#GCC and #MiddleEast Finance News: 2 Mar 2012

Friday, 2 March 2012

RPT-EXCLUSIVE-Iran starts paying Indian exporters in rupees - Yahoo!

India's exporters have begun receiving the first rupee payments from Iran, Indian
government and trade sources said on Thursday, kicking off a
mechanism to skirt Western sanctions which have made doing
business with Tehran tougher.
About $3 billion in Iranian import arrears have accumulated
since December 2010 when a previous payment conduit was closed
under pressure from Washington, which is using sanctions to try
to stop Tehran's contentious nuclear programme.
Payments to Indian exporters are being remitted through
Iran's Bank Parsian which has opened an account with India's UCO
bank, the sources said. Bank Parsian is among private Iranian
banks that are free from sanctions against Iran's state-owned
banks.

Brent slips to $126 as Saudi supply fears ease | Reuters

Brent crude futures slipped to $126 on Friday, coming off an 11-month high, as fears of a supply disruption from Saudi Arabia eased and the market focused on lower seasonal demand for oil in the coming months.

Oil prices had surged nearly 5 percent on Thursday after an Iranian report of a pipeline fire at top exporter Saudi Arabia sparked a buying frenzy. Prices later pared gains after CNBC cited a Saudi oil official as saying the report was untrue.

Front-month Brent slipped 20 cents to $126.00 a barrel by 0226 GMT, after settling up $3.54 at $126.20 in the previous session, its highest since April 8, 2011.

Moody's upgrades outlook for Abu Dhabi's Aldar - Real Estate - ArabianBusiness.com

Aldar Properties has had the outlook for its ratings upgraded from negative to positive by Moody's Investors Service following a debt bailout by the Abu Dhabi government.
The developer, which posted full-year net profit of $175m in 2011 following multi-billion debts the previous year, had its corporate family and probability of default ratings upgraded.
Martin Kohlhase, vice president - senior analyst at Moody's , said: "The asset transaction agreements with the government of Abu Dhabi announced in December eliminate significant market and execution risk and will allow Aldar to reduce its debt load to an estimated AED4.5bn by 2015."

Bid to let those less fortunate try their hand at enterprise - The National

Academic dropouts, social welfare recipients and former prison inmates are among a pool of underserved UAE nationals who are being groomed to become budding entrepreneurs and small-business owners.

The Khalifa Fund for Enterprise Development, which has provided almost US$650 million (Dh176.9m) in financial support since it launched five years ago, has been testing various "social entrepreneurship" programmes.

These have already been used to train more than 380 residents of Abu Dhabi to tackle entrepreneurial activities and are now rolling out or being considered for expansion across all of the emirates.

Legal battle hangs over hotel chain in Dubai - The National

Workers are stripping down signage from a large hotel in the Barsha area of Dubai, a part of the city that has become a hub for fledgling hotel chains and budget properties.

The property had been branded the Layia Oak Hotel and Suites since its opening in November 2008 as the first lodging under the Layia Hospitality hotel chain, based in the emirate.

But last week, the six hotels in the UAE that were under Layia's management were taken over by a newly formed Dubai company called Time Hotels, as the partners in the hotel chain have become locked in a legal battle, says the chief executive of Layia Hospitality.

Brent slips to $126 as Saudi supply fears ease | Reuters

Saudi Arabia: Out of the comfort zone | The Economist

CUSTOMERS arrive at a 24-hour supermarket in the centre of Riyadh, the Saudi capital, shortly before midnight, but little shopping takes place. Small groups of young men and women cruise the aisles eyeing each other. Interest in items on the shelves is cursory at best. In the car park outside they continue their flirtation until the police show up. Mingling between the sexes is discouraged in Saudi Arabia yet impossible to ban. “We chat online, but if we want to meet face-to-face we come here,” says a man in his early 20s.

The kingdom’s larger cities are brimming with social friction and furtive action of this kind. Much of it is not explicitly political, but it hints at the strength of discontent bubbling below the surface. Growing wealth has raised the aspirations and political awareness of the country’s 25m people. Some rail against corruption, echoing the complaints of demonstrators in Egypt and Tunisia, whereas others strain at social rules imposed half a century ago when the country was rural and poor.

gulfnews : Dubai Islamic Bank's shares fall further

Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB) fell for the third time after the UAE's largest Sharia-compliant lender said it will cut its dividend payment in accordance with Central Bank advice.
The DIB shares declined 1.4 per cent to Dh2.19 in Dubai. The benchmark DFM General Index dropped 1.64 per cent. The dividend for last year will be 10 fils a share instead of the 15 fils the bank proposed last month, it said in a statement to Nasdaq Dubai yesterday.

gulfnews : UAE market 'not immune to pressures'

The UAE's market fundamentals remain solid, but not immune to global economic headwinds, senior executives said Thursday at the Global Financial Markets Forum in Abu Dhabi.
The local economy has slowed in recent years with several key infrastructure projects either cancelled or put on hold after falling victim to the global financial crisis.
Several state-linked entities, including Drydocks World and Jebel Ali Free Zone Authority, are in the process of restructuring their debts while the UAE's equity markets, aside from a recent bull rally, have seen volumes plunge in the last few years on a lack of investor appetite for risk.