INTERVIEW: Middle East Rolls-Royce chief Cesar Habib prepares for push into Saudi Arabia DUBAI: The Middle East’s love affair with Rolls-Royce Motor Cars dates back more than 100 years, to the famous motto of Lawrence of Arabia that “a Rolls in the desert was above jewels,” as the wartime hero helped to promote the cause…
INTERVIEW: Middle East Rolls-Royce chief Cesar Habib prepares for push into Saudi Arabia DUBAI: The Middle East’s love affair with Rolls-Royce Motor Cars dates back more than 100 years, to the famous motto of Lawrence of Arabia that “a Rolls in the desert was above jewels,” as the wartime hero helped to promote the cause…
DEAD SEA, Jordan: Saudi Arabia’s startup scene is “moving faster than anyone can imagine” and is set to create hundreds of thousands of jobs over the coming years, the World Economic Forum in Jordan heard on Saturday.The region’s most successful tech ventures — like ride-hailing service Careem, which Uber recently agreed to buy for $3.1…
CAIRO: Egypt will remove subsidies on most energy products by June 15, it told the International Monetary Fund in a January letter released by the IMF on Saturday as part of a review of Cairo’s three-year, $12 billion loan program with the lender.This will mean increasing the price to consumers of gasoline, diesel, kerosene and…
CAIRO: Egypt will remove subsidies on most energy products by June 15, it told the International Monetary Fund in a January letter released by the IMF on Saturday as part of a review of Cairo’s three-year, $12 billion loan program with the lender.This will mean increasing the price to consumers of gasoline, diesel, kerosene and…
DEAD SEA, Jordan: What has the World Economic Forum ever done for us? It is the perennial question asked of the forum’s headline event in Davos, Switzerland, held at the beginning of each year. But it is, perhaps, an even more pertinent one ahead of the annual Middle East-focused gathering in Jordan, which starts today. To…
SAN FRANCISCO, USA: Google on Thursday confirmed that it has disbanded a recently assembled artificial intelligence ethics advisory panel in the face of controversy over its membership.The end of the Advanced Technology External Advisory Council (ATEAC) came just days after a group of Google employees launched a public campaign against having the president of conservative…
OSLO: Norwegian Air earned less money than expected from each traveler in March but its aircraft filled up at a faster pace than analysts anticipated, the budget carrier’s monthly traffic report showed on Thursday.The grounding last month of its Boeing 737 MAX jets following the deadly crash of an Ethiopian jet, has forced Norwegian to…
LONDON: Regional business leaders run the risk of underestimating the threat of climate change, a World Economic Forum report has warned.A new analysis of regional risks found that economic and governance issues rank most highly as topics of concern among executives in the Middle East and North Africa.But environmental factors are “not top of mind,”…
LONDON: The United Kingdom has lost £6.6 billion ($8.7 billion) in economic activity every quarter since it voted to leave the European Union, according to S&P Global Ratings, the latest company to estimate the damage from Brexit.In a report published on Thursday, the ratings agency’s senior economist, Boris Glass, said the world’s fifth-biggest economy would…
LONDON: The United Kingdom has lost £6.6 billion ($8.7 billion) in economic activity every quarter since it voted to leave the European Union, according to S&P Global Ratings, the latest company to estimate the damage from Brexit.In a report published on Thursday, the ratings agency’s senior economist, Boris Glass, said the world’s fifth-biggest economy would…
NEW YORK/SINGAPORE: South Korea has begun testing super-light US oil sold by energy firm Anadarko Petroleum Corp. as a substitute for Iranian crude as it awaits word from Washington whether it can keep buying oil from the Middle Eastern nation, sources said.South Korea is one of Iran’s biggest Asian customers, and was one of eight…
Ethiopian crew followed procedure, but unable to control Boeing MAX 8 jet: minister ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopian Airlines pilots followed proper procedures when their Boeing MAX 8 airplane repeatedly nosedived before a March 10 crash that killed 157 people, Ethiopia’s minister of transport said on Thursday as she delivered the first official report on the disaster.…
ABU DHABI: Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank (ADIB) and First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) denied on Thursday they were in merger talks after a news report said the emirate was considering combining them. Citing unnamed sources, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that Abu Dhabi was considering merging the two lenders to create the Gulf region’s largest lender.…
ISLAMABAD/KARACHI: Pakistan’s surging petrol prices have more than halved the income of taxi driver Yasir Sultan, just one of many consumers whose faith in a government elected last year on a pledge to help the poor has been shattered.Inflation at its highest in more than five years has shocked many Pakistanis who voted for Prime…
BEIJING: China has unveiled tens of billions of dollars worth of tax and fee cuts as part of a drive to kickstart the stuttering economy, extending pledges worth $300 billion announced last month.With growth at a near three-decade low and the economy struggling under the weight of the US trade row and a soft global…
BEIJING: China has unveiled tens of billions of dollars worth of tax and fee cuts as part of a drive to kickstart the stuttering economy, extending pledges worth $300 billion announced last month.With growth at a near three-decade low and the economy struggling under the weight of the US trade row and a soft global…
BEIJING: China has unveiled tens of billions of dollars worth of tax and fee cuts as part of a drive to kickstart the stuttering economy, extending pledges worth $300 billion announced last month.With growth at a near three-decade low and the economy struggling under the weight of the US trade row and a soft global…
LONDON: This weekend’s World Economic Forum meeting in Jordan will address “new platforms of cooperation” for the Arab world, organizers said on Wednesday. The 17th World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa is set to take place at the Dead Sea on April 6-7, and bring together more than 1,000 leaders of…
LONDON: Britain’s economy looks likely to shrink over the coming months, after Brexit worries caused the dominant services sector to contract for the first time in nearly three years, a survey showed on Wednesday.The IHS Markit/CIPS Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), a survey of services ranging from giant banks to high-street hairdressers, tumbled to 48.9 in…
