Search results

According to the latest Moody’s Investors Service report, Islamic finance is enjoying soaring demand, but requires more sophistication. Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank chief executive Tirad Mahmoud has said that Islamic finance will continue to grow despite the current global financial crisis. Jeddah-based Islamic Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) has announced plans to establish an Islamic bank. The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) has agreed to lend Tunisia a $195m to build two gas turbines.

Kuwait has announced plans to dramatically reduce the number of foreign workers over the next decade. A 19 March statement by minister of social affairs and labour Thikra Al-Rashidi said the government would oversee a reduction of 100,000 foreign labourers per year for ten years – seeing the balance of nationals to foreigners redressed to roughly half and half. “The strategy envisages bringing down the total number of expatriate workers to only one million in 10 years,” Rashidi said.

Shaikan operator Gulf Keystone Petroleum (GKP) has confirmed rumours that it is potentially for sale. In a 25 February strategic update, the company said it had “recently engaged in discussions with a number of parties in relation to possible asset transactions or a sale of the company”. Though it stressed the talks were preliminary and a sale far from certain, shares leapt from 35.50p at close of trading on 24 February to 54.75p by the end of 25 February, after Sky News broke the story in the early hours that day.

Dubai ruler Mohammed Bin Rashid has unveiled ostentatious plans for a massive city bearing his name, and containing 100 hotels and the world’s largest shopping mall. While the revival of the mega-project says a lot about Dubai’s mood, there are questions to be asked about the wisdom of extravagance so soon after the debt crisis

National Bank of Bahrain (NBB) has made an offer to buy out the other shareholders in Bahrain Islamic Bank (BISB). NBB, which is majority-owned by the government, already owns 29% of the Islamic lender; the state holds a further 29% in BISB via the Social Insurance Organisation. BISB shareholders are asked to accept BD0.117 in cash for each share they hold (slightly below the current trading price of BD0.120) or take NBB shares instead.

Saudi Arabia avoided a clash with Cairo in April 2011, when Saudi business tycoon Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal returned 75,000 feddans (77,850 acres) of a total 100,000 feddans of agricultural land bought in 1997 by his Kingdom Agricultural Development Company.

Muscat’s criminal court has sentenced 23 people, including former government officials, to between one and three years for their part in a scandal involving the misappropriation of land in Duqm. According to Omani press reports, on 16 February, a former undersecretary at the housing ministry and the former secretary-general at the Supreme Committee for Town Planning were each given three-year terms for abuse of office. Omani newspapers said those also accused included the governor of Duqm and his assistant and various others employed by the government. All of those convicted were fined OR100 ($260), and offered OR1,000 bail, and all are expected to appeal.

The International Monetary Fund has slightly increased its forecast for global economic growth this year, predicting 3.9% growth for 2018, up 0.2% on its previous forecast issued last October. It follows a slightly better than expected performance for the world economy in 2017, which grew by 3.7% overall – that momentum is expected to carry into 2018 and 2019.Growth in the Middle East is expected to pick up in 2018 and 2019, with stronger oil prices helping a recovery in domestic demand in oil-exporting countries.

Recent comments by Dubai officials have sparked speculation that the emirate will privatise key assets to pay off its $110bn of debt.

In the coming months, Lebanon’s Blom Bank will open its first branches in Iraq. According to the bank’s chairman, Saad Azhari, it has approval for branches in Baghdad and Erbil and expects to start business in both cities before the end of the year. Iraq may be a new market for the Lebanese bank, but it will find plenty of familiar faces when it gets there. At least six other Lebanese banks are already active in the country, vying for business alongside dozens of other home-grown and foreign-owned institutions, and more are coming all the time. According to recent media reports, the UK’s Standard Chartered has also gained approval to open branches in Baghdad, Basra and Erbil.

The London art market made a quiet return in June, but with an auction record for an Islamic manuscript, when a 15th century Persian Quran sold at Christie’s for £7m ($8.8m), with fees included. This was ten times the estimate and almost double the previous £3.7m record for a Quran, recorded at Christie’s London last year. The Art Newspaper said sources suggested the Quran may be going to Saudi Arabia. Christie’s declined to comment.

Ras Al-Khaimah has appointed auditing and advisory firm KPMG to do a feasibility study for the privatisation of Ras Al-Khaimah International Airport, MEED reported. The RAK government aims to increase the airport’s capacity to 3.5m passengers/yr from 1.5 passengers/yr – not least to serve the emirate’s new free trade area, Ras Al-Khaimah Economic Zone.

Qatar has bought two buildings in Paris worth a combined €600m plus ($760m), one of which houses the Figaro Group and satellite offices of the US embassy.

Qatar launched its first satellite on 30 August. The Eutelsat 25B/Es’hail 1 satellite, jointly owned by French-based Eutelsat Communications and Qatar’s Es’hailSat, was launched by an Ariane rocket, and is due to go into service at 25.5˚ East at the end of October. It will replace the Eutelsat 25C satellite, and is intended to serve broadcasters, businesses and public agencies in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia.

Towering over the London skyline, the gleam of the Shard can be seen for miles around. When Western Europe’s tallest building, a 310 metre (1,016ft) vertical city of offices, restaurants, apartments and luxury hotel rooms, is officially inaugurated on 5 July, Britons can expect a spectacle: lasers and searchlights will striate the night sky as the London Philharmonic thrashes out the dramatic crescendos of Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man.