Siemens faces showdown over layoffs

BERLIN: Industrial conglomerate Siemens on Thursday announced thousands of job cuts worldwide, most of them in its fossil fuels division, with unions and politicians in its home country Germany particularly outspoken against the plans.

A total of 6,900 workers are set to lose their jobs, around half of them in Germany, where Siemens also plans to close sites in the country’s economically weaker east.

In Germany, that division alone will shed 2,600 jobs and close sites in Goerlitz and Leipzig, both in the former communist east.—AFP

SoftBank to invest up to $25bn in S. Arabia

TOKYO: Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp plans to invest as much as $25 billion in Saudi Arabia over the next three to four years, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

SoftBank plans to deploy up to $15bn in the new high-tech city of NEOM, with the SoftBank Vision Fund planning an investment of as much as $10bn in state-controlled Saudi Electricity Co, Bloomberg reported.

Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2017