Business

AMMAN — Société Générale de Banque – Jordanie (SGBJ) has recently signed an agreement with First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) to acquire its National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) Jordan business operations, according to an SGBJ statement. 

The deal has been approved by the Central Bank of Jordan, the statement said, adding that the deal covers the transfer of employees and relevant suppliers’ contracts. 

All NBAD Jordan clients, employees and branches will be transferred to SGBJ. The transaction will be completed over the coming months and until the sale is complete, NBAD Jordan will remain open for business as usual, according to the statement. 

Through the transaction, SGBJ said it seeks to accelerate its growth strategy by leveraging this business opportunity to enhance and consolidate its position in the Jordanian market, thus complementing previous growth achieved over the past five years.

SGBJ operates as a universal bank through a network of 17 branches located across different areas in Amman and other governorates. 

It offers a wide range of banking services, covering retail, corporate, SMEs, private banking, brokerage and leasing, said the statement. 

TRIPOLI — Four workers were kidnapped on Saturday from an oilfield in southern Libya, with two of them later released, Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) said. 

The abductions at the Al Sharara field will hit output in the country, whose fragile economy relies heavily on its oil supplies.

"Armed men kidnapped four engineers at dawn this morning — three Libyans and a Romanian," said Ramadan Saleh, in charge of security in Libya's southern Ubari region.

Libya's NOC confirmed in a statement that four workers were kidnapped by "unknown armed assailants", but said two have been released. 

The company said it was working with "appropriate authorities to resolve the issue", without giving further details of those abducted. 

"Oil wells in the surrounding area have been shut down as a precaution, and all other workers evacuated," the NOC said.

The Al Sharara field is one of the biggest in oil-rich Libya.

Saturday's closure is expected to slash production by 160,000 bpd, according to the NOC.

The incident comes two days after the oil firm announced it would reopen another southern oilfield, Al-Fil, which has been shut since February due to a strike over salaries.

The NOC also said this week that exports would resume from terminals in eastern Libya's oil crescent, after shipments were stopped for more than two weeks due to a standoff between rival factions.

Libya produced 1.6 million bpd of oil before former leader Muammar Qadhafi was toppled from power and killed in 2011. 

Production subsequently fell but recovered to reach one million bpd by the end of 2017, but recent turmoil has shown the industry remains vulnerable to the chaos engulfing the country.

Two rival administrations continue to vie for power in Libya, while militias have often targeted workers at energy facilities.

LONDON — Prime Minister Theresa May published her blueprint for relations with the European Union after Brexit on Thursday, hoping to keep close trade ties but dropping that goal for Britain's financial services industry in what the sector called "a real blow".

With less than nine months before Britain leaves the bloc, May has been under pressure to spell out her position to unblock the all-but-stalled talks with the EU that will shape Britain's biggest shift in foreign and trade policies for decades. 

In a long-awaited white paper policy document, her government said its negotiating position had "evolved". There was one major shift — abandoning plans for close ties for financial services, Britain's biggest export industry.

But in other areas, the government outlined its plans in the 98-page document to retain the closest possible ties with the bloc, including participating in its agencies for chemicals, aviation and medicines in a move aimed at pleasing business.

By pushing for close ties, the paper does little to ease the anger of Brexit supporters in May's Conservative Party. Former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith said: "I would like having voted to leave to leave, not to half leave." 

And it did not get a ringing endorsement from US President Donald Trump, who said in Brussels before the white paper's publication he was not sure May's approach was what Britain voted for in the 2016 referendum.

In response, May said the proposal was "delivering on the vote of the British people to take back control of our money, our laws and our borders".

Dominic Raab, appointed Brexit minister on Monday after his predecessor quit in protest at the government's approach, presented the white paper to parliament, saying: "Now, it is time for the EU to respond in kind."

"We approach these negotiations with a spirit of pragmatism, compromise and, indeed, friendship, I hope, I trust that the EU will engage with our proposals in the same spirit," he said to jeers from lawmakers who were not given the document.

The EU's chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, said he would analyse the paper with member states and the European Parliament, and repeated the bloc's offer for an ambitious free trade agreement with "effective cooperation" on issues.

Time pressure

May was forced to put her cards on the table after repeated warnings from businesses and EU officials that she was running out of time to prevent Britain from crashing out of the bloc without a deal in a chaotic Brexit.

She thrashed out an agreement at her Chequers country residence on Friday, but that was undermined when two of her leading ministers quit in protest at her plan to keep close trade ties.

Her team had hoped the publication of the white paper would ease concerns among many Brexit supporters after the resignations of former foreign secretary Boris Johnson and former Brexit negotiator David Davis. But it seemed to have done little to calm a simmering rebellion in her Conservative Party.

Some Brexit campaigners will seek to harden her plan by changing her customs legislation in parliament next week.

The white paper confirms May's desire for a "business-friendly" Brexit, trying to protect manufacturers with complex supply chains across the EU, which have warned a clean break would have cost British jobs.

But the government has abandoned a plan for close ties with the EU for financial services, instead saying it would push to improve the EU's current legal mechanism for access to the bloc's financial markets known as "equivalence" — when the EU deems a country's rules to be as robust as its standards.

The head of policy at the City of London, Catherine McGuinness, described the white paper as a "real blow".

But while industry bodies decried the government's decision, many banks and insurers had already scaled back their expectations of continued full access to the EU market after Brexit, and started opening new hubs in continental Europe.

The white paper acknowledges there will be more barriers to Britain's access to the EU market than is the case today, but it has prioritised maintaining trade ties for goods and details a plan for a facilitated customs arrangement with the EU.

It also spells out Britain's desire to participate in EU agencies that provide authorisation for goods — the European Chemicals Agency, the European Aviation Safety Agency and the European Medicines Agency. Britain would accept their rules and contribute to their costs, the white paper said.

While ending freedom of movement of people, Britain will try to ensure tourists can travel freely around Europe and will try to make its immigration policy better cater for business needs.

It also proposes new bodies to help interpret rules and regulations and to resolve disputes, but says Britain will still pay due regard to the European Court of Justice.

With the detail now published, May hopes to speed up the talks with the EU before Britain leaves in March next year.

"What we've heard so far from other leaders and from Brussels is actually a positive response that this is a proposal that we can sit down and start increasing the pace of the negotiations," May said.

"At every stage through these negotiations people have cast doubt as to whether we are going to achieve what we want to achieve, and at every stage we have done so."

WASHINGTON — YouTube unveiled plans to invest $25 million in news organisations as part of an effort to boosted trusted journalism and combat misinformation.

The Google-owned online video service said it would offer funding "across approximately 20 global markets to support news organisations in building sustainable video operations".

The grants "will enable our partners to build key capabilities, train staff on video best practices, enhance production facilities and develop formats optimised for online video," YouTube said in a statement late Monday.

The latest move is part of a $300 million Google News Initiative announced earlier this year by YouTube's parent to help curb manipulation and misinformation, which can spread easily online.

The YouTube effort comes as Google and Facebook — companies that drew heavy criticism following the 2016 US election for failing to prevent the propagation of false news — have been taking a series of steps to promote verifiable journalism.

"The work of trusted journalistic organisations is as critical as ever, especially when it comes to seeking information about current events online," YouTube said.

In addition to helping news organizations with video, YouTube said it was stepping up efforts to help its users identify "authoritative" news sources.

"Authoritativeness is essential to viewers, especially during fast-moving, breaking news events, so we've been investing in new product features to prominently surface authoritative sources," the statement said.

This will include short previews of news articles in YouTube search results on key breaking stories.

"After a breaking news event, it takes time to verify, produce and publish high-quality videos," according to the YouTube statement.

"Journalists often write articles first to break the news rather than produce videos. That's why in the coming weeks in the US we will start providing a short preview of news articles in search results on YouTube that link to the full article during the initial hours of a major news event, along with a reminder that breaking and developing news can rapidly change."

Additionally, YouTube said it was creating a working group with news organizations and advisers from around the globe to "improve the news experience on YouTube and tackle emerging challenges."

The first partners in the programme will be US-based Vox Media, Jovem Pan of Brazil and India Today.

"We've looking forward to having more join as we convene the group in the coming weeks," the online giant said.

LONDON () — British business welcomed a UK plan to keep strong European Union economic ties post Brexit, even though Prime Minister Theresa May was already counting the political fallout at home.

May faced a crisis in her Cabinet on Monday after foreign secretary Boris Johnson followed Brexit minister David Davis in resigning over proposals drawn up before the weekend.

British business, whose leaders have persistently called for a clear plan on Brexit, came together on Monday to back May's proposals, which were heavily clouded by the Cabinet departures.

Johnson's resignation caused the pound to slide.

"The departure of Mr Johnson from the Cabinet is a major blow to Theresa May's leadership, and it could call her future into question," noted David Madden, analyst at CMC Markets UK.

Johnson has long had leadership ambitions and many believed May gave him the plum job of Britain's top diplomat to keep him from building up a domestic political power base.

Despite a divided Cabinet, May on Friday won overall support for a new "free trade area" where Britain would accept EU rules for goods.

Business leaders meanwhile backed the plan.

"It is welcome that the Cabinet set out an agreed position for the UK's future relationship with the European Union," said Catherine McGuinness, head of policy at the City of London Corporation, a local government authority for the capital's financial district.

However in a note of caution she added that "a deal that excludes services... could have a negative impact on the UK's financial sector".

The head of Britain's main business lobby group the CBI, meanwhile called the resignation of Davis "a blow" to the plan.

But at the same time, Carolyn Fairbairn said the government was moving "in the right direction".

She added: "There will be a time when the benefits of free trade deals internationally could outweigh European trade, but it's not yet.

"Our argument is unless and until you have an alternative way of reaching frictionless trade, a customs union is the right answer so we think broadly this is going in the right direction," said Fairbairn.

And in a statement on Davis' replacement, eurosceptic junior minister for housing, Dominic Raab, said: "There's a tough job ahead and business is ready and willing to support him and his team... deliver a good Brexit at such a critical time for the country."

'Seize this opportunity' 

May's proposals are for "a common rule book for industrial goods and agricultural products".

They additionally call for "a new business-friendly customs model", which would maintain high standards but allow Britain "to strike new trade deals around the world" once it has left the European Union in March next year.

The government believes that plan would allow Britain to maintain frictionless trade with the EU in goods, avoid customs checks on the sensitive Irish border, and end both free movement of people and jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice in Britain.

Miles Celic, chief executive of financial services lobby group TheCityUK, welcomed the government's plans awaiting more detailed information.

"In the meantime, we hope that the EU will respond to these proposals in a constructive and considered manner," he said in a statement. 

"Both sides must now seize this opportunity to put the interest of citizens and customers across Europe firmly at the heart of the process," Celic added.

Leading up to last Friday's Cabinet agreement, top European manufacturers including Airbus and BMW warned about the possibility of pulling major investment out of Britain over Brexit uncertainty.

HANDAN, China — Behind a row of sealed red incubator doors in a new facility in northern China, about 400,000 chicks are hatched every day, part of the rapidly modernising supply chain in China's $37 billion egg industry, the world's biggest.

As China overhauls production of everything from pork to milk and vegetables, farmers raising hens for eggs are also shifting from backyards to factory farms, where modern standardised processes are expected to raise quality and safety.

That is an important step in a country where melamine-tainted eggs and eggs with high antibiotic residues have featured in a series of food safety scandals in recent years. It is also spurring demand for higher priced branded eggs over those sold loose in fresh produce markets.

"These days if you're a small farmer, your eggs won't get into the supermarkets," said Yuan Song, analyst with China-America Commodity Data Analytics.

Tough new regulations on treating manure and reducing the environmental impact from farms have also pushed many small farmers out.

Most egg producers now have between 20,000 and 50,000 hens, said Yuan, a significant change even from two years ago. The remainder with less than 10,000 birds are likely to be shut down soon, as local governments favour larger producers that can be more easily scrutinised.

High-tech hatchery

Those rapid changes are driving investments like the 150 million yuan ($22.60 million) hatchery in Handan, about 400km southwest of Beijing.

The highly automated plant, owned by a joint venture between China's Huayu Agricultural Science and Technology Co. Ltd. and EW Group's genetics business Hy-Line International, is the world's biggest hatchery of layer chicks, or birds raised to produce eggs rather than meat.

By producing 200,000 females a day, or around 60 million layers a year (one day a week is for cleaning), it can meet demand from larger farms who want to buy day-old-chicks in one batch, said Jonathan Cade, president of Hy-Line International, based in West Des Moines, Iowa. 

"That's the best way to start off with good biosecurity," he said. When the birds on one farm are the same age, they are less likely to spread disease.

Imported, latest-generation equipment helps speed up the throughput of the hatchery. An automatic grading machine, which can handle 60,000 eggs an hour, sorts eggs into two acceptable sizes before they enter incubators — uniform eggs produce similar sized chicks that will have the same feeding ability.

Once hatched, female chicks go to automated beak-clipping machines that process around 3,500 an hour. 

Only 20 staff will be needed in the new plant, compared with around 100 in Huayu's older hatchery, said Huayu Chairman Wang Lianzeng.

Fierce competition, disease 

Efficiency is important in an industry which is not expected to see much volume growth. The Chinese already eat more eggs per capita than almost everyone else, about 280 a year or almost 1 billion a day across the country, so consumption is unlikely to rise much.

Breeders like Huayu are trying to grow by taking market share from others. In addition to the new Handan hatchery, it is building another in Chongqing, which will bring annual production to 180 million chicks.

Layer inventory last year was around 1.2 billion, according to the China Animal Agriculture Association.

Huayu is also looking into breeding layers and building hatcheries in southeast Asia and Africa, said Wang, the chairman.

Key to industrial scale facilities will be managing the risks of disease. Prices and demand for eggs and poultry plunged last year, after hundreds of people died from contracting bird flu, even though the disease left flocks largely unscathed. 

Although that has created new opportunities for large players to expand after others were forced to exit, the impact of a disease outbreak on intensive operations is significantly higher.

Huayu itself has recently suffered from outbreaks, with high rates of poultry disease Mycoplasma synoviae  in China's breeding flocks last year, said Wang. The disease can reduce egg production in layers.

Wang said biosecurity is the major advantage in the new hatchery, which uses advanced ventilation and environmental controls to keep new chicks healthy.

"When you enter the hatchery you wouldn't know you're in a hatchery," he said, referring to the smell typical in older facilities.

Disinfection is used at every step along the chain and workers follow strict procedures on hygiene, he added.

A safe environment with very high standards of biosecurity is important in raising chicks, said Wang.

With such pressures on production, improving animal welfare is unsurprisingly not a priority, said Jeff Zhou, China representative for Compassion in World Farming (CIWF), a non-profit.

China has no animal welfare regulations, although some companies have begun voluntarily to phase out the painful beak-trimming practice, including Huayu rival Ningxia Xiaoming Farming and Animal Husbandry Co. Ltd.

Xiaoming is also supplying male chicks from its hatcheries to local farmers to rear for meat in free-range environments, according to CIWF. Huayu sells its male chicks as food for snakes, which are farmed in China for traditional medicine. 

LONDON — A senior British minister on Sunday defended the government’s plan to adopt EU rules on goods after Brexit, amid anger from MPs who want a cleaner break and concerns it will still harm business.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove, a leading Brexit supporter, admitted the proposal thrashed out by Cabinet ministers during a day-long meeting on Friday was not perfect.

But he told the BBC: “I’m a realist”, adding: “All of the important areas where an independent country chooses to exercise sovereignty, Britain will be able to do so.”

He stressed that Britain was leaving the European Union as planned in March, adding: “You shouldn’t make the perfect the enemy of the good.”

Prime Minister Theresa May said that after agreeing a common approach, she now expected years of ministerial in-fighting on Brexit to end.

But Sunday’s newspapers were full of reports of rebellion within her Conservative Party.

“There is a lot of unhappiness,” eurosceptic MP Bill Cash told Sky News television, questioning if the proposal would lead to a “proper Brexit”.

On the other side of the debate, more than 100 British entrepreneurs and businessleaders said the plan was not enough to avoid disruption, and urged Britain to stay in the EU’s customs union.

Dutch electronics giant Philips also warned that any changes to current free trade agreements posed a “serious threat” to the competitiveness of its British operations.

Johnson’s criticism 

May’s plan would create a free trade area with the EU for goods, to protect supply chains in areas such as manufacturing, while maintaining flexibility for Britain’s dominant service sector.

It is unclear whether Brussels will accept this, after repeatedly warning Britain it cannot “cherry-pick” bits of its single market.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, a leading Brexit supporter, was widely reported to have described the plan as a “turd” before agreeing to support it.

Former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith said it appeared to run contrary to promises to leave the EU’s single market and customs union.

“If the public perceive that not to be delivered then the government, I’m afraid, will suffer the consequences at the next election,” he told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

Business warnings 

The opposition Labour party, by contrast, said the plan was “unworkable” and urged MPs to back Britain’s continued membership of the customs union, which will be put to a vote in the House of Commons on July 16.

A group of entrepreneurs, including the founders of Innocent Drinks, food chain Pret a Manger, bookshop Waterstones and fashion retailer Net-A-Porter among others, urged them on.

“The cost, complexity and bureaucracy created by crashing out of the customs union and adopting alternative arrangements is the last thing that our businesses need as we seek to grow,” they said in an open letter reported in The Times.

Philips meanwhile became the latest firm to publicly warn about a break in EU-UK ties, after Jaguar Land Rover, BMW and Airbus all spoke out.

The Amsterdam-based group employs around 1,500 people in Britain, most notably at its baby care products-for-export factory in Suffolk.

“I am deeply concerned about the competitiveness of our operations in the UK, especially our manufacturing operations,” Chief Executive Frans van Houten said in a statement to AFP.

“We estimate that the cost of the [Philips’] exported products will increase substantially under any scenario that is not maintaining the single customs union,” he said.

He added: “We need to do worst case scenario planning.”

SOFIA — China remains open for trade with foreign partners and can only benefit from an economically strong Europe, its premier said on Saturday as he pressed for expanded ties with the continent's eastern wing while waging a tariff war with Washington.

Li Keqiang told a summit with central and eastern European leaders that China would continue opening its markets and implementing other reforms that had fuelled its economy, providing opportunities for EU members and aspirants in the bloc's poorer half.

"It is two-way traffic," Li said through an interpreter. 

"Opening up has been a key driver of China's reform agenda so we will continue to open wider to the world, including widening market access for foreign investors."

Li's attendance at the seventh "16+1" summit in Sofia coincided with the first salvos in what risks becoming a protracted global trade war, as Washington and Beijing slapped tariffs on $34 billion worth of each others' goods.

Some participating countries have begun doubting the value of the annual meetings, and China has come under pressure to show its courting of individual countries from the Baltics to the Balkans would not hurt the European Union as a whole.

"If Europe is weakened, it will only be bad news for China, not the other way around," Li said. "This [16+1] platform needs to stay open. It needs to be transparent."

Officials from the EU, World Bank, and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development were invited and Li said those organisations were welcome to jointly fund projects in central and eastern Europe.

Keeping it sweet 

Mindful of the need to keep relations with the EU on an even keel as his trade battles with US President Donald Trump intensify, Li has been careful to stress China's support for European integration and rules in trade and procurement.

He said China was ready to fund a Global Partnership Centre in Sofia that should help Chinese companies understand EU market rules and adhere to them in the region.

Analysts have said Li, who will travel to Germany on Sunday ahead of a wider China-EU summit in Beijing, would avoid any issues that might irk western EU governments. 

He is holding bilateral meetings in Sofia with all the leaders of the eastern countries. He said these were also not meant to divide Europe. 

Some 18 bilateral agreements and memorandums were signed, but no new major deals were announced.

China has promised billions of dollars for development projects in the region as part of its Belt and Road strategy to carve out new export markets.

More than 1,000 business people from China and central and eastern Europe attended an economic forum alongside the summit, seeking deals in trade, technology, infrastructure, agriculture and tourism.

Bulgaria hopes the summit will help secure funds to build new infrastructure, mainly in the Balkans, which still lags richer western EU states. 

"16+1 is a format that aims to strengthen Europe," Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said in his opening remarks. "It gives more opportunities to those who joined the EU later to catch up faster."

Last month Hungary finalised the construction timetable with Beijing for a Budapest-Belgrade rail link. But outside Hungary, Chinese investments have not met expectations.

Countries taking part in the summit include the region's EU states, plus Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia.

Croatia will host the next 16+1 summit in 2019. 

CAIRO — Egypt on Thursday said it had a primary budget surplus for the first time in 15 years and said it was committed to paying oil companies' debts by end of 2019 as it seeks to lure investors to revive a crisis-hit economy.

Cairo has enacted a raft of tough austerity measures backed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) since 2016, hoping for a strong financial comeback as it recovers from years of political upheaval.

President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi's government devalued the Egyptian pound by half in 2016, and has pushed through steep fuel and electricity subsidy cuts this year, in measures praised by some economists but lamented by many Egyptians who say they are struggling with soaring living costs.

Finance Minister Mohamed Maait said Egypt achieved a 0.2 per cent primary budget surplus, worth 4 million Egyptian pounds ($223 million) in its 2017-2018 fiscal year. It is aiming for a 2 per cent primary surplus in the current fiscal year.

Egypt's fiscal year runs from July to June.

Primary budget figures do not factor in interest payments on government debt.

The country expected its 2017-2018 budget deficit to stand at 9.8 per cent, slightly above the 9.1 per cent it said last year it was targeting.

Maait told reporters that revenues expected from the 2018-2019 budget were around 989 billion Egyptian pounds ($55 billion), 817 billion of which would be spent on debts and interest.

Foreign reserves rose by the end of June to $44.258 billion from $44.139 billion, the central bank announced separately, continuing their climb since Egypt secured the $12 billion IMF loan.

Gas debts down

Egypt wants to woo foreign investors and increase other crucial sources of income such as tourism, which declined drastically in recent years because of political unrest and a precarious security situation, although tourism revenues 

The discovery of large amounts of offshore gas in Egyptian waters, including the giant Zohr Gas Field, has caused hope for another source of revenue with Egypt as a potential gas hub for the region.

Petroleum Minister Tarek El Molla told reporters on Thursday Egypt was committed to paying off its debts to foreign oil companies by the end of 2019.

Those debts stood at $1.2 billion at the end of June, their lowest since 2010 when they were around $1.3 billion, he said.

El Molla repeated that Egypt intended to increase production from the Zohr field to 56 million cubic metres of gas per day by the end of this year — up from current levels of around 33 million cubic metres.

Discovered in 2015 by Italy's Eni, Zohr contains an estimated 8 trillion cubic meter of gas.