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

  Bloomberg The road back down for this year’s best-performing commodity may be bumpy. While spot prices for coking coal have dropped about 16 percent this month from a record high above $300 a ton, possible heavy rain and flooding in Australia over the next few months may stall, or even reverse, the decline. The region is forecast to see ...

  Bloomberg Beijing municipal government ordered more than 1,200 factories in the printing, construction materials and petrochemical industries citywide to either suspend or cut output after earlier issuing this year’s first red alert warning for severely high levels of air pollution. Under a contingency plan for severe air pollution, the city shut down more than 700 plants with production procedures ...

  Bloomberg China must do more to deflate a property bubble that expanded this year by “strictly” controlling speculation while also stepping up the fight to rein in excessive corporate borrowing, a top economic official said a day after leaders announced plans for next year. “We need to give a higher priority to preventing and controlling financial risks,” Yang Weimin, ...

  Bloomberg Wangxiang Group, the owner of Karma Automotive, became the second auto-parts maker to receive permission from the nation’s top economic planner to produce electric cars under a special scheme to encourage companies outside auto manufacturing to develop new-energy vehicles. Founded by Chinese billionaire Lu Guanqiu, Wanxiang Group got approval from the National Development and Reform Commission to invest ...

  Bloomberg Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA received regulatory approval to extend and expand a debt-for-equity swap in a last-ditch effort to raise 5 billion euros ($5.2 billion) privately and avoid a state rescue. The exchange offer will involve about 4.5 billion euros of Tier 1 and Tier 2 securities and will run until 2 p.m. on December ...

  Bloomberg Prudential Financial Inc. said the relationship with Wells Fargo & Co. that led to a whistle-blower lawsuit and state probes over suspected sales abuses generated a tiny fraction of the life insurer’s revenue. “We do not gauge the importance of this matter in financial terms, but for purposes of this call, it’s probably useful to put some financial ...

  Bloomberg National Australia Bank Ltd., the country’s fourth-largest lender, has written to 60,000 customers to notify them it erroneously sent details about the establishment of their accounts to an incorrect e-mail address. The e-mail included customer information such as names, e-mail addresses and account numbers, though didn’t include any passwords, Peter Coad, NAB executive general manager for international branches, ...

  Moscow / AFP Russia’s central bank held its key interest rate steady at 10 percent, opting to keep inflation in check rather than help jolt the economy out of recession. Inflation risks have subsided and “our medium-term vision has not changed” since the bank last cut the rate in September by half a percentage point, said central bank chief ...

  Bloomberg After years spent clamping down on risky behaviour at banks and punishing them for past misdeeds, Europe’s regulators have awoken to a new worry: lenders aren’t making enough money. Shrinking profitability has become a “concern for financial stability” because it may reduce banks’ ability to recover from shocks by generating capital or selling stock, Bank of England (BoE) ...

  Bloomberg Super Mario Run, Nintendo Co.’s first full foray into the world of mobile gaming, might be encountering some growing pains. The game was at the top of download rankings in 68 countries, but was the highest grossing game in only 14, according to researcher SensorTower. Nintendo shares closed 4.2 percent lower in Tokyo, wiping out about $1.5 billion ...