The recent action taken by the UAE to eliminate fuel subsidies has rekindled the debate on tax reform in the GCC, with the focus on domestic implementation of a broad-based Value Added Tax (VAT) on goods and services. While countries are facing an increasing amount of pressure on their national budgets, every GCC government understands the urgent need for fiscal-sustainability, added the report “VAT in the GCC […]
Record trading of Dubai crude by two Chinese state companies this month on a decades-old oil pricing system has pushed the benchmark higher, even as other grades are being pressed lower by a global glut. The strong Dubai trade has forced Middle East producers to raise official selling prices (OSPs), driving Asian buyers to seek cheaper oil elsewhere or cut refinery runs due to low margins. Chinaoil […]
UAE. The recent action taken by the UAE to eliminate fuel subsidies with effect from 1 August 2015 ignited the debate on tax reform in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Whilst these countries are facing an increasing amount of pressure on their national budgets, every GCC government understands the urgent need for fiscal-sustainability in the long-term. This urgency, according to Deloitte’s latest report “VAT in the […]
UAE. After a decade of finding bargains in real estate markets against the backdrop of a secular weak US Dollar, as well as a regime of declining interest rates, foreign investors in the last year have faced the prospect of sharply higher housing prices in Dubai, as their nations’ currencies have fallen against the US dollar. In times of a weak dollar market, real estate prices have […]
MoneyGram, a global provider of money transfer and payment services, said its customers will now be able to send and receive funds at Al Noor locations in Baghdad, Basrah and Najaf in Iraq. Maher Haddad, senior regional director at MoneyGram, said: “The remittance industry in Iraq is growing and our presence in the country is growing with it to provide more choices for customers who need to […]
China’s Lenovo Group will lay off 10 per cent of white-collar staff after sales of Motorola handsets fell by a third, raising doubts over the personal computer giant’s bet that a money-losing brand it bought for nearly $3 billion will help it become a global smartphone leader. Shares in the world’s biggest maker of PCs slid nearly 9 per cent on Thursday after it said its quarterly […]
Tech giant Oracle just rolled out new functions to its Service Cloud and Social Cloud. The new bells and whistles aim to help organizations serve up better customer experiences and make data-based business decisions. Specifically, the new social features promise to help brands increase social engagement and mine business insights through a new community self-service solution, as well as beefed up social service and incident routing. Oracle […]
KUWAIT. On Aug. 14, 2015, Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services affirmed its ‘AA/A-1+’ long- and short-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings on Kuwait. The outlook is stable. RATIONALEPrices for crude oil have fallen by around 50% in the last year. We now forecast an average Brent oil price of $55/bbl in 2015 and $67.5/bbl in 2015-2018. The sharp fall in oil prices over the past […]
INTERNATIONAL. In the last quarter of 2014, in the face of possible oversupply, Saudi Arabia abandoned its traditional role as the global oil market’s swing producer and therefore it role as unofficial guarantor of existing ($100+ per barrel) prices. In October, Saudi sources first prepared the market with statements that the country would be comfortable with oil prices as low as $80 per barrel for “a year […]
INTERNATIONAL. The word tragic has often been used to describe the civil war in Syria, but it is a pale description of the raging madness on the ground. The bloodletting and massive destruction that has swept the nation is not a mere tragic event; the magnitude of the destruction and loss of lives is catastrophic by any measure unseen since the horror of World War II. The […]
UAE. After delivering strong results in 2014, Islamic banks in the Gulf region face a gradually weakening operating outlook in 2015-2016, largely due to declining oil revenues, says a report published today by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services. But as the report, titled “Gulf-Based Islamic Banks Grapple With Weakening Regional Economies,” also points out, we believe investor demand for Sharia-compliant products and supportive government actions will enable […]
Chinese airlines and European luxury car makers are emerging as the early losers after the People’s Bank of China let the yuan fall the most in two decades. China’s surprising move to cut its daily reference rate by 1.9 percent Tuesday rippled through global markets. Policy makers called the change a one-time adjustment and said its fixing will become more aligned with supply and demand. While it […]
A logo is pictured at Google’s European Engineering Center in Zurich April16, 2015. Reuters/Arnd Wiegmann/Files Google Inc’s overhaul of its operating structure is an acknowledgement of the lack of transparency surrounding its disparate businesses and projects, analysts said, but it remains to be seen how much more the company will actually disclose. Analysts and investors have long sought more granular detail on Google’s capital spending and cash […]
SAN FRANCISCO Google Inc (GOOGL.O) announced a surprise overhaul of its operating structure on Monday, creating a holding company called Alphabet to pool its many subsidiaries and separate the core web advertising business from newer ventures like driverless cars. The move appeared to be an attempt by the search engine giant to focus on its more creative and ambitious projects, while investors cheered the potential for more […]
UAE. July’s survey data signalled another increase in overall business activity across Dubai’s private sector economy, which marked five-and-a-half years of continuous expansion. However, growth momentum moderated to its weakest recorded since March 2012 amid softer contributions from all three key sub-sectors monitored by the survey. Private sector companies operating in Dubai are nonetheless still highly upbeat about their business activity prospects for the year ahead, according […]
|By TAP Staff|Saudi Arabia’s Al Khafra Holding Group has acquired a substantial equity position in Invescore Ltd, a financial advisory firm based in London. With the acquisition Sheikh Mubarak Al Khafrah becomes the new Chairman of Invescore. This transaction strategically increases Invescore investment banking and direct investment capabilities as well as strengthening its presence in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the GCC region. The transaction was […]
A Tunisian police officer stood guard at the scene of a shooting attack in June at the Imperial Marhaba hotel in the Mediterranean resort of Sousse. By CARLOTTA GALL August 9, 2015 MONASTIR, Tunisia — A dozen police officers, one with an assault rifle across his knees, guard the presidential mausoleum in this sleepy seaside resort, easily outnumbering the foreign visitors on a recent morning. It was here, the […]
A demonstration on Sunday in Baghdad to show support for Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi after he proposed government reforms. By OMAR AL-JAWOSHY and TIM ARANGO August 9, 2015 BAGHDAD — Facing widespread protests against government corruption and poor services as well as a crucial call for change from the country’s top Shiite cleric, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Sunday proposed to radically reshape the dysfunctional political system of Iraq that has […]
UAE. Media outlets in the UAE and elsewhere have picked up on a variety of recent stories regarding the use of social media in the UAE. These stories include one about an Australian expat being arrested, jailed and deported after posting a picture of a car taking up two disabled parking spots. A similar story from earlier in the summer related to an appellate decision to overturn […]
By WILLIAM J. BROAD August 8, 2015 Twenty-nine of the nation’s top scientists — including Nobel laureates, veteran makers of nuclear arms and former White House science advisers — wrote to President Obama on Saturday to praise the Iran deal, calling it innovative and stringent. The letter, from some of the world’s most knowledgeable experts in the fields of nuclear weapons and arms control, arrives as Mr. Obama is lobbying […]
The days of very easy money are drawing to a close in the rich Gulf Arab oil-exporting economies as money market rates start to rise, partly because of the damage which cheap oil is doing to government finances. Loose liquidity created by inflows of oil money pushed short-term rates in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and neighbouring states to record lows last year, fuelling frenzied competition […]
UAE. July data suggested that the UAE’s non-oil private sector regained some of the growth momentum that was lost at the end of the second quarter. Output and new orders both rose at sharper rates, contributing to a robust overall improvement in business conditions. Job creation was also sustained at a solid pace. On the price front, data highlighted divergent trends in July. The rate of cost […]
SAUDI ARABIA. Saudi Arabia’s non-oil private sector began the third quarter of 2015 on a positive note, with business conditions improving at the fastest pace in three months during July. Stronger growth of the sector as a whole was mainly driven by sharper expansions in both output and new orders, while purchasing activity also rose more quickly. However, data for employment bucked the general trend, as the […]
|By Matein Khalid| Every global recession since the OPEC oil shocks of 1973-74 was triggered by a contraction in the $17 trillion US economic colossus. The failure of Lehman Brothers, the meltdown in US subprime mortgages, the impotence of the implicit “Fed/Uncle Sam” put, the ice age in the commercial paper and interbank money markets all tipped the US economy into recession in late 2008 and triggered […]
