Bloomberg Emmanuel Macron is aiming to show France can still punch its weight. After North Korea tested a nuclear weapon this month, the French President took time out of a state visit to Greece to lobby China’s Xi Jinping on ratcheting up sanctions. He’d already spoken to the leaders of Germany, the UK and Italy on the issue and in ...
Read More »Turkish army ups ante against Kurdish plebiscite
Bloomberg The Turkish army kicked off a military drill near the border with Iraq’s Kurdish region, underscoring Turkey’s threat to do whatever it deems necessary against an Iraqi Kurdish independence referendum scheduled for next week. Dozens of Turkish tanks dotted an open field just a few kilometres from the Iraqi border on Monday, according to footage on CNN-Turk television. Erdogan, ...
Read More »Saudi Arabia to seek bidders for 1,600 km Red Sea-Gulf Railway
Bloomberg Saudi Arabia plans to seek bidders for the construction of a 1,000-mile (1,600-kilometer) railroad linking the Red Sea with the Persian Gulf as early as the end of this year, signaling the go ahead for a long-delayed project seen as vital to reducing the economy’s dependence on oil. The so-called Land Bridge line will shave around three days off ...
Read More »Oil trades near $50 a barrel after decline in US drilling
Bloomberg Oil traded near $50 a barrel in New York, close to a three-month high, as a further reduction in US drilling added to signs the global crude surplus is abating. West Texas Intermediate futures were little changed after advancing 5.1 percent last week. Rigs targeting crude fell by seven to 749, according to data from Baker Hughes. Drillers haven’t ...
Read More »Bahrain refuses Qatari bond investors in record sale
Bloomberg Bahrain refused to process bids by Qatari investors for its largest-ever bond offering after cutting ties with the gas-rich Gulf state in June, according to two people familiar with the matter. Doha-based companies that submitted bids for Bahrain’s $3 billion debt sale last week weren’t given allocations because the island state, along with other Gulf economies, are cutting their ...
Read More »Algeria to lean on central bank to plug deficit amid oil slump
Bloomberg Algeria’s prime minister laid out a sweeping plan to plug the budget deficit that would include direct borrowing from the central bank, as the OPEC member looks to compensate for lower oil revenue without tapping international debt markets. The five-year plan presented by Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia aims to balance the budget by 2022, and reverse a deficit that ...
Read More »â€˜Big oil becomes greener with cuts to pollution’
Bloomberg It’s no secret that oil majors are among the biggest corporate emitters of pollution. What may be surprising is that they’re reducing their greenhouse-gas footprints every year, actively participating in a trend that’s swept up most corporate behemoths. Sixty-two of the world’s 100 largest companies consistently cut their emissions on an annual basis between 2010 and 2015, with an ...
Read More »Egypt’s Domty sees revenues jump in Q3
Bloomberg Egyptian cheese-maker Arabian Food Industries is expecting third-quarter revenues to jump by about 50 percent and sales volumes to be better than the first two quarters of the year as Egyptian consumers adapt to price hikes that followed last year’s currency float. The Cairo-based company, also known as Domty, sees revenues of 700 million Egyptian pounds ($39.7 million) this ...
Read More »Google joins mobile payments race in cash-reliant India
Bloomberg Alphabet Inc.’s Google introduced a digital payments service specifically designed for India as competition heats up for the country’s billion-plus potential users. Tez, the Hindi word for fast, debuted on Monday for download on iPhones and Android devices and joins an increasingly crowded field. The service is compatible with the Indian government-backed Unified Payments Interface, which simplifies financial transactions ...
Read More »Chinese online insurer ZhongAn starts $1.5 billion Hong Kong IPO
Bloomberg ZhongAn Online P&C Insurance Co., China’s largest online insurer, started taking orders for a Hong Kong initial public offering that could raise as much as $1.5 billion. The Shanghai-based company is offering 199.3 million new shares at HK$53.70 to HK$59.70 apiece, according to terms for the deal obtained by Bloomberg. Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp. agreed to purchase 71.9 million ...
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