After suffering steep declines in trade starting in 2012, seaborne transfer of goods between Iran and Dubai is picking up again, highlighting the U.A.E.’s delicate balancing act in maintaining important commercial ties and satisfying its Western allies. A combination of economic factors in Iran — attributed to tough international sanctions over its contested nuclear activities — resulted in a decrease in trade with the U.A.E. from $24 […]
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) could soon unveil a major change in monetary policy to explicitly make managing consumer inflation, rather than wholesale prices, its main objective. The shift would be a significant one in a country that’s long struggled to contain retail prices. It is expected as part of a deep review of monetary policy that RBI Raghuram Rajan ordered, after his September appointment, to […]
Non-resident Indians are bringing gold into the country by taking advantage of rules that allow each individual to carry 1 kg of the metal, helping traders cope with restrictions on imports during the peak wedding season. India, vying with China to be the top buyer of gold, has choked imports to narrow its trade gap and curb the outflow of dollars. The measures included raising the import […]
While it may be the most common given name in the world, the global banking system seemingly can’t cope with Mohammed and its various different spellings. When it comes to false positives – where a person or transaction is incorrectly flagged for contravening sanctions – the total at Middle Eastern banks is around twice that of many international lenders because of the high use of names like […]
Dubai’s success in bidding to host the 2020 World Expo will trigger billions of dollars of investment in the emirate, but it may risk a repeat of the boom-and-bust cycle which nearly caused financial collapse just a few years ago. After competing against three cities, Dubai was awarded the world’s fair by the Bureau International des Expositions on Wednesday, setting the seal on a dramatic economic recovery. […]
Surging vegetable prices led wholesale price inflation to a 14-month high in November, reinforcing expectations Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will have to raise interest rates again this week at a time the country’s economy is flagging. Policymakers have been grappling with high prices for food staples such as onions and potatoes even after the RBI raised interest rates by a quarter percentage point in each of […]
India’s exports of gold jewellery fell by almost a third year-on-year in November as restrictions continued to hit shipments, and industry officials said recovery was unlikely any time soon. India’s government has slapped a record 10 percent import duty on gold, its second-biggest import after oil, as it seeks to curb a swollen current account, and has said 20 percent of all imports must be turned around […]
The UAE will add 29.2 million passengers over the next four years at a compound annual growth rate, or CAGR, of 6.6 per cent as total global air passenger numbers are expected to rise to 3.91 billion by 2017, the International Air Transport Association, or Iata, said on Tuesday. As airlines across the globe expect to see a 31 per cent increase in passenger numbers between 2012 […]
By Lewis Braham Don’t try to catch a falling knife. It’s one of the oldest saws on Wall Street. But to make a lot of money, sometimes you have to get a little bloody. So say contrarians like Brian Singer. The risk is great, “but the return is of such an astounding magnitude, you’re willing to do it,” says Singer, manager of the William Blair Macro Allocation […]
National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) will take on more staff to grow its commercial business and tap the “enormous opportunities” created by Dubai’s successful 2020 World Expo bid, its CEO said, even as it pursues international expansion. The United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) largest lender plans to add around 900 jobs to its current headcount of 6,500 next year across 18 countries, with a focus on new […]
Dubai’s DAMAC said it raised $348 million from its London share offer on Tuesday, a lukewarm response to the first share sale by a Dubai property firm since the emirate’s real estate crash four years ago. The luxury housing firm, which describes its new villa project as the Beverly Hills of Dubai, had hoped to take advantage of a renewed interest in Dubai’s property market aided by […]
Middle East crude for immediate delivery traded at its biggest premium in two years to later shipments last month after Royal Dutch Shell bought an unprecedented number of cargoes. The price gap between the earliest loadings of the benchmark Dubai grade and those for two months later climbed to $2.82 a barrel on Nov. 21, the widest spread since 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The […]
The United States on Friday congratulated the United Arab Emirates on landing the 2020 World Expo trade exhibition — the first time that a Middle Eastern nation will host the event. The UAE on Thursday won its bid to host the six-month event in Dubai, beating out Russia, Brazil and Turkey. “This is a significant first as the UAE serves not only as the region’s business hub, […]
Gold trade between Turkey and Iran will resume, albeit at lower levels than last year, once sanctions on Iran are eased, Iran’s ambassador to Turkey said on Friday. Turkey’s gold trade with Iran boomed in 2012 when Ankara was paying for its natural gas and oil imports with Turkish lira and Iranians were using those deposits held in Turkey’s Halkbank to buy gold. “Certainly the gold trade […]
Dubai’s success in bidding to host the 2020 World Expo will trigger billions of dollars of investment in the emirate, but it may risk a repeat of the boom-and-bust cycle which nearly caused financial collapse just a few years ago. After competing against three cities, Dubai was awarded the world’s fair by the Bureau International des Expositions on Wednesday, setting the seal on a dramatic economic recovery. […]
Asian shares were in a buoyant mood, with Japanese stocks hitting their highest close in nearly six years after the yen fell sharply on relatively positive U.S. economic data, while two major regional currencies slumped. Financial bookmakers expected major European indexes to open flat to modestly higher on Thursday . U.S. jobless claims unexpectedly fell last week and the November Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan consumer confidence improved […]
Emerging Asian currencies took a battering and regional shares tumbled to six-week lows on Wednesday as mixed signals from Federal Reserve officials raised fresh concerns about an imminent rollback of the U.S. central bank’s asset-buying stimulus. The dour mood looked set to carry over into Europe, where financial spread betters predicted Britain’s FTSE 100 to fall as much as 0.7 percent, Germany’s DAX off 0.4 percent and […]
A surge in passenger car sales across most Gulf Arab countries underlines the momentum behind the region’s consumer spending boom, and sales are likely to continue rising strongly for at least a few years, automobile sector executives said. Car sales are an important indicator of business activity in a region where official macroeconomic data, such as gross domestic product, is often unreliable and released with delays of […]
Mutual funds run by T. Rowe Price Group Inc and Morgan Stanley are poised to send one sweet tweet. These early investors in Twitter Inc will reap exponential gains as the microblogging site goes public, while latecomers struggle for share allocations. T. Rowe’s New Horizons and Growth Stock funds may come out looking smartest, having scooped up millions of preferred shares for a pittance. While mutual […]
Some merchants and dealers were found to have exploited the ‘24 hours’ facility extended by the Dubai government whereby some major shopping malls were allowed to remain open day and night during Eid Al Adha, according to a statement released by Khalid Al Boom, Senior Director of Promotional Events Control Section, at the Dubai Department of Economic Development (DED). The outlets announced false promotional offers and this […]
Saudi authorities rounded up thousands of illegal foreign workers at the start of a nationwide crackdown ultimately aimed at creating more jobs for locals, media reported. Hundreds of thousands of workers have already left the kingdom following a grace period of seven months during which authorities told expatriates that if they did not fix their legal status they had to leave the country or face jail. The […]
Dubai luxury housing developer DAMAC Properties said it plans to raise as much as $500 million from an initial public share offer in London, betting on a recovery in a property market that crashed four years ago. If successful, DAMAC would be the first Dubai real estate firm to go public since then. DAMAC, which is building golf courses in the emirate with American real-estate mogul Donald […]
With the D-day approaching fast for the award of the 2020 Expo, everyone in Dubai is excited about a most likely successful Dubai bid. Amidst all the fanfare, however, there is a lurking fear about the impact of a successful bid on the emirate’s real estate sector. Those who do worry have one overriding concern: that Expo fever will tip an already overheating property market into bubble […]
Jignesh Shah resigned from the board of Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd., the nation’s biggest commodity trading platform, amid an investigation into the failure of a related spot bourse. Shah, 46, quit as non-executive vice chairman, according to a filing yesterday from the company he founded in 2003. He said he’s leaving to help ensure investors aren’t harmed by “mud-slinging” over the probe. India’s commodities futures […]
