HONG KONG: Asian banks’ shares rallied on Monday as regulators and investors shrugged off the biggest revamp to global banking rules in decades, confident that regional lenders were already in good shape. The stricter new rules — known as Basel III — were agreed on Sunday at a meeting in Switzerland of international central bankers …

Egypt’s Orascom Development will build two Four Seasons-branded hotels, one in an Egyptian resort and the other in Oman, by second-half 2011 for a total investment of $245 million, a newspaper said on Wednesday. One hotel will be in the Red Sea resort of El-Gouna, with a capacity of 150 rooms and 60 villas. It …

DUBAI: Dubai Metro may have altered the commuting scene in this car-loving city, but a year after the first train left the station winning over the hard-core motorists remains an uphill struggle. Despite Dubai’s severe financial crisis however, the rail authority is determined to complete its second line, delayed for more than a year. Since …

Regional low-cost carrier Air Arabia will start direct services to the Egyptian city of Alexandria from the airline’s second hub in Mohamed V Airport, Casablanca, Morocco. Egypt represents the 12th destination on Air Arabia’s growing network from Morocco. The airline will start its flights to Alexandria on October 4, according to a press statement. The …

Egypt plans to spend an initial LE 60 billion ($10.5 billion) to upgrade the country’s irrigation network, a newspaper reported on Tuesday, citing the agriculture minister. Countries along the Nile will need more water as their populations grow, a development which could affect Egypt’s share of the river’s flow, Al-Mal quoted the minister, Amin Abaza, …

DUBAI: Dubai Holding’s main unit will delay repayment on a $555 million loan until Nov. 30, the company said on Tuesday, the second time it has failed to meet a repayment deadline. DHCOG, a unit of the conglomerate owned by the Gulf Arab emirate’s ruler, took a big hit on its exposure to Dubai’s property …

Kuwaiti exports to Egypt stand at $46.2 million annually, most of which are oil derivatives, said the head of the Egyptian trade representation office on Monday. The volume of trade exchange between Egypt and Kuwait is increasing nearly 15.9 percent each year, Abdel-Wahab Abdel-Alim said. According to statistics, the two-way trade between the two countries …

KHOBAR: A new chief executive officer has been named for a venture between state oil giant Saudi Aramco and France’s Total, industry sources said on Monday. Said al-Hadrami, a board member of Saudi Aramco Total Refining and Petrochemical Company (SATORP) replaces Salem Shaheen as president and chief executive of SATORP, sources said. A company spokesperson …

TEHRANL: A Bahai missionary has been arrested in northern Iran for indulging in "illicit relationships," hardline newspaper Javan’s website reported on Monday. It identified the detainee by only his initials, P.P., saying he was arrested in the Islamic republic’s northern province of Golestan. The newspaper which is close to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards did not provide …

ABU DHABI: Regulations enforcing higher capital standards in the UAE’s overcrowded insurance market have reduced the amount of insurance brokers, while slower growth in commercial business means the sector is looking to opportunities in the retail segment. “The number of brokers has decreased by 20 percent compared with 2008,” the Insurance Authority said recently. Put …

HSBC upgraded Olympic Group to "overweight" from "neutral," citing an attractive valuation, and said the Egyptian appliance maker’s capacity expansion plans are on track. Capacity expansions related to Olympic’s agreement with Sweden’s Electrolux and potential original equipment manufacturers’ sales are progressing as planned, HSBC said. Olympic Group, which specializes in making automatic washing machines, refrigerators, …

State-owned Egyptian General Petroleum Corp (EGPC) sold 350,000 tons of naphtha for September-December loading from Suez, with JPMorgan sweeping up 60 percent of the volumes, traders said on Thursday. JPMorgan will be lifting six cargoes, each at 35,000 tons, at premiums of $2.00-$5.00 a ton to Middle East quotes, on a free-on-board (FOB) basis. Glencore …

Egypt’s producer price index rose 10.36 percent in the 12 months to July, figures on the website of the state statistics agency CAPMAS showed on Friday. The government started the new index in October 2007, replacing the old wholesale price index. The July figure is preliminary.    

Egypt’s ASEC Company for Mining (ASCOM) said on Sunday it had found two gold mining targets in an Ethiopian concession with enough tonnage and grade potential to suggest an economic discovery is possible. ASCOM plans to start drilling on the 800-square-kilometer Asosa concession in Western Ethiopia in October, it said in a statement. The company, …

CAIRO: The average yield on Egyptian 364-day treasury bills rose slightly to 10.503 percent at an auction on Thursday from 10.380 percent at the last auction on Aug. 5. The central bank said it accepted bids for bills worth LE 3 billion Egyptian ($526 million), the same amount it was seeking. It accepted bids at …

The Obama administration’s success in moving the Israeli-Palestinian talks from proximity to direct negotiations is an important achievement for making real progress. However, direct talks will not produce substantive results unless the United States takes a number of pivotal steps to insure that the progress made in the negotiations is irreversible, and will eventually lead …

Cairo-based investment bank Beltone Financial will put LE 5 million ($880,000) into a new open-ended equity fund that will make investments relying only on technical analysis, Bloomberg reported. With LE 24.5 billion in assets under management, Beltone will issue shares in the fund Aug. 29 through government-owned Banque Misr, according to the fund’s prospectus. The …

Egypt’s Ezz Steel said on Thursday its second-quarter net profit more than tripled and forecast that growing global demand for steel would push prices higher in the second half of 2010. Egypt’s largest steel producer said net profit was LE 136 million ($23.8 million), compared with LE 37 million in the same quarter last year, …

“Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are a key pillar of modern economies,” said Walid Bakr, director and executive committee member of Riyada Enterprise Development (RED). While SMEs contribute about 25 percent to Egypt’s GDP, this figure is far below the global average, sitting at about twice that amount, Bakr told Daily News Egypt in an …

CAIRO: Remains of an ancient settlement were discovered in the Um El-Mawagir area of the El-Kharga Oasis, the Supreme Council of Antiquities said Wednesday. Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni confirmed the discovery and added that the settlement has been dated back to the Second Intermediate Period (ca. 1650-1550 BC). This makes it about a thousand …

We have all heard about — and probably even been impacted by — the economic crisis and the bank failures around the world that caused it. Many of us have wondered how this could happen and how a recurrence can be prevented in the future. This is important to us as we trust banks to …

National Bank of Abu Dhabi, the second largest bank in the United Arab Emirates, said on Wednesday it plans to open around 22 branches in Egypt in the short-term as part of aims to become the largest Arab bank. The bank said in a statement it already had 28 branches in the most populous Arab …

BAGHDAD: More than a dozen apparently coordinated car bombs targeting Iraqi police and other attacks killed 52 people on Wednesday, just days before the US military officially ends its combat mission here. The trail of bloodshed started in the capital Baghdad before stretching to the north and south of the country, hitting 10 cities and …

Egypt’s Sinai Cement posted a 6.7 percent rise in consolidated net profit to LE 367.4 million ($64.5 million) in the first half of 2010, the stock exchange said on Sunday. The results were published after shares in Sinai Cement, the local unit of France’s Vicat, closed down 0.5 percent.  

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s king has appointed the Chevron Corp.’s former chairman as a board member of Saudi Aramco, the country’s state-run oil giant. David O’Reilly’s appointment, reported by the Saudi Press Agency late Saturday, came as King Abdullah named a new board for Aramco. The company’s president, Khalid Al Falih remains Aramco’s chief executive. O’Reilly …

Egypt cut by almost half the amount of land it used to sow rice in 2010 versus the previous year, saving the country 5-6 billion cubic meters of water, the official state news agency MENA said on Thursday. The amount of land on which rice was grown was reduced to 1.2 million feddans (1.2 million …

Citigroup cut its share price target and earnings estimates for UAE-based budget carrier Air Arabia, following a disappointing second quarter, and cited an expected fall in 2010 average ticket price. Citigroup now sees average ticket price in 2010 falling by 2 percent, compared with its prior view of a 3 percent growth. Last week, Air …

CAIRO: The Ministry of Health denied reports that Minister Hatem El-Gabali was summoned to the Prosecutor General’s office, stressing in a statement that his visit there was “friendly”. Minister of Health Hatem El-Gabali paid Prosecutor General Abdel Meguid Mahmoud a “friendly” visit to discuss a number of matters related to the ministry, the statement said. …

ISMAILIA: The Suez Canal last week earned its highest daily revenue since the 2008 financial crisis triggered a world trade slump, the canal authority said on Sunday, citing a recovering economy and canal improvements. The canal is an important source of foreign currency for Egypt, along with tourism, oil and gas exports and remittances from …

CAIRO: Egypt’s El Sewedy Cables reported a 53 percent jump in second-quarter net profit on Monday after it took business from rivals weakened by the global economic slowdown. Sewedy, the Arab world’s biggest maker by market value of cables used in power transmission and telecoms, said net profit rose to LE 270.1 million ($47.4 million) …