Qatar is paying the price for its six-week spat with neighbors in the Gulf Cooperation Council as the nation’s borrowing costs and credit risk increase. The yield on the country’s dollar bond due January 2020 climbed nine basis points since March 4, the day before the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain pulled their ambassadors after Qatar denounced the crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. […]
Hotels in Dubai achieved an average occupancy of more than 87 percent during March, despite supply outpacing demand for the month, according to new data released by STR Global. Its preliminary February data for Dubai showed that occupancy stood at 87.2 percent for the month, a 1.2 percent increase on the year-earlier period. Based on the new data, the emirate reported increases in supply (up 7.4 percent) […]
Amina al-Rustamani, a member of a prominent UAE family, raised eyebrows among friends and relatives when she started her career in Dubai 13 years ago as an electrical engineer, becoming one of few females in the Middle East to enter the profession. Success in a male-dominated environment helped give her the confidence to rise up the career ladder and break more barriers. She is now chief executive […]
JPMorgan Chase & Co. is gaining ground in the debt markets of Gulf Cooperation Council states after the biggest U.S. bank helped manage this month’s Islamic bond sale by Saudi Arabia’s utility. JPMorgan is the biggest bond underwriter after HSBC Holdings in the six-nation GCC in 2014, its best start to a year since 2007, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The New York-based lender advised on […]
Zain Saudi, Saudi Arabia’s third biggest telecoms operator, will buy fixed line capacity from its competitors to expand its service offering in the kingdom and aims to break even in less than five years, it said on Wednesday. The firm, which began operations in 2008, claimed 15 percent of Saudi’s mobile subscribers at 2013-end and has struggled to break the dominance of better-resourced rivals Saudi Telecom Co […]
Investors in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar booked profits for a second day on Monday as global markets remained gloomy and tension grew between Russia and the West over Ukraine. But all three bourses later recovered to different degrees. After opening slightly higher, the three bourses dipped along with Asian and European markets as Ukraine threatened military action against pro-Russian separatists occupying government buildings in the east […]
A drop in OPEC production came just as refineries began looking for supply, helping boost bullish speculative bets on crude last week by the most since July. The group, which pumps about 40 percent of the world’s oil, reduced output to the lowest for March since 2011 as a standoff between the Libyan government and rebels kept exports near the lowest level since Muammar Qaddafi was driven […]
Dubai’s benchmark stock index fell the most in a month, tracking a decline in global markets last week, on investor concern this year’s rally was overdone given prospects for earnings growth. Saudi Arabia’s gauge dropped. The DFM General Index tumbled 1.7 percent, the most since March 12, to close at 4,759.15 in the emirate. Dubai Islamic Bank , the United Arab Emirates’ biggest shariah-compliant bank, declined for […]
New York’s highest state court has ruled that a lawsuit by the Algosaibi family conglomerate, claiming that a Saudi billionaire who married into the family committed a $150 million fraud, should be heard in Saudi Arabia. In the lawsuit, Ahmed Hamad al Gosaibi & Brothers Co claimed that Maan al-Sanea, the billionaire head of the Saad Group, used its accounts with Dubai-based Mashreqbank PSC to commit fraudulent […]
Warburg Pincus, the private-equity firm managing about $37 billion in assets, is considering investments in Africa and the Middle East as capital starts to flow back into emerging markets. “We are looking beyond the core euro-zone markets into the rapidly growing emerging markets around Europe for investment opportunities,” Joseph Schull, head of Warburg Pincus in Europe, said in an interview yesterday. “Africa is the next big frontier […]
Addressing the United Nations General Assembly in September, President Barack Obama declared the pursuit of Israeli-Palestinian peace one of the two main U.S. foreign policy priorities for his second term. Fast-forward to today, the Obama administration faces a stark choice: expend more energy on a faltering peace process or absorb the hit to an already-troubled record in the Middle East and walk away from negotiations. Secretary of […]
|By TAP Staff|Last year the Pay TV market in the MENA region grew 11.2 percent in terms of market share and 14.13 percent in terms of subscriber numbers, according to the findings of the latest Middle East Media Market report released by IHS, a leading global source of business information and insight. Over the last decade (2004 – 2013) the number of primary Pay TV subscribers almost […]
Abu Dhabi’s largest oil refinery is preparing to boost production of the industry’s lowest-sulfur diesel within three months as standards for the fuel rise, two people with knowledge of the matter said. The emirate’s 400,000 barrel-a-day plant at Ruwais will only produce diesel with 10 parts per million of sulfur by July, said the people, who asked not to be identified because they’re not authorized to speak […]
With a youthful, well-educated population, strong relationships with both neighbours and world powers, and a strategic location on the Gulf, major oil producer Kuwait should be as dynamic a hub for the region as Dubai or Doha. But while others in the Gulf have powered ahead, attracting foreign investment and developing infrastructure, Kuwait has stagnated, frustrating the people of a country once seen as a Middle East […]
After pouring billions of dollars into cities including London, New York and Sydney, individual investors and developers in China are expanding into Dubai. About a thousand individual Chinese investors spent 1.3 billion U.A.E dirhams ($353 million) on land, residential units and office real estate in Dubai last year, according to data from the Dubai Land Department. That is a nearly threefold increase from the 486 million dirhams […]
Saudi Arabian conglomerate Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi & Brothers (AHAB) estimates its assets are worth less than a quarter of about $5.9 billion in claims made against it, a spokesman said as the group prepares a proposal to end one of the Middle East’s biggest corporate debt disputes. AHAB this week invited more than 70 financial institutions, including Saudi, regional and international banks, to a meeting in Dubai […]
|By TAP Staff|Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi & Brothers Company (AHAB) announced that it has invited financial institutions with claims against the company to attend a meeting in Dubai, UAE on May 7, 2014, at which AHAB will outline the terms of a comprehensive settlement agreement. The move by AHAB breaks a stalemate that has existed since late 2009 when AHAB’s last comprehensive proposal was rejected by financial institutions, […]
Middle East fund managers are willing to buy most of the region’s main equity markets on dips, believing corporate earnings and balance sheets will continue improving this year, a monthly Reuters survey shows. Markets retreated early this month as retail investors rushed to take profits during the worst of the geopolitical uncertainty over Ukraine. Dubai’s bourse fell 6.7 percent from its peak close to its trough. Qatar’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 […]
| 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. […]
Buyout firm GrowthGate Capital plans to take freight-forwarding company Able Logistics Group public in Dubai around the end of this year, a senior GrowthGate executive told Reuters, in a sign of growing strength in the region’s equity markets. “We aim to make it this year or early next year,” Haythem Macki, a partner at GrowthGate, said. “The market is ready for it – there’s a lot of […]
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 […]
Dubai plans to almost double the number of hotel rooms by 2020 as it expects a surge of visitors to the desert sheikhdom ahead of that year’s World Expo. The emirate that spent more than $110 billion to transform itself into the Middle East’s commercial and entertainment hub is seeking to attract 20 million tourists annually by the end of the decade, Helal Saeed Almarri, director general […]
|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 […]
Within 18 months of leaving his trading job to open a lunchtime eatery at the Dubai financial center in 2011, Nabil Al Rantisi was back: selling stocks and rebuilding one of the city’s largest brokerages. “I saw my window of opportunity,” Rantisi, managing director of Mena Corp Financial Services LLC, said in a March 9 telephone interview from Dubai. “Things started picking up in September 2012. By […]
Dubai is considering regulatory reforms to persuade more funds to base themselves in its financial centre, though industry experts believe that other parts of its investment environment may also need to change for the emirate to compete globally. The proposed rules would create a new class of funds in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) in an effort to attract asset managers, such as hedge funds and […]
|By K Raveendran| Abu Dhabi is set to launch an inaugural issuance of treasury bills of around $1 billion this year, along with an issue of $500 million commercial debt by Sharjah to invest in capital projects, sources familiar with the subject reveal. Also on the cards s a sukuk issue by Ras Al Khaimah, which has to refinance about $400 million in debt coming due this […]
Qatar’s tight rental market has made it the most expensive country to live in the GCC, according to a comprehensive analysis on the cost of living in the region. The report has found that in a like-for-like comparison of seven measures, Qatar came out the most expensive overall, followed by the UAE, Saudi, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait. Qatar also emerged as the most expensive GCC nation for […]
A diplomatic split between Qatar and its wealthy Gulf neighbors may disrupt billions of dollars of investment in the region and slow efforts to make economies more efficient through trade and transport reforms. Qatar’s vast natural gas wealth means the tiny country, with a population of about 2.1 million, could probably continue operating indefinitely despite the displeasure of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. But […]
Dubai’s benchmark led a retreat among Persian Gulf stock indexes, tracking a decline in emerging markets after Russia’s intervention in Crimea raised concerns of armed conflict. The DFM General Index slipped 1.9 percent, the most since Jan. 26, to 4,105.90 at the close in Dubai. The measure, which more than doubled last year, dropped on 44 percent of three-month average daily volume. Abu Dhabi’s gauge closed 1.8 […]
