Gulf begins tentative earnings recovery

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After a grim last three months of 2008, when some feared the world was set for a rerun of the Great Depression, year-on-year Gulf corporate earnings figures for the fourth quarter of 2009 look relatively rosy.

However, the quarter-on-quarter figures look a lot less attractive.

With slightly more than half of Gulf companies having reported their earnings, Markaz, the Kuwaiti investment bank, estimates that profits slumped 44 per cent in the last three months of 2009 compared with the third quarter.