One year into the delivery of Dubai’s ‘Tourism Vision for 2020,’ significant first steps have been taken to achieve the target of attracting 20 million annual visitors by 2020, leading the emirate’s tourism authority to state a new ambition: for Dubai to become the world’s most visited city. If a growth rate similar to that achieved in 2013 is maintained – a 10.6 percent year-on-year increase equating […]
Dubai’s bourse has outpaced other Gulf markets by a wide margin in terms of companies’ first-quarter profit growth, data show, supporting its position as the top performer in the region. The emirate’s benchmark soared 108 percent last year and is up 57 percent this year, making it one of the world’s top-performing stock markets over the past 17 months. Although some analysts believe the market is overbought, […]
According to international real estate consultancy firm Cluttons, an upsurge in economic confidence following Dubai’s World Expo 2020 win, has led to heightened demand for commercial office space in the emirate. Rents for prime Grade A space in particular have continued to climb with a 10% increase recorded in Q1, pushing average rates in this category to AED 220 per square foot. Cluttons Dubai Spring 2014 Commercial […]
The United Arab Emirates will have its own stand-alone exchange-traded funds with this week’s launch of the iShares MSCI UAE Capped ETF (UAE). On May 30th, both Qatar and the UAE will get promoted by the MSCI index folks being frontier markets to becoming full-fledged emerging markets. As of this year’s first quarter, the UAE and Qatar occupied the second- and third-largest country weights in the MSCI […]
When French wine and cognac bottle maker Saverglass decided to expand three years ago, it chose a relatively remote, less affluent location in the United Arab Emirates for its plant rather than the business hubs of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. The company sited its 75 million euro ($105 million) factory, which produces some 400,000 bottles a day, in the desert emirate of Ras Al Khaimah, an hour’s […]
A sense of euphoria can be felt as you walk onto the Dubai Financial Market’s (DFM) trading floor. Excited investors sit huddled at tables, eyes fixed on trading screens. Occasionally the floor erupts in applause as certain stocks shoot up to target levels. A local investor in his fifties who gives his name as Abu Hany, dressed in the traditional white robes of the Gulf, describes himself […]
An Abu Dhabi state-owned fund is financing a quarter of Etisalat’s 4.2 billion euro purchase of Vivendi’s stake in Maroc Telecom, said three bank sources with knowledge of the deal, adding it should close this week. The identity of the fund is a closely-guarded secret. The banks that will provide the remaining 3.15 billion euros of loan finance have not been told which of the emirate’s state-owned […]
Investors are switching their attention back to developing countries’ debt after flirting with U.S. and European junk bonds during a year of turbulence in emerging markets. A long sell-off in anticipation of U.S. stimulus withdrawal meant emerging sovereign debt posted negative returns last year but the sector has enjoyed one of its best starts to a year in a decade in 2014, investors say, with returns of […]
The first initial public offer of shares on Dubai’s main stock market for five years was 36 times subscribed, a sign of massive interest in equities among retail investors as the emirate’s economy booms. Investors subscribed 10 billion dirhams ($2.7 billion) to the fixed offer of 275 million shares in Marka, which were priced at 1 dirham each, Jamal Al Hai, chairman of the company’s founders committee, […]
Forbes Media LLC’s effort to find a buyer is running into trouble, with one potential bidder officially out of the running and two others no longer in active talks, people with knowledge of the matter said. Germany’s Axel Springer SE, which publishes the Russian edition of the magazine, isn’t involved in any process to acquire Forbes, Edda Fels, a spokeswoman, said yesterday. The company had been interested […]
|By TAP Staff| Trade in petrochemicals between Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) states is set for robust growth in the coming years led by the development of the region’s rail and transport network, predicts the Gulf Petrochemicals & Chemicals Association (GPCA), the region’s longest-standing trade association. “An integrated railway network is an important catalyst in driving increased economic integration between GCC countries as it fosters the region’s development […]
Emaar Properties, Dubai’s largest listed real estate developer, predicted on Wednesday that its profits would more than quadruple by 2018 as the emirate’s economy booms and the company’s overseas business expands. The company, about 29 percent owned by the Dubai government, is seen by many investors as a proxy for the emirate’s economy, which relies heavily on real estate development, tourism and the retail industry – sectors […]
Oman’s plan to build a $1 billion natural-gas pipeline from Iran is the latest sign that Saudi Arabia is failing to bind its smaller Gulf neighbors into a tighter bloc united in hostility to the Islamic Republic. The accord was signed during Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s visit to Oman last month, and marks the first such deal between Iran and a Gulf Cooperation Council state in more […]
Hedge funds lowered bullish bets on gold for a fourth week, the longest streak this year. The net-long position contracted to the lowest since mid-February as speculators sold bullion on signs of accelerating U.S. economic growth. The investors more than doubled bets on lower prices in the past month while reducing wagers on a rally in six of the past seven weeks. Prices fell 7.6 percent since […]
|By TAP Staff| With mixed availability of commercial space across the Abu Dhabi market, potential occupiers remain focussed on prime Grade A stock, which is sustaining rents at the top end of the market, according to the latest research by real estate consultancy Cluttons. Cluttons Abu Dhabi Spring 2014 Commercial Market Outlook report, asserts that with flat rents persisting, occupiers remain in the driving seat and are […]
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. […]
|By TAP Staff| The Dubai World Trade Centre on Saturday announced that 2.2 million trade delegates and attendees visited exhibitions centre last year – marking the first time the figure has crossed the 2 million milestone. Dubai World Trade Centre hosted 373 meetings, incentives, conferencing, and exhibitions (MICE )and business events throughout 2013, up from 302 in the previous year. Exhibitors from more than 130 nations attended. […]
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 […]
Ahli United Bank (AUB), Bahrain’s largest lender, is evaluating a sale or a merger with a rival bank in a potential $5 billion deal, several bankers familiar with the situation said. A deal of this size would be the largest banking transaction in the region for the past 20 years, according to Thomson Reuters data, beating Emirates Bank’s $3.7 billion acquisition of National Bank of Dubai in […]
Real estate transactions in Dubai continued to grow apace in the first quarter of the year, according to data from the emirate’s land department. It recorded residential, commercial and land deals worth 61 billion dirhams ($16.6 billion) in the first three months of the year, 38% higher than the AED44 billion sold in the same period last year. Overall, property transactions in the emirate climbed 53% last […]
For decades the Cleveland Clinic has provided healthcare to the upper echelons of Middle Eastern society who fly halfway across the world for treatment at the Ohio-based private medical center. Soon, they can skip the trip. Early next year the Cleveland Clinic plans to open an ultra-modern, 364-bed specialty hospital on Al Maryah Island in Abu Dhabi, one of the most ambitious forays into the oil-rich country […]
The company planning the first initial share offering on Dubai’s main stock market for five years says it will spend the proceeds on opening more than 100 fashion stores, restaurants and cafes across the Gulf Arab region over the next five years. Marka, created by prominent businessmen in the United Arab Emirates, will offer for sale 55 percent of its capital or 275 million shares at 1 […]
