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

Sterling is in the dumps as the interminable delay to resolving Brexit is clearly holding back the UK economy. Perhaps the contest to choose a new leader for the ruling Conservative party, which started in earnest on Monday, can provide a change in direction for the currency. After all, the winner will take over as prime minister from the hapless ...

Finance chiefs from the biggest economies rang the alarm over global growth and said they’re prepared to do something about it. Too bad they’ve never been less relevant. Gone are the days when investors used to quake over ministers moving a comma or adding a period in key sentences. If their weekend statement was intended to shore up confidence or ...

Europe wanted a consumer technology giant to rival Silicon Valley. It’s getting one – along with California-style disregard for public investors. When Naspers Ltd. lists its technology investing unit in Amsterdam next month, the new company will have a market capitalisation that’s likely to top $100 billion, a valuation derived entirely from its 31 percent stake in Tencent Holdings Ltd. ...

Bloomberg US President Donald Trump slammed the Federal Reserve for high interest rates in a tweet, complaining the euro and other currencies were “devalued” against the dollar. “The Fed interest rate way too high, added to ridiculous quantitative tightening! They don’t have a clue!” Trump said on Twitter, renewing his complaints about the US central bank a week before it ...

Bloomberg The central banks have increased their holdings of equities beyond $1 trillion last year as they sought to diversify their reserves away from low-yielding bonds, according to a survey to be published. Monetary authorities boosted their allocation of equities to 10 percent of their reserves despite recent market volatility and a quarter of them said they plan to purchase ...

Bloomberg Mario Draghi said joining the euro has improved the quality of institutions in eastern European members, as opposed to “more mixed” results in countries that have kept their own currencies. The ECB President, hosting a conference on central and eastern Europe in Frankfurt, said the main challenge in region is achieving more balanced gro-wth. That “will only be possible ...

Bloomberg The Swiss National Bank is again at the mercy of its bigger neighbours and will have to lean in a more dovish direction to keep its currency under control. With the franc having touched a two-year high against the euro, SNB President Thomas Jordan and fellow policy makers are feeling the pressure from risks such as trade tensions, a ...

Bloomberg Nigeria’s central bank said it’s made no change to its naira policies, after a revision on its website led some analysts to speculate that it was ending a system of multiple exchange rates. “Nothing has changed in Nigeria’s exchange-rate structure,” and the naira’s value continues to be determined by trading in the Investors’ & Exporters’ FX Window, Isaac Okorafor, ...

Bloomberg Raghuram Rajan has delivered some uncomfortable economic truths in a career spanning the International Monetary Fund and powerful positions in his native India. The question is whether Brexit Britain is ready to hear them from another foreign Bank of England governor. The job of stewarding the UK’s monetary policy and maintaining its financial stability has rarely been more political, ...

Dubai / WAM The UAE is the second highest regional investor in artificial intelligence (AI) over the past 10 years, investing $2.15 billion in total, according to the AI Maturity Report in the Middle East and Africa (MEA), a new study commissioned by Microsoft and conducted by Ernst & Young (EY). “The bulk of this investment went towards social media ...