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Emirates
Airline was ranked 3rd, and Malaysian Airlines
as 6th best airline of the year by industry recognized
Skytrax World Airline Awards. Cathay Pacific was
Airline of the Year. Meanwhile, Gulf Air got
the best onboard catering award.
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Three
former executives of Bank Mandiri, Indonesia's
largest bank, have been arrested over a $1.3 billion
lending scandal involving 22 debtors.
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Upon
requests of investors, Turkish Privatization Administration
extended the deadline for submitting bids for
the Turkish Telecom shares to June 24th,
2005. Eight investors including Dogan Holding;
Emirates Telecommunications Corporation (Etisalat)/Cetel
Calik Enerji Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S./Dubai Islamic
Bank joint initiative; Koc Holding A.S./Haci Omer
Sabanci Holding A.S. joint initiative; Saudi Oger
Ltd.; and Telecom Italia; are bidding for privatization
of 55 percent of Turk Telecom shares.
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Production
of the Peykan, Iran's oldest domestically manufactured
car, officially ended. Iran Khodro, the
government-owned manufacturer, will start production
of L90 cars in April 2006. The new budget cars
are expected to replace the Paykan in Iran's demanding
auto market.
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Kuwait
National Petroleum Co (KNPC) posted an almost
seven-fold rise in net profits for the year 2004/05.
Net profits reached a record $ 2.15 billion from
$ 322 million the previous year attributed to
a rise in the prices of oil products and increased
operational efficiency.
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Malaysian
Airline System Bhd (MAS) posted a lower operating
profit of RM91.1 million for the fourth quarter
ended March 31, 2005 versus RM171.1 million in
the corresponding quarter of 2004.
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Driven
by customer demand, Saudi Arabia's biggest bank,
National Commercial Bank, has converted
over 90 per cent of its retail branches to Islamic-compliant
banking and will complete the process of full-conversion
by the end of this year.
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OMV
AG, central Europe's biggest oil company, and
10 other potential investors offered to buy a
stake with a market value of more than $1 billion
in state-owned Pakistan Petroleum Ltd.,
Pakistan's second-largest explorer. Investors
are bidding for the 51 percent stake in PPL.
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Qatar
petroleum (QP) and US Exxon-Mobil have signed
principles of an agreement to establish the world's
largest petrochemicals plant. According to the
agreement, the US $ 2 billion project is planned
to produce some 1.6 million tonnes of ethylene
per annum.
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Malaysian
business group Sime Darby reports a 31
percent lift in third-quarter net profit to 261.6
million ringgit (USD68.8 million) on stronger
performances by both its automotive and heavy
equipment businesses.
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Maxis
Communications Bhd, which rivals Telekom Malaysia
Bhd and DiGi.Com Bhd in the Malaysian cellular
market reported a 35% jump in first quarter earnings,
driven by more subscribers and data revenue. The
company said it planned a commercial rollout of
3G services from July 1. For the first quarter,
revenue rose 5% to RM1.58bil from a year earlier
as the company added 546,000 subscribers, bringing
the total to 6.6 million.
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Travel
industry's prestigious annual OAG Airline of the
Year Awards, recognized Emirates Airline's
launch campaign for its direct services to
New York as the Best Marketing Campaign of the
Year.
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In
May 2005, Emirates Telecommunications Corporation's
(Etisalat) UAE mobile network user total crossed
the 4 million mark, giving it a customer base
of 95 per cent of the country's 4.2 million population
representing one of the highest mobile phone penetration
rates in the world. Its innovative services include
delivering high school results to students within
minutes of their release.
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Egypt's
Orascom Telecom is one of the 21 firms seeking
to buy a controlling stake in Nigeria's state-run
telecommunications firm NITEL and its mobile subsidiary
M-Tel.
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Turkish
mobile operator Turkcell has rolled out
the country's first Blackberry service. The service,
offered in partnership with Canadian developer
of the Blackberry portable e-mail technology,
Research in Motion, is initially to be made available
corporate users. Turkcell hopes to provide the
service for individual users from the fourth quarter
of this year.
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