Business

05 Sep 2020; MEMO: Russian gas exports to Turkey have declined to the lowest level since the 1990s due to high prices and searching for alternative markets, Anadolu Agency reported on Friday.

The Russian newspaper Kommersant wrote a report with the headline Expiration of Turkish market, expecting that exports of Russian gas to Turkey could decline to eight or nine billion cubic metres.

New Delhi, Sep 5 (PTI) Andhra Pradesh has retained the top position in the ranking of states and union territories (UTs) based on the implementation of the business reform action plan, according to a report released by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday.

Uttar Pradesh and Telangana were placed at the second and third place, respectively in the ease of doing business for 2019, prepared by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).

Moscow, Sep 5 (PTI) Defence Minister Rajnath Singh met his counterparts from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan here on Saturday and discussed ways to further boost bilateral defence cooperation with the key Central Asian countries.

Singh is in Moscow on a three-day visit to Russia to attend a crucial meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) defence ministers. On Friday, he held talks with his Chinese counterpart Gen. Wei Fenghe on ways to ease escalating border tension in eastern Ladakh.

New Delhi, Sep 5 (PTI) The Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project, which is scheduled to be completed by December 2023, may fail to meet its deadline due to the coronavirus pandemic that has led to delays in opening tenders and land acquisition, officials said.

New Delhi, Sep 4 (PTI) Five-nation influential grouping BRICS, which includes India and China, on Friday said conflicts should be resolved by peaceful means and diplomatic engagement through political dialogue and negotiations irrespective of their historic background.

The BRICS stressed on resolution of conflicts in a declaration issued after a virtual meeting of foreign ministers of the member nations of the grouping. The meeting was attended by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon on Friday reaffirmed Microsoft as winner of a cloud computing contract potentially worth $10 billion, although the start of work is delayed by a legal battle over rival Amazon’s claim that the bidding process was flawed.

“The department has completed its comprehensive re-evaluation of the JEDI cloud proposals and determined that Microsoft’s proposal continues to represent the best value to the government,” the Pentagon said.

04 Sep 2020; MEMO: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) had committed “unprecedented” violations against Qatari citizens since the Gulf crisis erupted more than three years ago, Doha’s legal representative said on Wednesday.

04 Sep 2020; MEMO: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu privately approved America’s sale of F-35 fighter jets to the UAE, despite coming out against the deal publicly,  the New York Times reported late yesterday, citing officials familiar with the negotiations.

According to the report, Netanyahu chose not to try to block the deal during talks to establish diplomatic ties with the UAE.

04 Sep 2020; MEMO: The government of Dubai has sold $2 billion in Islamic and conventional bonds, in its first sale to international debt markets in six years.

The sale included $1 billion in ten-year sukuk, or Islamic bonds, and $1 billion in 30-year conventional bonds, Reuters reported.

The coronavirus pandemic has affected all economic sectors in Dubai – hitting the tourism industry, which is one of the most important sources of income for the Gulf emirate, the hardest.

04 Sep 2020; MEMO: Greece has pulled out of NATO-backed talks with Turkey, and is demanding that its neighbour should drop its “threats” in order for talks to go ahead in the effort to de-escalate tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The decision was taken by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis this morning as he met with a senior member of China’s Communist Party who is visiting Athens. “Let threats go away so that the contacts can begin,” he said.