce, there ...
Read More »Brookfield in talks to buy Blackstone’s Cheniere stake
Bloomberg Brookfield Asset Management Inc’s infrastructure arm is in talks to acquire Blackstone Group Inc’s minority stake in liquefied natural gas terminal operator Cheniere Energy Partners LP, according to people familiar with the matter. The alternative asset manager is working with a partner to acquire Blackstone’s interest, said the people, who asked to not be identified because the matter isn’t ...
Read More »Aiko Solar to spend $2.87b to build plants
Bloomberg Shanghai Aiko Solar Energy Co will invest 20 billion yuan ($2.87 billion) to build photovoltaic cell manufacturing plants in Zhejiang province, according to an agreement between the company and the local government. The facilities will have total annual capacity of 36 gigawatts and construction will last for seven years, the company said in a filing to Shanghai stock exchange. ...
Read More »Biden makes safe choice with Kamala Harris
Among that sad subset of people whose hobby over the last few months has been speculating about Joe Biden’s running mate, Senator Kamala Harris of California was always in the lead. There’s a reason for that: She checks all the boxes. Biden said he was going to choose a woman. The next logical question, once he made that declaration, was ...
Read More »Can herd immunity fully protect us?
The question of herd immunity — specifically, whether some cities and regions are acquiring it sooner than expected and thus have higher than expected protection against Covid-19 — has been attracting more attention lately. Even if this hypothesis is true, however, it still leaves the world with some truly significant challenges and mandates a continuing vigorous fight against the pandemic. ...
Read More »Paris’s mask plan is worthy of surrealists
France’s experience of Covid-19 has been one of logistical public-service highs and infantilising, bureaucratic lows. Its springtime lockdown, one of the strictest in Europe, saved lives and protected overloaded hospitals but also punished people for leaving home without the right authorisation form or jogging at the wrong hour. The government fretted about panic-buying so much that even purchases of nicotine ...
Read More »Next painful question is about unemployed
The pandemic has asked many difficult questions of Europe’s governments, from whether to close down schools to which companies to bail out. As economies continue to open up, politicians face a new daunting choice: Should they leave their employment furlough schemes in place? These support programs have kept workers in their jobs (artificially) at a vast cost to the public ...
Read More »Cathay rises as reopening chance offsets coronavirus
Bloomberg Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd shares extended their double-digit rally after a Chinese state-run newspaper tweeted that Hong Kong’s airport may restart transfer flights to mainland China, a move that could inject the beleaguered carrier with some much-needed travelers. Cathay climbed more than 13%, its biggest intraday gain in two months, as the Global Times said on Twitter that the ...
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