Barclays Plc still has “critical mass” to compete in the Middle East and will aim to help local companies raise capital even as it scales back lending, Chief Executive Officer Jes Staley said. The U.K. lender has more than 200 employees in the United Arab Emirates after job cuts in the country this year and will continue to operate its corporate, investment banking and wealth management businesses […]
A globe-trotting American investment banker who’s built a career on deals with Russia and its state-run gas company, Carter Page says his business has suffered directly from the U.S. economic sanctions imposed after Russia’s escalating involvement in the Ukraine. When Donald Trump named him last week as one of his foreign-policy advisers, Page says his e-mail inbox filled up with positive notes from Russian contacts. “So many people who I know and […]
|By Matein Khalid| “Stop the murder, stop the lies, out, out, you nest of spies!” So chanted the crowd outside South Africa House on Trafalgar Square in the autumnal mists of London circa 1988. The anti-apartheid struggle was the moral compass of my generation, from the Soweto riots to Steve Biko’s murder to the horrific “necklacings in the townships and killing fields of the Limpopo to Madiba’s release […]
|By Matein Khalid| I was surprised by the dovishness of the Federal Reserve’s FOMC policy statement last week given the white hot US labour market and metrics of wage inflation. Hence the $29 rally in gold, the plunge in the Volatility Index to 15, the fall in the US dollar and the surge in oil/mining shares. The Yellen Fed is still worried about deflation risk in China, Europe […]
|By Arabian Post Staff|DP World’s gross debt rose to $7.6 billion, with the net debt climbing to $6.2 billion, the company announced in its financial results for the calendar year 2015. The balance sheet shows a leverage of 3.2 times. The increase in debt is mainly due to the addition of the $650 million JAFZA Sukuk following the EZW acquisition and the additional $500 million borrowings from […]
|By Lawrence Williams| The most recent call by Goldman Sachs to once again sell gold short has not, so far been a good move by the investment bank, and it comments in its latest research that it is down 5% on the call – with a stop loss indicated at 7%. But, it also reiterates that it remains confident in its bearish viewpoint and that it still stands […]
The increase in Iran’s oil exports after the lifting of sanctions has been “more modest” than the country intended, according to the International Energy Agency. Iran increased oil output by 300,000 barrels a day this year to a four-year high of 3.2 million a day in February, the Paris-based agency said. That’s less than the 400,000 barrel-a-day increase Iran itself has reported. Even after sanctions were eased […]
|By Rani Molla & Andrea Felsted| You’d have thought negative interest rates would fuel a boom in diamonds, antiques and fine wine, as people look for an alternative to stuffing cash under the mattress. But you’d be wrong: prices for all three are falling. While some “collectibles” such as vintage watches, luxury handbags and old cars are holding up pretty well, others are struggling. The phenomenon of safe havens […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| The introduction of a new technique, using excavators that could virtually be called concrete-eaters, is set to revolutionize the way high rise structures are demolished in the UAE. The new method reduces the time required to bring down a high rise structure to a matter of days, instead of months and years required by conventional methods. The shorter time frames would mean much quicker […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Dubai won a huge moral victory when DP World, one of its prestigious companies, yesterday secured a favourable verdict in an English court in an ongoing legal battle with the Djibouti government over the concession to run a container terminal in the African country. The government of the East African country had launched arbitration proceedings in a London court as it alleged that […]
|By Matein Khalid| The sultanate of Oman has enjoyed phenomenal economic development success in the 45 year reign of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said. Modern Oman is one of the true social, political and economic success stories of the Arab world. However, the Achilles heel of the Omani economy is its huge dependence on oil and gas export earnings, 60% of the sultanate’s GDP. Standard and […]
|By Matein Khalid| The global credit cycle has an immediate impact on the UAE via oil prices, the US dollar peg, cross border bank credit flows, Federal Reserve monetary policy and world trade. The IMF has cut its 2016 growth forecast to 2.6%, the lowest since 2010. A leading developer just booked a 20 fold rise in penalties from walkaway offplan home buyers. Banks hire “loan rangers” […]
|By K Raveendran| Going by the pace at which machinery automation is advancing, the day does not appear to be a long way off when self-working machines carry out complicated and high-skilled operations without manual intervention. The Win Eurasia Metal Working Fair in Istanbul held during 11-14 February provided clear insights into the evolving trends in this area and the rapid strides Turkish machinery manufacturing industry is […]
The yearlong decline in global equities that started with a selloff in energy became a full-blown bear market Thursday as a rout in bank shares extended losses in the broadest worldwide gauge past 20 percent. The MSCI All-Country World Index slipped 1.3 percent, pushing its decline since May to 20 percent and marking the biggest retreat from risk since Europe’s sovereign debt crisis in 2011. Every industry […]
A general view shows the building ‘Gorod Stolits’ (Capital City) (C), which houses an office of 25 Floor Film Company, at the Moscow International Business Center also known as ”Moskva-City”, in Moscow, Russia, February 3, 2016. Reuters/Maxim Zmeyev WASHINGTON Russian authorities in November raided offices associated with a Moscow film distribution and production company as part of a crackdown on one of the world’s most notorious financial […]
|By Matein Khalid| “One country, two systems”. This was the historic formula under which Margaret Thatcher agreed to hand over the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China, then ruled by Paramount Leader Deng Xiao Ping. The Hong Kong dollar’s spike to 7.81, on the high end of its 7.75 – 7.85 band, demonstrates the sheer scale of the speculative attack against […]
Oil bulls distressed that last week’s rally fizzled can find some comfort in forecasts for a bigger and longer rebound by the end of the year. Analysts are projecting prices will climb more than $15 by the end of 2016. New York crude will reach $46 a barrel during the fourth quarter, while Brent in London will trade at $48 in the same period, the median of […]
|By Matein Khalid| The collapse in Brent crude oil below $30, a 20% fall in the Tadawul share index in January 2016’s global equity bloodbath, the cut in fuel subsidies and geopolitical risk escalation in the Middle East has spawned speculation in financial markets that Saudi Arabia will devalue the kingdom’s riyal, now pegged at 3.75 against the US dollar. Senior princes of the royal family and […]
ENERGY-HUNGRY BANGLADESH SAW DECADES-LONG WAIT
By Ashis Biswas
KOLKATA: Diplomacy may have won the day for Russia more than financial/technological reasons, in bagging the order to build two nuclear power generating stations in Bangladesh by 2022-23.
This would enable Bangladesh to become the third country in South Asia to generate nuke power, after India and Pakistan. However, Sri Lanka could join the list soon according to present indications.
A proposal to build nuclear power plants in East Pakistan had been put forward as early as 1961 and approved in 1963, according to open source information. Therefore, neither Awami League (AL) leader Sheikh Hasina, nor Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) leader Khaleda Zia, can be rightfully accused of harbouring illusions of grandeur in going nuclear. Bangladesh has pledged to observe non-proliferati
ECONOMY BEING HELD HOSTAGE BY BULLION MERCHANTS
By Nantoo Banerjee
Swiss banks may not be too happy with India’s latest round of searches for big Indian accounts there. But, largely impoverished India’s endless gold hunt, especially at a time when the global economy and trade are shrinking and stock markets around the world are going topsy-turvy following economic slow-down in China, has placed the Geneva-based World Gold Council on top of the world. India’s gold import last month hit a new 120-day high at nearly $4 billion while all other imports to the country shrank by over 15 per cent in value. The massive gold import by bullion merchants, mostly from Mumbai and Ahmedabad, widened the country’s trade deficit to $11.7 billion in just one month. In the pre-reform period, India’s annual trade deficit rarely topped $5 billion. During the current financial year 2015-16, t
INTERNATIONAL. Oilprice.com recently spoke with Carl Larry, Director of Oil and Gas at Frost & Sullivan, a consultancy that conducts research on oil and gas markets, to get his thoughts on the state of oil in 2016. Oilprice.com: I saw that you were on Bloomberg in December, and you said that you thought oil would go to the low $30s per barrel, which was a good call […]
Pressured by plunging oil prices and costly wars in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia moved to stamp out speculation that it might be forced to break the link between its currency and the dollar. Authorities this week ordered banks to limit traders’ ability to bet against against the riyal, whose peg to the dollar has been a bulwark of the kingdom’s economic and financial stability since its […]
|By Matein Khalid| I had called for Brent crude to fall to $30 in successive columns since the November 2014 OPEC conclave in Vienna, when Saudi Arabia abandoned its traditional role as the “swing producer” the central bank of black gold. The world oil markets now face a supply shock, a demand shock, epic volatility and the loss of the “swing producer”. The world is running out […]
As the chattering chieftains of the global economy gather this week in Davos, Switzerland, they’re facing the darkest outlook since the financial crisis tipped the world into recession seven years ago. The Chinese slowdown and accompanying slide in the yuan are imperiling already sluggish international growth, oil is trading at its lowest level in more than a decade, stocks have suffered their worst January ever, and the […]
