OPEC has seemingly dropped any attempt at trying to fulfill its founding mission and manage the global oil market. For Saudi Arabia’s Ali al-Naimi, the most powerful and longest-serving of the group’s oil ministers, it may have seemed like history was repeating itself. There are several striking parallels between the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ current situation and the period from 1997 to 1999, when the group lost […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| The UAE’s growth in new business was the weakest since April 2012, according to the purchase manager’s index (PMI) data for November. Companies also saw their pricing power diminish while input costs rose further. But competitive pressures meant that charges fell regardless. The UAE’s non-oil private sector expansion strengthened in November, having eased to a two-and-a-half year low during October. Business conditions improved […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Opec’s ability to control the oil market suffered its worst debacle when the organization failed to agree on a ceiling for production. This meant that Saudi Arabia prevailed over other members to continue the policy of excess production as to force non-OPEC players, such as the US and Russia, out of the market by making their output uneconomical. “Lots of people said that […]
This has never happened before. The global smartphone market is posting its first single-digital growth year on record. That’s according to the latest Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker from market research firm IDC. The firm predicts worldwide shipments will grow 9.8% to hit 1.43 billion units this year, thanks in part to slowing growth in Latin America, Western Europe and the Asia Pacific. The slower-than-expected growth actually […]
|By Arabian Post Staff|Analysts are consistently arguing in favour of a pickup in Dubai’s economic prospects in the wake of a possible boost in trade with Iran following the lifting of sanctions. Low oil price, which cast a shadow over the Gulf’s oil economies, has also affected Dubai, with its real estate sector, a key determinant of the emirate’s economic performance, showing signs of a clear slowdown. […]
|Arabian Post Special| Indian officials have floated the idea of a gold exchange for the country, which will help discover the standard gold price for India. The trading platform would be made available for all types of bullion dealers, jewellers, bullion refineries, individuals, and even temple trusts. Indian bullion dealers currently trade mostly on the Dubai Gold and Commodity exchange, which is dominated by the Indian gold […]
Gold prices rebounded off five-year lows on Monday as some investors rushed to grab a bargain while others closed out bets on weaker prices to lock in gains on the recent slide. The most actively traded gold-futures contract, for February delivery, was recently up $6.10, or 0.6%, at $1,062.20 a troy ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices slid to $1,056.20 an […]
Starting this week, Office 365 enterprise subscribers will have access to numerous new features of the productivity service, including the meeting, conferencing, and calling features of Skype for Business. Microsoft is launching its new subscription model for Office 365 tomorrow. The highest-end plan, Office 365 E5, is priced at $35 per user per month, or $420 per user per year. Microsoft introduced Office 365 E5 today during […]
Saudi Arabian banks are feeling the squeeze from falling oil prices. The rate at which banks in the biggest Arab economy lend overnight to each other jumped the most in seven years in November, the fifth straight month of increases, following a slump in deposits the previous month that forced lenders to seek more funds from each other. “The drop in deposits in October, in absolute amount, […]
|By Lawrence Williams| Let’s face it, the gold price seems to bear little correlation to global physical metal demand. In the face of reducing supply (low gold prices keep scrap sales depressed, new mined gold supply is plateauing and beginning to fall and sales out of the big gold ETFs this year are a fraction of those seen back in 2013) and increasing demand – China, India […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| The price of gold futures hit their lowest levels since October 2009, below what Goldman called a crucial level and at current prices half of the gold coming from mines may not be viable, industry sources warned. “The more we continue to produce unprofitable gold, the more pressure we put on the gold price,” said Randgold Resources Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Mark Bristow. […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| It is a double whammy for gold this Thursday. The metal was trading near its lowest in nearly six years while Reuters reported from Mumbai that third-quarter gold buying in India, the world’s biggest consumer, is likely to fall to the lowest level in eight years. Gold is hurt by poor investment demand as the dollar held at multi-month highs after U.S. economic […]
Oil has been on a steady decline in the past several months due to a surplus of the precious black liquid. While some have predicted this could seriously dent Saudi Arabia’s oil-backed economy, others are skeptical due to the fact that the state was able to save a lot of money from the rally of oil that occurred back in 2000 until last year. According to public […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| House prices in Dubai will bottom out towards the end of next year, real estate consultancy Cluttons said in its Dubai 2015/16 Winter Residential Property Market Outlook. House prices are expected to fall another 3-5 percent over the next 12 months. The report said values for both apartments (-0.8%) and villas (-0.5%) dipped marginally during the third quarter of this year, marking the […]
|By Alaa Alghamdi| The controversy raging in the world media over the Mohammed bin Nayef Centre/ Care Centre for the rehabilitation of jihadi terrorists brings up basic questions regarding justice and the right course of action. It is perhaps not surprising that such polarization has occurred regarding opinions on this (by all accounts, successful) program. To accept its efficacy and its ethics involves nothing less than a […]
Samsung [made] history of a sort by launching the first major consumer-oriented virtual-reality headset. (It comes with an asterisk; prototypes and other not-quite-mass-market versions have been available for a while.) And its Gear VR headset is pretty impressive as first-generation devices go. The biggest surprise after using the new Gear VR for a few days: There’s a lot of stuff to watch and play in the virtual […]
|Arabian Post Special|If oil prices fall further from the current levels, it would lead to a quick buildup of pressure on the Saudi riyal’s 30-year peg to the dollar, forcing the Saudi authorities to de-peg and devalue the currency, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch said in a report. “And frankly, it is a lot easier politically at first to deliver a modest crude oil supply cut than to […]
|By Nitten Nair| In all offices you have 2 distinct types of employees: generalists and specialists, and they are constantly at odds. They are present in all domains and it depends on which domain you are referring to determine who will have an upper hand in the long run. To make my point here let me stick to my domain: Marketing. In this domain too we have […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Dubai’s investment plans are not threatened by the situation stemming from the fall in oil prices and its economic impact, Mohammad al-Shaibani, chief executive of state-owned Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD), asserted. Although energy is a key determinant of business confidence, as far as Dubai is concerned, oil accounts for only 2 percent of the emirate’s economy, he pointed out. “There won’t be […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| The United Arab Emirates may cut government spending as a result of the slump in oil prices, Central Bank Governor Mubarak Rashed Al Mansoori indicated. The decline in the government’s oil revenue “may trigger further fiscal consolidation, albeit at a gradual pace, to preserve priority spending in support of non-oil growth,” Al Mansoori said at a conference in Dubai on Monday. Oil accounted […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Dubai’s external debt continues to be at tight spreads, given still high leverage and refinancing challenges but this is somewhat offset by certain positive aspects, a Bank of America-Merrill Lynch research report said. The positives include still solid local bid on the shorter end of the curve and its low-beta defensive status within an emerging markets context. The Iran nuclear deal is another […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| A scenario of continued fall in oil prices, OPEC oil export revenue could fall by a quarter despite the higher output, according to International Energy Agency outlook for oil. In the Low Oil Price Scenario, the Middle East’s share in the oil market ends up higher than at any time in the last forty years, it says. According to IEA, lower prices are […]
|By TAP Staff| Total gold demand in Q3 2015 stood at 1,121 tonnes , an increase of 8% compared to the same period last year, according to the World Gold Council’s Gold Demand Trends report. Q3 2015 consisted of two distinct halves. In the first part, a number of factors, including ETF outflows, contributed to a price dip which buoyed consumer demand around the world. A shift […]
Airbus Group SE escaped order oblivion at the Dubai Air Show after negotiating a last-minute agreement to sell 30 narrow-body planes to VietJet Aviation — prompting the European planemaker to take a swipe at Boeing Co. over the announcement of a deal that had already been booked. VietJet agreed to buy nine current-generation A321s and 21 upgraded A321neos worth $3.6 billion at list prices after negotiations that […]
