Saudi Arabia’s leaders hope U.S. President Barack Obama and their King Abdullah understand each other better after talks and can stabilise a close regional security alliance after months of rockiness over Middle East policy, diplomats said. Friday’s two-hour exchange at Abdullah’s desert camp did not yield a shared statement or any evidence of policy changes, leading some Saudis to question whether differences over Syria’s war or Iran’s […]
Rifts over foreign policy will likely make it harder for Arab leaders meeting at a summit this week to forge a common stand on regional challenges, including what many of them see as a threat from Iranian-U.S. rapprochement. And while the Arab League meeting may agree more humanitarian action in response to Syria’s war, any communique calling for the removal of President Bashar al-Assad will not reflect […]
The U.S. National Security Agency has infiltrated servers in the headquarters of Chinese telecommunications and internet giant Huawei Technologies Co, obtaining sensitive information and monitoring the communications of top executives, the New York Times reported on Saturday. The newspaper said its report on the operation, code-named “Shotgiant,” was based on NSA documents provided by Edward Snowden, the former agency contractor who since last year has leaked data […]
| By Clyde Russel | The price of Middle East crude oils being supplied to Asia appears too high given an increase in supply from Iran, Iraq and rival Russia and muted demand from refiners. While benchmark Oman futures have declined 5 percent since the start of the year to end at $102.93 a barrel on Wednesday, the price relative to global marker Brent has been rising. […]
Abu Dhabi, drawing lessons from Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster, is building “gold-standard” safety procedures into its plan to develop four nuclear reactors, a foreign adviser to the government said. The United Arab Emirates, of which Abu Dhabi is the capital, is investing in facilities for nuclear power, renewable energy and liquefied natural gas to cut its reliance on oil. The U.A.E. will be the first Arab state […]
|By TAP Staff| India topped Dubai’s major trade partners with a total trade volume of AED 137 billion in 2013, representing a 10% share of Dubai’s total trade, figures released by Dubai Customs showed. China came second with a value of AED 135 billion, followed by the USA with AED 86 billion, that is a 6% share. Saudi Arabia rose to the fourth position with a total […]
Saudi Arabia’s drive to make Qatar abandon its embrace of the Muslim Brotherhood may founder because of the limited leverage the Saudis and their allies can exercise over the world’s richest country. Qatar traded more with Singapore in 2012 than it did with the three Gulf neighbors — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain — that withdrew their ambassadors from Doha last week to protest […]
Dubai’s non-oil trade expanded 7.6 percent last year, slowing from 13 percent growth in 2012, but the emirate’s trade with Iran stabilised despite U.S. economic sanctions, according to Dubai customs data released on Sunday. The non-oil foreign trade of Dubai, one of seven members of the United Arab Emirates, rose to 1.329 trillion dirhams ($362 billion) in 2013. The emirate exports small amounts of oil and imports […]
Saudi tourists played a vital role in boosting the Dubai tourism sector last year. The Kingdom, which has consistently been Dubai’s primary source market, experienced a big boost with guest numbers up by 19.9 percent to 1.35 million. In 2012, Dubai received 1.13 million visitors from Saudi Arabia. In total, Dubai’s hotels welcomed more than 11 million guests in 2013, an increase of just over one million […]
|By Ole Sloth Hansen |February was a strong month for commodities, with the broad-based DJ-UBS Commodity index returning more than 5 percent. This was more than the S&P 500 Index, which reached even a new record high thereby moving in the opposite direction of bond yields and the macro data. Some of the major themes and factors behind this performance were: • Adverse weather in Brazil and […]
Qatar Airways Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker said the airline’s expansion into India will depend on whether the government will further open the nation’s skies after elections due by May. In January, India’s aviation ministry lifted a ban on Airbus Group NV (AIR)’s A380 from entering the country and allowed airlines to fly the double-decker planes to four airports, including New Delhi and Mumbai. Authorities […]
A last official link between the Gulf’s colonial era and its commercially dynamic present, Bill Duff devoted his life to Dubai and played a bigger part than any other westerner in the early transformation of the emirate from obscure outpost into global hub. Duff, who has died aged 91, arrived as an economic adviser in 1959 in what were called the Trucial states. His mission came at […]
A widening probe of the foreign-exchange market is roiling an industry already under pressure to reduce costs as computer platforms displace human traders. Electronic dealing, which accounted for 66 percent of all currency transactions in 2013 and 20 percent in 2001, will increase to 76 percent within five years, according to Aite Group LLC, a Boston-based consulting firm that reviewed Bank for International Settlements data. About 81 […]
Iran’s largest private bank is suing the British government for almost $4 billion in damages after the Supreme Court quashed sanctions imposed against it over alleged links to Tehran’s nuclear program. Bank Mellat wants compensation for the “significant pecuniary loss” and substantial reputational damage it sustained as a result of sanctions imposed in 2009, according to a claim filed in London’s High Court and seen by Reuters […]
Oman may have to start selling foreign assets or borrow on international markets in coming years if government spending rises during a period of lower oil prices and economic growth, a report in a magazine published by its central bank said. “The sultanate has to tolerate one of the options in the coming years if there is any prediction of decrease in GDP (gross domestic product) growth […]
|By Arjuna Mahendran|The GCC stock and bond markets remain a safe haven to investors, underpinned by solid fundamentals. The Expo 2020, MSCI inclusion of the UAE and Qatari markets in the emerging market (EM) category, infrastructure spending across countries – the GCC Railway project to mention one – the revival of trade, tourism and real estate – as tensions in Egypt, Syria and Iran subside somewhat – […]
JP Morgan has cut its correspondent banking relationship with Emirates NBD, Dubai’s largest bank, as part of a global review of its business, sources familiar with the matter said. In a memo to staff last year, the U.S. bank said it would scale back its relationships with foreign banks in order to comply with regulatory pressure to tighten risk controls. As part of this process, the bank […]
The U.N. nuclear agency said on Sunday that Iran had agreed to start addressing suspicions that it may have worked on designing an atomic weapon, a potential breakthrough in a long-stalled investigation into Tehran’s atomic activities. The development – although limited for now – marked a step forward in an international push to settle a decade-old dispute over Iran’s nuclear program. Tehran says this is peaceful, while […]
An Iranian naval officer said a number of warships had been ordered to approach U.S. maritime borders as a response to the stationing of U.S. vessels in the Gulf, the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Saturday. “Iran’s military fleet is approaching the United States’ maritime borders, and this move has a message,” the agency quoted Admiral Afshin Rezayee Haddad as saying. Haddad, described as commander of […]
Oman, which faces Iran across the Strait of Hormuz, said it’s poised to start raising cash for a $3 billion rail line offering an alternative route for oil and freight shipments that funnel through the 21 mile-wide channel. The nation of 3.3 million people, located on the southern side of the strait, is considering issuing bonds by the end of 2014 to kick-start funding for the track […]
Investment bankers in Europe are off to the leanest start to a year in a decade as dwindling income from deal-making and trading presses firms to reduce costs. Revenue from arranging mergers, loans and stock and bond offerings for clients in Europe, the Middle East and Africa fell 22 percent to $1.58 billion last month from the year-earlier period, according to data compiled by New York-based research […]
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday it was possible to turn more than three decades of enmity with the United States into friendship if both sides made an effort. He was speaking in a Swiss television interview after arriving at the World Economic Forum in Davos where he will court the global business community and meet a series of oil company executives on Thursday. Asked whether […]
By Simeon Kerr The many daily flights between Dubai and Tehran are always busy. But these days the Iranians heading home after business and shopping trips are being joined by rising numbers of briefcase-toting western and Asian passengers. They are part of a new wave of foreign investors eager to investigate business opportunities in post-sanctions Iran, a potentially lucrative trade that Dubai, the commercial hub of the […]
The Reserve Bank of India should make managing inflation its main policy objective and set monetary policy by committee, a central bank panel has recommended, a shift that would bring its practices in line with many other central banks. The recommendations are widely expected to be accepted. They were issued late on Tuesday by the panel set up by RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, which also recommended using […]
