Fresh News

• During Eid Al Adha, schools in the UAE are closed from December 17 and will re-open on January 6, 2008. The UAE stock market will be closed from December 18 to December 22 and will re-open on December 23. Banks will be closed for four days from December 18. Public sector employees get a five-day holiday from December 18, while private sector employees get a three-day holiday from December 18. Motorists in Dubai get free parking from December 18 to December 21.
  
• Saudi Arabia cuts the reverse repo rate from 4.25 pct to 4.00 pct. It means that the deposit interest rates are going to be lower.
  
• State Government agency NORKA is conducting Annual Kerala NRI Meet at Ernakulam on 2nd and 3rd January 2008. Chief Minister is expected to inagurate the function. CM also holds the NRK portfolio.
  
• Fed cuts interest rates 1/4 point. The U.S. Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee cut the benchmark federal funds rate and discount rate by a quarter percentage point at its Dec.11 policy meeting.
  
• Dubai-based healthcare service provider Dr. Moopen’s Group is planning to invest around $250 million in the healthcare service industry by 2012. Dr. Azad Moopen, Chairman, Dr. Moopen’s Group said that the group is on the threshold of a major expansion plan covering the entire Middle East and India. The group will launch several hospitals, Medcentres and Medshops in the next five years.
  
• The Kerala Government will go ahead with the Spices Park project and the process of land acquisition for the project has already started.
  
• Information technology in Kerala is all set to get another booster shot with the state government announcing a plan to float an IT infrastructure company.
  
• Kerala, popularly known as God’s Own Country these days, originally got the state’s name from the coconut tree. “Kera” in Malayalam language means Coconut and “Alam” means Land; and thus “Keralam” became the Land of Coconut.
  
• Union Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh's statement that the proposed Spices Park project would be shifted out of Kerala has become controversial.
  
• The Middle East's private banking industry will adopt the open architecture independent asset management (IAM) model in the near future, said Gilles Rollet, chief executive officer of Mirabaud (Middle East) Limited, at the Private Banking Mena 2007 conference in Dubai.
  
• Kerala administration has initiated the process for acquiring 25 acres of land needed for the metro rail project in the Kerala's commercial capital of Cochin.
  
• Five Kerala-born NRIs have been named to the board of Infrastructure Kerala Ltd (InKel), a new public-private infrastructure company promoted by state government.
  
• Kerala government has decided against extending the lease on the 351.36 acre organic coffee estate of the Kerala-based Poabs group.
  
• Asia's tallest tamed tusker died in Palakkad district of Kerala on Saturday. The 51-year-old elephant, Nanu Eezhuthassan Sivasankaran was star attraction of many events.
  
• Undeterred by the opposition to the entry of big retail companies into Kerala, Spencer's Retail, a part of the Rs 13500 crore RPG Group, has lined up major expansion plan for Kerala.
  
• Some CPI(M) leaders and some Church organisations in Kerala are locked in bitter verbal battle.