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

  AP Midwestern homebuyers helped spark a national increase in real estate sales during April, a sign that demand for housing remains steady despite rising prices and tight inventories. Sales of existing homes rose 1.7 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.45 million, the National Association of Realtors said. Americans are eagerly searching for homes. But ...

  AFP Four lucky competition winners are set to be the first people in history to use the Eiffel Tower as a vacation home next month. Rental company HomeAway is taking over part of the first floor of the iconic 300-meter (yard) landmark for the duration of the UEFA Euro 2016 soccer tournament in Paris, and transforming it into Hausmannian-style ...

  Bloomberg A luxury-condo project planned for the lower Manhattan site of what was once to be the “Ground Zero mosque” has received $219 million in financing from an international consortium of lenders, paving the way for 50 high-end units to enter a New York market that is growing heavy with them. Developer Soho Properties, led by Sharif El-Gamal, said ...

  Hanoi / Bloomberg Boeing Co. won an order for 100 jets from VietJet Aviation Joint Stock Co. valued at $11.3 billion in list prices as Vietnam’s only private airline expands fleet amid a surge in travel. VietJet signed the agreement on Monday in Hanoi during President Barack Obama’s visit to Vietnam. Delivery of the Boeing 737 Max 200 planes ...

  Dublin / AP European budget carrier Ryanair posted record full-year profits and passenger figures, and expects both to hit new highs this summer amid rapid growth and declining fares. Monday’s results for the year ending March 31 showed the Dublin-based airline strengthening on every front. Net profit before exceptional gains rose 43 percent to 1.24 billion euros ($1.4 billion) and ...

  Brasilia / Bloomberg Brazilian planemaker Embraer SA said it sold 23 business jets with a list value of $260 million to an expanding Mexican charter operator, which has an option to double the order. Servicios Aereos Across SA has begun to take deliveries for the first aircraft in its firm order, which includes eight Legacy 500, eight Phenom 300 ...

  Mumbai / Bloomberg SpiceJet Ltd. is considering hedging jet fuel for the first time since 2009-10 as the Indian budget carrier expects crude oil prices to rise further, people with direct knowledge of the plans said. Oil has surged more than 70 percent from a 12-year low reached in January on signs the global surplus will ease as US ...

  Sriharikota / Bloomberg India successfully launched a scale model of a reusable spacecraft on Monday, a project that in time could pit the nation against billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk in the race to make access to space cheaper and easier. The winged vessel — one-fifth of full size — blasted off on a rocket from Sriharikota base ...

  Bloomberg Think of it as Mother Nature’s roller-coaster ride: the shift between the weather patterns known as El Nino and La Nina that, at their worst, can cause havoc worldwide. El Nino — spurred on by a warming of the equatorial Pacific — has dried up rice crops across Southeast Asia, cocoa fields in Ghana, coffee in Indonesia and ...

  Bloomberg Frustrated by the difficulty of finding dates while living in London, Dutchman David Vermeulen started InnerCircle, a matchmaking website focused on highly educated singles. Yet rather than set up in Europe’s biggest city, he moved to Amsterdam, home to about 800,000 people and a much smaller pool of potential customers. The city, he says, offered an inexpensive place ...