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Finance, economics, markets and trade news from the Middle East. All the important stories, exclusive interviews, plus authoritative opinion and analysis

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Finance news

Turkey lira reserves

JPMorgan backs bounce in Turkey’s lira as key 2024 bet

Investment bank JPMorgan on Tuesday backed a bounce in Turkey’s lira as one of its key emerging market bets for 2024. The value of Turkey’s currency has plummeted in recent years, but a screeching 180-degree change of policy direction following President Tayyip Erdogan’s re-election win this year has seen interest rates hiked significantly, creating more […]

Saudi Real Estate Refinance Company said the issuance had garnered interest from institutional investors

PIF’s Saudi Real Estate issues $933m sukuk

Sukuk worth SAR3.5 billion ($933.17 million) to expand funding in Saudi Arabia’s real estate sector has been issued by the Saudi Real Estate Refinance Company. The offering from the company, which is wholly owned by the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund, makes up the final two tranches under its SAR20 billion government-guaranteed sukuk programme.  The issuance […]

A tourist at Petra. Jordan's budget deficit was expected to fall to 2.1% of GDP next year from 2.6% this year

Jordan spending forecast at $17.5bn in draft budget

Jordan’s state spending is forecast at 12.4 billion dinars ($17.5 billion) in its draft 2024 budget, finance minister Mohamad Al-Ississ said on Wednesday, supported by a strong showing in International Monetary Fund (IMF) backed reforms. Al-Ississ said growth was expected to be around 2.6 percent in 2024, the same level forecast for this year, as […]

Rawafid Al-Mustaqbal Investment Company will provide Saudi Cable Company with SAR110m to purchase copper and aluminium

Saudi Cable Co seeks more time to deliver rescue plan

Saudi Cable Company, which suspended trading in its shares earlier this month, has requested an extension to the deadline for submission of its financial restructuring proposal to the courts, as bosses scramble to finalise a rescue plan. The company, which owns manufacturing facilities in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Turkey, said at the start of November […]

MBC is one the largest media and entertainment companies in the Mena region, with its content reaching over 150 million people every week

Saudi media company MBC Group to float 10% in IPO 

Saudi media major MBC Group plans to launch an initial public offering (IPO) on the Saudi Exchange (Tadawul). The announcement comes after the Capital Market Authority (CMA) approved the company’s plan to offer 33.25 million ordinary shares, representing 10 percent of its share capital. The offering price will be determined at the end of the […]

GCC leaders gathered in Riyadh last month. Free trade talks with the UK are continuing

UK-GCC free trade deal is still best bet, says minister

Britain’s investment minister has told AGBI he still supports a free trade agreement between the UK and the GCC, despite the protracted negotiations and calls for Gulf states to strike bilateral deals instead.  Speaking on the sidelines of the Arab British Economic Summit in London on Monday, Dominic Johnson, a minister of state in the […]

Saudi Minister of Finance Mohammed al-Jadaan Video length: 06:55

Foreign investment flows to Saudi Arabia suffer drop

Foreign direct investment to Saudi Arabia in the second quarter of 2023 stood at SAR6.2 billion ($1.65 billion), 21 percent down from the previous year and at a three-year low, a report said this week.  The figures, published by Saudi business news site Argaam and based on ministry of investment data, showed investment down from […]

PureHealth has this year acquired Circle Health Group in the UK and Ardent Health Services in the US

PureHealth plans to launch IPO on Abu Dhabi exchange

Healthcare provider PureHealth Holding has announced plans to launch an initial public offering (IPO) on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange to fuel its global expansion efforts. The listing, likely to be in December, is subject to regulatory approvals, the UAE state-run Wam news agency reported. Existing shareholders are Alpha Dhabi Holding and International Holding Company […]

Turkey’s central bank increased the inflation forecast for 2023 to 65 percent from its previous estimate of 58 percent

Turkey bank reserves hit highest level since 2014 at $135bn

The Turkish central bank’s total reserves rose $6 billion last week to $134.5 billion, the highest since September 2014, Reuters reported, citing calculations from four bankers. President Tayyip Erdoğan appointed a former Wall Street banker, Hafize Gaye Erkan, as governor of the country’s central bank in June. Since then, the bank has embarked on a […]

Bahrain non-oil sector grew sharply, including transport

Turkish bank backs exporters with $34bn in funding

The state-owned Türk Eximbank, Turkey’s largest export credit and credit insurance institution, has provided financing worth $33.6 billion to exporters in the first 10 months of 2023, as the country’s trade with Gulf countries continues to grow. Turkey’s trade minister, Ömer Bolat said in a post on the social messaging platform X (formerly Twitter) that the […]

The Sharjah government's capex is expected to remain 'relatively high' at about 15% of government spending in 2023

Dubai growth spills over to neighbouring Sharjah

S&P Global Ratings has affirmed ‘BBB-/A-3’ ratings on Sharjah, driven by UAE’s buoyant oil and non-oil activity supporting growth in the emirate. “We expect Sharjah’s budgetary performance to gradually stabilise over 2023-2026,” the ratings agency said in a report. The primary fiscal deficit – deficit excluding debt interest payments – is forecast to trend toward […]

Dubai Taxi Company's offer price is expected to be announced on November 30

Dubai Taxi’s market value forecast at $1.25bn on listing

Dubai Taxi Company, a unit of the state-owned Roads and Transport Authority, has set the price range for its initial public offering (IPO) at AED1.80 to AED1.85 ($0.49 to $ 0.50) per share. This gives a market capitalisation of between AED4.5 billion and AED4.6 billion at the time of listing. The subscription period for retail […]

The superpowers' preoccupation with domestic affairs in 2024 is not expected to have a major negative impact on Middle East businesses

US-China tensions among risks facing Middle East

The divide between China and the US is one of the top five global risks facing businesses in the coming year, according to consultancy Control Risks.  But commentators said the Middle East would continue to engage economically and politically with both superpowers, with little negative impact on trade flows.  Control Risks’ annual “RiskMap” forecast highlights […]

E-commerce accounts for a comparatively small amount of sales in Jordan, but the sector is attracting venture capital funding

E-commerce beats fintech to Jordan VC funding top spot

The e-commerce sector accounts for the biggest share of Jordan’s venture capital funding, bucking the dominance of fintechs across the wider Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region. E-commerce/retail has attracted 20 percent of Jordan’s total funding, and 17 percent of deals, between 2018 and 2022, according to a report by Jordan’s Ministry of Digital […]

PIF intends to divest stakes in its portfolio companies to bolster the economic transformation under Vision 2030

Foreign investment in Saudi capital market reaches $93bn

Foreign investment in the Saudi capital market reached SAR347.01 billion ($92.52 billion) in 2022, up from SAR305.34 billion in 2021 and SAR86.86 billion in 2018, according to the kingdom’s market regulator. Overseas investors constituted 14.2 percent of the total free float value in the Tadawul All Share Index (Tasi) last year, compared to 3.77 percent […]

Istanbul's Grand Bazaar. The number of unemployed aged 15 and over declined by 161,000 to 3.2 million

Turkey’s unemployment rate falls for third straight quarter

The unemployment rate in Turkey has continued to fall in the third quarter of 2023 to 9.2 percent, down 0.5 percentage points quarter on quarter, the country’s statistical authority said. The unemployment rate stood at 10 percent in the same quarter last year, Daily Sabah newspaper reported, citing Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) data. The number […]

The UAE minister of climate change and environment, Mariam Almheiri, right

Agtech in spotlight as Mena startup funding recovers

Startup funding in the Mena region in October remained subdued on a year-on-year basis, but agtech is one of the areas set to shine. Mena startups raised $156 million in October, compared to $646 million raised in October 2022, but vastly up on the $36 million raised in September, according to data from Wamda, a […]

Markets find it 'very hard' to price geopolitical events, said UBS wealth management CIO Mark Haefele

Investors unsure on pricing Gaza conflict, says UBS

Global investors and markets are “not sure” how to price in the fallout from the Israel-Gaza conflict, according to Swiss private wealth bank UBS.  “It’s very hard for the markets to price these events,” Mark Haefele, chief investment officer in the global wealth management division at Swiss bank UBS, told reporters on Thursday. “So far, […]

Sultan of Oman Haitham bin Tariq. The IMF praised the strength of Oman's banking sector

Oman’s economy to recover next year after 2023 slump

Oman’s economic growth will rebound in 2024 on higher oil production and robust non-oil growth, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said. The Sultanate’s GDP growth is forecast to slow down this year to 1.3 percent from 4.3 percent in 2022 due to Opec+-related oil cuts. The Washington-based institution has forecast Oman’s growth to recover […]

Ades Holding plans to sell 338.72 million shares

PIF given ‘very strong’ rating and outlook by Fitch

Fitch Ratings has affirmed the long-term foreign- and local-currency issuer default ratings (IDR) of the Public Investment Fund (PIF) at ‘A+’, giving the Saudi soveriegn wealth fund a stable outlook. The affirmation reflects Fitch’s unchanged assessment of “very strong” status, ownership and control, support track record and socio-political implications of default. Fitch does not expect […]