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

Bloomberg Amazon.com Inc. completed its takeover of Whole Foods with a bang in August, announcing a price-cutting push that generated headlines and boosted store traffic. But in the following months, Amazon hasn’t ushered in a new era of low prices, according to Chuck Grom, an analyst at Gordon Haskett Research Advisors. He found that a basket of 110 items at ...

Bloomberg Global airline earnings this year will top previous forecasts and surge to a record in 2018, spurred by higher fares and burgeoning cargo demand, according to the industry’s main trade group. Net income for 2017 is likely to total $34.5 billion, $3.1 billion higher than forecast in June, the International Air Transport Association said in a statement. The figure ...

Bloomberg UK retail sales rebounded last month, fuelled by higher food spending as Black Friday sales failed to tempt enough British shoppers to open their wallets for other things. The British Retail Consortium said sales rose 0.6 percent on a like-for-like basis after slumping the most in seven months in October. They climbed 1.5 percent in total terms. Yet the ...

SHARJAH / WAM Dr Salwa Ghaddar Younis, Ambassador of the United Nations (UN) and Chairperson of the Arab Family Organisation (AFO) stated that the UAE is a unique international model of the professional and financial empowerment of women, and the strengthening of their economic position, based on equal opportunities in all commercial areas. In her statements on the sidelines of ...

DUBAI / WAM November’s PMI signalled a strong upturn for the UAE’s non-oil private sector, and the sharpest pace of expansion since August, according to the latest UAE PMI survey. “Steep growth in both output and new business contributed to the latest improvement in business conditions. Furthermore, firms responded to higher output requirements by increasing buying activity at the fastest ...

ABU DHABI / WAM Current account balances and deposits of the UAE Central Bank with banks abroad rose 54.7 percent or AED80.8 billion in the first ten months of the year to AED228.7 billion from AED147.8 billion in the same corresponding period last year, according to figures released by the Central Bank. The sustained, robust growth of foreign deposits since ...

DUBAI / WAM The Ministry of Economy (MoE) and the Mohammed bin Rashid Establishment for Small and Medium Enterprises Development (Dubai SME) signed a cooperation agreement to boost the competitiveness of the country’s entrepreneurship sector, as well as train national entrepreneurs and raise their capacities. The signing of the agreement was attended by Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansouri, Minister of ...

DUBAI / WAM Dubai Investments has announced a 36 percent increase in sub-leasing contracts in its wholly-owned subsidiary Dubai Investments Park (DIP) in the first nine months of 2017 compared to last year. “Out of these, nearly 68 percent contracts pertained to existing subtenants, reflecting DIP’s growing demand as a premier business destination in the region. The new subtenants during ...

ABU DHABI / WAM The Federal Tax Authority (FTA) has announced the sectors that will be subject to Value Added Tax (VAT) as of January 1, 2018, revealing selected sectors will be assigned zero-rated tax, such as education, healthcare, oil and gas, transportation and real estate. According to a statement released by the FTA, selected supplies in sectors such as ...

Dubai / Emirates Business With Dubai targeting to become the Middle East’s smartest city by 2021, a growing number of local and international FinTech companies are looking to make the emirate their regional base, according to Links Group, an Equiom company and a leading provider of commercial facilitation and advisory services in the Middle East. The financial solutions ecosystem received ...