Saudi Arabia’s move to isolate Iran raises the specter of deepening conflicts in the volatile Middle East after the biggest meltdown in relations between the two regional powers in almost three decades. The Saudi government and staunch ally Bahrain severed diplomatic ties, giving Iranian ambassadors 48 hours to leave after protesters set the Saudi embassy in Tehran on fire over the weekend following the execution of Saudi cleric […]
Emaar Properties PJSC slid the most in more than two weeks, leading a decline in Dubai stocks, on concern a fire that ripped through its hotel on New Year’s Eve will curb earnings. Abu Dhabi shares also fell. Emaar dropped as much as 4.4 percent, before paring its slide to 3.5 percent at 10:31 a.m. local time. The developer of the world’s tallest tower was the biggest contributor […]
Saudi Arabia’s stock exchange, the Arab world’s largest, aims to sell shares in an initial public offering in 2018. The Saudi Stock Exchange – Tadawul seeks to offer shares after completing a “readiness exercise and obtaining the necessary approvals,” according to a statement on its website on Thursday. One of the world’s biggest petrochemicals manufacturers, Saudi Basic Industries Corp., trades on the Tadawul All Share Index. The gauge closed […]
|By Matein Khalid| Emerging markets were an entirely predictable horror story once again in 2015. The oil/mining bust, currency meltdowns, China’s hard landing, sovereign credit downgrades, banking system crises, corruption scandals and geopolitical crises from Ukraine to Syria, the Black Sea to the South China Sea devastated investor wealth in emerging markets. India’s Sensex and Nifty were down 9% while the rupee has depreciated to 66 […]
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, is continuing to advocate for his company’s plan to offer free but limited Internet access in India. Facebook’s Free Basics Internet service, formerly called Internet.org, has faced opposition in India, which has more people without Internet service than any other country. Critics of Zuckerberg’s plan have said that the service is contrary to Net neutrality, the principle that Internet providers allow equal access […]
Emirates Global Aluminium (Emal) a joint venture between Abu Dhabi and Dubai, is said to be paying almost 40 percent more for a loan compared with last year as liquidity in the Gulf tightens after the plunge in oil prices. The state-controlled company will pay 200 basis points, or 2 percentage points, above the London Interbank Offered Rate on a $4.9 billion, seven-year conventional loan and an […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Buoyed by sharp fall in gold prices globally, India is likely to see a jump of 11 per cent in imports of the metal to 1,000 tonnes this year, according to the All India Gems and Jewellery Trade Federation. The world’s second-biggest gold consumer imported around 900 tonnes in 2014. “Gold import is estimated at around 1,000 tonnes in 2015 calendar year, compared […]
|Arabian Post Special|The UAE Central Bank is solidly backing the UAE banks in dealing with the ‘de-risking’ policies imposed by US banks on the UAE banks. The central bank is seized of the problems faced by the UAE banks in this regard. The new U.S. regulations have imposed extra burdens and costs on banks in the United States, which is forcing these banks to cut their international […]
|By Matein Khalid| In retrospect, the last six years were a unique period in global central banking, an epic monetary experiment that averted a Great Depression after Lehman’s failure and interbank/credit contagion plunged the world into recession in 2008-9. Yet the Fed (and later Bank of Japan, ECB and even PBOC) quantitative easing also led to asset bubbles, credit market excesses, currency wars and the mispricing of […]
Almost every Middle Eastern stock index declined after oil, the region’s main source of income, sank to the lowest in seven years, damping the outlook for government spending. Dubai’s DFM General Index ended its longest winning streak in almost three months, sliding 1.5 percent, the most in a week, to close at 3,026.05. Emirates NBD PJSC’s 4 percent retreat was the biggest contributor. The Tadawul All Share […]
As South Africans endure their deepest economic crisis since 2009, it’s not just President Jacob Zuma they blame. There’s a family whose name is increasingly the target of protest: the Guptas. As tens of thousands marched in October in South Africa’s biggest wave of nationwide anti-government protests since the African National Congress came to power, one poster, broadcast on the nation’s television channels, captured the public anger: […]
|By Matein Khalid| The plunge in crude oil after OPEC’s Vienna conclave, Dr. Draghi’s failure to resist Bundesbank pressure not to fire another ECB easy money bazooka, Wall Street’s junk bond debacle and an imminent rise in the Fed Funds rate for the first time since 2006 will all shape the next big trades in Planet Forex. The Euro has risen to 1.10 on Draghi’s failure to […]
At the heart of Korea’s Onsan Refinery lies a street called “A.I. Naimi Road,” an homage to Saudi Arabia’s oil minister. The reason: state-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co. holds a 65 percent stake in the complex. Taking a controlling interest last year in South Korea’s third-largest refinery highlights the shifting dynamics of the oil business. With crude prices down by more than half in the past two […]
As oil crashes through $35 a barrel in New York, some producers are already living with the reality of much lower prices. A mix of Mexican crudes is already valued at less than $28, an 11-year low, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Iraq is offering its heaviest variety of oil to buyers in Asia for about $25. In western Canada, some producers are selling for less […]
STRATEGICALLY TWO COUNTRIES NEED TO BE CLOSER
By Nantoo Banerjee
Trust is the key. Japanese Prime Shinzo Abe seems to have finally recognized that India could be fully trusted with technology transfer and large fund investments. It may have taken almost a quarter of a century since Osamo Suzuki chose India for small car production in equity collaboration with the government-owned Maruti Udyog for Japan to finally trust India to engage itself with the country for civil nuclear cooperation. But, Japan today is convinced that slow-and-steady-moving democratic India is probably the most trusted country for economic and technology cooperation outside the USA. The huge $12-billion Japanese long term soft credit commitment for a single project in India – the 550 km Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train service – along with proposal of technology transfer in defence production among 14 other ec
Two months after adding support for Microsoft Outlook, Hotmail and AOL Mail to its email app, Yahoo announced today that Gmail has also joined that list. The app can now connect users’ Gmail and Google Apps accounts to Yahoo Mail. Multiple mailbox support for Gmail within Yahoo Mail was launched in both the mobile app for Android and iOS and in a desktop browser version. Gmail is […]
|By Lawrence Williams| The ‘Nobody Cares’ quote was the theme of Grant Williams’ polished performance at Mines & Money London last week. Grant (no relation) is a Senior adviser to Vulpes Investment Management in Singapore – but is perhaps better known as the author of the always entertaining and enlightening Things that make you go hmm… newsletter. This has been published since 2009 and has become one […]
|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 […]
|By Arabian Post Staff| Participants at the World Strategy Summit in Abu Dhabi emphasized the importance of establishing an international platform for strategy, leadership, and innovation. This platform would contribute to building governmental and business sector leadership and would be based on a comprehensive vision to understand the nature of future opportunities and challenges. The platform could then be used to create measurable scientifically-based strategies that are […]
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 […]
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 […]
|By TAP Staff| Business confidence in the Middle East is at its lowest ebb for more than five years, according to the latest global survey of accountants. The Global Economic Conditions Survey (GECS) carried out jointly by ACCA (The Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) and IMA (the Institute of Management Accountants) for the third quarter of 2015 suggests that the renewed fall in oil prices is likely […]
|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 […]
Boston-based enterprise storage provider ClearSky Data said it has raised $27 million in a Series B investment round led by Polaris Partners, along with Akamai Technologies. The money will be used by ClearSky to refine its managed service delivery model for enterprise storage, which the company said combines the performance and availability of primary storage with the economics and scalability of the cloud. ClearSky made a splash […]
