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Gulf financial institutions have been exposed to US defaults, but on a relatively small scale. Worst-affected have been Dubai and Bahrain, with Qatar and Saudi Arabia apparently the least-affected. Foreign banks have slowed down their lending dramatically and local banks are having their international credit lines pulled, causing them to freeze inter-bank lending.

Despite the global financial downturn, Qatar Investment Authority remains busy. It led a capital injection of some $8.8bn into Credit Suisse Group. According to The Wall Street Journal, this boosts Qatar’s stake in the Swiss bank to around 10%, from just under 2%.

When Qatar bought 12 Dassault Mirage 2000-5 combat aircraft in the late 1990s it was catapulted into pole position as the world’s highest per capita defence spender. Nearly ten years after the first Mirages

Kaupthing stake; Eid meetings, greetings; Saudi meeting

Cosmo buys into Block 11, Taqa acquires North Sea acreage, green plans

QIA sticks with London real estate but spurns Wall Street

A growing international underwriting presence in Dubai, Qatar and other GCC countries has begun to transform the Middle East insurance market, participants told GSN. Credit crunch jitters are starting to affect the region, but there remains huge potential in several financial sectors, including the Gulf insurance market.

Following on plans to establish an investment fund with Indonesia (GSN 835/15), Qatar and Vietnam have announced a $1bn fund to invest in various sectors including agriculture. According to Vietnamese ambassador Phung The Long, Qatar Investment Authority will provide 90% of the fund’s equity. “We have exchanged

The senior Al-Thani leadership has been busy on the international front. Following a visit to Tehran by Emir Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Qatar denied it had invited Iran to attend this year’s December Gulf Co-operation Council summit.

The Libyan Investment Authority (LIA)‘s participation in First Energy Bank (FEB), whose emergence is analysed above, is part of a rapidly multiplying network of links between Libya’s fast-changing economy and the established oil economies of the Gulf (GSN 832/12, 815/1). While Libya is still in the process of setting up institutions to take charge of its huge financial reserves

Qatar's dominance as an LNG exporter is unlikely to be challenged in the foreseeable future, a leading gas sector project financier told GSN. There have been forecasts that the LNG

Some clouds overshadowing the region’s project finance market have been lifted with the closure of a $3.3bn limited recourse loan package for Qatar’s $3.8bn Ras Laffan C IWPP, and Nakilat has also got its gas carrier financing away.

Royal Bank of Scotland was financial adviser for the Ras Laffan C financing, marking yet another successful transaction in the region for the UK bank group’s project finance team. In May, RBS was appointed as financial adviser for one of Qatar’s

Now Arafat has gone, his detractors in the Gulf could provide more substantial backing for the Palestinians as part of a wider peace effort.

While the world focused on the US move to confirm their small Emirate as a key hub in its global military strategy, effectively replacing Saudi Arabia, Qatari voters on 29 April overwhelmingly approved the new Constitution presented by Emir Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani.