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

Bloomberg Internet retailers such as Amazon.com Inc., Asos Plc and Boohoo Group Plc should pay higher UK taxes to help save ailing shopping districts that are losing revenue to e-commerce, according to a government report. An online sales tax, higher value-added tax and “green taxes” on shipping and packaging should all be considered to help soften the blow to physical ...

Bloomberg Sweden’s largest food retailer ICA is preparing for its largest transformation yet to cater to a growing number of customers who want to shop for groceries online and have them delivered home. The 81-year-old company is following in the footprints of other Swedish retail giants like Hennes & Mauritz AB and Ikea in shifting investments towards e-commerce, advanced analytics ...

Bloomberg The world’s largest energy trader says oil prices are set to rally further as Opec output cuts and American sanctions on Iran and Venezuela cause a “shortage” of the low-quality heavy crudes refiners rely on. “From here there’s probably the potential to be a little bit higher,” said Russell Hardy, chief executive officer of Vitol Group. “Oil supply is ...

Bloomberg Centrica Plc plunged to the lowest in almost two decades after tougher trading conditions in the UK energy market prompted the utility to forecast a gloomy outlook for next year. Hurt both by a government-imposed cap on consumer energy bills and by outages at nuclear plants and gas wells, a target range for average adjusted operating cash flow “is ...

Bloomberg British Steel Ltd. may face a financial hit of 100 million pounds ($130 million) or more in three weeks’ time if Prime Minister Theresa May is unable to secure a Brexit deal, two people familiar with the matter said. The costs relate to the private equity-owned steelmaker’s carbon pollution bill for 2018, which is due for payment by March ...

Bloomberg Volkswagen AG expects to boost revenue and maintain profitability this year even as the German manufacturer said it’ll face more challenging economic conditions, costly new tests on emissions and tougher competition. The world’s biggest carmaker, reporting annual earnings that met expectations, repeated its 2018 goal for an adjusted operating return on sales of 6.5 percent to 7.5 percent for ...

Bloomberg A group of Microsoft Corp. employees are demanding that the company abandon a $480 million contract with the US Army to build versions of its HoloLens augmented reality headsets for the battlefield, the latest in a series of protests from workers at technology companies objecting to certain uses of the products they’re building. “We are alarmed that Microsoft is ...

Bloomberg There’s no dispute that a $48.9 billion merger announced in 2015 between health insurers Anthem Inc. and Cigna Corp. imploded two years later over antitrust concerns. Now, the question is whether one owes the other billions for the deal’s failure. A Delaware judge will start the process of deciding that pricey dispute on Monday in a trial of dueling ...

Bloomberg After days of preparation, the trucks rolled out. They bore beans, rice, sugar, salt and the possibility that Venezuela’s army would desert autocratic President Nicolas Maduro and the moribund nation might begin its revival. Instead, there came violent action but little motion. Maduro avoided a bloodbath despite a massive border face-off between protesters and soldiers. His army didn’t desert ...

Bloomberg Afghanistan civilian casualties rose 5 percent in 2018 to the highest level in a decade, reflecting an increase of suicide attacks by Taliban and IS militants, according to a United Nations report on the conflict that has dragged on for 18 years. The report showed 3,804 deaths and 7,189 injured, with 63 percent of the casualties blamed on anti-government ...