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 […]
Pumping his fist into the Paris air, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, an Abu Dhabi royal, celebrated the award of the 2020 World Expo to Dubai. A Dubai counterpart returned the favor three weeks later, hailing Abu Dhabi’s role in securing the event. The backslapping late last year signaled the ever-closer relationship between the sheikhdoms at the core of the seven-member United Arab Emirates, one a […]
Passenger flows through Dubai’s main airport, the world’s second busiest for international traffic, jumped 15.2 percent in 2013 thanks to expansion of its route network and the use of wide-body planes, airport authorities said on Wednesday. Passenger traffic last year totalled a record 66.4 million people. In December, more than 6 million passengers passed though the airport for the first time, an increase of 13.6 percent from […]
The impact of Saudi Arabia’s crackdown on illegal foreign workers is spreading through its economy, moving beyond the labour-intensive construction industry to sectors as far afield as banking and telecommunications. Nearly 1 million foreign workers, out of a total of roughly 9 million, are estimated to have left Saudi Arabia between last March and November, as authorities enforce work permit rules and corporate quotas for employment of […]
DAVOS: Dubai retailer Majid Al Futtaim, which holds the Carrefour franchise in the Middle East, plans to invest about $2.3 billion in Egypt in the next few years, its chief executive said on Wednesday, a sign of Gulf investors’ growing interest in the Egyptian economy. “Total investments on the plan, including Carrefour, should be around 16 billion Egyptian pounds over the next four to five years,” Iyad […]
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 […]
Saudi Arabia helped lift the market to a new five-year high on Wednesday, while other regional shares also gained. Saudi Arabia’s Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) rose 2.9 percent to 88.5 riyals and trading volumes jumped to their highest in three years after the firm beat analysts’ forecasts with an 8.6 percent rise in fourth-quarter net profit. The stock jumped to a seven-year intraday high of 90 riyals but […]
Shuaa Capital, the Dubai-based investment bank, said its chief executive officer Colin Macdonald will be leaving the group upon expiry of his contract on Tuesday. The company did not name a replacement for Macdonald. Shuaa’s Chief Financial Officer Houssem Ben Haj Amor has been appointed as general manager, the firm said in a statement on Dubai’s bourse. The company also announced the appointment of Karim Schoeib as […]
The Index tower on Dubai’s answer to Wall Street has 23 floors of empty offices out of the 25 it opened in 2011. A few hundred feet away, buildings controlled by the Dubai International Financial Centre are almost full. The difference is ownership. The office space in the Index on Sheikh Zayed Road was sold in pieces to nine different investors under a system known as strata […]
Bond issuance from the Gulf Arab region is set to surge next year on the back of heavy infrastructure spending and refinancing needs, while the Abu Dhabi sovereign may return to the market after an absence of nearly five years. The region’s issuance of conventional bonds and sukuk fell to $28.97 billion this year from $36.90 billion in 2012, according to IFR, a Thomson Reuters unit. That […]
While it may be the most common given name in the world, the global banking system seemingly can’t cope with Mohammed and its various different spellings. When it comes to false positives – where a person or transaction is incorrectly flagged for contravening sanctions – the total at Middle Eastern banks is around twice that of many international lenders because of the high use of names like […]
BP has signed 30-year deals to develop Oman’s Khazzan tight gas project at an estimated investment of $16 billion, that will help the Omani economy to keep growing and bolster flagging gas exports. The Khazzan gas project, which aims to extract around one billion cubic feet (bcf) per day of gas from deep under central Oman, is a showcase for BP’s tight gas extraction technology and output […]
Julius Baer Group Ltd. took over businesses in Lebanon, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates as Switzerland’s third-largest wealth manager integrates the Merrill Lynch operations acquired last year. “Gaining new footholds in the Middle Eastern markets of Lebanon and Bahrain and strengthening our existing Dubai presence is an important step for us and will enable us to further expand our footprint in this key growth region,” Remy […]
Alkhabeer Capital, a Saudi Arabia-based investment advisory firm, has bought a majority stake in Dubai-based packaging products company Express Group, Alkhabeer said on Monday. Alkhabeer, in which conglomerate Saudi Binladin Group is a top shareholder, did not disclose financial details of the deal but said it was the firm’s second private equity transaction in the industrial sector in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Express Group, founded in […]
Dubai’s benchmark stock index rose to the highest in more than five years as the emirate starts regulating the holiday home rental market and construction company Arabtec Holding PJSC won a contract. The DFM General Index advanced 0.6 percent to 3,031.80, the highest since November 2008, at 12:13 p.m. in Dubai. The measure has surged 87 percent this year, making it one of the world’s best performers […]
Dubai’s DAMAC said it raised $348 million from its London share offer on Tuesday, a lukewarm response to the first share sale by a Dubai property firm since the emirate’s real estate crash four years ago. The luxury housing firm, which describes its new villa project as the Beverly Hills of Dubai, had hoped to take advantage of a renewed interest in Dubai’s property market aided by […]
Middle East crude for immediate delivery traded at its biggest premium in two years to later shipments last month after Royal Dutch Shell bought an unprecedented number of cargoes. The price gap between the earliest loadings of the benchmark Dubai grade and those for two months later climbed to $2.82 a barrel on Nov. 21, the widest spread since 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The […]
Saudi Arabia seems to have few viable options for pursuing a more independent and forthright foreign policy, despite its deep unease about the West’s tentative rapprochement with Iran. Upset with the United States, senior Saudis have hinted at a range of possibilities, from building strategic relations with other world powers to pushing a tougher line against Iranian allies in the Arab world and, if world powers fail […]
The chief financial officer of Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s investment vehicle, Kingdom Holding , is to leave the firm, two banking sources aware of the matter said. Shadi Sadeek Sanbar, who has worked with the firm for more than eight years and is seen as a close aide of the Saudi billionaire, will leave the firm at the end of the year, the sources said, requesting anonymity […]
Dubai has proposed to the federal government of the United Arab Emirates that the UAE create a sharia-compliant retirement savings scheme for foreign workers, a step which could help to develop the Islamic funds industry. The aim is that the scheme will be nation-wide, though if the federal government does not want to participate, Dubai may implement the plan merely within the emirate, a source at Dubai’s […]
Emad Mansour, a veteran Gulf Arab banker, is planning to set up an investment bank in Dubai’s tax-free financial zone, he said on Sunday, joining a growing list of regional bankers taking advantage of a revival in deal making and a retreat by big investment banks. Mansour, who has about 20 years of investment banking experience in the region, was most recently the chief executive of Doha-based […]
Instability in Egypt and Iranian threats to block the Strait of Hormuz are serious risks to food security in the Gulf, according to a report by a British think tank. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries depend on imports for 80-90 percent of their food, and most of it has to be brought in through two shipping routes that could close due to regional conflicts or political […]
A surge in passenger car sales across most Gulf Arab countries underlines the momentum behind the region’s consumer spending boom, and sales are likely to continue rising strongly for at least a few years, automobile sector executives said. Car sales are an important indicator of business activity in a region where official macroeconomic data, such as gross domestic product, is often unreliable and released with delays of […]
Saudi authorities rounded up thousands of illegal foreign workers at the start of a nationwide crackdown ultimately aimed at creating more jobs for locals, media reported. Hundreds of thousands of workers have already left the kingdom following a grace period of seven months during which authorities told expatriates that if they did not fix their legal status they had to leave the country or face jail. The […]
