|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 […]
|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 Arabian Post Staff| Saudi nationals engaged in gold and jewellery business believe that the new foreign investment law, which allows expatriates to set up fully-owned businesses in the kingdom, would ultimately drive them away from their traditional business. According to Saudi media reports, they complain that some Arab expatriates have entered the market by obtaining Saudi citizenship, GCC passports and foreign investment license. A Abdul Ghani […]
Following the terrorist attacks in Paris, the most deadly violence to strike France since World War Two, world leaders are convening on Sunday and Monday for the G20 summit in Turkey. The meeting, whose agenda now includes the attacks and their aftermath, will also focus on the migrant crisis in the Middle East and Europe, and could thus become one of the most important G20 summits since […]
|By Nitten Nair|I had never watched the movie “Up in the Air” starring George Clooney. Not because I don’t watch his films, but I found reading of the initial synopsis a little depressing. A guy who lives out of a suitcase because he has to fly around the world firing people – not so exciting. Nor did I come across any reviews which strongly stated otherwise. The […]
The European Court of Justice had declared the Safe Harbor provision that allowed transfer of personally identifiable data (PII) between Europe and the USA as invalid. This left a huge public policy question hanging: Is it legal for companies doing business on the web to store the PII data of European citizens on servers based in the USA? Does this ECJ decision open the door to companies getting […]
|By TAP Staff| Dubai developer Limitless has failed to repay over $500 million, which it had promised to pay banks from the proceeds of a land sale in Saudi Arabia as part of the debt restructuring deal with the banks and this has apparently caused concern among the banks. Last week Bloomberg had reported that the developer should have paid about $517 million to banks more than […]
|By TAP Staff| Air Arabia results have disappointed market consensus, due to lower margins, but analysts see the airline continuing to focus on expansions in the future. According to Mubasher Trade (MTRe) analysts, despite the disappointing Q3 2015 results, they maintain BUY/MODERATE RISK rating for the company with a price target of AED2.06/share and expected total return of +62%. Revenues increased by 6% YoY to AED1.12 billion […]
|By TAP Staff| Middle East carriers recorded a 9.9% increase in passenger traffic demand in September, well down on the 13.7% year-over year growth experienced in August, International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced. Capacity rose 12.9% and load factor slipped 2.1 percentage points to 75.7%. Major economies in the region, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have experienced slowdowns in non-oil sectors, it pointed out. […]
|By Matein Khalid| I was in a pensive-philosophic mood last week as I decompressed from a trip to a hauntingly beautiful post Soviet country in the Caucasus, the land that produced Koba from Gori and Prince Pyotr Bagration, the fallen hero of Tsar Alexander’s imperial guard at Borodino. Yet Georgia gave me time and perspective to think about the financial firestorms on Wall Street, Marounuchi, the Gulf […]
|By TAP Staff| With the departure of AC056, Air Canada inaugurated new service between Toronto and Dubai, the newest addition to its growing international network. The new route will be operated using Air Canada’s most modern aircraft, the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner featuring its new cabin interior design with three classes of service, including its next generation, lie flat suites in International Business Class. “Air Canada is very […]
|By TAP Staff| The GFMS Gold Survey for the third quarter is bearish on the short term prospects of gold and expects the metal to trade back down below $1,100/oz for the remaining months of the 2015. According to the survey, published by Thomson Reuters, gold is set to remain under pressure until there is more clarity on the timing and the scale of US rates normalisation. […]
Japan’s Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ (BTMU) has launched its Islamic finance business in Dubai, to focus on sharia-compliant loan syndications with later plans to offer project financing, a bank official said. Large Asian lenders from China to Japan are increasingly interested in Islamic finance as a way to tap large pools of liquidity in southeast Asia and the Gulf. In July, BTMU received approval from the Dubai […]
|By Matein Khalid| Saudi Arabia has fascinated me since I first met Hani AZ Yamani as a teenage student all those years ago at Wharton. Hani’s father was Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, legendary Saudi Oil Minister (1962-86) under Kings Faisal, Khalid and Fahd. Sheikh Yamani managed the 1973 and 1979 oil shocks, survived a terrorist assault in Vienna by Carlos the Jackal, midwifed the birth of Saudi […]
|By TAP Staff|Dubai Financial Market (DFM) reported a 70 percent fall in third-quarter net profit on Monday as trading activity plunged, tracking a slump in oil prices. DFM made a net profit of 45.4 million dirhams ($12.4 million) in the three months to Sept. 30, down from a net profit of 153.5 million dirhams in the year-ago period, a statement said. Trading commissions are the main source […]
|TAP Special by K Raveendran| Landmark events about the development of a shopping mall generally involve major leasing deals or signing up flagship brands, or the launch of the mall itself. But Qatar’s Tawar Mall, coming up in a prime Doha locality, was the scene of a bit of fanfare this week for none of the above. The mall owners, belonging to the leading Qatari business family […]
|TAP Special by K Raveendran| Landmark events about the development of a shopping mall generally involve major leasing deals or signing up flagship brands, or the launch of the mall itself. But Qatar’s Tawar Mall, coming up in a prime Doha locality, was the scene of a bit of fanfare this week for none of the above. The mall owners, belonging to the leading Qatari business family […]
|By TAP Staff| According to an assessment of the post-sanctions situation for Iranians to invest in Dubai’s real estate, Dubai homes are 4.4 times more expensive compared to five years ago. “This is simply a matter of economics,” Jesse Downs, managing director of Phidar Advisor, was quoted as saying. The rial will take time to appreciate and until that happens, Dubai property will be very expensive for […]
The world is awash in crude, but big oil companies are lining up to develop new fields in Iran even as they slash spending and abandon exploration elsewhere. One thing explains this paradox: cost. The Middle Eastern country is one of the cheapest places in the world to tap new oil fields and pump from existing wells. The slump in crude prices makes Iran even more attractive […]
Singapore Air’s decision to restart direct flights to New York is an ominous sign for the future of aviation hubs like Dubai. Singapore, Hong Kong, Los Angeles and Dubai became hubs from the 1970s to the 2000s for a simple reason: Commercial aircraft of the era struggled to travel more than about 10,000 kilometers without stopping to refuel. That put swathes of the Americas off-limits to direct […]
Gold is starting to shed its reputation as a dead asset, and bulls can thank signs that the U.S. economy is starting to sputter for the boost. The metal climbed above its 200-day moving average on Wednesday for the first time in about five months. A gauge of inflation dropped by the most since January and retail sales missed forecasts, increasing traders’ bets that the Federal Reserve […]
|By TAP Staff| Investors are expressing growing skepticism that the U.S. Federal Reserve will raise rates this year amid fragility in the global economy and earnings, according to the BofA Merrill Lynch Fund Manager Survey for October. Fewer than half (47 percent) of investors believe the Fed will raise rates in 2015, down from 58 percent in September. A net 19 percent of the panel says […]
|By TAP Staff| Dubai is hoping that the lifting of sanctions on Iran will help the emirate’s economy to withstand some of the negative shocks it has been suffering in recent times. Those “pull factors,” which also include increased demand from India, will compensate for any economic headwind from China’s slowdown, Raed Safadi, executive director of the economic research and policy division at the Dubai Department of […]
| By Yaroslav Trofimov| Despised by some, admired by others, the U.S. has been the Middle East’s principal power for decades, providing its allies with guidance and protection. Now, however, with Russia and Iran thrusting themselves boldly into the region’s affairs, that special role seems to be melting away. As seasoned politicians and diplomats survey the mayhem, they struggle to recall a moment when America counted for […]
