Shares swung higher in Asia on Friday after a wobbly day of trading on Wall Street as investors awaited a U.S. government jobs report and kept an eye out for developments in China-U.S. trade talks. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.7% to 26,401.47, while the Nikkei 225 in Japan picked up...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- Sudanese authorities have shocked investors of all nationalities with a decision that prevents them from any import-export activity, affecting a substantial number of Syrian traders who have already been granted Sudanese citizenship. Madani Abbas, Minister of Industry,...

The Syrian pound hit a record low Monday amid the country’s grinding civil war, now in its ninth year, and as a financial and political crisis roils neighboring Lebanon, Syria’s economic lung. When Syria’s conflict erupted in March 2011, a dollar was valued at 47 pounds. On Monday, it traded...

Iraq has been rocked by two months of anti-government protests that brought down premier Adel Abdel Mahdi on Sunday, but its lucrative oil industry has been curiously insulated from the turmoil. AFP looks at how the energy industry of OPEC's second-largest producer has weathered the...

Tens of Damascus shop owners went on strike Friday, protesting the deteriorating value of the Syrian pound against the dollar that hits 800 for $1, local activists said. The Political Security Division threatened to arrest the merchants who close their shops for monopoly purposes....

Black Friday shoppers fought for parking spots and traveled cross-state to their favorite malls, kicking off a shortened shopping season that intensified the mad scramble between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The shopping season is the shortest since 2013 because Thanksgiving fell on the...

Thirty days has passed between the date of the submission of the regime’s budget to the People's Assembly and its final approval on Tuesday. However, as the Syrian Pound plummeted to an all-time low, the budget suffered around a $1 billion drop. On October 27, the People's Assembly was...

(Zaman Al Wasl)- In an effort to improve oil and gas production in Kurdish-held areas, the US-led Syrian Democratic Forces is building a new power plant south of the Jbeissa oil and gas field in northeastern Hasaka province. A source provided Zaman al-Wasl with aerial photographs of the...

The semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq could start delivering 250,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil to the Baghdad federal government by early 2020, Iraq's oil minister said. The oil would be delivered to state oil marketer SOMO which would export it via pipeline through the...

Kuwait plans to increase crude oil exports to China to more than 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2020, state news agency KUNA reported on Saturday, citing Kuwait Petroleum Corp’s Deputy Managing Director for Global Marketing Sheikh Khalid Al-Sabah. The agency did not specify the current...

China and France signed contracts totaling $15 billion during a visit by President Emmanuel Macron, a Chinese government official said at a news briefing on Wednesday. Deals were struck in the fields of aeronautics, energy and agriculture, including approval for 20 French companies to...

The reopening of a plastics factory in the Libyan oil port of Ras Lanuf has provided a rare boost to an economy ravaged by war and political divisions. Libya is almost entirely dependent on oil revenues, and the National Oil Corporation (NOC) has struggled to keep crude production stable....

The United Arab Emirates’ central bank said on Sunday it is studying projects for Lebanon that had been proposed an at investment forum in the capital Abu Dhabi last month. “We decided to study and recommend to the leadership in light of developments recently,” Mubarak Rashid al-Mansouri...

A deal that would transfer control of a natural gas pipeline between Israel and Egypt is expected to be closed in the next few days, the companies said on Sunday. Texas-based Noble Energy, Israel’s Delek Drilling and Egyptian East Gas Co have partnered in a venture called EMED, which last...

Iran signed a preliminary agreement with Syria on Saturday to help rebuild the Arab ally’s electricity grid, Iranian state media reported, as Tehran seeks a deepening economic role after years of the Syrian conflict. A memorandum of understanding signed by the two countries’ electricity...

 Lebanon’s banks did not see “any extraordinary movement” of money on Friday or Saturday, the first two days they reopened to the public after a two-week closure due to nationwide protests, the head of the banking association said on Saturday. “The reaction was almost the way we...

Lebanese banks opened to customers on Friday for the first time in two weeks following an unprecedented wave of protests that led the prime minister to resign, with small numbers of customers queuing as the doors opened.  At a branch of Blom Bank, one of Lebanon's biggest banks, in...

By claiming a right to Syria's oil, President Donald Trump has added more complexity — as well as additional U.S. forces and time — to an American military mission he has twice declared he was ending so the troops could come home. Extending the mission to secure eastern Syria's oilfields...

Russian President Vladimir Putin is facing an unwelcome new financial challenge in Syria after the U.S. pullback enabled his ally Bashar al-Assad to reclaim the biggest chunk of territory in the country still outside his control. The U.S. decision to keep forces in northeastern Syria to...

The United States imposed tariffs on a record $7.5 billion worth of European Union goods on Friday, despite threats of retaliation, with Airbus, French wine and Scottish whiskies among the high-profile targets. The tariffs, which took effect just after midnight in Washington (0401 GMT),...