|TAP Special| A lower oil price has now become both an economic and political necessity. This is in view of the complications introduced by the disruption of Middle East politics brought about by recent advances by the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Bank of America Merrill Lynch notes in a review of the regional political and economic situation that the threat of a radical Islamic Sunni […]
Secretary of State John Kerry and Sameh Shoukry, the Egyptian foreign minister, in Cairo. By MICHAEL R. GORDON and DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK September 13, 2014 CAIRO — Secretary of State John Kerry received broad assurances but no public commitments from Egypt on Saturday as he continued his tour of the Middle East to try to assemble a coalition behind an American campaign against the extremist group known as the Islamic State in Iraq […]
|By TAP Staff| Emaar is eying significant investments by Chinese companies in its King Abdullah Economic City in Saudi Arabia. According to Fahd Al Rashed, chief executive of the city, several Chinese firms have shown interest and the company hopes to rope in up to 20 percent of investments from the Chinese. The King Abdulla Economic City envisages a port and business district as well as residential […]
President Obama on Wednesday in Washington. Mr. Obama says he is aware of the “political price” he pays for being deliberate. By PETER BAKER September 13, 2014 WASHINGTON — Just hours before announcing an escalated campaign against Islamic extremists last week, President Obama privately reflected on another time when a president weighed military action in the Middle East — the frenzied weeks leading up to the American invasion of […]
Rashidul Bari was born in Bangladesh in 1979 and has been studying in the United States since 2000. He considers himself one-half servant of education and one-half writer. He has earned five bachelor’s degrees, BA in political science, BA in economics, BA in mathematics, BA in computer science and BA in physics respectively, from three different CUNY institutions: York College, City College of New York and Lehman […]
President Barack Obama, accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden Photo: AP Were it any other US president in recent memory, delivering a rousing White House address promising to “vanquish” the bloodthirsty militants of the Islamic State from the face of the earth would be dismissed as the “easy part”. Recall Joe Biden, the vice president with half an eye on a run for the top job in 2016, […]
Stock index provider MSCI Inc is considering changing its rules to allow shares of Alibaba Group Holding and other companies that list their shares in faraway markets to be included in its widely used indexes. The MSCI announced that it was considering changing its rules last week, but did not explain the reason for the changes: questions from investors amid the Alibaba initial public offering, Reuters has […]
Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank , the fourth-largest lender by market value in the United Arab Emirates, has set initial price thoughts for a benchmark five-year bond issue in the 95 basis points area over midswaps, a document from leads showed on Tuesday. ADCB, which is expecting ratings of A/A-plus from Standard & Poor’s and Fitch, has picked Barclays, ING, JP Morgan and Mizuho to arrange the bond […]
|TAP Special| With the veil off Iphone 6, the buzz is now on what the tech giant will do to sustain the interest and loyalty of Apple enthusiasts. Apple has played the secrecy card for optimum results, so one can expect this policy to continue for products in the pipeline as well. A major talking point now is how soon the leading smart phone maker would introduce […]
By Bjørn K. Haugland & Erik Rasmussen How can we use the pressure from global risks such as extreme weather or water scarcity to create new sustainable business opportunities? This might be the single most important question for any company today. In current strategizing and business developing, we are very good at spotting risks associated with the sustainability challenges facing us. Markets will change, access to critical […]
Sharjah is offering investors an enticement that fellow emirate Dubai doesn’t as the sheikhdom gears up for its first Shariah-compliant bond sale this month: a credit rating. The emirate, which is more than twice the size of New York City, may price the debt to yield 2.5 percent to 3 percent if it’s a five-year issue, according to three fixed-income analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. That compares with […]
Secretary-General Hassan Al-Thawadi (3rd L) of Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy, the nation’s 2022 World Cup organising committee, speaks during a news conference to announce the start of work on the Al-Khor Stadium in Al-Khor in June. Reuters Investors in Qatar are likely to hold their breath, and cash, this month: Well, at least until FIFA reports on its investigation of the bidding process for […]
Middle East funds are bullish on Saudi Arabia’s stock market despite concern it is getting richly valued, while they think the United Arab Emirates has bottomed out after a volatile few months, a Reuters survey showed. The Saudi stock market index has jumped 13 percent since authorities announced in late July that they would open the market to direct investment by foreign institutions in the first half […]
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is yet to finish his first 100 days in office, but India Inc CEOs are convinced an economic revival is around the corner. A huge majority of 50 CEOs ET polled in the run-up to this special edition are preparing to make fresh investments and are also stepping up hiring, all in anticipation of 6-8% GDP growth most feel is possible over […]
A revival of international bond issues from the Gulf is set to draw heavy demand from local and foreign investors, despite the latest geopolitical upheavals in the Middle East and the approach of higher U.S. interest rates. Gulf bond issuance has dried up since early July, because of a traditional summer lull in local investor activity as well as global market instability due to the crisis in […]
VISAKHAPATNAM: In February 2013, Italian prosecutors arrested Giuseppe Orsi, the chief executive of Italian defence multinational, Finmeccanica on suspicion of paying bribes to facilitate the sale of VIP helicopters to India. Since then, the ministry of defence (MoD) has been in a quandary about whether to blacklist Finmeccanica and all its subsidiaries, or only AgustaWestland, the subsidiary that built and sold the AW-101 helicopters to India. […]
The execution of U.S. journalist James Foley by someone with a British accent has sparked soul-searching in the U.K. as to how and why the country has become an exporter of extremists to the Middle East. Prime Minister David Cameron vowed to redouble efforts to stop radicalized Britons traveling to Iraq and Syria to “take part in extremism and violence.” “The fundamental problem is as long as […]
Letter From Europe Britons, including Anglican clergy members worried about the plight of beleaguered Iraqi Christians, accuse Prime Minister David Cameron of incoherence. By ALAN COWELL August 21, 2014 LONDON — For a century and more, Iraq has been the graveyard of Western dreams, often literally, from the defeat of British colonial forces in the First Battle of Kut in 1916 to the bloodshed that flowed from the American-led […]
Here’s one of the usual everyday life frustrations if you live in Saudi Arabia: You want to eat cereal. You open the fridge and realize you’re out of milk. You get dressed, get in your car and drive to the supermarket. Then the moment your reach the supermarket, they close for prayer. The kingdom is the only Muslim country in the world where all businesses must be […]
People walk near The Gate building at the financial and business district Dubai International Financial Center (DIFC) in Dubai. Reuters Dubai’s financial hub is growing up. Since it was established a decade ago, the Dubai International Financial Centre has become the number one choice in the Middle East for many of the world’s leading banks, law firms, asset managers and insurers from where to conduct their regional […]
|By TAP Staff| Aldar Properties has reported a strong wave of demand for long-term, bulk lease deals from corporate clients. The lease agreements signed with corporate clients range from two to 30 years, providing Aldar with long-term security of income. Both local and international companies have signed bulk leases at Al Rayyana, The Gates Towers, The Arc, Sun and Sky Towers and Al Murjan Tower over the […]
|By TAP Staff| Indians were the biggest foreign investors in Dubai property in the first half of this year, while Saudis dominated the GCC investors. According to statistics published by the Dubai Land Department, more than Dh10.5 billion was invested into the emirate’s property market by Indians out of a total of Dh37.5 billion spent by foreigners in the first six months of the year. During the […]
Sanctions on Russia over the crisis with Ukraine are leading banks to call for the development of Islamic finance as they seek alternatives to European and U.S. pools of funding. The expansion of the Shariah-compliant industry would let the country attract fresh capital from the Middle East and Asia, the Association of Russian Banks said this week in response to an inquiry from the state bank. The […]
Dubai’s two biggest builders are turning to bank borrowing to help fund projects as a rise in late payments from their customers takes the shine off a booming construction market. Arabtec Holding PJSC, the contractor that helped push Dubai stocks into a bear market in June, said money owed by clients rose to 8.8 billion dirhams ($2.4 billion) through the second quarter from 7.2 billion dirhams at […]
