Middle East ETF News Older than One Year
Moody's updates on review of government support for UAE corporates
January 7, 2010--As previously announced, Moody's Investors Service has today published a Special Comment explaining the criteria it is applying to its ongoing review of the support assumptions for all corporate government-related issuers (GRIs) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
This is in line with Moody's press release from 9 December 2009, in which the rating agency placed on review for downgrade the ratings of all GRIs owned by Abu Dubai and the federal government of the UAE and also announced that it would in due course publish a Special Comment expanding on its criteria and approach.
Source; AME Info
DFM closes up almost 1%
January 07, 2010,-The Dubai Financial Market (DFM) closed up by 0.95% to 1,837.14 on the last day of trading of the week.
Six stocks fell, five held steady and 19 rose. Arabtec was the day's biggest gainer, closing up 6.25% to Dhs2.89.
Source: AME Info
ADX slips 0.32%
January 7, 2009-The Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) closed up by 0.32% to 2,775.50. Eight stocks fell, eight held steady and 12 rose. Union Cement Co (UCC) had the biggest rise of the day, moving up by 8.97% to Dhs1.71.
Conversely Gulf Cement Co (GCEM) was the day's biggest loser, falling 5.81% to Dhs1.62.
Source: AME Info
GCC single currency possible by 2015
January 7, 2010--Mohamed al-Mazrooei, GCC Assistant Secretary General for Economic Affairs has said that if the Council's member states speed up the process, a single Gulf Arab currency could be launched in 2015, Reuters has reported.
Mazrooei's comment is the first from the GCC secretariat that sets a potential new timetable for the single currency's launch after the bloc abandoned an initial 2010 deadline.
Source: AME Info
Kuwait Parliament okays consumer loan bailout bill
January 7, 2010--A bill that would force the Kuwaiti government to buy all KD6.7bn ($23.3bn) of consumer loans has been approved by the country's parliament, Bloomberg has reported.
The plan, which the government opposes, also includes writing off the interest and rescheduling the payments over a maximum of 15 years. "The bill includes drawbacks that threaten the stability of Kuwait's banking system as it encourages disrespect of contracts which would result in destabilizing financial transactions," Finance Minister Mustafa al-Shimali told parliament before the vote.
Source: AME Info
Qatar Gets Hot Over $1 Billion Solar Power Plant
January 7, 2010--The Qatari government has started negotiations with investors over the construction of a $1 billion solar power plant.
Despite having one of the largest natural gas reserves in the world, the small Gulf state is taking steps to diversify into renewable energy production.
“Since they started their liquefied natural gas and gas exports they found a huge increase in their own domestic energy gas demands,” David Ledesma, Research Fellow at The Oxford Institute for Energy Studies told The Media Line in reference to countries such as Oman, Abu Dhabi and Qatar.
Source: AHN
Egypt to explore 520 oil and gas wells
January 7, 2010--Egypt's oil ministry has announced plans to drill 520 exploratory oil and gas wells worth $2bn in 2010, KUNA has reported.
The plan includes drilling 36 gas wells in the country's northern delta coast, the southern governorates of Qena and Aswan, west of the Nile River, and the southern border areas. Eight new gas fields are set to be operational in Egypt.
Source: AME Info
GCC central banks halt loans to public sector
January 7, 2010--Central Banks in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait have stopped lending to the public sector with effect from January 1, 2010, the Peninsula has reported.
The move is part of the plans of the four GCC states to set up a common monetary union. According to the draft GCC common monetary union agreement, the central banks of member-states are prohibited from lending to public companies to free a future regional central bank from its role of subsidising the public sector of member-states in line with the European model.
Source: AME Info
CBB Treasury Bills oversubscribed
January 7, 2010--The Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) announces that this week's BD25m issues of Government Treasury Bills has been oversubscribed by 215%.
The bills, carrying a maturity of 91 days, are issued by the CBB, on behalf of the Kingdom of Bahrain.
The issue date of the bills is 6 January 2010 and the maturity date is 7 April 2010.
The weighted average rate of interest is 0.97% compare with 1.08%, for the previous issue on 23 December 2009.
Source: AME Info
DP World looks to list on LSE
January 6, 2010--DP World has announced plans to seek a premium listing on the London Stock Exchange in the second quarter of 2010, whilst maintaining the existing primary listing on Nasdaq Dubai. "
"DP World would evaluate all available options to address its continued disappointment with the market's valuation of the company," the ports operator said in a statement.
Source: AME Info
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