Dana Gas, an energy company based in the United Arab Emirates, is trying to leverage its government’s financial aid to Egypt to get preferential treatment on payment for its goods there. Dana has operations in the Nile delta, Upper Egypt and the Gulf of Suez that produced the equivalent of 39,100 barrels of oil a day on average during the first quarter. Yet like other foreign energy […]
Qatar is pledging labor-law reform in response to what critics have called systemic exploitation that traps thousands of foreign workers in low-wage jobs and squalid living conditions. Construction workers at a building site in Doha, Qatar Getty Images The reforms proposed Wednesday include an abolition of the so-called kafala sponsorship system and removing the need for a visa to exit the country. They come as Qatar prepares […]
IZMIR, Turkey — Rescuers battled on Wednesday to reach miners trapped underground after more than 200 were killed in one of the worst mining disasters in Turkey in decades. Despite the extensive rescue operation, a senior official said hopes of finding survivors were “dimming.” More than 200 were thought to be still underground after an explosion in a power distribution unit on Tuesday set off a fire […]
Dennis Lockhart, President, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, spoke to the American Business Council of Dubai on Sunday. Reuters Large Middle Eastern holders of U.S. Treasuries shouldn’t worry about the stability of their investments especially as the U.S. economy shows more signs of improvement following the worst recession in a generation, Atlanta Fed President Dennis Lockhart said on Sunday. U.S. government debt has long been a key […]
SolarReserve, a closely held U.S. power plant developer, is studying whether to bid for a 100 megawatt facility in Dubai and looking at projects in Jordan, Chief Executive Officer Kevin Smith said in an interview in Dubai. The company expects to hear by the end of the year whether it, GDF Suez (GSZ) unit International Power Ltd. and Abu Dhabi’s Masdar have won the right to build […]
Emaar Economic City plans to raise 1 billion riyals ($267 million) to help finance construction of the King Abdullah Economic City and will spend 13 billion riyals developing the Saudi Arabian project over the next four years. The company, a unit of Dubai-based Emaar Properties, expects to arrange the loans from two or three banks before the end of 2016, Fahd Al Rasheed, chief executive officer of […]
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 […]
Dana Gas Islamic bond was the best-performing dollar sukuk in the world last month as the energy company’s rising stock price prompted investors to exchange their debt into shares at a profit. The fuel producer’s $425 million convertible bond due October 2017 made 3.46 percent last month, compared with an average 0.41 percent return for all dollar-denominated sukuk, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The share conversion […]
|By TAP Staff| Gulf-based borrowers, who have been returning to the international debt market in recent days after several months of relatively light issuance, are reporting strong investor interest. Amid geopolitical tensions in Ukraine and economic instability in some emerging markets, Gulf economies have stood out because of their stability, thanks to their trade and state budget surpluses. The contrast appears to created attractive conditions for them […]
While World Expo 2020 will be associated with some of the massive multibillion dollar real estate and hospitality projects, Smart City is determined to design and implement cutting edge technology solutions to plan and manage the day to day activities of the Emirate. Hence, it is significant that massive growth and development initiative in Dubai should be backed with a philosophy of sustainability, which can ensure wellbeing […]
|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. […]
Abu Dhabi National Energy Co (TAQA) said on Thursday it had signed a 20.5 billion yen ($200.4 million) loan with Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi which would be used to refinance an existing obligation. The majority state-owned energy firm said it had swapped the loan, priced at 60 basis points over Japanese Libor, into U.S. dollars and would use the funds to refinance a portion of a $1.2 billion […]
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 […]
General Motors engineers were well aware of serious problems with ignition switches in GM small cars, but rejected several opportunities to make fixes, according to dozens of confidential documents released on Friday by a Congressional committee investigating the deadly defect. Parts supplier Delphi Automotive also repeatedly tested switches and found they did not meet GM specifications, according to emails and other memos. The internal documents from GM, […]
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 […]
A majority of private-equity firms inflate fees and expenses charged to companies in which they hold stakes, according to an internal review by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, raising the prospect of a wave of sanctions by the agency. More than half of about 400 private-equity firms that SEC staff have examined have charged unjustified fees and expenses without notifying investors, according to a person with […]
The Dubai Gold and Commodities Exchange (DGCX) is planning to launch agricultural commodities contracts in the first quarter of 2015, the bourse’s chief executive officer said on Monday. “That’s something we really want to do, as we want to be able to diversify the products that we list on the exchange,” Gary Anderson told Reuters on the sidelines of a precious metals conference in Dubai. “We have […]
A year after Citigroup Inc. declared the decade-long run of commodity gains over, wacky weather, dead piglets and Vladimir Putin have gotten in the way. While Citigroup rang “death bells” in April 2013 for the synchronized super cycle fueled by economic growth in China, extreme weather and supply squeezes led to surprise rallies in 2014’s first three months. Coffee hit a two-year high, cattle and hogs rose […]
As investors dump emerging-market equities at an unprecedented clip, they’re turning more and more to frontier markets in search of the next growth story. No exchange-traded fund focused on developing nations has grown faster in the past year than BlackRock Inc. (BLK)’s iShares MSCI Frontier 100 fund, whose biggest holdings are in Kuwait and Qatar. Assets under management surged nine-fold to $594 million, fueled by $465 million […]
Chinese authorities have seized assets worth at least 90 billion yuan ($14.5 billion) from family members and associates of retired domestic security tsar Zhou Yongkang, who is at the center of China’s biggest corruption scandal in more than six decades, two sources said. More than 300 of Zhou’s relatives, political allies, proteges and staff have also been taken into custody or questioned in the past four months, […]
Hanco, a Saudi Arabian auto rental company, said it acquired U.A.E.-based Byrne Investments from a private-equity group previously owned by HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) for 600 million dirhams ($163 million). Hanco, majority-owned by closely-held Bin Sulaiman Holdings, is buying Byrne’s equipment rental operations and modular building services business from Dubai-based Havenvest Private Equity Middle East Partnership, it said today in a statement. Persian Gulf companies are stepping […]
Abu Dhabi National Energy Co (TAQA) posted a net loss of 2.52 billion dirhams ($687 million) for 2013 because of a non-cash impairment related to the value of its oil and gas holdings in North America, the company said on Tuesday. TAQA swung from a profit after minority interests of 649 million dirhams in 2012. As a result, it said its board had recommended no dividend for […]
Wall Street leaders including Lloyd Blankfein and James Gorman, who have courted business in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, are facing a dilemma as tensions over Ukraine escalate. Their scheduled attendance at Putin’s annual investor showcase in St. Petersburg in May is in doubt as sanctions imposed by the U.S. in response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea — and retaliatory moves by Putin — threaten the ties between Russia’s […]
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 […]
