A manufacturer specialising in underwater cables for the oil and gas industry was snapped up today by German engineering giant Siemens for $630 million (£397.2 million).

Siemens has broken its silence over the £1.4bn Thameslink trains contract, which the German giant won last year to much criticism that British jobs would be put at risk.

The leaders of an ambitious Russian project to create a "Silicon Valley" outside Moscow have dismissed fears that it is difficult to do business while Vladimir Putin is running the country.

Leaders of a project to create a Silicon Valley near Moscow have rejected fears it is difficult to do business while Vladimir Putin runs Russia.

In an economy where the Government talks loud and long about how it wants small companies to power the recovery, what precisely does it mean by small? All too often, for small companies, read start-up businesses, new ventures founded by entrepreneurs from scratch.

Britain's last major train-builder, Bombardier, has been thrown a mini-lifeline, winning a £188m deal to build 130 carriages for Southern Railways.

UK manufacturing received a welcome year-end boost when Derby train-maker Bombardier won a £188 million order.

Will PFI be thrown over for taxpayers’ money? The decision will be announced after Christmas

German industrial equipment maker Siemens today posted a fourth-quarter net profit of 1.23 billion euro (£1.04 billion), boosted by an increase in sales in Asia.

The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics reinforce a picture of a significant slowdown in the UK manufacturing sector. Output edged up 0.1 per cent in July, after falling 0.4 per cent in June. And the ONS's overall index of production, which includes mining and energy industries, fell by 0.2 per cent over the month.

The French train maker has called a halt to its involvement in the £16bn scheme to link London

Hopes were raised today that a British trainmaking company that recently lost out to Germany on a big UK order could win a £1 billion contract for the cross-London Crossrail scheme.

Thousands of people demonstrated in Derby yesterday over the Government's decision not to award a contract to the UK's only remaining train manufacturer, Bombardier.

Outlook: Sky, now a prominent FTSE 100 company, deserves a chairman who is able to devote the sort of time to its affairs that befits an operation of such scale