By James M. Dorsey A look at a decade of failed social, economic and political reform in Jordan goes a far way to explain recent mass anti-government protests demanding the resignation of the government. The protests, prompting concerns about the survival of the Hashemite dynasty, also bear witness to the fallout of the region’s epic power struggles and the pitfalls of government failures to respond to long-standing […]
|By Saifur Rahman, Executive Editor| The International Monetary Fund (IMF) finally recognised the Islamic banking principles by endorsing a proposal on the use of the Core Principles for Islamic Finance Regulation (CPIFR), according to a statement. This effectively means that the IMF now accepts Islamic financial principles to become a globally accepted system in parallel to the conventional interest-based economy. “The CPIFR will complement the international architecture for financial […]
By Arabian Post Staff Macro economic and market conditions remained stable in the UAE in 2017 and the global and domestic economic growth and outlook improved during the year. In financial markets, the money market spreads, dirham-dollar forward points and credit market spreads narrowed reflecting ample liquidity and confidence in the UAE financial system. The UAE’s economic growth and outlook showed an improvement in 2017, but the […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Emirates Group reported a 67 percent jump in net profits to $1.1 (Dh4.1 billion) billion in 2017-18 financial year ending March 31, 2018 compared to the previous year, with revenues reaching $27.9 billion (Dh102.4 billion), crossing the Dh100 billion mark for the first time in the history of the 32 year old airline group that includes Emirates Airline and its ground handling and ticketing arm, […]
|By Matein Khalid| I had written an article titled “six reasons to be bullish Saudi equities in 2018, published in the KT on January 28. Yet I was surprised to see Saudi Arabian equities become the world’s second best performing stock market in 2018 after Egypt. The Saudi equity index fund (KSA) I recommended in my column is up 18% at a time when the MSCI emerging markets […]
By Matein Khalid A dismal legacy of civil war, sanctions, insurgency, foreign invasion and terrorism has had a catastrophic impact on the Iraqi economy. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told the assembled global elite at Davos 2018 that Iraq needed $100 billion in postwar construction. Yet money alone will not solve Iraq’s problems of systemic corruption, a society divided by sectarian cleavages, poverty, the displacement of 2 million […]
By James M. Dorsey The Gulf crisis that pits a United Arab Emirates-Saudi-led alliance against Qatar is escalating in discreet but no less worrisome ways that effect major third-party commercial interests and could increase international pressure for a resolution of the dispute. In a major shift away from Saudi and UAE restraint in attempting to force the international community and multi-nationals from taking sides in the 11-month […]
By James M. Dorsey Twin attacks earlier this week on Pakistani security forces in the troubled province of Balochistan cast a light on a sustained and violent campaign against police and paramilitary units as well as Shiite and Christian minorities. The attacks by groups, some of which have had links to Pakistan’s powerful military and intelligence apparatus as well as Saudi Arabia, spotlight the Pakistani state’s inability to […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) reported a 9 per cent increase in its net profit for the first quarter of 2018 as net interest income and income from Islamic financing rose. The bank reported Dh1.2 billion in profit for the first three months, up from the Dh1.1 billion in net profit in the same period of 2017. The earnings are marginally higher than analyst […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| In another setback to the region’s most high-profile private equity firm, state-owned Mubadala is reported to have halted talks to buy Abraaj’s investment business. Abraaj is facing an investigation by investors into how it used some of their money. Abraaj has been trying to sell some or all of the unit following a row with four investors, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation […]
By James M. Dorsey Stepped up Saudi efforts to forge close diplomatic, economic and cultural ties to Shia-majority Iraq in a bid to counter significant Iranian influence in the country appear to be paying off. The Saudi initiative demonstrates the kingdom’s ability to engage rather than exclusively pursue a muscular, assertive and confrontational policy towards the Islamic republic and its perceived allies. It raises the question whether […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Abraaj Group, the Middile East’s biggest private equity firm, is facing the biggest crisis in its history, with a number of major management changes and top-level resignations. According to reports, chief financial officer Ashish Dave has left the company and two other other senior executives are also preparing to leave. The investment firm, which manages $13.6 billion in assets, is also considering a […]
|By Arabian Post Staff|Emirates NBD plans to raise its share capital by up to 7.35 billion dirhams ($2 billion) through the issuance of new shares, as Dubai’s largest lender prepares to bid for Turkey’s Denizbank. The bank said in January it had started initial strategic talks with Sberbank about a possible purchase of the Russian lender’s stake in Turkey’s Denizbank. The share hike, announced on Sunday, was […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Saal, an innovative technology company based in Abu Dhabi, has launched saal.ai – a revolutionary artificial intelligence (AI) framework, an enabler, ready to transcend and redefine current practices across industries and fuel economic and social growth. Capable of cognitive tasks such as reasoning, inference and retrieval, using data collected from multi-modal sensor inputs, saal.ai uses advanced computing and machine learning techniques to perform actions in the AI […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| DP World Ltd., the Dubai-based port operator that manages terminals from Hong Kong to Peru, and India’s National Investment & Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) plan to jointly invest up to US$3 billion in the South Asian nation, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, Group Chairman and CEO of DP World, disclosed at the sixth World Government Summit (WGS 2018) in Dubai. During a panel discussion titled […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| UAE residents consider VAT to be a challenge, but are largely optimistic about the year ahead, a YouGov survey revealed. The results found that 50 percent of residents have positive sentiment towards the UAE for 2018, while 34 percent are neutral and 15 percent are negative. Some 62 percent of residents feel the introduction of VAT will be a challenge for the country. The […]
|By Matein Khalid| I had projected a bloodbath in the US Treasury bond market since late 2016, when it was obvious that Trump’s tax reform would double the US budget deficit at the same time as the Federal Reserve prepared to “normalize” or shrink its balance sheet by $470 billion. Fiscal stimulus is often a policy ballast amid a depression, as in the early 1980’s or 2009, not […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) and seven leading global Central Securities Depository (CSD) companies to collaborate on Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) implementation in post trade operations, as well as capital market transactions. Today, securities processing, particularly in areas requiring multi-party contact and involving extremely cumbersome manual processes carry […]
|By Matein Khalid| When I first started on a Treasury bond futures trading desk in New York fresh out of Wharton, a senior mentor once advised to keep track of the four heartbeats of gold finance in real time. The price of money (interest rates), the price of currency (the US dollar), the price of oil and the price of gold. The price of money can be […]
Carillion, the British company building a number of high profile construction projects across the Gulf region, including building part of the infrastructure for Qatar 2022 World Cup, has collapsed. The implications of the development on the Qatar World Cup are yet unknown. British media reported that Carillion collapse is one of the UK’s biggest corporate failures, leaving the future of some of its Middle Eastern projects unclear. The […]
|By Matein Khalid| Dubai based Gulf Islamic Investments (GII) acquired a one million square foot Amazon logistics center in Dortmund, Germany for $144 million. This deal is a testament to the boutique global merchant bank created in Dubai by GII’s co-founder/CEO Pankaj Gupta, who I am honored to call a friend. I consciously model my own firm Asas Capial on the strategic path laid out by GII and […]
By Saifur Rahman Dubai Government expects its Dh376.8 billion (US$102.67 billion) economy to grow at 3.5 per cent in 2018, slightly lower than the UAE economic growth, pegged at 3.9 per cent, according to a news release issued by the Department of Economic Development (DED), the government’s trade licensing body. The country has just implemented a 5 per cent Value-Added Tax (VAT) from January 1, 2018, expects […]
|By Matein Khalid|The rise in Brent crude to $60 a barrel and the trade volume ballast generated by the world’s first post Lehman synchronized economic recovery is hugely positive for UAE economic growth in 2018. After all, the UAE is unique because Abu Dhabi’s 100 billion barrels of proven oil reserves is complemented by Dubai’s role as the Gulf’s financial, logistics, aviation, shopping and services hub. The […]
|By Arabian Post Staff|New sectors such as privatisation, digital banking, fintech and blockchain will all become potentially important growth sectors for job creation in 2018, particularly in Dubai, according to Cooper Fitch Salary Guide for the next year. The economic outlook for the UAE for 2018 shows some good signs of growth, in terms of the creation of new opportunities and increased headcount for the year ahead, within the […]
