|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 […]
Plans for a 1,350-mile railroad running the length of the Persian Gulf from Kuwait to the Indian Ocean are in doubt after the United Arab Emirates halted contract awards amid a review of spending as oil proceeds shrink. Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Rail has suspended the tender process for stage two of the project, which is due to take the line west to the U.A.E.’s border with Saudi […]
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
The world’s biggest oil producer is spending as much now as it did before the crash in crude prices, signaling no surrender in Saudi Arabia’s battle with rivals. Saudi Arabian Oil Co. is maintaining investment in oil and natural gas projects and has formulated a new strategy in response to cheaper crude as it studies options to sell shares in its parent company and downstream refining and chemical […]
UAE. To coincide with the annual Arab Health Exhibition & Congress this week, six major investment opportunities in the GCC’s health care market in 2016 have been predicted by EY as being areas of high demand and growth in the region. According to the EY ‘Investment Big Bets – Healthcare and Life Sciences in the GCC’ report launched today, specialized centers of excellence (CoEs), home health care […]
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 […]
Reuters/Daniel Munoz/Files BEIJING China will maintain plans to gradually phase out subsidies for green energy vehicles until they are fully eliminated in 2021 and allow the market to determine the direction of green car development, Finance Minister Lou Jiwei said on Saturday. But auto executives speaking alongside Lou at an industry conference in Beijing laid out differing visions as to which technology the market will […]
DUBAI // A young lioness that escaped from her owner is believed to have roamed the streets for more than three hours before she was captured by a team of Dubai Municipality animal welfare officers. Dubai Police said they received reports of the lioness prowling the streets of Al Barsha neighbourhood, one of the newer residential developments on the city’s west side, at about 7pm on Thurday. […]
|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 […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Decreasing Saudi Arabia’s reliance on oil revenues could include the introduction of VAT and so-called sin taxes, observers say. Other issues under consideration include the partial privatization of selected state assets – including Saudi Aramco – and better utilization of state-owned real estate. The Kingdom has been successfully diversifying its economy over the past decade, with non-oil revenues increasing by 29 percent this […]
Iran’s release from sanctions testifies to its new relationship with the United States as it moves from pariah state to regional power, a status that could come at the cost of Saudi Arabia, Washington’s chief Arab ally. Enemies and allies alike must adjust to Iran becoming an uninhibited power broker in the Middle East after its nuclear deal with world powers and Saturday’s lifting of sanctions that […]
Stocks across the Middle East tumbled as the easing of sanctions against Iran raised the prospect of a surge in oil supplies to a market already reeling from the lowest prices in more than a decade. Shares in Tehran gained. Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul All Share Index dropped 5.4 percent to its lowest level since March 2011. Abu Dhabi’s ADX General Index fell into a so-called bear market. The Bloomberg […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| A leading player in the Dubai real estate market has predicted a correction in the rental market at a rate faster than expected in 2016 as thousands of new apartments and villas enter the new supplies. Real estate consultancy JLL predicted that average housing rents in the city would continue to fall by as much as 10 per cent over the coming 12 […]
|By Matein Khalid| This was the ghastliest week for global risk assets since September 2011. Not even 290,000 new US jobs in December could negate the raw fear on Wall Street generated by the 10% fall in Shanghai, a yuan depreciation, market meltdowns of 6 – 7% in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Mumbai and New York. Four months ago, I had published a KT article titled “History’s […]
|By Arabian Staff| Additional information forthcoming from state-owned Saudi oil giant Aramco suggests that the proposed IPO may be restricted to refining and other similar activities rather than the parent company as a whole. Aramco clarified in a statement the other day that while the company was studying options including a full initial public offering, one of the options under consideration is “listing of a bundle” of […]
|By Tyler Durden| Back in June 2013, when Deutsche Bank opened a gold vault in Singapore which could hold up to 200 metric tons, the German bank was euphoric about the prospects for storing physical gold: “Gold has traditionally been stored in London, Zurich and New York, but there is a serious shift in dynamics going on as the global financial crisis continues to evolve,” Mark Smallwood, […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| The UAE’s non-oil private sector ended the year on a low note, with business conditions improving at the slowest rate in 40 months, the headline Emirates NBD UAE Purchasing Managers’ Index for December showed. A key factor weighing on the sector as a whole was relatively muted growth of new work – the pace of expansion was the weakest since August 2011. Output, […]
Lower power. Longer range. That’s the story behind Wi-Fi HaLow, a new technology the Wi-Fi Alliance has just introduced to help tap into the momentum around low power Wi-Fi solutions that cater specifically to the Internet of Things (IoT). The Wi-Fi HaLow designation, which aims at products leveraging IEEE 802.11ah technology, works at and below the one gigahertz frequency band without sacrificing range. In fact, HaLow promises […]
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg asks a question during the II CEO Summit of the Americas on the sidelines of the VII Summit of the Americas in Panama City April 10, 2015. Reuters/Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Files NEW YORK Mark Zuckerberg wants to build an artificially intelligent assistant in 2016 to help run his home and assist him at work, the Facebook Inc founder and chief executive said on Sunday. […]
|By Hanan Alsuraihi| “Hezbollah and the Iranian regional strategy” is considered one of the hottest themes debated today in the Arabic and Islamic world. It focuses on the role of Hezbollah in the Iranian scheme of things. The Iranian strategy is cloaked in secrecy and disguised in an Islamic dress. It is a project that draws on the intelligence, political skill, publicity and media so as not […]
It’s almost 2016, which must mean another iPhone is on the way. Not only will we be getting a new iPhone, but one with significant changes over previous models, if we are to believe the rumors. The release date may still be nine months away, but that shouldn’t stop us from parsing through the rumor mill. Reports are leaking out from Cupertino that Apple is considering a […]
|By Arabian Post Staff|The 2016 Saudi budget marks a transformation, signaling the end of material overspending, introduces a medium-term fiscal strategy and sweeping subsidy changes, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch said in a special report. However, the budget does not signal any near-term changes to energy or Fx policy, in its view. The report says the 2016 budget announcement is a significant one for the Saudi Arabian economy. […]
Saudi Arabia released a more tightfisted budget for 2016, reflecting scaled-back revenue expectations and lower spending on subsidies because of sinking oil prices and its involvement in the war in neighboring Yemen. Here are some key points in the first spending plan under King Salman, released on Monday by the Ministry of Finance: DEFICIT The government forecasts the deficit will narrow to 326.2 billion riyals ($87 billion) […]
|By Hannah Elliott| Want to see the future? Drive a BMW 7-Series sedan. It’s the car Bimmer uses as a medium for unleashing its newest and best technological offerings on the rest of the world. IDrive made its debut here, as did ABS and the active body control systems that monitor the movement of the car in relation to the road. Now those are de rigueur on all BMW […]
