RIYADH // A UAE delegation arrived in the Saudi capital on Thursday for a GCC economic meeting. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs, headed the delegation that attended the first meeting of the GCC Economic and Development Affairs Authority in Riyadh. Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Second Deputy Premier and Minister of Defence, presided over the meeting. […]
Saudi Arabian stocks extended their winning streak to six days, entering a bull market as investors bet the government’s belated payments to contractors would help spur more gains. The Tadawul All Share Index added 2.3 percent to the highest level since July, taking its rally this week to 7.7 percent. The gauge has advanced more than 20 percent since a recent low on Oct. 3, crossing the […]
Emirates and the Gulf’s two other major airlines are likely to get pride of place at Frankfurt airport’s new terminal, allowing them to offer bigger premium-class lounges to compete more aggressively with local rival Deutsche Lufthansa AG. Frankfurt’s Terminal 3 will probably house Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways PJSC of Abu Dhabi, as well as Dubai-based Emirates, the world’s biggest carrier on international routes, Matthias Zieschang, chief […]
Donald Trump won’t be able to undo world powers’ nuclear deal with Iran, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said, hours after the U.S. businessman was elected president. The 2015 accord, signed between Iran and six powers including the U.S., “cannot be overturned by one government’s decision,” Rouhani told his cabinet on Wednesday, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency. Trump told a pro-Israel lobbying group in the […]
Emirates Group first-half profit plunged 64 percent as the world’s biggest airline by international traffic struggled with a rising U.S. dollar and political and economic uncertainty that damped global travel and weighed on fares. Net income fell to 1.3 billion dirhams ($364 million) in the six months through September from 3.7 billion dirhams a year earlier, the Dubai-based carrier said Wednesday in a statement. Revenue rose 1 […]
INTERNATIONAL. Nine out of 10 banking professionals surveyed at large U.S., European and Canadian commercial banks said their company is currently exploring the use of blockchain technology for payments, according to a new report from Accenture (NYSE: ACN). The initiatives are designed to reduce costs, speed payments, reduce errors and drive new revenues. The report – Blockchain Technology: How banks are building a real-time global payment network – […]
The University of Birmingham has delivered an interactive digital version of what is very likely the world’s oldest surviving fragment of the Quran to the UAE. It is the first time that this version, which offers the touch sensitivity of a tablet and has become known as the Birmingham Quran, has been seen outside of the UK. Two versions will form permanent centrepieces of next year’s UK-UAE […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| The growing list of OPEC members seeking exemptions from a planned supply cut has investors seeing future price drops, Bloomberg reports. Money managers increased bets on lower West Texas Intermediate oil for the first time in five weeks as Iraq joined Iran, Nigeria and Libya in seeking to be excluded from OPEC’s first agreement to reduce output in eight years. The deal was reached […]
|By Matein Khalid| The fall in oil prices since 2014 has triggered a liquidity crunch and higher funding costs in the UAE banking system. EIBOR is almost double the London interbank rate LIBOR. Non-performing loan (NPL) have begun to rise as property prices have fallen 20% from their peak and corporate/SME borrowers are hit by a sharp downturn in the business cycle. DIB shares reflect these macro […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| GE marked a new milestone in its operational presence in Kuwait with the opening of the GE Kuwait Technology Center (GEKTC), a flagship facility that will foster localized research, provide hands-on training and build an innovation ecosystem specifically for the power sector. Approved by the Kuwait Direct Investment Promotion Authority (KDIPA) for a Foreign Investment License last year, the 6,000 sq meter GEKTC, […]
A new partnership between long-time rivals Amazon Web Services (AWS), part of Amazon.com, and VMware could prove to be a major deal for enterprise hybrid cloud users as well as the competitive landscape that services them. Yesterday, the companies announced that they will be cooperating on a new hybrid service, dubbed VMware Cloud on AWS, designed to make it easier for enterprises to run VMware applications on […]
|By Matein Khalid| The Algiers pact was a game changer in the international oil markets. Crude oil prices have risen to three month highs above $50 Brent after OPEC agreed to cut output to the 32.5 – 33 MBD range, with the symbolic Saudi-Iranian deal reinforced by a sharp drop in US inventories and Hurricane Matthew’s havoc in the Caribbean. Unfortunately for OPEC, the US land rig […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Saudi Arabia said it was holding investor meetings in London, Los Angeles, Boston and New York from Wednesday to sell benchmark bonds maturing in five, 10 and 30 years. The issue is expected to be at least $10 billion. “It’s very good timing,” Bloomberg quoted Angelo Rossetto, a trader at GMSA Investments Ltd. in London, as saying. “I wouldn’t say now or never as […]
The Interpreter By AMANDA TAUB It is a truth universally acknowledged by every war correspondent, humanitarian aid worker and Western diplomat: Some wars, like Syria’s, receive tremendous public attention, which can translate into pressure for resolution. But many others, like Yemen’s still raging but much ignored conflict, do not. Some of the reasons are obvious; the scale of Syria’s war is catastrophic and much worse than Yemen’s. […]
UAE. The UAE industrial market has continued to show a relatively steady performance despite the emergence of economic headwinds, amidst on-going global uncertainty, according to the H1 2016 UAE Industrial & Logistics MarketView, by global real estate consultancy firm CBRE. The softening of crude oil prices over the past 18 months has had mixed effects on the UAE industrial sector, and on the markets in Dubai and […]
The UAE was ranked first regionally and 16th globally in the latest Global Competitiveness Report issued by the World Economic Forum (Davos) in Switzerland. The report is one of the most important global competitiveness reports, which monitors annual performance and competitiveness of the economies of countries in terms of strength, weakness, impact on quality of life, prosperity and well-being of people. Switzerland, Singapore and the United States […]
UAE. A new report by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) reveals that, when it comes to its current-level Sustainable Economic Development Assessment (SEDA) scores, the UAE outperforms the GCC and the rest of the world in most dimensions—including income, employment, education, infrastructure, civil society, governance, and environment. Across these dimensions, the UAE topped the average scores of both the GCC and the rest of the world. The […]
|By Matein Khalid| The Federal Reserve did not disappoint the financial markets after Janet Yellen’s FOMC conference on Wednesday. The US central bank did not raise the overnight borrowing (or Fed Funds rate) to 0.5% on the eve of the November election. This triggered a wild rally in the US stock market with the Dow Jones up 163 points, gold up to $1342 and oil to $46 […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| OPEC members aren’t likely to reach a supply deal in Algiers next week, but an agreement to boost prices could be drawing closer after Saudi Arabia signaled for the first time in two years that it’s willing to cut production, Bloomberg reported. Saudi Arabia and Iran, whose rivalry thwarted a deal with other major producers in April, didn’t reach agreement after two days of […]
|By Matein Khalid| When Ben Bernanke uttered the word “taper” in May 2013, he triggered a bloodbath in emerging markets and a free fall in “fragile five” currencies that included the Indian rupee and the Indonesian rupiah. However, Asian equities markets, while not immune to a Fed rate hike, are far better positioned for higher US dollar interest rates than in 2013, let alone 2007 or 1998. […]
Sometimes, things don’t turn out like we expect. This is the case with Chevrolet and the Chevelle. It started as a conventional car but evolved into a road warrior, carrying the muscle car torch for a new generation. The Chevelle had a body-on-frame design that, while basic, really unlocked its potential as a muscle machine. There was a time when the LS6 Chevelle was the fastest American car […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Patent grants from the GCC in chemistry have seen a five-fold increase in the last decade, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Producing up to USD102.6 billion worth of products a year, petrochemical industry is a main generator of patents from Gulf region along IT and electronics. “The petrochemical industry in the Gulf is of global standards where there is an […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Abu Dhabi’s Masdar City without light switches or water taps has much to teach people around the world about saving energy and precious resources. With its low-rise and energy efficient buildings, smart metering, excellent public transport and extensive use of renewable energy, the 2,000 citizens of Masdar City are living in a place which is a ‘green’ example to city planners around the […]
|By Matein Khalid|I had written a column two weeks ago outlining my view that US equities faced a dangerous autumn and the S&P 500 index was set for a fall of 150 points. However, even I did not expect the S&P500 index to fall 52 points on Friday (the Dow dropped 394 points and NASDAQ 133 points), its worst performance since the Brexit shock. It was even […]
