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

  ABU DHABI / WAM The value of margin trading finance on Abu Dhabi and Dubai Security Exchange Markets hit AED31 billion in January and February 2017, an all-time-high since the inception of margin trading in 2008. The growth in the service’s financial value during the two months account for 37.3% of the total facilitations provided by licensed brokerage companies ...

  DUBAI / WAM The Emirate of Dubai continues to show growing levels of buoyancy in different business sectors, boasting growing demand and increasing returns thanks to its highly sophisticated industrial base and rising foreign investment quotas for its property and financial markets. The impressive economic success story, according to recent business reports, is attributed to a number of factors, ...

  DUBAI / WAM Nakheel Properties awarded a construction contract worth AED184.5 million for a second hotel at the Ibn Battuta Mall in Dubai. Dubai-based Parkway International Contracting has been appointed to build the 375-room hotel, which has a total project value of AED240 million. It forms part of Nakheel’s AED3 billion hospitality expansion under which the developer is bringing ...

  Bloomberg FBI Director James Comey confirmed the bureau is probing potential ties between President Donald Trump’s associates and Russia during the 2016 campaign and said there’s no evidence to support the president’s allegation that his predecessor “wiretapped” Trump Tower last year. “I have no information that supports those tweets and we have looked carefully inside the FBI,” Comey told ...

  KABUL / AP A suicide car bomb targeted a checkpoint in Afghanistan’s southern Helmand province, killing at least six members of an intelligence unit, an Afghan official said on Tuesday. Hayatullah Hayat, the governor of the province, said seven other members of the service were wounded in the attack, which took place late Monday near the provincial capital, Lashkar ...

  SEOUL / AP South Korean prosecutors grilled the country’s just-ousted president on Tuesday in a long-awaited investigation of corruption allegations that ended her rule and now threaten to put her in jail. The questioning of Park Geun-hye came 11 days after the Constitutional Court unanimously ruled to dismiss her over suspicions she colluded with a confidante to extort money ...

  Perhaps no other piece of economics jargon has caused as much confusion as the term “strong dollar.” The phrase suggests patriotic strength, of the USA riding roughshod over its economic rivals. In reality, dollar strength just means purchasing power — a stronger dollar lets US residents and businesses buy more things from overseas, while a weaker dollar helps them ...

  Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao has negotiated a partial retreat from a tough situation in India on reasonable terms. Given a bloody price war brought on by a new rival, the deal to join forces with Idea Cellular Ltd is smart even though Colao has ceded control without getting a premium. Vodafone Group Plc and Idea said on Monday that ...

  Presumably at the insistence of the U.S. administration, the latest statement from the Group of 20 big economies conspicuously dropped the standard promise to “avoid all forms of protectionism.” It’s worth pausing to understand why that promise was ever worth making, and honoring. The reason is surely not that governments always keep their word. For years they’ve been backsliding ...

  At last, the much heralded date for UK to file divorce papers to leave European Union has been announced. British Prime Minister Theresa May will invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, the formal process of leaving the EU, on March 29. It will start the clock on two years period, during which to complete the most important negotiation ...