UAE: More Ups, Less Downs

What else could we say about UAE? It has reached almost all of its economic development visions. Generally, Economic-wise, UAE is making it one of the top regions in the world.



UAE, aside from being one of the top contenders for Islamic Financial Service Center, is also well-known of its fantastic architectural designs. Its buildings can be equated to that of the US skycrapers. Abu Dhabi, the center of UAE, is now decorated with praiseworthy establishments that no one could afford to argue against its beauty. Well, this is a total sign of UAE's development.

Nowadays, UAE is one of the most important regions in business partnership, be it governmental or private entities. Oil, being its major produced products, has been an important factor for them in establishing partnership with less-oil producing countries. Even US is trying to build up oil partnership with UAE.


We could now finally say that UAE is one of the developed regions in the world. But despite of this fact, it is still experiencing minor crisis brought about by the major global concerns. Inflation is one of their problems. But UAE seemed to be unaffected with it for as long as its stocks is still well-performing.

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Recession is Good News for UAE?

US Recession is good news for UAE, as some economists, as interviewed by Emirates Business, said it offers favorable oppurtunities for the UAE economics. Find out why?

The old adage used to be that when the US sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold, but economic dynamics have changed markedly over the past few years with the rise of sleeping giants such as India and China and the newfound confidence of the oil-rich Gulf.

That is not to say Asia will not be affected by a US slowdown, but its impact will be less severe than it would have been in the past.

Indeed, in its April World Economic Outlook, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) downgraded its economic forecasts for all regions apart from the Middle East, which it now says will see its GDP rise by 6.1 per cent in 2008.

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No Subprime Crisis If Islamic Principles Were Applied

If only the Islamic Principles were applied, Islamic Finance could have prevented the Subprime Crisis being sparked by the US Subprime mortgage, according to an Islamic scholar. but another scholar said that the US mortgage crisis is unthinkable under Islamic principles. Find out why...


“A crisis such as the mortgage one would technically be unthinkable in the Islamic capital
markets sector because it would be against Sharia principles to sell a debt against a debt.”

The subprime mortgage crisis had seen trillions of dollars traded without the backing of assets, he said.

“If such transactions followed the Islamic finance model it would have easily prevented the current economic crisis.”

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Meet the Arab World’s Most Powerful Woman

Forbes.com has named the world's most powerful women. One of this powerful women hails from Arabian Country. She Tops the 2008 Forbes Arabia list of the 50 most powerful Arab businesswomen. she is Salma Hareb....
list of top 10 most powerful women for 2008....

The Forbes Arabia list, which appears in the magazine’s May edition, is dominated by executives who run but do not own businesses, with six of the top 10 working in the banking and investment sectors.

Hareb is followed by Kuwait’s Maha Al Ghunaim, who chairs Global Investment House, and Saudi Arabia’s Lubna Olayan, CEO and General Manager of Olayan Financing Company, who topped the 2006 list.

At number four is Saudi Arabia’s Nahed Taher, founder and CEO of Gulf One Investment Bank, and at number five is Kuwait’s Sheikha Khaled Al Bahar, Vice-CEO of the National Bank of Kuwait. At number six is Egypt’s Sahar el Sallab, Vice-Chair of Commercial International Bank.

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UAE MARKETS: Slowly But Surely Gains

UAE, though slowly, is making a sure uptrend gains in the stock market, much better than any other markets who have been falling tremendously. A total gain of 3.35 percent were recorded sine the beginning of the year.

Arabtec continued to outperform the market and shot up by more than five per cent to a new record of Dh15.60.

Amlak Finance was also among the best performers by adding 3.53 per cent to its value to close at Dh4.98, followed by Dubai Financial Market, Tamweel and Dubai Investments, all ending the session with strong gains. The losers included Deyaar Development and Tabreed.

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UAE Wants Peaceful Nuclear Energy Program To Counter high Power Demand

Perhaps, the needs for more oil supply is quite alarming for the United Arab Emirates. Though, is among the 10 percent of the world's reserves, it is still pursuing for a peaceful nuclear energy program to resolute the natural gas supply shortage, as they consider it cheaper alternative than any other energy alternatives. The action is now in negotiation with the International Atomic energy Agency.

Power demand in the U.A.E. is surging as it uses record oil revenue to develop new industries and infrastructure. Abu Dhabi, the biggest of the U.A.E.'s seven emirates, will need to build additional power capacity this year to avoid a blackout in 2012, according to a study published last month by the Abu Dhabi Electricity & Water Co.

Abu Dhabi started importing natural gas from Qatar this year because its own deposits are too high in sulpher, making it too costly to process for power plants. U.A.E. power demand is rising 9 percent a year on an oil-fueled economic boom, Moody's Investors Service has reported.

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UAE market Still Strongly Stand

This week, UAE is the best gainer in the worl's market industry. It's records could probably arract more investors to put business here. UAE market is one among the few that firmly stand on its feet despite turmoil in the world's market.




These experts take an architect’s drawings and sketches of a proposed building, from which they create a scale model that then undergoes the ravages of a wind-tunnel testing. This enables wind engineers to measure the stresses and strains a high-rise will undergo several hundred feet from ground level.

Over the past 12 months, the UAE’s skyscraper-building frenzy has seen it surpass the building boom in other, larger countries such as China, Japan and India. And now it is second only to the United States in terms of business for wind engineering firms.

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DFM, The Biggest Earner for This Week

Dubai Financial Market has once again proved its stability record. For this week, its market earned the largest gained.






Du, the holder of the UAE's second mobile phone licence, gained 8.9 per cent. Investors seemed confident that the country's mobile market is continuing to expand rapidly despite its high level of penetration.

Saudi Arabia's main index, the TASI, gained 1.4 per cent to finish the week at 9,630 points despite falls at Sabic, Al-Rajhi and Kingdom Holdings, three of its largest stocks.

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UAE Stocks Gain For 2 Straight Sessions

UAE stocks have been attracting investors for its positive results for two consecutive sessions. It continued to win back a good gain with more than Dh2.72 billion worth of shares traded. The latest trend for UAE stocks are not only attracting investors' money, it is likewise transforming into more stabe and develop stocks among other countries in the world.




The Dubai Financial Market (DFM) was the heaviest traded stock, advancing 2.12 per cent to Dh5.29.

Emaar Properties, however, fell 0.46 per cent to Dh11.10. The real estate developer announced a decline in its first quarter revenue. Deyaar Development, the real estate arm of Dubai Islamic Bank, retreated as well 1.26 per cent to Dh2.35.

UAE stocks...

Middle East, Asia Economic Growth Explored

United Arab emirates and Asia are two global regions that have been progressing economically. The two, which start building names in terms of economic growth were being highlighted at a key forum in Dubai, emphasizing their global role in economic growth.




"Looking ahead, it is difficult to assess what the future holds, but one thing seems certain - he Middle East and Asia are moving fast along the path of economic growth.

"The two regions are integrating more closely with the global economy, and the rise in their domestic consumption and investment are providing a counter-balance to the global slowdown," she said.

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UAE Mortgage Market Expected to Leap This Year

By the end of this year, expert foresee a leaping success of the UAE Mortgage Market.
This is due to the rising popularity in house financing sector.




Addressing the problem of understanding GCC clients’ customs and how best to meet their needs, Gray said advisors who make assumptions about the needs of GCC families based on preconceived notions about GCC demographics will miss the mark. She said wealthy GCC families face particular challenges since much of their wealth is relatively new and there are new generations coming up in a globalized world.

Gray noted the GCC is made up of six countries with different economies and different cultures and emphasized that financial advisors need to take time to understand each country’s characteristics and each family’s dynamics.

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On Profit-booking: UAE Markets Drags Down

Dubai stocks dragged into relatively low record due to profit-booking. Generally, UAE stocks decline. Due to this alarming condition of UAE stocks, there are reports that Dubai's Emaar Properties maight also decline.

Dubai Financial Market (DFM), which announced a 231 per cent increase in its first quarter net profit, dropped 0.58 per cent to Dh5.15.

In Abu Dhabi, investors cashed in on the gains made in the past two sessions, especially in the real estate and energy sectors.

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Financial Literacy May Help UAE Financial Market

April is declared as Financial Literacy Month to backed up the subprime crisis not only in US but also in the world market. Since almost all countries are directly affected by the financial crisis, 92 countries attended the lauching of the program designed to educate people in saving their markets. UAE, though, not directly afftected with the trend has still to adopt the program, since, they too, have encountered slight problems on their financial stability. Would this help the ailing economic markets of some affected countries?

Although the UAE's Federal National Council, Saudi Arabia's Shura Council and Kuwait's parliament aired their worries last year, amidst some calls to set limits on bank lending, nothing significant has been done to curtail the growing credit culture in the region.

The political establishments and regulators are aware that banks are not entirely to blame. Banks do follow an installment income ratio (IIR), which ensures that individuals are not debt-trapped. However, it is often individuals who hoodwink the system through multiple means of personal leverage.

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DFM Slumps for 2 Days

What's wrong with Dubai Financial Market? After years of winning the "green" index in the stock market, it landed a bad fall from two days. however, investors should not be alarmed of the decline because it was immediately backed up by Abu Dhabi's two biggest company, which make the red index turned into green.

The Dubai Financial Market fell 0.84 per cent to 5,436 points as Emaar, du, DFM, Emirates NBD and Dubai Islamic Bank all declined. There was better news on the Abu Dhabi Securities Market, which climbed 0.47 per cent to 4,760 points after etisalat and National bank of Abu Dhabi both surged more than one per cent.

“Further falls were not expected because other regional exchanges are doing quite well,” said Alaa el-Din Moustafa, EFG-Hermes chief dealer.

He said the ongoing spate of initial public offerings, both domestically and in the wider Gulf, were draining liquidity from the market. “These have left the market short of money,” Moustafa said.

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UAE Plans To Create New Law on Islamic Finance Activities

The financial activity of UAE was in accordance with the federal law issued in 1985. Arab nations have been following what is being written on the spoon-feed law from the US. Today, that US economy is almost in recession, UAE is planning to replace it with a new one, a Law that would highlight Islamic precepts, according to a top UAE official.

"It has been a very long time since this law was introduced, and experience has proven that the individual Sharia boards within the Islamic financial institutions are more efficient," Obaid Humaid Al Tayer, UAE Minister of State for Financial Affairs, told the Federal National Council (FNC) on Tuesday.

With the rapid expansion of Islamic banks, the UAE is becoming a centre for Islamic finance.

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"Islamic banks have grown from two in 2000 to seven in 2007, and we are still considering licensing the conversion of some institutions, and only one new licence for the emirate of Ajman was issued, while the number of Islamic investment companies has grown from one in 2000 to ten in 2007.

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Despite Blooming oil industry: Gulf's Unemployment , still a problem

Unemployment in oil-rich Gulf Arab States is still rampant. It indicates that despite impressive economic growth, local citizens are still grasping to have a decent life here. At least to land a decent job, Arab States considered unemployment as a hard problem to tackle.

"Nowhere is it done in such a way," Bu Hulaiga said of the influx of foreign workers into Gulf states, where expatriates comprise nearly 40 percent of a total population of about 37 million.

"It is not acceptable," he told AFP, noting that in 2007 Saudi Arabia issued a record 1.7 million new working visas.

The largest GCC country in both size and population, and the world's richest in oil resources, Saudi Arabia has about 6.5 million foreigners among a population of nearly 24 million.

But despite its wealth, unemployment among Saudis themselves was 11 percent in 2007, according to official figures, just one percent down from the previous year.

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America's Dell to sign partnership with Dubai's Tecom

One of the world's leading computer maker, Dell, will be signing an agreement to bulid a strategic partnership with Dubai's tecom Investments, if both would agree after the discussion of the possible partnership. But Michael Dell, did not elaborate detalis of his first visit to Dubai, though, he said he had a good conversation with the government of Dubai regarding the project.


Abdulatif Almulla, CEO of Tecom Investments, said Dell's visit clearly reflects Dell's focus on the needs of the Middle Eastern market and its commitment to supporting this key region during the next phase of its growth. "With the overall IT spend in the Middle East and Africa expected to exceed $40 billion in 2008 and with the Gulf Cooperation Council accounting for nearly 23 per cent of the total, the region's IT sector has significantly evolved into one of the key players in the global IT industry. We will be working closely with Dell to find ways to bring the benefits of its best practice approaches to this region," said Abdulatif.

According to him, IT business in the UAE posted an annul growth of 10 per cent to hit $1 billion. Dell has been crucial to this growth, he added.

The US company, which set up presence in the UAE 11 years ago, has been operating from Dubai Internet City for the past seven years. He said the Middle East and Gulf region is one of the fastest growing market, but declined to disclose the size of the business generated from the region. Last year, Dell's global revenues surged to $61 billion, while profits rose to $3.4 billion.

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Forbes.com includes 11 UAE companies in the lists of World's biggest companies

The emerging developments in UAE have made it to the list of Forbes.Com Magazine's " World's Biggest Companies. From third world countries, UAE is now known of its rising developments. From among the 11 UAE companies, Emaar Properties, that ranks 726th on the list, leads the UAE companies.




Other companies are National Bank of Abu Dhabi (910), Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (1,025), Dubai Islamic Bank (1,055), Mashreq (1,069), First Gulf Bank (1,197), DP World (1,225), Dubai Financial Market (1,387), Union
National Bank (1,607) and Aldar Properties (1,730).

HSBC Holdings leads this year’s global 2,000 in size, moving past Citigroup, which is now ranked 24.Forbes magazine has compiled the rankings on the basis of a composite score of sales, profit, assets and market capitalisation.

HSBC is followed by industrial conglomerate General Electric, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and ExxonMobil, all four from the US.

According to Forbes, the Global 2000 companies have combined revenues of $30 trillion (Dh110.1trn), $2.4trn of profit, $119trn in assets and $39trn in market capitalisation.

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UAE Financial Sector lacks "skilled" human capital

If there is a critical shortage of food in some Asian nations, critical shortage of oil around the world, critical financial crisis everywhere, it is also possible that these countries are in critical shortage of experienced human resources to skillfully managed the system. This shortage has been felt in the Gulf region, and even around the world, especially in financial and banking sector.This was the argument being aired by some HR experts during a three -day conference.


Zafar Aziz Osmani, group executive for HR and organisation development at Habib Bank Ltd, Pakistan's biggest private bank, stated this in a conference yesterday where other HR experts argued for more investments in human capital.

He was speaking at the 2nd Annual HR Strategies in Banking and Finance, which was organised by Fleming Gulf, a global business intelligence company. The three-day conference, which ends today, hosted at least 60 industry experts in human resources from across the Gulf region.

"The way forward to developing a competitive edge is to have an effective resource management system, a technology optimisation programme and an 'out of the box' solutions to human-resource issues," Osmani said.

He added that HR executives must come up with mechanisms on how to deal effectively with such challenges as increased competition in the financial sector, rapid changes in policies and procedures and the shortage of quality human resources.

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UAE Stockmarkets jumped; ADSM hopes to rebound

In a general assesment, United Arab Emirates stockmarket is doing well. It has even recorded a leaped of almost 140 points. Now, investors are confidently hoping for a positive outcome in the second queater. Specifically, the Dubai Financial Market General Index also recorded 1.53 percent increased in its stocks. On the other hand, the Abu Dhabi Securities Market has a negative record for three sessions.


The capital’s bourse increased by 1.27 per cent to 4,614 points, limiting its losses to 1.07 per cent since Sunday.

“With the start of the new month, there’s no pressure on brokerages to liquidate positions,” said Ayman El Saheb, Darahem Financial Brokerage director of operations.

“Some people took the initiative to start buying, but I strongly advise investors to learn from their mistakes and acquire stocks according to fundamentals, not rumour and speculation.

“Question marks remain over the market and the way it gained momentum yesterday was unexplained – there was no news to back it up.

“Perhaps people jumped the gun to lock in prices before institutions return to the market in a big way, but we can’t say for sure what drove the market up.”

Emaar was the prime driver of the UAE market renaissance, leaping 2.73 per cent to Dh11.25, with the property developer claiming more than a fifth of Dubai’s Dh1.32 billion turnover.

“The market found very strong support above 5,150 points after sliding downwards for some weeks on low volumes and a lack of positive news,” said Chahir Hosni, EFG-Hermes sales manager.

Dubai’s biggest three gainers were all insurance stocks, with Dubai Islamic top of the tree thanks to a near-maximum 14.83 per cent rise.

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UAE banking sector remains strong

UAE bank sector are still performing very well, despite its continued exposure to possible downturn in the real state, as the Global Investment Plan reported that a meager 23 percent only has gone to business personal loans and consumption. Despite the possible downturn and global economic backlog, banking sector have still benifited from it and actually remained strong.

The total assets of banks operating in the country have grown by 43.4 per cent to reach Dh1,232.5bn at the end of 2007, against Dh859.6bn at the end of 2006, making it the largest among the GCC countries.

This has come on the back of a strong year-on-year growth of 34.7 per cent reported at the end of 2006. Banking assets have grown at a compound annual growth rate, or CAGR, of 35.4 per cent in the four years from 2003 to 2007.

However, foreign assets of the banking sector witnessed a decline of 1.2 per cent in the first nine months of 2007 after having increased by 32.5 per cent to Dh231.94bn in 2006. Foreign liabilities increased by 37.8 per cent as at the end of September 2007 to reach Dh244.9bn.

“This has come on the back of a massive increase of 108.5 per cent recorded in 2006. As a result, the UAE banking sector has become a net borrower with net foreign liabilities of banks standing at Dh15.6bn as compared to net foreign assets of Dh54.3bn at the end of 2006 and signifies the increased borrowing by UAE banks from the external market,” Global said.

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