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

DUBAI / Reuters Blue-chip banks pushed Middle East stock markets slightly higher on Tuesday, a day ahead of the testimony from Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen for clues on when the central bank would tighten US monetary policy. Yellen’s semi-annual monetary policy testimony before Congress will be on Wednesday and Thursday. San Francisco Federal Reserve President John Williams said on ...

Bloomberg China is considering handing the nation’s central bank a key role in coordinating financial oversight, in order to focus efforts on reining in risk in the sector, people familiar with the discussions said. The move, to be debated as part of the fifth National Financial Work Conference due to start on July 14, would create a new office for ...

Bloomberg Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. plans to add about 250 positions to its securities business abroad over the next three years to boost investment banking and make up for slumping loan profitability at home. The Tokyo-based bank will increase overseas headcount at its SMBC Nikko Securities Inc. unit from the current 500 by hiring and redeploying staff including bankers ...

Bloomberg When it comes to havens among currencies, the yen is the safest of them all, according to a correlation analysis by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. economists. Japan’s currency aligns most closely against corresponding moves in global risk assets in the past decade, Goldman economists led by Kevin Daly wrote in a report on Monday. They compared daily and monthly ...

Bloomberg Eleven major banks including Barclays Plc, Citigroup Inc. and UBS AG said they’ll seek ways to address the financial risks of global warming, after Bank of England Governor Mark Carney urged investors to act on the threat. The group started a pilot project to implement the recommendations of a taskforce set up by Carney to increase financial reporting standards ...

Reuters National Bank of Kuwait, (NBK) the Gulf Arab state’s largest commercial lender, reported an almost 11 percent rise in second-quarter net profit from a year earlier, it said in a statement on Tuesday. The bank said its net profit for the first half of the year jumped 9.3 percent due to higher net interest income and net income from ...

Bloomberg Australia’s central bank is relying on an obscure piece of legislation dating back to World War II to justify keeping interest rates steady: its rarely-discussed third objective of monetary policy. Traditionally, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) is seen as having a dual mandate of maintaining stability of the currency and full employment. Both goals support its aim to ...

Bloomberg Brazil’s long-suffering IPO bankers are headed toward their biggest payday in eight years. This month’s initial public offering for Carrefour SA’s Brazil unit will generate almost 140 million reais ($42 million) in fees for a group of local and international banks, based on a regulatory filing from the French grocery company. That tops the 119 million reais paid by ...

Bloomberg Marks & Spencer Group Plc (M&S) reported a fresh drop in quarterly clothing revenue and missed estimates for food sales, dealing a blow to Chief Executive Officer Steve Rowe as he seeks to revive the U.K. retail bellwether. Same-store sales in the clothing and home division fell 1.2 percent in the 13 weeks ended July 1, London-based M&S said ...

Dubai / Emirates Business Alcatel on Tuesday announced the launch of Alcatel A5 LED in the UAE. The world’s first interactive LED-covered smartphone, A5 LED delivers on Alcatel’s enjoy.now promise with innovations for energetic young consumers. “With the A5 LED, Alcatel is delivering new fun features, like light-up notifications and unique LED cover patterns and themes you create yourself, as ...