CAIRO: The Syrian Petroleum Company has begun extracting oil from recently controlled fields and sending output to the Homs and Baniyas refineries, the state news agency SANA reported on Saturday. One of those fields, Al-Omar oilfield, which is the country’s largest, came under government control recently after a lightning offensive against Kurdish forces who had […]
Read MoreJAKARTA: The Gulf Cooperation Council and Indonesia are aiming to finalize their free trade agreement in 2026, trade officials said on Saturday as they wrap up the fourth round of negotiations. Indonesia has been working to enhance trade ties with GCC members, and already has a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with the UAE, its first […]
Read MoreRIYADH: Saudi Arabia will host the World Economic Forum Global Collaboration and Growth Meeting in Jeddah between April 22-23, 2026. Minister of Economy and Planning Faisal Alibrahim on Friday confirmed the details of the high-level meeting which was announced at the annual WEF meeting in 2025, Saudi Press Agency reported. In his closing remarks at […]
Read MoreBy Fan Chen At the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this week, world leaders warned of an increasingly fractured global order and took veiled swipes at the United States. But they held back on directly criticising China, which experts said signalled a recalibration in their approach to Beijing as US […]
Read MoreChina’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is often discussed in the vocabulary of spectacle-megaports, transcontinental railways, pipelines, and industrial zones that visibly announce Beijing’s arrival. Yet in Central Asia and the South Caucasus, China’s most consequential advance has unfolded with far less drama. By 2025, Beijing’s influence in these regions had become embedded not simply […]
Read MoreBy He Huifeng in Guangdong Despite a slowing economy, recurring trade frictions and intensifying price competition, the value of China’s exports rose in 2025 by 6.1 per cent, year on year, to a record 26.98 trillion yuan (US$3.87 trillion) – cementing its position as the world’s largest trading nation. Behind that growth, China’s export machine […]
Read MoreBy Finbarr Bermin gham in Brussels After German Chancellor Friedrich Merz pledged to make Europe “the antithesis to state-sponsored unfair trade practices”, the massive pressure the country’s automotive industry faced from China was laid bare in new figures. Over the course of 2025, German car and car part shipments to China saw dramatic slumps, while […]
Read MoreDavos, Switzerland: US officials on Thursday presented their vision for a “New Gaza” that would turn the shattered Palestinian territory into a glitzy resort of skyscrapers by the sea, saying the transformation could emerge in three years. The war in Gaza, sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, left much of the Palestinian territory […]
Read MoreBy Biman Mukherji India and the European Union are stepping up a long-delayed push for a free-trade agreement as New Delhi prepares to host the bloc’s top leaders later this month, with both sides signalling urgency amid mounting pressure from US tariffs and a shifting global order. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, in […]
Read MoreBy Maria Siow Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto has used his Davos debut to drive home a message to global investors that his country intends to stamp out corruption and “greedanomics”, while positioning itself as a rare pocket of stability in an unsettled world economy. Speaking during a special address at the World Economic Forum (WEF) […]
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