Thursday, July 12, 2018Shawwal 28, 1439 AH

BUSINESSGULF TIMES

Libya resumes oil exports from key ports

4 TERMINALS | Page 2

QIIB bags ‘Best Islamic Retail Services in Qatar’ award by World Union of Arab Bankers

QUALITY OF INTEGRATED SERVICES: Page 16

5G PROJECT | Page 4

Australiaset to ban Huawei

QNB Group reports 7% y-o-y rise in H1 profi t to QR7.1bnQNB Group has reported

a 7% year-on-year in-crease in net profi t to

QR7.1bn in the fi rst six months of this year.

Total assets increased by 10% to QR846bn, the highest-ever achieved by the group, a bank spokesman said, adding the key driver of total assets growth was loans and advances, which grew by 9% to QR604bn.

This was mainly funded by customer deposits, which in-creased by 9% to QR614bn, helping QNB Group main-tain loans-to-deposits ratio at 98.4% at the end of June 30, 2018.

Asserting that the group’s drive for operational efficien-cy is yielding cost-savings in addition to sustainable rev-enue generating sources, the spokesman said this helped QNB improve the efficiency ratio (cost-to-income ratio) to 27.2%, from 29.3% last year, which is considered one of the best among the large financial institutions in the Middle East and Africa.

The group’s strong recovery eff orts helped reduce the net impairment charge on QNB’s loan book during the year, dem-onstrating strong credit quality of the bank’s asset base.

The stock of non-performing loans ratio was at 1.8%, re-fl ecting the high quality of the group’s loan book and the eff ec-tive management of credit risk.

The group’s conservative policy in regard to provisioning main-tained the coverage ratio at 110% at the end of fi rst half ended June 30, 2018.

Total equity stood at QR76bn and earnings-per-share was QR7.4 at the end of six months ended on June 30, 2018.

The bank’s capital adequacy ratio stood at 15.8%, higher than the regulatory minimum requirements of the Qatar

Central Bank and Basel Com-mittee.

QNB’s successful funding from the international markets during the fi rst six months of 2018 includes, amongst oth-ers, capital market issuances of $560mn with a fi ve- and 10-year maturity in Australia and $720mn bonds with 30-year maturity in Taiwan.

This refl ects the group’s suc-cess in diversifying funding

sources by entering new debt markets, sourcing sustainable long-term funding, extending the maturity profi le of funding sources and the trust of inter-national investors in the strong fi nancial position of QNB Group and its strategy, the spokesman said.

In June 2018, Fitch Ratings revised the bank’s outlook to “stable” due to successful man-agement of the impact from the

blockade. Also QNB remains the highest-rated bank in Qatar and one of the highest-rated banks in the world with the fourth highest rating from major rat-ing agencies Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch.

QNB Group serves a cus-tomer base of more than 22mn customers with more than 29,000 staff resources operat-ing from 1,100 locations and 4,400 ATMs.

QNB Group’s total assets increased by 10% to QR846bn, the highest-ever achieved by the group, a bank spokesman said, adding the key driver of total assets growth was loans and advances, which grew by 9% to QR604bn.

Qatar Airways to display 6 state-of-the-art aircraft at Farnborough showThe award-winning national airline to showcase its ultra-modern A350-1000 and B777 at Farnborough from July 16 to 22

Six state-of-the-art Qatar Airways aircraft will be on display at this year’s Farnborough International

Airshow, taking place in Hampshire, United Kingdom, from July 16 to 22.

Qatar’s award-winning national airline will showcase its ultra-modern A350-1000 and B777, both equipped with the award-winning, luxurious ‘Qsuite’ business class seat.

Unveiled last year, the patented Qsuite features the fi rst-ever double bed in business class, as well as sliding panels that transform the space into a shared area customisable for groups of two, three, or four, allowing passengers to tailor their in-fl ight experience to meet their specifi c needs.

Qatar Airways will also display the Air Italy Boeing 737 Max 8 — the fi rst aircraft to feature the recently rebrand-ed airline’s striking new livery. The new Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft off ers modern and spacious cabins, superior operat-ing economics as well as greater fuel effi ciency. The aircraft was recently un-veiled in Seattle and delivered to Milan

on its inaugural fl ight, signalling a new era in aviation for the people of Italy.

Qatar Airways Group chief executive Akbar al-Baker said, “Qatar Airways is delighted to be returning to this year’s Farnborough International Airshow. It has already been an incredible year for us, having been the global launch customer for the Airbus A350-1000 in February.

“The six aircraft on display at Farn-borough, including the A350-1000,

the B777, and the Air Italy Boeing 737 Max 8, are the most technologically ad-vanced aircraft in the skies today, and we look forward to welcoming visitors to Farnborough to experience them fi rst hand.”

The airline’s cargo division will also publicly display one of its freighter air-craft for the fi rst time at Farnborough International Airshow. The Boeing 747-8 freighter gives cargo operators the lowest operating costs and best

economics of any large freighter air-plane while providing enhanced envi-ronmental performance.

Qatar Airways said it is optimised to provide greater revenue cargo-carrying capability than the Boeing 747-400, off ering 16% more cargo volume while keeping its unique nose door. The Boe-ing 747-8 freighter is also a popular choice of charter aircraft especially for oversized cargo. Qatar Airways Cargo is the world’s leading international cargo

carrier, serving more than 60 exclusive freighter destinations worldwide, with many recent additions to its freighter network, including Pittsburgh, Phnom Penh and Yangon.

The fi fth aircraft to be displayed at the airshow will be the Qatar Execu-tive Gulfstream G500 jet. Qatar Ex-ecutive, which provides VVIP charter on-demand-services to an elite clien-tele, continues to grow its global reach, serving worldwide destinations from New York to Shanghai.

To support its ambitious expansion plans, Qatar Executive continues to in-crease the size of its fl eet, and plans to take delivery of up to 25 additional air-craft between now and 2022, a combi-nation of G500, G600 and G650ER jets.

The sixth and fi nal aircraft to be dis-played is the JetSuiteX Embraer 135 jet. The luxuriously reconfi gured Embraer 135 off ers some 30 comfortable Busi-ness Class style seats, making it the ideal solution for group charters.

In April 2018, Qatar Airways an-nounced that it had taken a minority stake in JetSuite, Inc and indirectly in JetSuiteX, Inc. JetSuiteX, the sibling company to JetSuite, off ers semi-pri-vate air service on the US West Coast and beyond. JetSuiteX fi lls a niche in

under-served short-haul markets and small airports, and enjoys a Net Pro-moter Score over 90, higher than the major US airlines.

JetSuiteX operates its fl eet of Em-braer 135 aircraft from private terminals in California and Nevada, with no lines, no waiting and no stress, at a price competitive with commercial travel.

Qatar Airways recently launched di-rect services to both London Gatwick and Cardiff airports, strengthening Qatar Airways’ presence in the United Kingdom.

Qatar Airways has revealed a host of upcoming new global destinations, in-cluding the announcement that it will be the fi rst Gulf carrier to begin direct service to Luxembourg. Other exciting new destinations to be launched by the airline include Tallinn (Estonia); Val-letta (Malta); Langkawi (Malaysia) and Da Nang (Vietnam).

Qatar Airways currently holds the title of ‘Airline of the Year’ as awarded at the prestigious 2017 Skytrax World Airline Awards at the Paris Air Show, where the airline received a host of other notable accolades, including ‘Best Middle East Airline’, ‘World’s Best Business Class’ and ‘World’s Best First Class Airline Lounge’.

Qatar Airways’ ultra-modern A350-1000 that will be on display at this year’s Farnborough International Airshow.

Nakilat H1 net profit rises 9% to QR445mnFirst half results are a reflection of Nakilat’s secured long-term agreements with financially strong charterers

Qatar-based Nakilat, which owns

the world’s largest LNG shipping

fleet of some 65 state-of-the-art

vessels, posted a first half net

profit of QR445mn, up 9% on

the QR409mn registered in the

same period last year.

During the past year, the Qatari

LNG transport company said

there have been “many posi-

tive developments” across the

company, “despite the challeng-

ing market conditions” in the

maritime sector.

Nakilat said it “continued to

pursue its long-term strategic

goals” through the expansion

of its fleet with two additional

LNG carriers earlier this year and

more recently, acquired a major

stake in its first floating storage

regasification unit (FSRU).

“This significant milestone is in

line with the company’s plan to

diversify and grow its business

portfolio, with the aim to widen

its international outreach and se-

cure its industry-leading position

in the dynamic and competitive

LNG market. In addition, it opens

a new horizon and business

avenue for Nakilat to sustain its

long-term growth and develop-

ment strategies, which in turn

will further maximise value and

returns for our shareholders,”

Nakilat said yesterday.

The financial results for the first

half of this year is a reflection

of the company’s secured

long-term agreements with

financially strong charterers,

which has enabled Nakilat to

maintain a “steady cash flow and

generate positive value” for its

shareholders.

The company’s “innovative

cost optimisation strategy and

initiatives”, as well as periodic re-

payment of loan principals, have

resulted in “reduced financing

costs and enhanced eff iciencies”

across its operations.

On the company’s “excellent”

results, Nakilat chief execu-

tive off icer Abdullah al-Sulaiti

said: “Nakilat’s commitment to

deliver value for our sharehold-

ers and maintain our leadership

in energy transportation have

been the main driving forces

behind the solid performance

achieved today. The diversifica-

tion of our fleet through the

acquisition of our first FSRU

paves a new business avenue for

Nakilat to expand our outreach

to developing and emerging

markets, thereby enabling us to

sustain our long-term growth

and development strategies.

“While we remain focused on

achieving our strategic goals, we

are also continually assessing the

market and our current invest-

ments in relation to profitability

to address any risk involved for

the company and our sharehold-

ers. This enables us to prudently

navigate anticipated or unex-

pected challenges, in an eff ort

to steer the company forward as

a global leader and provider of

choice for energy transportation

and maritime services.”

Nakilat also owns and manages

an FSRU vessel and some large

LPG carriers. It operates the

ship repair and construction

facilities at Erhama Bin Jaber Al

Jalahma Shipyard in Ras Laff an

Industrial City through strategic

joint ventures.

Nakilat also off ers a full range of

marine support services to ves-

sels operating in Qatari waters.

Al-Sulaiti: Commitment to deliver value and maintaining leadership.

BUSINESS

Gulf Times Thursday, July 12, 20182

Libya resumes oil exports from major eastern portsAFPTripoli

Libya is resuming oil exports from its eastern produc-tion heartland, its National

Oil Corp said yesterday after a showdown between the war-torn country’s rival authorities.

The internationally recog-nised NOC was handed back control of four terminals in the oil crescent yesterday morn-ing, it said in a statement, add-ing that “production and export operations will return to normal levels within the next few hours”.

The disruption had under-scored the continued turmoil in Libya, which has been wracked by chaos since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that toppled long-time leader Muammar Gadhafi , with two rival authori-ties vying for control.

Exports from all four of the eastern ports had been sus-pended after military strong-man Khalifa Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) re-gained full control of the region from a rival militia in June.

The move added to supply worries on world markets at a time of rising crude oil prices.

The NOC had declared force majeure on oil loadings at the ports, a legal measure that frees parties to a contract from their obligations due to circumstanc-es beyond their control.

But yesterday it announced

“the lifting of force majeure” at the Al-Hariga, Zweitina, Ras Lanuf and Al-Sidra ports, which are conduits for much of the crude, gas and petrochemical sales that form the lifeblood of Libya’s economy.

The NOC said in early July that the crisis had slashed crude production by over four fi fths and cut the country’s heavily oil-dependent public revenues

by some $67.4mn (€57.9mn) per day. Haftar’s LNA recaptured Ras Lanuf and Al-Sidra in June after they were attacked and briefl y seized by armed groups led by militia leader Ibrahim Jadhran, who had controlled them from 2011 to 2016.

Haftar’s forces said they would hand the installations and their revenues to an eastern administration that rivals the

United Nations-backed Govern-ment of National Accord (GNA) in the capital.

But the GNA urged the UN to block any “illegal” oil exports, and the NOC in Tripoli said it was the “only recognised Libyan entity” responsible for oil pro-duction and exports.

The clashes had forced the NOC to suspend operations at Ras Lanuf and Al-Sidra in mid-

June, and early this month it de-clared force majeure on the ports of Zweitina and Al-Hariga after accusing the LNA of imposing a blockade. But it said yesterday the facilities had been handed back to its control, and added that its board “commended (Haftar’s forces) for putting the national interest fi rst”.

Libya produced 1.6mn barrels per day (bpd) of oil before Gad-hafi ’s ouster in February 2011.

Production fell by about 20% after the revolution, before re-covering to 1mn bpd by the end of 2017. The NOC, under a UN resolution, has been in charge of managing the oil crescent and export revenues, even though Haftar’s LNA seized control of the region in 2016.

The revenues are transferred to the GNA-affi liated central bank which is tasked with dis-tributing the funds to “all re-gions and administrations”, in-cluding zones under the control of the eastern authorities.

According to sources close to the administration in eastern Libya, it aimed to win political concessions from the GNA, no-tably to dismiss the bank’s gov-ernor, Seddik al-Kebir, accused of fi nancing rival forces.

In the NOC’s statement yesterday, chairman Mustafa Sanallah urged the Central Bank and Ministry of Finance to pub-lish their budgets and called for “a proper national debate on the fair distribution of oil revenues”.

A general view of an oil refinery in Libya’s northern town of Ras Lanuf. Libya announced yesterday “the lifting of force majeure” at the Al-Hariga, Zweitina, Ras Lanuf and Al-Sidra ports, which are conduits for much of the country’s crude, gas and petrochemical sales.

Opec sees rival supplies growing most in fi ve years in 2019BloombergLondon

Opec expects supplies from its rivals to increase by the most in fi ve years in 2019,

with extra oil from the US alone suffi cient to meet the growth in global demand.

In its fi rst detailed outlook for 2019, the Organisation of Petrole-um Exporting Countries indicated that the North American oil boom means Opec members are already producing enough crude to cover what will be needed from them. That could still change, however, as the group’s output is threatened by a spiralling economic crisis in Venezuela and renewed US sanc-tions on Iran.

The report may fuel the debate that’s splitting the organisation. Saudi Arabia, Opec’s biggest pro-

ducer, is resolved to increase oil output amid pressure from the US to cool rallying prices. Iran, which is seeing customers flee as American sanctions kick in, argues that other members are betraying the group if they raise supply.

“If the world economy per-forms better than expected, lead-ing to higher growth in crude demand, Opec will continue to have suffi cient supply to support oil-market stability,” the organi-sation’s secretariat in Vienna said in the report.

On July 4, President Donald Trump renewed criticism of the group by tweeting that Opec isn’t doing enough to tame prices, which at about $74 a barrel in New York are near their highest in more than three years.

Global oil demand will climb by 1.45mn barrels a day in 2019,

slightly below this year’s growth rate, to average 100.3mn barrels a day, according to the report.

The growth in non-Opec sup-ply will be considerably stronger though, at 2.1mn barrels a day, the most since 2014. Though the shale-oil boom is slowing because of pipeline constraints, the US will still contribute about three-quar-ters of the global supply expan-sion, enough to meet the growth in world consumption.

That surge refl ects how out-

put curbs by Opec over the past 18 months have emboldened the group’s rivals, giving shale drill-ers and other producers the higher prices they needed to resume op-erations.

As a result, Opec’s 15 members will need to provide an average of just 32.2mn barrels a day next year, slightly below the 32.3mn they pumped in June.

Maintaining that level, however, will be a contentious process.

Venezuela’s output continues to sink to the lowest in decades as its economic meltdown takes a toll on oil infrastructure and work-ers. More crucially, Trump’s ad-ministration is trying to choke off exports from Iran after quitting a nuclear accord with Opec’s third-largest producer.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait are already boosting supplies, the report

showed. The Saudis have raised output by 405,400 barrels a day to 10.42mn, the biggest jump in more than three years, according to Opec.

But attempting to compensate for a halt in Iranian exports — cur-rently at about 2.5mn barrels a day — would almost certainly strain the abilities of Saudi Arabia and its partners.

It could also stretch relations within the organisation to break-ing point. Iran insists that output limits assigned to each country in late 2016 still apply, and that any country producing above these quotas is violating the agree-ment.

“If Opec survives as an organi-sation, it will have to be without Iran,” said Olivier Jakob, man-aging director of consultants Petromatrix GmbH in Zug, Swit-zerland.

GCC’s GDP to grow 2.5% in 2018 on higher oil prices: IIFBy Santhosh V PerumalBusiness Reporter

Higher oil prices are expected to strengthen the economic activity in the GCC (Gulf Co-operation Council) through additional public spending and improvement in private sector confidence, according to the Institute of International Finance (IIF), the US-based economic think tank.“We expect overall real GDP (gross domestic product) in the GCC region to shift from a contraction of 0.3% in 2017 to a growth of 2.5% in 2018, supported by higher oil output and government stimulus,” IIF said in a report.Non-hydrocarbon growth is set to gradually improve, driven by higher public spending. However, lacklustre credit growth indicates sluggish recovery of the private sector, it said.The recent agreement between Opec (Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) and Russia could partially off set the upside risk to prices that came from lower output in Venezuela and Iran.After 18 months of supply curbs, the 14 Opec members and 10 non-Opec oil producers, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, respectively, have agreed to jointly raise output from July this year to cool down rising prices and head off potential future shortages.Saudi Arabia, with 2mbd (million barrels per day) spare

capacity, is likely to increase its crude oil production by 0.6mbd in the second half of this year, while Kuwait and the UAE could each increase their output by 0.15mbd, IIF said.“We still expect Brent oil prices to average $72/bbl in 2018 and $65/bbl in 2019; the modest decline in prices next year will be driven by the output boost in Saudi Arabia and Russia, and continued increase in the US and Canada,” it said.The fiscal deficits would narrow as oil earnings climb, more than off setting the high levels of public spending (an average increase of 13% for the GCC in 2018), it said.The external positions would also strengthen, with widening current account surpluses in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Qatar, it said, adding external pressures on Bahrain will persist as both fiscal and current accounts remain in deficits while off icial reserves are critically low.IIF said a tighter monetary policy, in the context of the pegged exchange rates, would off set some of the gains from the expansionary fiscal stance in 2018. “Monetary tightening and the rise of borrowing costs come at a time when credit growth remains subdued and private sector economic activity is weak, particularly in Saudi Arabia and the UAE,” it said, expecting two more hikes, 25 bps each, for the remainder of this year and 3 hikes in 2019.

Qatar bourse settles 0.43% lowerat 9,355.02 points on sell pressureBy Santhosh V PerumalBusiness Reporter

The Gulf institutions bearish outlook and substantially weakened net buy-ing interests of foreign funds yester-

day steered the Qatar Stock Exchange onto the negative turf.

Selling pressure was seen more within the telecom counter as the 20-stock Qatar In-dex settled 0.43% lower at 9,355.02 points.

Masraf Al Rayan-sponsored exchange traded fund QATR shrank 0.91%, while Doha Bank-sponsored QETF witnessed 1.64% gains.

Islamic stocks were seen declining slower than the other indices on the market, which reported 9.76% gains year-to-date.

However, there was weakened net selling by Gulf and non-Qatari retail investors as well as domestic funds on the bourse, whose capitalisation fell 0.19% to QR511.11bn, mainly on microcaps.

Trade turnover and volumes were on the decline in the market, where bank and real estate sectors together accounted for about 51% of the total volume.

The Total Return Index shed 0.43% to 16,482.51 points, All Share Index by 0.19% to 2,705.44 points and Al Rayan Islamic In-dex (Price) by 0.07% to 2,294.43 points.

The telecom index declined 0.51%, banks and fi nancial services (0.29%), insurance (0.24%), industrials (0.19%) and consumer goods (0.14%); while realty and transport were up 0.25% and 0.02% respectively.

About 56% of the traded stocks were in the red with major losers being Commercial Bank, Qatar Islamic Bank, Industries Qatar, Doha Insurance, Vodafone Qatar, Ooredoo

and Milaha; even as Aamal Company, Qatari Investors Group, Gulf International Serv-ices, QNB, Barwa and Nakilat were among the gainers.

The Gulf institutions turned net sellers to the tune of QR1.72mn compared with net buyers of QR4.91mn on July 10.

Non-Qatari institutions’ net buy-ing weakened signifi cantly to QR21.97mn against QR43.27mn the previous day.

However, local individuals’ net selling

declined considerably to QR19.57mn com-pared to QR38.57mn on Tuesday.

Domestic institutions’ net profi t book-ing also shrank substantially to QR0.3mn against QR6.75mn on July 10.

Non-Qatari individual investors’ net sell-ing decreased infl uentially to QR0.21mn compared to QR2.28mn the previous day.

The Gulf individual investors’ net prof-it booking fell perceptibly to QR0.19mn against QR0.61mn on Tuesday.

Total trade volume fell 63% to 3.93mn shares, value by 53% to QR121.27mn and transactions by 29% to 2,617.

The telecom sector’s trade volume plum-meted 92% to 0.43mn equities, value by 87% to QR8.84mn and deals by 46% to 305.

The consumer goods sector saw 76% plunge in trade volume to 0.11mn stocks, 72% in value to QR7.75mn and 47% in trans-actions to 173.

The insurance sector’s trade volume tanked 71% to 0.19mn shares, value by 63% to QR5.85mn and deals by 36% to 181.

The banks and fi nancial services sec-tor saw 37% shrinkage in trade volume to 1.14mn equities, 35% in value to QR49.97mn and 24% in transactions to 759.

The real estate sector’s trade volume shrank 34% to 0.85mn stocks, value by 29% to QR14.62mn and deals by 32% to 339.

There was 25% decline in the industri-als sector’s trade volume to 0.49mn shares, 37% in value to QR20.93mn and 27% in transactions to 575.

However, the transport sector’s trade vol-ume soared 20% to 0.72mn equities, value by 10% to QR13.32mn and deals by 11% to 285.

In the debt market, there was no trading of treasury bills and sovereign bonds.

Barwa Bank wins ‘Excellence in Diversified Islamic Services and Products in Qatar’ awardBarwa Bank has been recognised with the ‘Excellence in Diversified Islamic Services and Products in Qatar’ award at ‘The Arab Banks Awards & Commendations of Excellence 2018’, organised recently by the World Union for Arab Bankers (Wuab) in Beirut.In a statement, Barwa Bank said: “Being recognised by an important regional institution such as the World Union of Arab Bankers proves Barwa Bank’s commitment to providing a diverse range of the latest Shariah-compliant products within the best banking standards. Such recognition is a testament to the leading position Barwa Bank enjoys. “It reflects its consistent ability to deliver solid performance despite the challenging circumstances and developments across the region. Barwa Bank will always strive to provide the best and most diversified banking services so as to meet the requirements and aspirations of its clients belonging to different categories.”Barwa Bank brings a wide range of market-leading solutions to banking clients in Qatar, built on forward-thinking strategies. Earning its reputation as the country’s most progressive Shariah-compliant service provider, the bank off ers a diverse spectrum of Shariah-compliant banking products such as the Thara’a Savings Account, which provides account holders with the chance to benefit from monthly cash rewards.

A first for Islamic banks in Qatar, Thara’a Savings Account off ers customers the opportunity to win several monthly cash prizes, and a chance to win a grand prize of QR1mn biannually. This is in addition to several products that have

been recently made available, which includes ‘Ratib’, offering host of value-added services and discount offers to customers transferring their monthly salary to any Barwa Bank’s savings account and exceptional savings account. In addition, the bank offers a wide range of services that include innovative retail, private, corporate banking and investment and real estate finance services that proactively tackle all clients’ financial needs and long term aspirations in accordance with the principles of Shariah. The ‘Excellence in Diversified Islamic Services and Products in Qatar’ title adds to a slew of awards and recognitions that Barwa Bank has garnered over the past years, including winning the ‘Best Shariah-compliant

Bank in Qatar’ and ‘Best Banking CEO’ at ‘The European Magazine Global Banking & Finance Awards 2017’; ‘Best Islamic Services and Products in Qatar’ at ‘The Arab Banks Awards & Commendations of Excellence 2017’; and the ‘Best In-House Marketing and Communication Team’ and the ‘Best Innovative Islamic Banking Product in Qatar — Thara’a Savings Account’ at the ‘International Finance Magazine Awards 2016’, as well as being named ‘Fastest Growing Bank in Qatar’ by the ‘Banker Middle East Awards 2015’.

The ‘Excellence in Diversified Islamic Services and Products in Qatar’ award won by Barwa Bank.

In its fi rst detailed outlook for 2019, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries indicates that the North American oil boom means Opec members are already producing enough crude to cover what will be needed from them

Gulf markets end mixed

ReutersDubai

Gulf stock markets ended mixed yesterday

as sentiment was hurt by a more than $2

a barrel drop in Brent crude after United

States President Donald Trump threatened

new tariff s on China. But Abu Dhabi rose

0.5% to 4,692 points, and Kuwait’s premier

index added 1.4% to 5,377 points, extending

gains from a day earlier.

Elsewhere, the concern of US tariff s on a

further $200bn of Chinese goods weighed

on commodities and Asian stock markets.

In Saudi Arabia, financials dragged the

benchmark down 0.4% to 8,389 points.

In Dubai, the index was dragged down

0.1% to 2,892 points by property share with

Emaar Properties falling 2.2% and Damac

Properties losing 1.0%.

Elsewhere in the Gulf, the Bahrain index rose

0.8% to 1,345 points and the Oman index

lost 1.0% at 4,456 points, while in Egypt the

index rose 0.2% to 15,952 points.

Australia to ban Huawei from 5G project over security fearsReutersSydney

Australia is preparing to ban Hua-wei Technologies Co Ltd from supplying equipment for its

planned 5G broadband network after its intelligence agencies raised concerns that Beijing could force the Chinese telco to hand over sensitive data, two sources said.

Western intelligence agencies have for years raised concerns about Hua-wei’s ties to the Chinese government and the possibility that its equipment could be used for espionage.

But there has never been any public evidence to support those suspicions.

Huawei, the world’s largest maker of telecommunications network gear and the No 3 smartphone supplier, has promised that Canberra will have com-plete oversight of 5G network equip-ment, which could include base sta-tions, towers and radio transmission equipment.

That sort of oversight model has been accepted by other countries – nota-bly the UK, where a special laboratory staff ed with government intelligence offi cials reviews all Huawei products.

Other Western countries, including the New Zealand, Canada and Germany, also say they have suffi cient safeguards for assuring that Huawei equipment does not contain “back doors” or other mechanisms for secretly monitoring or collecting information.

But Australian intelligence agencies have told lawmakers that oversight will not allay their concerns, two political sources who have been briefed on the matter told Reuters.

“It is a Chinese company, and under Communist law they have to work for their intelligence agencies if requested,” said one of the government sources. “There aren’t many other companies around the world that have their own political committees.”

Both sources declined to be identi-fi ed because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

Huawei has already been mostly shut out of the giant US market over national security concerns.

Its business serving small, rural tel-ecom operators is now at risk after new attacks on the company in recent weeks by some US lawmakers.

The move to ban Huawei in Australia comes as tensions mount over China’s growing power and ambitions in the re-gion. Relations between the two coun-tries are at an all-time low after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull last year ac-cused Beijing of meddling in Canberra’s aff airs, and China responded by slowing

some Australian imports. Australia’s 5G service will require a dense network of towers that would then be leased to mo-bile providers such as Telstra Corp.

Mobile carriers typically have access to sensitive personal information, such as Internet search history or e-mails.

But in Australia and most other countries, there are strict laws govern-ing when and how they can do so.

Australia’s intelligence agencies fear that if mobile operators rely on Hua-wei’s equipment, the Chinese company could develop a means of collecting data or even undermining the stability of the network.

Chinese law requires organisations and citizens to support, assist and co-

operate with intelligence work. Huawei Australia’s chairman, John Lord, said that law does not apply to its operations outside of China.

“That law has no legitimacy out-side of China,” Lord said. “Within that country, any information coming through us and any equipment we put into their national infrastructure is safe to the best of our ability, and it’s secure.”

In 2012, Australia banned Huawei from supplying equipment to the coun-try’s National Broadband Network, which has been hampered by techno-logical failures.

Australia believes that the 5G net-work, which will provide mobile Inter-net speeds 50 to 100 times faster than

current technology, will be the corner-stone for future innovations such as driverless cars.

That makes it crucial to keep the net-work secure. Turnbull in February re-ceived briefi ngs from the US National Security Agency and Department of Homeland Security on the threat from Huawei, one source familiar with the meeting told Reuters.

“The UK and New Zealand, they have decided that the risk of Huawei is worth it for the benefi ts of the network.

For the Australian Security and Intel-ligence Organisation (ASIO) and the US, it is not worth the risk,” a second po-litical source said. Although Australia’s intelligence agencies are unwavering in their advice, Turnbull has yet to for-mally sign off on the Huawei ban.

One of the sources familiar with the process said the government is “in no great rush to confi rm the ban.”

“It is going to highlight the anxiety that Australian lawmakers have about the rise of China, and it is not going to do any good for the Australian-China relationship,” said Adam Ni, visit-ing fellow in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian Na-tional University. Despite the trade pressure, Turnbull can ill aff ord to over-rule the country’s security authorities amid a rise of Chinese hawks within Australia’s government.

In rare public testimony, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation di-rector general Duncan Lewis this year warned that foreign espionage, inter-ference or sabotage could infl ict “cata-strophic harm” on the nation’s interests – remarks that were widely considered a thinly veiled reference to China.

The warning spurred a backbench lawmaker, who sits on the country’s important parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, on June 18 to urge Turnbull to reject Huawei, a source familiar with the details of the party-room meeting of the ruling government told Reuters.

India cuts Iranian oil importsin JuneReutersNew Delhi

Indian refi ners cut imports of Iranian oil last month as they started weaning their plants

off crude from the country to avoid sanctions by the United States that are set to take eff ect in November.

India’s monthly oil imports from Iran declined to 592,800 barrels per day (bpd) in June, down 16% from May, according to data from industry and ship-ping sources.

The United States in May said it would reimpose the sanctions after withdrawing from a 2015 agreement with Iran, Russia, China, France, Germany, and Britain, where Tehran agreed to curb its nuclear activities in return for the lifting of earlier sanctions.

The government of India, Iran’s top oil client after China, asked refi ners last month to pre-pare for drastic reductions or even zero Iranian oil imports.

The fi rst set of sanctions will take eff ect on August 6 and the rest, notably in the petroleum sector, following a 180-day “wind-down period” ending on November 4.

US offi cials said in June they would push countries to reduce their Iranian oil imports to zero.

The Indian refi ners will want to comply with the limits to maintain their access to the US fi nancial system.

“Trump administration will push for zero crude, condensate and products exports from Iran,” said Sri Paravaikkarasu, Head of East of Suez Oil at energy con-sultancy FGE. “The zero toler-ance policy and the pace with which it is moving no doubt concerns Iran’s current crude buyers.”

Overall, India’s oil imports in June rose 10.1% from a year ago to 4.82mn bpd, the data showed.

Overall purchases climbed on a higher intake of crude from Mexico, the United States and Azerbaijan. Imports from other Middle East suppliers also in-creased. Lower purchases by private refi ners dragged down India’s June imports from Iran although state refi ners stepped up purchases.

Sources told Reuters last month that private refi ners Na-yara Energy and Reliance Indus-tries Ltd plan to halt Iranian oil imports.

The two fi rms signifi cantly cut their imports from Iran in June.

HPCL-Mittal Energy Ltd con-tinued to skip Iran oil imports for a second month in June, the data showed.

State refi ners, accounting for about 60% of India’s nearly 5 mn bpd of refi ning capacity, lifted 10% more Iranian volumes in June compared to May, at about 454,000 bpd, the data from the sources showed.

The sources declined to be identifi ed since they are not au-thorised to speak to the media.

On a yearly basis, India’s im-ports from Iran were 19.5% high-er, the data showed.

Indian state refi ners had cut Iranian oil imports in the 2017/18 fi nancial year because of a dispute over the development rights for an Iranian natural gas fi eld.However, the state refi ners raised their imports in the cur-rent fi scal year starting in April after Iran off ered free shipping and an extended credit period of 60 days.

BUSINESS

Gulf Times Thursday, July 12, 20184

Western intelligence agencies have for years raised concerns about Huawei’s ties to the Chinese government and the possibility that its equipment could be used for espionage. But there was no public evidence to support those suspicions.

Citigroup readies for Asia investment surge with new China deskReutersHong Kong

Citigroup Inc will set up a China busi-ness desk in India within the year betting on a pickup in investment

fl ows within the Asian region, its Asia-Pa-cifi c corporate banking head said, as con-cerns grow about the impact of a Sino-US trade war.

Citi plans to establish the desk in Mum-bai, adding to a South Korea business desk in the capital New Delhi, Gerald Keefe told Reuters. The desks provide services such as trade fi nance, corporate loans, cash man-agement and investment banking.

Chinese fi rms, mainly from tech and pharmaceutical sectors, have been looking to deepen their push into growth markets

such as India, with its rising middle-class income and increased spending on big-ticket goods, bankers have said.

The drive comes as the United States im-poses tariff s on Chinese imports, with Chi-na responding in kind. In the latest battle, the United States on Tuesday added 10% duty to $200bn worth of Chinese goods.

Investors fear a protracted trade war will be detrimental to global growth, but Keefe said investment and trade is growing else-where across Asia, and that Citi intends to capitalise through its banking network.

The Wall Street bank’s revenue from in-stitutional business in intra-Asia trade cor-ridors has risen 33% so far this year versus the same period a year prior, and compared with 18% for all of 2017, Keefe said.

“There’s an increasing and absolute amount of investment fl ow around Asia

right from companies that are headed out of China, from companies that are headquar-tered elsewhere in Asia who are of scale,” Keefe said in a recent interview.

Citi has about 20 business desks support-ing investments by companies from China, South Korea and India, into places including Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Hanoi, as well as New York, London and Johannesburg. Plans for additional China desks in Europe and Africa are being fi nal-ised, Keefe said.

“Obviously it’s not helpful to have terms (such as) ‘global trade war’ in the news every day,” he said. “(But) as clients evaluate what all this means in the context of these trade relations being reset, we are fi nding that they are concluding that additional time, eff ort, energy and investment in Asia is good for them.”

India proposes easing local data storage rules for foreign payment firmsReutersNew Delhi

India’s finance ministry has proposed

relaxing a directive from the country’s

central bank that would compel global

payment firms to store customer data

only locally, following weeks of intense

lobbying by US companies and trade

bodies.

Easing the proposal would be a relief

for firms including MasterCard, Visa and

American Express, which fear India’s data

onshoring move could cost them millions

of dollars and set a precedent for other

major governments to implement similar

rules at a time when there is heightened

scrutiny of how companies globally han-

dle their customers’ data.

Prime Minster Narendra Modi has been

aggressively pushing digital and cashless

modes of payment that leave an elec-

tronic trail as part of a campaign to crack

down on the black economy.

Foreign payment companies were

caught off guard in April by the Reserve

Bank of India’s (RBI) one-page directive

that said all payments data should, within

six months, be stored only in the country

for “unfettered supervisory access”.

India’s finance ministry, in a meeting

held in June with RBI off icials and ex-

ecutives from payment firms, said that a

possible solution could be that companies

would be allowed to store data off shore,

as long as a copy was kept in India.

The companies had opposed the

restriction on storing data overseas and

had lobbied for its removal.

The ministry has also proposed clarify-

ing the kind of data that needed to be

stored and the time given to implement

the directive, according to a copy of the

minutes of the meeting reviewed by

Reuters.

At the June meeting, RBI executive

director S Ganesh Kumar said the central

bank had been approached about the

companies’ concerns and was in the proc-

ess of issuing a circular to clarify the rules,

according to the minutes.

Suggestions made at the meeting

would be helpful in deciding the matter,

Kumar said. The meeting was chaired by

the government’s Economic Aff airs Secre-

tary Subhash Chandra Garg and attended

by other ministry and RBI off icials, as well

as executives from companies including

MasterCard, Visa and American Express.

MasterCard and American Express

declined to comment.

Visa and RBI did not respond to an

e-mail seeking comment.

“This is a big step and shows India has a

progressive outlook towards businesses,”

said an executive with one of the payment

companies, adding that the ministry had

tried to address some of the industry’s

biggest grouses.

“This will hopefully serve as a prec-

edent for other regulators who might be

thinking of data localisation,” said a law-

yer familiar with the matter, adding that

this would also allow for data processing

and analytics – which is currently done

off shore – to continue.

The RBI had initially resisted a joint

lobbying eff ort by the foreign payment

companies, with sources with direct

knowledge of the matter telling Reuters in

May that the central bank was telling the

firms to comply, not complain.

The industry’s main concerns have

been over restricting data storage to

India, a lack of clarity on the type of data

that needed to be stored and the timeline

to implement the rules.

During the June meeting, representa-

tives from US lobby group US-India Busi-

ness Council (USIBC) said that storing

the data only in India would be a security

risk, as in the event of a natural disaster

no-one would have access to it if it was all

stored in one place.

The representatives also said that only

after understanding the kind of data that

needed to be stored would they be able

to estimate the time needed to set up the

necessary infrastructure.

Global payment firms currently store

and process Indian transactions outside

the country.

The RBI’s directive comes as more peo-

ple in India are switching to plastic, partly

driven by the Modi government’s decision

to replace high-value currency notes in

November 2016, since when the govern-

ment has aggressively discouraged cash

transactions.

In March, Indians clocked transac-

tions worth $52bn using their 900mn

credit and debit cards, nearly double the

amount recorded in November 2016, data

from the RBI showed.

But rising fraud is a concern too.

The RBI in April said the payment eco-

system in India had “expanded consider-

ably”, making it necessary to ensure “the

safety and security” of data.

Citigroup will set up a China business desk in India within the year betting on a pickup in investment flows within the Asian region, its Asia-Pacific corporate banking head said, as concerns grow about the impact of a Sino-US trade war.

JD.com’s finance unit raises $2bn, doubles valuationReutersHong Kong

JD.com Inc’s finance arm has raised at

least 13bn yuan ($1.96bn) in fresh equity

from Chinese investors, doubling its valu-

ation ahead of an expected initial public

off ering, people with direct knowledge of

the matter said.

The fundraising underscores investor

enthusiasm for big, privately-held Chinese

technology companies even as public

valuations falter.

This week, smartphone maker Xiaomi

completed the world’s largest tech IPO in

almost four years, but saw its shares fall

on debut in Hong Kong even after pricing

its deal at the low end of its off ered range.

JD Finance’s fundraising round, which

kicked off late last year, establishes its

valuation at 120bn yuan, the sources

told Reuters. The valuation is double

the roughly 60bn yuan JD Finance was

estimated to be worth after it was split

from JD.com, China’s second-largest

e-commerce firm, in mid-2017. More

investors could yet join the fundraising,

said one of the sources, meaning that JD

Finance’s final valuation may rise further.

Big investors in this round include CICC

Capital, a unit of investment bank China

International Capital Corp (CICC), broker-

age China Securities, private equity firm

Citic Capital and BOCGI, Bank of China’s

investment arm, the sources said.

JD Finance said the fundraising has yet

to be completed and declined to com-

ment further. CICC and China Securities

declined to comment.

Citic Capital and BOC didn’t respond to

requests for comment.

JD Finance’s fundraising follows that of

Ant Financial, the aff iliate of its arch rival

Alibaba, which last month was valued

at $150bn when it raised $14bn in the

world’s largest-ever single fundraising by

a private company.

The investments suggest investors

remain keen to put money into online

payments and lending services in China,

especially those backed by large compa-

nies such as Alibaba and JD.com which

already have stable user traff ic.

JD.com itself is backed by US retail

giant Walmart Inc and Chinese gam-

ing behemoth Tencent. Earlier this year

another tech heavyweight, Baidu Inc,

raised $1.9bn from a consortium led by

US private equity firms TPG and Carlyle

Group in the spin-off of its finance unit. JD

Finance, whose financial off erings include

consumer credit and wealth management

products, is expected to seek a domes-

tic initial public off ering at some point

although there is no firm time table for a

listing, according to the sources.

JD Finance said it currently doesn’t

have an IPO plan.

The firm plans to use proceeds from

the fundraising to invest in domestic

financial institutions and buy securities

and banking licences, among other areas,

sources with knowledge have previously

told Reuters.

BUSINESS5Gulf Times

Thursday, July 12, 2018

US to impose 10% tariff s on $200bn of Chinese goods; stocks in Shanghai, Hong Kong drag down Asian markets; China “shocked” at “completely unacceptable” US action; China might hold up licences, M&As for US firms

ReutersBeijing/Washington

China accused the United States of bullying and warned it would hit back after the Trump administra-

tion raised the stakes in their trade dis-pute, threatening 10% tariff s on $200bn of Chinese goods.

China’s commerce ministry said yesterday it was “shocked” and would complain to the World Trade Organisa-tion, but did not immediately say how it would retaliate.

In a statement, it called the US actions “completely unacceptable”.

The foreign ministry described Wash-ington’s threats as “typical bullying” and said China needed to counter-attack to protect its interests.

“This is a fi ght between unilateral-ism and multilateralism, protectionism and free trade, might and rules,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a regular briefi ng yesterday.

Beijing has said it would hit back against Washington’s escalating tariff measures, including through “qualita-tive measures,” a threat that US busi-nesses in China fear could mean any-thing from stepped-up inspections to delays in investment approvals and even consumer boycotts.

The Wall Street Journal, citing un-named Chinese offi cials, said Beijing was considering steps including holding up licences for US companies, delaying ap-provals of mergers involving US fi rms and stepping up border inspections of American goods.

China could also limit visits to the United States by Chinese tourists, a business state media said is worth $115bn, or shed some of its US Treasury holdings, Iris Pang, Greater China econ-omist at ING in Hong Kong, wrote in a note. The $200bn far exceeds the total value of goods China imports from the United States, which means Beijing may need to think of creative ways to respond to such US measures.

On Tuesday, US offi cials issued a list of thousands of Chinese imports the Trump administration wants to hit with the new tariff s, including hundreds of food products as well as tobacco, chemi-cals, coal, steel and aluminium, prompt-ing criticism from some US industry groups.

It also includes consumer goods rang-ing from car tyres, furniture, wood prod-ucts, handbags and suitcases, to dog and cat food, baseball gloves, carpets, doors, bicycles, skis, golf bags, toilet paper and

beauty products. “For over a year, the Trump administration has patiently urged China to stop its unfair practices, open its market, and engage in true mar-ket competition,” US Trade Representa-tive Robert Lighthizer said in announc-ing the proposed tariff s.

“Rather than address our legitimate concerns, China has begun to retaliate against US products... There is no jus-tifi cation for such action,” he said in a statement.

Last week, Washington imposed 25% tariff s on $34bn of Chinese imports, and Beijing responded immediately with matching tariff s on the same amount of US exports to China. Each side is plan-ning tariff s on a further $16bn in goods that would bring the totals to $50bn.

Investors fear an escalating Sino-US trade war could hit global growth and damage sentiment.

Yesterday, the MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacifi c shares outside Japan fell 1.12%, while the main indexes in Hong Kong and Shanghai recovered somewhat after falling more than 2%.

At mid-morning, the Dow Jones In-dustrial Average was down 0.58%, the S&P 500 was down 0.42%, and the Nas-daq was off 0.29%.

The onshore yuan tracked its off shore counterpart lower with traders closely watching the key 6.7 per dollar level as pressure mounted on the currency.

US President Donald Trump has said he may ultimately impose tariff s on more than $500bn worth of Chinese goods – roughly the total amount of US imports from China last year.

The new list published on Tuesday targets many more consumer goods than those covered under the tariff s imposed last week, raising the direct threat to consumers and retail fi rms and increas-ing the stakes for lawmakers in Trump’s Republican party facing elections in No-vember.

The list is subject to a two-month public comment period before taking ef-fect. Some US business groups and law-makers from Trump’s own Republican Party were critical of the escalating tar-iff s. Senate Finance Committee chair-

man Orrin Hatch said the announce-ment “appears reckless and is not a targeted approach.”

The US Chamber of Commerce has supported Trump’s domestic tax cuts and eff orts to reduce regulation of busi-nesses, but does not back Trump’s ag-gressive tariff policies.

“Tariff s are taxes, plain and simple.Imposing taxes on another $200bn

worth of products will raise the costs of every day goods for American families, farmers, ranchers, workers, and job crea-tors.

It will also result in retaliatory tar-iff s, further hurting American workers,” a Chamber spokeswoman said. Louis Kuijs, Hong Kong-based Head of Asia Economics at Oxford Economics, said while he expects China to strongly con-demn the US moves, its policy response is likely to be limited for now.

“In part because they have only lim-ited ammunition and in part because it’s still early in the process on the US side,” Kuijs said. Trump has been following through on pledges he made during his

presidential campaign to get tough on China, which he accuses of unfair trade practices including theft of intellectual property and forced technology transfer that have led to a $375bn US trade defi cit with China.

China’s exports have mushroomed since it joined the World Trade Organi-sation in 2001, making it the world’s second-largest economy and prompting widening criticism in recent years from trading partners that it has unfairly used global trade rules to its advantage.

As its dispute with Washington deepened, Beijing has been calling on other countries to support global free trade and has talked up efforts to ease investment rules. During a visit to Germany this week by Chinese Pre-mier Li Keqiang, the countries signed business deals worth more than $23bn. “China stands in line with the international community on the cor-rect side of history to together protect the rules of the multilateral trade or-der,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua said yesterday.

China says it will hit back after US plans fresh tariff s

China to its state media: Keep calm, don’t infl ame trade row with USReutersShanghai

China is clearly angry about Wash-ington’s hard line on trade, but has controlled coverage of the

row in its media, limiting open commen-tary and banning attacks on US Presi-dent Donald Trump, several sources with knowledge of the matter said.

Beijing has issued unusually strict rules limiting coverage of the trade war because of worries that unrestrained reporting could spark instability or roil its already jittery fi nancial markets, ac-cording to sources within Chinese state media.

“When exposing and criticising American words and actions, be careful

not to link it to Trump and instead to aim it at the US government,” said a memo based on a set of directives issued ver-bally by government offi cials that was circulated to reporters at a state-run news outlet and seen by Reuters.

Media outlets must help “stabilise the economy, growth, employment, stabilise foreign trade, investment, fi nance, sta-bilise the stock market, the foreign ex-change market, the housing market, and basically stabilise the peoples’ thinking, hearts and expectations”, it said.

A person who works at a leading Chi-nese news website said the rules issued last week were “the most strict yet”.

The website was told to post only stories about the trade confl ict by state news agency Xinhua, rather than pub-lishing its own.

It was also ordered to keep the topic out of the top few headlines and closely manage comments about it, according to the source.

The website’s smartphone app was no longer permitted to send push notifi ca-tions on the subject to users, and the website was forbidden from setting up special pages about the dispute.

Like other Chinese media workers who spoke with Reuters for this story, the source declined to be identifi ed by name due to the sensitivity of the topic and because he was not authorised to speak publicly about it.

Editors at several leading state-me-dia outlets, including the China Daily, the Global Times and Xinhua, were not made available after Reuters requested interviews. The information offi ce of the

State Council, or cabinet, did not imme-diately comment on the state’s eff orts to censor news of the trade row.

It was not immediately known if Bei-jing’s attitude would change after the United States threatened further import duties on Chinese goods on Tuesday in a sharp escalation of the confl ict between the world’s two biggest economies.

To be sure, there have been vitriolic editorials in key Chinese newspapers as the trade tensions have simmered.

In recent weeks, state media have criticised US behaviour as reckless, he-gemonic, delusional, and accused the Trump administration of harbouring “blood lust” and behaving like a “gang of hoodlums”.

But the attacks have been general – there has been little mention of Trump,

for instance – and few details on how China will be aff ected. Two sources at separate state-run news organisations said they had been instructed not to mention the impact of the trade war on Chinese companies in their coverage.

At one large state news organisation, a fourth source said journalists had been instructed to report on Chinese com-pany news with caution because some were already feeling the eff ects of the trade spat.

Reporters at the news outlet, a key government mouthpiece, were directed not to stir up negative emotions or “re-veal the cards” of Chinese importers, the source said. In disputes with South Korea and Japan in recent years, Beijing has taken a more aggressive stance and at times encouraged public anger.

Shipping containers are seen at a port in Shanghai. China accused the United States of bullying and warned it would hit back after the Trump administration raised the stakes in their trade dispute, threatening 10% tariff s on $200bn of Chinese goods.

US: Time for ‘reckoning’ over China’s membership in WTO

AFPGeneva

The trade war between the world’s top two economies landed at the World Trade Organisation yesterday, as the United States demanded a “reckoning” over China’s membership in the body.China’s WTO “trade policy review” – scheduled before Washington lit the fuse on a tariff battle with Beijing – served as a new front in the widening economic confrontation between the two powers.In a report submitted ahead of the three day review, China insisted it had “been a strong advocate for free trade” since joining the WTO in 2001 and “comprehensively fulfilled its commitments.” US ambassador Dennis Shea, who was among the first to speak at the closed-door review, argued that China had exploited its membership to take advantage of other nations and that if unchecked Beijing’s misconduct would ruin the WTO.“China’s failure to fully embrace the open, market-oriented policies on which this institution is founded must be addressed, either within the WTO or outside the WTO,” Shea said according to prepared remarks released by the US mission.“This reckoning can no longer be put off ,” he added.“If the WTO is to remain relevant to the international trading system, change is necessary.”The comments came after President Donald Trump’s administration threatened fresh tariff s on another $200bn in Chinese goods and Beijing vowed to retaliate, the latest salvo in the escalating tariff battle.China’s compliance with WTO guidelines lies at the heart of the conflict, notably over Beijing’s alleged state support for purportedly private companies.“China provides massive, market-distorting subsidies and other forms of state support to its domestic industries,” Shea said.He noted that while WTO rules permit some government support for national industries under specific circumstances, the Chinese approach results in “skewing the playing field against imported goods”.Trump, who has reportedly weighed quitting the 164-member WTO, has voiced particular irritation over the fact that China continues to self-identify as a developing nation.In an April Twitter post, Trump said this allowed China to “get tremendous perks and advantages, especially over the US.Does anybody think this is fair. “We were badly represented. The WTO is unfair to US,” he added.In its policy agenda released in January, the US trade off ice said the WTO needed to change its “self-declare” policy for developing nations to stop major economies like China and India from getting the preferential treatment that should be reserved for the world’s poorest nations.

China trade dispute helped BASF land $10bn Guangdong chemicals dealReutersBeijing

Germany’s BASF managed to wrap up a

preliminary deal to build China’s first wholly

foreign-owned chemicals complex quite

quickly, aided in part by trade tensions

between Beijing and Washington, sources

with knowledge of the matter said.

The proposed complex, worth some

$10bn in investment to 2030, will be located

in Guangdong, China’s most populous

province which had been worried about the

impact of a US decision to heavily penalise

telecom firm ZTE Corp, also based there.

Fears that a US-China trade war would

hurt investment prospects for the business-

friendly province made local government

off icials that much more receptive to

overtures by BASF, a global giant with

state-of-the art technology, separate people

briefed on matter also said.

BASF’s announcement, part of $23bn

worth of bilateral deals unveiled as German

Chancellor Angela Merkel met Chinese

Premier Li Keqiang in Berlin this week is

conspicuous for its timing, trade and chemi-

cal industry experts said.

In reaching out to Europe, China is show-

ing it is open for business as the trade row

with Washington deepens.

BASF’s coup, while still a rare example of

a foreign player praising open the Chinese

government’s tight control over its energy

and chemical industries, also follows meas-

ures by Beijing to lift some caps on foreign

ownership in the auto and banking sectors.

“Now that we have this trade war that

was kicked off last week, Beijing is telling

Washington that it is still doing business and

that there are capable companies around

the world to do business with,” said John

Driscoll, director of consultancy JTD Energy

in Singapore.

The outcomes of Li’s visit, during which

the widow of Chinese Nobel Peace Prize-

winning political dissident Liu Xiaobo, left

de facto house arrest in China to live in

Germany, signalled a measured warming

in what has been a bilateral relationship

fraught with spying allegations and com-

mercial mistrust.

China this week has also approved a

huge new wholly owned Shanghai factory

for US electric car maker Tesla Inc, and a

$2.3bn joint venture organic light-emitting

diode (OLED) plant to be built by South

Korea’s LG Display Co Ltd.

In contrast, the Trump administration

on Tuesday raised the stakes in the trade

dispute, threatening 10% tariff s on a list of

$200bn worth of Chinese imports, prompt-

ing Beijing to warn it would be forced to

retaliate. BASF’s search for a potential site

for its second major project in the world’s

largest chemical market had been in the

works for a while, an industry insider with

knowledge of the deal said.

Like other sources, the industry insider

declined to be identified due to the sensitiv-

ity of the matter.

The German firm had decided to go it

alone rather than working with a state-

owned partner as it had done previously

and chose Guangdong as recently as three

months ago, the person said, adding BASF

had spied a “window of opportunity”, bank-

ing on the province’s desire for cutting-edge

technology. The person also said local

governments had become more aware

that they “cannot not own everything” and

foreign investment could help them build

what they wanted.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang arrive at a presentation for autonomous driving at Tempelhof airport in Berlin. Germany’s BASF managed to wrap up a preliminary deal to build China’s first wholly foreign-owned chemicals complex quite quickly, aided in part by trade tensions between China and the US, sources with knowledge of the matter said.

India’s Vistara orders Boeingand Airbus jets worth $3.1bnReutersNew Delhi/Singapore

Indian airline Vistara has placed fi rm orders for six Boeing Co 787 jets and 13 Airbus SE A320neos valued at

$3.1bn at list prices, as it looks to add more domestic fl ights and launch inter-national routes later this year.

The order for Boeing’s 787s marks a new setback for Airbus in an intense battle for widebody orders as the Eu-ropean planemaker seeks to strengthen the order book for its upgraded A330neo passenger jet.

Boeing posted fi gures on Tuesday showing a signifi cant lead in new or-ders over its European rival, buoyed by demand for the 787 following a series of showdowns against the A330neo.

Airbus said last week it saw good demand for the upgraded jet and is ex-pected to announce orders soon.

The Farnborough Airshow, which typically attracts large numbers of air-line orders, will be held in Britain next week.

Vistara joins rival Jet Airways and low-cost carriers IndiGo and SpiceJet that have plans to grow their inter-national operations to off set a highly competitive, price-sensitive domestic market.

“India’s position as the world’s fast-est growing domestic aviation market and its impressive growth in air passen-ger traffi c that has more than doubled over the last decade makes us confi dent of our aggressive plans for domestic expansion and international foray,” Vistara CEO Leslie Thng said in a state-ment yesterday.

The joint venture between India’s Tata Sons Ltd and Singapore Airlines Ltd, said it would procure another 37 A320neos from leasing companies and also had purchase rights over 4 more 787-9s and options over 7 more A320neos. The purchased and leased Airbus jets, fi tted with CFM Interna-tional LEAP engines, will be delivered between 2019 and 2023. The Boeing jets, to be powered by GE engines and

used for medium and long-haul fl ights, are expected in 2020 and 2021.

There is huge potential for inter-national travel from India, where the domestic aviation market has grown about 20% annually in recent years.

Only 0.3% of the 1.3bn population

currently travel abroad for a holiday every year, a fraction of the estimated 100mn Indians who could potentially aff ord to do so, according to an analysis of household income by aviation con-sultancy CAPA. CAPA expects Vistara to place another large widebody order

within the next 1-2 years and also ex-pects InterGlobe Aviation’s IndiGo to pursue an “aggressive international strategy” by soon announcing a large order.

“India will see closer to 100 wide-body orders in next 1-2 years indicat-

ing a strong international strategy,” said Kapil Kaul, CEO and director for South Asia at CAPA. Jet Airways placed a fi rm order in June for 75 Boeing 737 MAX air-craft, taking the total to 225 new aircraft which it expects to add to its fl eet over the next decade.

Malaysia’s central bank holds key rateReutersKuala Lumpur

Malaysia’s central bank left its key interest rate unchanged yesterday,

saying infl ation is not a worry and the economy is likely to “re-main on a steady growth path”.

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) left its overnight policy rate at 3.25%, as forecast by all 10 econ-omists in a Reuters poll.

Yesterday’s policy meeting was the fi rst under governor Nor Shamsiah Mohd Yunus, and the second since a May election that brought Malaysia’s fi rst change of government since independ-ence in 1957.

In a statement, BNM said it expects sustained growth with support from private and exter-nal demand, helped by slowing infl ation due to recent policy measures by the new govern-ment.

“The positive domestic eco-nomic outlook, sound fi nancial sector and improving current account surplus of the balance of payments will continue to sup-port Malaysia’s fundamentals,” the central bank said.

Without mentioning the US-China dispute, BNM said global trade tensions could hurt the broader economic outlook.

“Growth in Asia will be sup-ported by sustained domestic activity and external demand, “ it said. “However, the balance of risks to the outlook has tilted to the downside”.

BNM said Malaysian headline infl ation, which as 1.8% in May, is expected to be lower than the 2%-3% initially forecast for 2018, and likely turn negative “in some months” as domestic cost factors are adjusted to the new government’s policies.

In one of his earliest acts af-ter returning as prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad scrapped a 6% goods and services tax (GST) implemented by the previous government.

Julia Goh, an economist with UOB Bank, said BNM’s infl ation outlook, coupled with a more dovish tone, indicate it wants to avoid jumping the gun on a rate change while it’s unclear how much the United State-China trade fi ght expands.

“It really depends on how far Trump’s going to go with his trade war and how far China will retaliate... I’d save my bullets,” Goh said.

Malaysia faces less pressure to raise interest rates than other emerging markets because of the performance of the ringgit, which has strengthened slightly against the US dollar this year.

It has fallen since early April, but its overall resiliency – aided by Malaysia’s current account surplus – is one reason econo-mists have said that BNM, unlike Indonesia’s central bank, does not need to hike the rate.

BUSINESS

Gulf Times Thursday, July 12, 20186

A Vistara Airbus A320 passenger aircraft prepares to land at Chhatrapati Shivaji International airport in Mumbai. The airline said it has placed firm orders for six Boeing 787 jets and 13 Airbus A320neos valued at $3.1bn at list prices

After Tesla deal, Shanghai to speed up cancellation of foreign ownership capReutersShanghai

Shanghai will accelerate eff orts to cancel restrictions on foreign in-vestment in the auto manufactur-

ing sector, a government offi cial said yesterday, a day after Tesla said it would build a wholly owned auto plant in the city.

Earlier this year, China said it would scrap foreign ownership caps for com-panies making fully electric or plug-in hybrid vehicles in 2018 and all automo-tive ventures by 2022.

The announcement marked a major policy shift in the world’s top car mar-

ket that has capped foreign ownership in the sector at 50% for over two dec-ades.

Huang Ou, deputy director of the Shanghai Commission of Economy and Information Technology, told reporters at a press conference that the city gov-ernment was engaged in preparations to support the Tesla project, set to be Shanghai’s biggest foreign-invested project.

“The next step is for the city gov-ernment to do the support work to al-low the project to go into operation as quickly as possible,” he said.

“In line with state plans, we will speed up the cancellation of foreign ownership restrictions in the car man-

ufacturing sector,” he said. Huang de-clined to comment, however, on the size of the project or when the con-struction of a plant with capacity to produce 500,000 Tesla battery elec-tric cars a year – large by auto industry standards – would start.

Tesla Inc chief executive offi cer Elon Musk landed a deal on Tuesday to build a new and wholly owned auto plant in Shanghai, the company’s fi rst factory outside the United States.

It would double the size of the elec-tric car maker’s global manufacturing.

The deal was announced as Tesla raised prices on US-made vehicles it sells in China to off set the cost of tariff s imposed by the Chinese government on

US imports in retaliation for US Presi-dent Donald Trump’s heavier duties on Chinese goods.

An auto assembly plant half the size of the envisioned Tesla Shanghai plant would normally cost $1bn to build, ac-cording to automotive industry offi -cials and experts.

The Shanghai government said in a statement on Tuesday it welcomed Tesla’s move to invest not only in a new factory in the city but in research and development.

Chinese magazine Caijing, citing sources close to the project, reported on Tuesday that the plant’s exact lo-cation had not been decided and con-struction would start early next year.

Remittances from overseas Pakistanis crawl upto $19.62bn

InternewsKarachi

Remittances sent by overseas

Pakistanis reached $19.62bn

in the last financial year of the

country (July 2017 to June

2018), up 1.4%, from $19.35bn

the previous year.

The State Bank of Pakistan,

however, reported that the

inflows in June fell to $1.59bn,

down 13.36%, from $1.84bn in

the same period of 2016-17.

Despite a continued decline,

Saudi Arabia remained the larg-

est source of remittances with

inflows from the kingdom clock-

ing in at $4.86bn, witnessing a

drop of 11.17%.

The figures for FY17 and FY16

were $5.47bn and $5.97bn.

This change has come after

Saudi authorities introduced

strict taxation laws for overseas

citizens, prompting many Paki-

stanis to return back home.

United Arab Emirates came

out to be a runner-up with

remittances from the country

amounting to $4.333bn, increas-

ing by a meagre 0.12% from the

year before when inflows stood

at $4.328bn.

Remittances from other Gulf

Co-operation Council countries

were recorded at $2.158bn in

FY18, falling by 7.19%, from

$2.325bn in FY17. There was

a massive growth of 35.92%

from the European Union with

inflows reaching $656.08mn in

FY18 from $482.69mn the previ-

ous fiscal year.

The single-largest yearly

increase in remittances among

all countries came from Spain,

posting a mammoth growth of

132.06% while Oman accounted

for the steepest fall at 13.61%.

The United Kingdom contrib-

uted $2.762bn, increasing by a

substantial 17.98% over $2.341bn

recorded in 2016-17. Remittances

from the United States stood at

$2.713bn, recording a growth of

10.63% from $2.452bn.

Inflows from Malaysia,

Norway, Switzerland, Australia,

Canada, Japan and other coun-

tries amounted to $196.69mn.

Trump’s call to ‘buy American’ means weapons not cars for JapanBloombergTokyo

While there’s little prospect that Japanese consumers will ever buy enough American

cars to please Donald Trump, the Abe government’s record spending on de-fence is shaping up as a bright spot in bilateral trade for the US president.

Japan’s purchases through the US Foreign Military Sales programme rep-resent 16% of all non-personnel costs for the nation’s self defence forces so far this year, more than double the level in 2014, according to calculations by Bloomberg based on government data.

Plans to buy advanced American ra-dars, stealth fi ghter jets and missile-defence systems in coming years will mean billions of dollars for US weapons makers. Japanese companies, already struggling to compete, don’t stand to benefi t as much because economies of scale have made homegrown technol-ogy more expensive and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government wants to get more bang for its buck.

During a visit to Tokyo last Novem-ber, Trump urged Abe to buy “massive amounts of military equipment” from the US. Even without the incentive to ease trade friction, Japan was already an enthusiastic consumer as Abe pushed defence spending to a record ¥5.2tn ($47bn) this fi scal year to counter both a

nuclear-armed North Korea and a more assertive China.

To Trump’s dismay, Japan bought just $533mn in new passenger vehicles from the US in 2017 while Americans purchased $39.8bn in Japanese cars and trucks.

Outside the military sphere, Japan has looked to boost energy purchases such as liquefi ed natural gas to placate the US. The nation’s biggest imports from the US in 2017 were agricultural products, chemicals and machinery.

A preference for US equipment helps the two militaries work together more smoothly, but buying complete Ameri-can weapons systems doesn’t gener-

ate jobs for local parts makers and will drive them out of business, according to Naohiko Abe, senior vice president of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd.

It’s Japan’s biggest defence contrac-tor, making fi ghter planes, helicopters, ships, missiles, and other weapons.

While there is little threat to domes-tic production of warships, costs are an issue especially for aircraft.

A fi nance ministry committee has recommended switching to the Lock-heed Martin Corp-made C-130 J30 cargo plane, which although slower and with a shorter range, costs less than half the cost of the domestically produced C-2. Japan will buy two C-2s from Ka-

wasaki Heavy Industries this fi scal year, after buying three last year.

Japan is currently purchasing new F-35A fi ghters to replace decades-old planes.

The next battleground for domestic manufacturers will be who makes the fi ghter jet to replace the F-2, which is the last domestically produced fi ghter.

Even before new F-2 production end-ed in 2011, suppliers were fl eeing the defence business.

Sumitomo Electric Industries started ending its business with the defence ministry in 2007, citing a poor growth outlook, and in 2010, Yokohama Rubber Co ceased making airplane tires for the ministry.

In 2016, 52 of 72 companies supply-ing the industry said they’d seen parts makers disappear and supply disrup-tions, according to a ministry survey.

The F-2 will start to retire from 2030, and companies including Mitsubishi Heavy and IHI Corp developed the X-2, an advanced technology demonstrator jet, to show that a replacement fi ghter could be built domestically. “Japan must take the lead of development in order for the domestic industry to sur-vive,”

Mitsubishi Heavy’s Abe told the me-dia last month.

The successful 2016 test fl ight of the jet showed that the domestic industry is fully capable of developing the replace-ment, he said. But the local Jiji Press

reported in March that the defence ministry had ruled out a domestically produced jet, citing high costs.

While Defence Minister Itsunori On-odera has denied those media reports, the ministry is looking to develop the plane jointly with overseas companies.

Reuters recently reported that it is-sued requests for information to manu-facturers in the US and Europe.

Masahiro Matsumura, a professor of international relations and defence at St Andrew’s University in Osaka, said the problem is that without mass pro-duction, purchasing Japanese military equipment is like buying hand-made craft items.

Some ruling Liberal Democratic Par-ty lawmakers want defence spending to support domestic companies.

Kenji Wakamiya, director of the LDP’s national defence division, said in May that it was important to support domestic companies and help them be-come competitive against foreign com-petitors.

An LDP committee also recommend-ed June 1 that Abe increase the defence budget further, as it’s still less than 1% of gross domestic product, well below the 2% that the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has set for its members.

In order to bring down costs, Waka-miya wants Japan to boost exports of its military equipment so that production will increase, but so far, there’s been lit-tle success.

Zad Holding CoWidam Food CoVodafone Qatar

United Development CoSalam International Investme

Qatar & Oman Investment CoQatar Navigation

Qatar National Cement CoQatar National Bank

Qatar Islamic InsuranceQatar Industrial Manufactur

Qatar International IslamicQatari Investors Group

Qatar Islamic BankQatar Gas Transport(Nakilat)Qatar General Insurance & ReQatar German Co For Medical

Qatar Fuel QscQatar First Bank

Qatar Electricity & Water CoQatar Exchange Index Etf

Qatar Cinema & Film DistribAl Rayan Qatar Etf

Qatar Insurance CoOoredoo Qpsc

National LeasingMazaya Qatar Real Estate Dev

Mesaieed Petrochemical HoldiAl Meera Consumer Goods Co

Medicare GroupMannai Corporation Qsc

Masraf Al RayanAl Khalij Commercial Bank

Industries QatarIslamic Holding Group

Investment Holding GroupGulf Warehousing Company

Gulf International ServicesEzdan Holding Group

Doha Insurance CoDoha Bank Qpsc

Dlala HoldingCommercial Bank Pqsc

Barwa Real Estate CoAl Khaleej Takaful Group

Aamal Co

86.60

63.10

9.16

14.08

5.25

6.28

64.50

57.20

160.60

52.00

40.49

54.50

32.12

120.63

16.00

50.00

5.26

145.90

5.50

187.72

93.00

16.27

21.75

34.60

73.75

9.46

7.08

15.34

150.01

70.00

50.00

35.78

10.90

113.65

28.88

5.48

42.85

17.45

8.20

12.37

27.01

16.05

39.01

36.30

11.00

9.93

0.00

-0.47

-0.87

-0.14

-0.19

-0.63

-0.62

-0.44

0.44

0.00

-0.02

0.20

1.97

-1.53

0.38

0.00

-0.75

-0.07

0.00

-0.68

1.64

0.06

-0.91

0.14

-0.27

0.11

-0.14

-0.32

-0.66

0.00

0.00

-0.33

0.46

-1.09

0.00

-0.54

0.54

1.04

0.00

-8.37

-0.44

-0.62

-2.43

0.81

-0.27

4.09

-

5,527

357,342

304,144

32,394

1,889

37,305

4,756

122,695

504

7,100

33,208

152,422

55,536

682,164

-

12,894

38,791

44,312

21,945

607

92

1,142

158,400

74,760

86,987

114,654

73,406

4,078

12,530

100

219,828

264,995

78,831

2,930

82,197

84

9,134

218,750

15,586

87,576

50,562

159,676

214,087

12,433

60,167

QATAR

Company Name Lt Price % Chg Volume

SAUDI ARABIA

United Wire Factories CompanEtihad Etisalat Co

Dar Al Arkan Real Estate DevAlawwal Bank

Rabigh Refining And PetrocheBanque Saudi Fransi

Saudi Enaya Cooperative InsuMediterranean & Gulf Insuran

Saudi British BankRed Sea International Co

Takween Advanced IndustriesSabb Takaful

Saudi Arabian Fertilizer CoNational GypsumSaudi Ceramic Co

National Gas & IndustrializaSaudi Pharmaceutical Industr

ThimarNational Industrialization C

Batic Investments And LogistSaudi Electricity Co

Saudi Arabia Refineries CoArriyadh Development Company

Al-Baha Development & InvestSaudi Research And MarketingAldrees Petroleum And Transp

Saudi Vitrified Clay Pipe CoJarir Marketing Co

Arab National BankYanbu National Petrochemical

Arabian CementMiddle East Specialized Cabl

Al Khaleej Training And EducAl Sagr Co-Operative Insuran

Trade Union Cooperative InsuArabia Insurance Cooperative

Saudi Chemical CompanyFawaz Abdulaziz Alhokair & C

Bupa Arabia For CooperativeWafa Insurance

Jabal Omar Development CoSaudi Basic Industries Corp

Saudi Kayan Petrochemical CoEtihad Atheeb Telecommunicat

Co For Cooperative InsuranceNational Petrochemical Co

Gulf Union Cooperative InsurGulf General Cooperative Ins

Basic Chemical IndustriesSaudi Steel Pipe Co

Buruj Cooperative InsuranceMouwasat Medical Services Co

Southern Province Cement CoMaadaniyah

Yamama Cement CoJazan Energy And Development

Zamil Industrial InvestmentAlujain Corporation (Alco)

Tabuk Agricultural DevelopmeUnited Co-Operative Assuranc

Qassim Cement/TheSaudi Advanced Industries

Kingdom Holding CoSaudi Arabian Amiantit Co

Al Jouf Agriculture DevelopmSaudi Industrial Development

Riyad BankThe National Agriculture Dev

Halwani Bros CoArabian Pipes Co

Eastern Province Cement CoAl Gassim Investment Holding

Filing & Packing Materials MSaudi Cable Co

Tihama Advertising & PublicSaudi Investment Bank/The

Astra Industrial GroupSaudi Public Transport Co

Taiba Holding CoSaudi Industrial Export Co

Saudi Real Estate CoSaudia Dairy & Foodstuff Co

National Shipping Co Of/TheMethanol Chemicals Co

Chubb Arabia Cooperative InsMobile Telecommunications Co

Saudi Arabian Coop Ins CoAxa Cooperative Insurance

Alsorayai GroupBank Albilad

Al-Hassan G.I. Shaker CoWataniya Insurance Co

Abdullah Al Othaim MarketsHail Cement

Saudi Re For Cooperative Rei

17.04

19.26

10.40

14.50

28.00

36.00

26.30

22.12

32.10

18.30

11.40

21.78

63.70

12.96

19.38

30.20

32.45

28.85

23.56

40.40

20.84

43.75

17.22

19.86

91.70

29.30

49.55

181.80

33.05

75.20

27.55

7.98

15.80

26.30

23.40

20.20

35.20

21.00

88.00

14.88

44.80

127.40

16.96

5.35

67.70

29.80

15.48

16.12

24.96

20.00

30.70

94.20

40.35

19.36

16.20

15.76

23.80

34.00

11.34

14.18

38.60

13.30

8.75

6.64

25.10

9.05

16.94

35.40

52.50

12.38

24.00

12.10

35.50

7.96

47.90

18.40

19.94

14.60

30.85

227.00

14.16

93.00

29.95

10.38

22.92

6.34

15.10

22.56

13.88

24.46

11.20

26.20

75.00

9.08

8.47

-0.70

-0.62

1.17

-0.68

-0.18

-1.91

9.86

1.19

-0.93

0.22

5.75

1.30

-0.47

0.47

-0.72

-0.33

-0.31

0.35

-0.93

0.37

-0.19

-1.57

0.12

0.00

0.55

-0.68

0.10

1.00

-2.36

-2.34

-0.18

-0.50

0.13

-1.13

1.56

0.20

0.57

0.38

-0.34

4.94

1.82

0.31

1.44

0.00

-1.60

1.36

0.78

1.13

-1.34

0.60

0.00

-1.36

0.37

1.04

0.00

-1.13

-0.42

0.59

0.89

2.01

-0.77

0.30

-0.57

0.30

-0.40

0.00

-0.24

0.14

0.00

0.16

-0.41

0.50

-1.93

-0.38

0.42

-0.54

1.12

-0.41

-0.48

-1.05

-0.42

0.00

-0.99

0.58

0.97

0.00

0.53

0.18

1.46

-0.97

-0.71

0.00

-0.53

0.67

0.59

90,157

3,044,676

20,966,894

612,490

686,020

122,608

1,529,081

154,520

123,841

23,692

2,466,542

418,041

203,407

101,625

62,064

39,445

263,749

72,319

1,295,337

53,522

691,807

1,075,872

201,998

95,993

60,355

83,718

16,135

165,367

53,428

308,299

123,522

270,303

65,919

265,193

153,055

301,249

43,095

1,109,350

35,213

2,131,484

1,563,032

3,827,315

10,927,581

-

259,923

303,331

34,166

56,646

258,257

87,276

80,294

18,195

37,745

269,887

152,195

163,351

73,501

1,250,074

77,390

816,364

32,538

86,473

35,707

660,058

19,032

100,544

414,108

28,323

478

151,994

26,210

156,812

144,477

141,773

322,934

72,548

731,861

292,799

22,136

20,950

459,675

86,861

480,409

2,395,690

54,466

2,594,256

146,656

160,917

1,035,663

352,554

541,721

27,804

43,509

424,783

606,327

Company Name Lt Price % Chg Volume

Solidarity Saudi Takaful CoAmana Cooperative Insurance

Alabdullatif Industrial InvSaudi Printing & Packaging C

Saudi Paper Manufacturing CoAlinma Bank

Almarai CoFalcom Saudi Equity Etf

United International TranspoHsbc Amanah Saudi 20 Etf

Saudi International PetrocheFalcom Petrochemical Etf

Walaa Cooperative InsuranceBank Al-Jazira

Al Rajhi BankSamba Financial Group

United Electronics CoAllied Cooperative Insurance

Malath InsuranceAlinma Tokio Marine

Arabian Shield CooperativeSavola

Wafrah For Industry And DeveFitaihi Holding Group

Tourism Enterprise Co/ ShamsSahara Petrochemical Co

Herfy Food Services CoSaudi Ind Investment Group

Salama Cooperative InsuranceEmaar Economic City

Alahli Takaful CoAnaam International Holding

Saudi Telecom CoAl Alamiya Cooperative Insur

Saudi Industrial Services CoAl-Ahsa Development Co.

National Co For Glass In/TheDur Hospitality Co

Tabuk Cement CoSasco

Saudi CementAseer Trading Tourism & Manu

Nama Chemicals CoSaudi Arabian Mining Co

Yanbu Cement CoSaudi Fisheries

Ash-Sharqiyah Development CoMakkah Construction & Devepl

Al Jouf CementAbdullah A.M. Al-Khodari Son

Knowledge Economic CityAl-Ahlia Cooperative Insuran

Al Rajhi Co For Co-OperativeAlkhodar Ab Equity

Kec Ab EquityAlahlia Ab Equity

Arcci Ab EquityAppc Ab Equity

Albabtai Ab Equity

1.32

2.50

0.49

0.54

-0.38

-0.46

-0.68

0.31

-1.33

0.00

0.43

0.00

1.24

-0.27

-0.45

-2.13

0.34

0.98

4.25

-0.61

1.17

-1.11

-0.43

-0.82

0.15

-0.21

-0.22

-0.33

0.48

0.00

-0.35

-1.72

-0.11

0.00

-1.36

0.00

-1.01

0.20

1.80

0.26

0.00

0.00

0.00

-0.87

0.00

0.19

0.00

0.60

-0.11

-0.53

0.69

1.43

0.34

-0.18

0.81

0.00

1.64

-0.19

-0.72

111,711

2,581,364

31,633

344,974

87,072

18,789,083

322,156

95,444

300,327

-

814,400

2

178,796

1,205,240

1,400,958

578,763

200,946

177,426

1,192,553

288,951

149,943

552,696

61,562

123,348

132,045

1,609,964

16,178

129,137

258,195

592,819

114,489

212,736

182,479

73,837

110,434

173,473

31,514

58,005

240,535

233,651

45,980

97,208

890,582

205,362

82,825

51,958

57,391

148,891

188,230

372,701

370,167

425,778

330,285

164,380

362,649

45,829

546,823

367,145

299,844

SAUDI ARABIA

Company Name Lt Price % Chg Volume

Sultan Center Food ProductsKuwait Foundry Co Sak

Kuwait Financial Centre SakAjial Real Estate Entmt

Kuwait Finance & InvestmentNational Industries Co Ksc

Kuwait Real Estate Holding CSecurities House/The

Boubyan Petrochemicals CoAl Ahli Bank Of Kuwait

Ahli United Bank (Almutahed)National Bank Of Kuwait

Commercial Bank Of KuwaitKuwait International Bank

Gulf BankAl-Massaleh Real Estate Co

Al Arabiya Real Estate CoKuwait Remal Real Estate Co

A’ayan Real Estate Co SakInvestors Holding Group Co.K

Al-Mazaya Holding CoAl-Madar Finance & Invt CoGulf Petroleum Investment

Mabanee Co SakcInovest Co Bsc

Al-Deera Holding CoMena Real Estate Co

Amar Finance & Leasing CoUnited Projects For Aviation

National Consumer Holding CoAmwal International InvestmeEquipment Holding Co K.S.C.C

Arkan Al Kuwait Real EstateGfh Financial Group Bsc

Energy House Holding Co KscpKuwait Co For Process PlantAl Maidan Dental Clinic Co KNational Shooting CompanyAl-Ahleia Insurance Co Sakp

Wethaq Takaful Insurance CoSalbookh Trading Co Kscp

Aqar Real Estate InvestmentsHayat Communications

Soor Fuel Marketing Co KscTamkeen Holding Co

Burgan Co For Well DrillingKuwait Resorts Co KsccOula Fuel Marketing Co

Palms Agro Production CoMubarrad Holding Co Ksc

Shuaiba Industrial CoAan Digital Services Co

First Takaful Insurance CoKuwaiti Syrian Holding Co

National Cleaning CompanyUnited Real Estate Company

AgilityKuwait & Middle East Fin Inv

Fujairah Cement IndustriesLivestock Transport & Tradng

International Resorts CoNational Industries Grp Hold

Warba Insurance CoFirst Dubai Real Estate Deve

Al Arabi Group Holding CoMobile Telecommunications Co

Eff ect Real Estate CoTamdeen Real Estate Co KscAl Mudon Intl Real Estate Co

Kuwait Cement Co KscSharjah Cement & Indus Devel

Kuwait Portland Cement CoEducational Holding Group

Asiya Capital Investments CoKuwait Investment Co

Burgan BankKuwait Projects Co Holdings

Al Madina For Finance And InKuwait Insurance Co

Al Masaken Intl Real EstateIntl Financial Advisors

First Investment Co KsccAl Mal Investment Company

Bayan Investment Co KsccEgypt Kuwait Holding Co Sae

Coast Investment DevelopmentPrivatization Holding Compan

Injazzat Real State CompanyKuwait Cable Vision Sak

Sanam Real Estate Co KsccIthmaar Holding Bsc

Aviation Lease And Finance CArzan Financial Group For Fi

Ajwan Gulf Real Estate CoKuwait Business Town Real Es

Future Kid Entertainment And

74.00

204.00

104.00

150.00

49.00

178.00

30.70

51.70

940.00

339.00

291.00

812.00

500.00

253.00

254.00

44.60

34.30

0.00

56.90

15.70

92.00

85.00

28.10

673.00

78.90

20.90

29.30

38.00

605.00

84.00

53.10

30.90

76.60

110.00

31.50

210.00

1,220.00

20.00

425.00

28.60

47.00

69.00

79.00

135.00

14.00

90.00

56.30

131.00

0.00

59.00

249.00

21.10

43.00

31.80

54.40

63.50

851.00

25.50

67.90

196.00

23.40

169.00

66.30

46.00

76.00

488.00

21.00

384.00

31.40

400.00

79.00

1,110.00

320.00

39.80

125.00

272.00

245.00

28.60

297.00

66.00

27.10

42.50

19.90

43.00

334.00

34.90

64.00

85.00

8.00

25.80

35.50

357.00

31.00

23.30

44.00

110.00

1.37

2.51

0.00

1.35

2.08

4.09

0.00

7.04

0.53

0.30

1.75

1.12

0.00

2.43

2.83

1.83

3.94

0.00

1.61

1.95

2.34

0.83

1.08

1.66

4.37

7.73

-1.01

0.00

0.00

0.00

-1.67

4.75

-1.79

-0.90

8.62

31.25

0.00

2.56

-1.16

3.25

-1.88

0.00

33.90

2.27

0.00

5.88

0.72

0.77

0.00

-3.28

0.00

1.44

0.00

1.60

0.93

0.00

0.24

-3.41

-1.59

5.38

0.43

1.81

0.00

9.52

4.68

0.00

0.00

0.00

6.44

0.00

0.00

0.91

0.00

3.38

0.81

0.37

-0.41

0.00

0.68

1.54

1.12

0.71

-0.50

-0.46

0.00

2.95

1.59

0.00

0.00

0.00

5.97

0.00

3.68

3.10

-2.00

0.00

1,153,231

20,000

5,000

32,025

20,850

20,029

1,500

4,503,222

164,502

378,845

1,030,759

8,171,233

26,922

6,770,823

14,401,071

1,310,603

1,430,132

-

1,750,500

26,927,041

3,486,671

1,028,700

5,859,055

913,619

570,556

162,019

35,798

1

10

100

580,690

915,958

30,000

6,556,408

65,100

1,850,438

200,000

1,832,799

152,054

4,500

441,400

10,000

100

768,413

50,000

572,810

1,030,005

149,386

-

319,223

1,797

1,677,525

20

410,901

233,570

641,582

4,577,759

271,648

1,101,200

16,652

975,270

10,813,165

70,403

1,308,490

630,703

6,025,238

100

8

314,000

50,000

5,000

21,325

1,303

1,827,680

316,831

1,333,246

1,796,515

548,650

11,364

4,600

3,122,700

1,365,941

6,949,327

867,900

20,000

1,011,623

851,002

25,900

293

188

12,747,658

38,100

2,438,827

6,783,312

1,172,550

500

KUWAIT

Company Name Lt Price % Chg Volume

Voltamp Energy SaogVision Insurance Saoc

United Power/Energy Co- PrefUnited Power Co Saog

United Finance CoUbar Hotels & Resorts

Takaful OmanTaageer FinanceSweets Of OmanSohar Power Co

Sohar PoultrySmn Power Holding Saog

Shell Oman Marketing - PrefShell Oman Marketing

Sharqiyah Desalination Co SaSembcorp Salalah Power & Wat

Salalah Port ServicesSalalah Mills Co

Salalah Beach Resort SaogSahara Hospitality

Renaissance Services SaogRaysut Cement Co

Phoenix Power Co SaocPackaging Co Ltd

OoredooOminvest

Oman United Insurance CoOman Telecommunications Co

Oman Refreshment CoOman Qatar Insurance Co

Oman PackagingOman Oil Marketing Company

Oman National Engineering AnOman Investment & Finance

Oman Intl MarketingOman Flour Mills

Oman Fisheries CoOman Europe Foods Industries

Oman Education & Training InOman Chromite

Oman ChlorineOman Ceramic Company

Oman Cement CoOman Cables Industry

Oman & Emirates Inv(Om)50%Natl Aluminium Products

National SecuritiesNational Real Estate Develop

National PharmaceuticalNational Mineral Water

National Life & General InsuNational Gas Co

National Finance CoNational Detergent Co Saog

National Biscuit IndustriesNational Bank Of Oman Saog

Muscat Thread Mills CoMuscat Insurance Co Saog

Muscat Gases Company SaogMuscat Finance

Muscat City Desalination CoMajan Glass Company

Majan CollegeHsbc Bank Oman

Hotels Management Co InternaGulf Stone

Gulf Mushroom CompanyGulf Investments Services

Gulf Invest. Serv. Pref-SharGulf International Chemicals

Gulf Hotels (Oman) Co LtdGlobal Fin Investment

Galfar Engineering&ContractGalfar Engineering -Prefer

Financial Services Co.Financial Corp/The

Dhofar TourismDhofar Poultry

Dhofar Intl DevelopmentDhofar Insurance

Dhofar Fisheries & Food InduDhofar Cattlefeed

Dhofar Beverages CoConstruction Materials Ind

Computer Stationery IndsBankmuscat Saog

Bank SoharBank Nizwa

Bank Dhofar Saog

0.26

0.15

1.00

3.44

0.11

0.13

0.13

0.11

0.55

0.11

0.21

0.60

1.05

1.49

2.52

0.23

0.60

1.08

1.38

2.38

0.44

0.60

0.12

2.21

0.52

0.34

0.31

0.72

1.75

0.11

0.28

1.15

0.15

0.11

0.52

0.79

0.10

1.00

0.19

3.64

0.40

0.42

0.38

0.89

0.11

0.36

0.04

5.00

0.12

0.10

0.32

0.33

0.13

0.67

3.75

0.18

0.08

0.80

0.32

0.08

0.14

0.18

0.45

0.11

1.25

0.12

0.31

0.09

0.11

0.20

9.50

0.09

0.10

0.39

0.18

0.10

0.49

0.18

0.31

0.16

1.28

0.17

0.26

0.03

0.26

0.38

0.13

0.09

0.17

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

-2.65

0.00

0.00

0.00

-1.14

-2.86

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.93

0.00

0.00

-1.92

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

-2.70

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

3.30

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

-3.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

-13.79

0.00

0.00

-1.48

-1.14

-2.94

536

3,000

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

2,180

-

-

-

-

-

43,500

-

12,443

-

37,480

31,642

-

91,162

-

-

-

25

-

883,000

-

-

50,500

-

-

-

-

-

-

23,000

65,500

-

-

-

-

-

-

300

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

6,234

18,250

-

-

150

-

-

-

1,392,293

-

-

-

2,618

548,563

-

-

-

-

-

5,000

-

-

-

-

60,000

-

821,930

96,509

289,382

100,000

OMAN

Company Name Lt Price % Chg Volume

Aloula CoAl-Omaniya Financial Service

Al-Hassan Engineering CoAl-Fajar Al-Alamia Co

Al-Anwar Ceramic Tiles CoAl Suwadi Power

Al Sharqiya Invest HoldingAl Maha Petroleum Products M

Al Maha Ceramics Co SaocAl Madina Takaful Co Saoc

Al Madina Investment CoAl Kamil Power Co

Al Jazerah Services -PfdAl Jazeera Steel Products Co

Al Jazeera ServicesAl Izz Islamic Bank

Al Buraimi HotelAl Batinah PowerAl Batinah Hotels

Al Batinah Dev & InvAl Anwar Holdings Saog

Al Ahlia Insurance Co SaocAhli Bank

Acwa Power Barka SaogAbrasives Manufacturing Co S

A’saff a Foods Saog0Man Oil Marketing Co-Pref

#N/A Invalid Security#N/A Invalid Security#N/A Invalid Security#N/A Invalid Security#N/A Invalid Security#N/A Invalid Security#N/A Invalid Security

0.53

0.28

0.04

0.75

0.10

0.12

0.11

0.72

0.22

0.09

0.05

0.39

0.55

0.30

0.11

0.08

0.88

0.12

1.13

0.09

0.11

0.37

0.16

0.74

0.05

0.59

0.25

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

-3.06

1.68

0.00

0.00

-3.15

-2.13

-2.13

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

2.59

0.00

-9.18

-3.39

0.00

-0.62

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

-

-

-

-

10,240

39,500

-

-

24,443

426,404

17,900

-

-

-

-

6,350

-

34,000

-

135,500

108,033

-

15,730

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

OMAN

Company Name Lt Price % Chg Volume

Waha Capital PjscUnited Insurance Company

United Arab Bank PjscUnion National Bank/Abu Dhab

Union Insurance CoUnion Cement Co

Umm Al Qaiwain General InvesSudan Telecommunications Gro

Sharjah Islamic BankSharjah Insurance Company

Sharjah GroupSharjah Cement & Indus DevelRas Al-Khaimah National Insu

Ras Al Khaimah White CementRas Al Khaimah Ceramics

Ras Al Khaimah Cement Co PscRas Al Khaima Poultry

Rak PropertiesOoredoo Qpsc

Oman & Emirates Inv(Emir)50%National Takaful Company

National Marine Dredging CoNational Investor Co/The

National Corp Tourism & HoteNational Bank Of Umm Al Qaiw

National Bank Of Ras Al-KhaiNational Bank Of Fujairah

Methaq Takaful InsuranceManazel Real Estate Pjsc

Invest BankIntl Holdings Co Pjsc

Insurance HouseGulf Pharmaceutical Ind Psc

Gulf Medical ProjectsGulf Cement Co

Fujairah Cement IndustriesFujairah Building Industries

Foodco Holding PjscFirst Abu Dhabi Bank Pjsc

Finance HouseEshraq Properties Co Pjsc

Emirates Telecom Group CoEmirates Insurance Co. (Psc)

Emirates Driving CompanyDana Gas

Commercial Bank InternationaBank Of Sharjah

Axa Green Crescent InsuranceArkan Building Materials Co

Alkhaleej InvestmentAldar Properties Pjsc

Al Wathba National InsuranceAl Qudra Holding Pjsc

Al Khazna Insurance CoAl Fujairah National Insuran

Al Dhafra Insurance Co. P.S.Al Buhaira National Insuranc

Al Ain Ahlia Ins. Co.Agthia Group Pjsc

Abu Dhabi Ship Building CoAbu Dhabi Natl Co For Buildi

Abu Dhabi National Takaful CAbu Dhabi National Oil Co Fo

Abu Dhabi National InsuranceAbu Dhabi National Hotels

Abu Dhabi National Energy Co

1.76

2.00

1.01

3.60

2.03

1.85

1.01

0.51

1.19

2.84

1.32

0.96

3.50

1.02

2.37

0.74

1.89

0.65

72.90

0.51

0.66

3.01

0.58

1.99

2.66

4.13

2.81

0.76

0.46

2.40

1.33

0.85

2.30

1.78

1.03

1.20

1.56

3.50

12.55

1.80

0.66

17.20

7.20

7.40

1.02

0.73

1.06

0.54

0.57

2.30

2.10

12.75

1.08

0.25

300.00

3.85

2.20

38.00

4.87

1.84

0.52

4.40

2.43

3.90

2.86

1.26

-2.76

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

-1.92

-0.83

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

-1.52

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

-1.90

-8.17

-1.30

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

1.21

0.00

1.54

0.58

0.00

0.00

-0.97

0.00

0.00

0.00

-3.39

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.41

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.41

0.00

0.00

4.13

2,786

-

-

551,328

-

-

-

2,222,000

162,960

-

-

-

-

-

280,005

-

-

1,434,977

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

37,000

20,000

100,000

1,408,372

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

1,696,326

-

2,282,637

1,540,577

100,000

-

1,979,710

-

200,000

-

127,582

-

2,537,748

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

208,000

-

1,500

-

124,175

-

-

631,712

UAE

Company Name Lt Price % Chg Volume

Zain Bahrain BsccUnited Paper Industries Bsc

United Gulf Holding BscTrafco Group Bsc

Takaful International CoSeef Properties

National Bank Of Bahrain BscNass Corp Bsc

Khaleeji Commercial BankIthmaar Holding Bsc

Investcorp Bank -$UsInovest Co Bsc

Gulf Hotel Group B.S.CGfh Financial Group Bsc

Esterad Investment Co B.S.C.Eskan Bank Realty Income Tr

Delmon Poultry CoBmmi Bsc

Bbk BscBahrain Telecom Co

Bahrain National HoldingBahrain Kuwait Insurance

Bahrain Islamic BankBahrain Flour Mills Co

Bahrain Duty Free ComplexBahrain Commercial Facilitie

Bahrain Cinema CoArab Banking Corp Bsc-$Us

Aluminium Bahrain BscAlbaraka Banking Group

Al-Salam BankAhli United Bank B.S.C

#N/A Invalid Security#N/A Invalid Security#N/A Invalid Security#N/A Invalid Security#N/A Invalid Security#N/A Invalid Security#N/A Invalid Security#N/A Invalid Security#N/A Invalid Security#N/A Invalid Security#N/A Invalid Security#N/A Invalid Security#N/A Invalid Security

0.00

0.00

1.12

0.00

0.00

0.23

0.61

0.10

0.10

0.11

0.00

0.29

0.52

0.39

0.00

0.10

0.00

0.72

0.45

0.24

0.44

0.00

0.14

0.00

0.72

0.77

`

0.38

0.63

0.30

0.11

0.65

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.86

2.54

0.00

1.03

0.00

0.00

3.57

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.83

0.00

0.00

9.60

0.00

0.00

0.66

0.00

1.33

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.78

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

-

-

30,000

-

-

50,000

41,000

200,000

1,190,000

388,000

-

50,000

18,085

2,860,000

-

59,000

-

150,000

100,000

50,000

7,579

-

15,000

-

5,347

3,000

8,000

70,000

1,580

290,000

40,000

954,909

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

BAHRAIN

Company Name Lt Price % Chg Volume

Specialities Group Holding CAbyaar Real Eastate Developm

Kgl Logistics Company KsccCombined Group Contracting

Jiyad Holding Co KscBoubyan Intl Industries Hold

Gulf Investment House KscBoubyan Bank K.S.C

Ahli United Bank B.S.COsos Holding Group Co

Al-Eid Food KscQurain Petrochemical Industr

Ekttitab Holding Co SakReal Estate Trade Centers Co

Acico Industries Co KsccKipco Asset Management CoNational Petroleum ServicesAlimtiaz Investment Co Kscc

Ras Al Khaimah White CementKuwait Reinsurance Co Ksc

Kuwait & Gulf Link TransportHuman Soft Holding Co Ksc

Automated Systems Co KsccMetal & Recycling Co

Gulf Franchising Holding CoAl-Enma’a Real Estate Co

National Mobile TelecommuniUnicap Investment And Financ

Al Salam Group Holding CoAl Aman Investment Company

Mashaer Holding Co KscManazel Holding

Tijara And Real Estate InvesJazeera Airways Co Ksc

Commercial Real Estate CoNational International Co

Taameer Real Estate Invest CGulf Cement Co

Heavy Engineering And Ship BNational Real Estate Co

Al Safat Energy Holding CompKuwait National Cinema CoDanah Alsafat Foodstuff Co

Independent Petroleum GroupKuwait Real Estate Co Ksc

Salhia Real Estate Co KscGulf Cable & Electrical Ind

Kuwait Finance HouseGulf North Africa Holding Co

Hilal Cement CoOsoul Investment Kscc

Gulf Insurance Group KscUmm Al Qaiwain General Inves

Aayan Leasing & InvestmentAlrai Media Group Co KscNational Investments CoCommercial Facilities CoYiaco Medical Co. K.S.C.C

Munshaat Real Estate ProjectNoor Financial Investment Co

Al Tamdeen Investment CoCredit Rating & Collection

Ifa Hotels & Resorts Co. K.SSokouk Holding Co Sak

Warba Bank KscpViva Kuwait Telecom Co

Mezzan Holding Co Kscc

62.90

19.70

44.00

405.00

96.50

31.00

19.00

523.00

201.00

80.00

70.00

347.00

27.10

20.90

241.00

70.00

740.00

140.00

72.00

193.00

115.00

3,699.00

121.00

50.00

21.00

34.50

849.00

57.50

35.80

51.00

51.30

33.70

0.00

748.00

77.00

55.00

31.50

76.40

353.00

120.00

32.00

1,045.00

49.90

449.00

51.90

336.00

387.00

0.00

47.60

115.00

54.10

645.00

73.00

32.80

103.00

98.00

169.00

138.00

94.90

56.80

0.00

21.50

104.00

43.80

246.00

731.00

755.00

0.16

-1.01

-2.44

0.50

2.12

3.33

4.40

0.58

1.52

-5.88

7.20

0.29

-0.73

4.50

0.00

-6.29

0.00

0.00

0.00

1.58

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

0.00

2.37

-0.12

1.77

3.47

0.00

1.79

-1.46

0.00

0.00

2.26

-8.18

1.29

-0.52

0.00

-2.44

3.23

0.00

0.81

0.00

0.78

2.44

0.26

0.00

1.93

0.00

-4.92

0.00

0.00

-0.61

0.00

2.94

-0.59

1.47

3.15

2.16

0.00

0.00

-5.45

2.58

11.31

-0.95

-1.95

51,650

7,719,553

8,935,932

116,105

292,046

305,560

503,612

2,801,221

10,235,260

24,000

10,000

1,965,218

822,519

35,585

19,000

15,000

1,257

2,324,053

105,000

25,404

1,302,990

48,531

1,500

3,159

11,393

435,196

10,535

23,000

2,282,495

1,736

1,462,001

1,230,196

-

13,370

1,775,373

162,000

721,209

390,500

212,201

1,378,420

170,500

500

53,589

1,000

6,017,103

525,000

574,521

-

441,500

10

32,304

22,500

40,000

4,525,197

68,195

565,805

377,139

655

213,000

1,751,431

-

979

12,111

1,139,371

12,714,057

18,579

209,357

KUWAIT

Company Name Lt Price % Chg Volume

LATEST MARKET CLOSING FIGURES

BUSINESS7Gulf Times

Thursday, July 12, 2018

20.00

22.16

12.40

18.64

7.81

21.44

58.00

32.40

33.50

33.05

23.46

31.90

28.60

14.70

87.60

32.15

58.60

18.54

15.20

19.58

26.05

35.50

14.04

12.14

32.95

18.86

45.00

30.00

20.80

11.64

28.70

11.40

86.90

31.00

14.50

11.22

19.52

19.80

13.60

15.66

49.95

11.64

30.50

57.00

26.50

25.70

53.00

84.00

9.30

7.48

11.68

11.32

58.30

56.80

24.90

27.50

9.27

25.85

48.45

CURRENCIESDOLLAR QATAR RIYAL SAUDI RIYAL UAE DIRHAMS BAHRAINI

DINARKUWAITI

DINAR

European markets tumble as global trade war fl ares upAFPLondon

World stocks fell and the dollar rose yesterday after Wash-ington threatened to ham-

mer Beijing with tariff s on a further $200bn of Chinese imports, ratcheting up the global trade war.

In London the FTSE 100 closed down 1.3% to 7,591.96 points; Frank-furt — DAX 30 ended down 1.5% to 12,417.l3 points and Paris — CAC 40 closed down 1.5% to 5,353.93 points yesterday.

Washington’s announcement comes just days after the world’s two big-gest economies exchanged tit-for-tat measures on a range of goods worth tens of billions of dollars.

“Trade war concerns resurfaced overnight when news broke that the US will announce tariff s on a further $200bn of imports from China with levies of 10%,” said Fawad Razaqzada, a market analyst at Forex.com.

The news shattered the uneasy calm that had descended on markets and allowed them to regain some of the

ground lost in recent months on trade war woes.

But now, analysts expect the situa-tion to deteriorate signifi cantly.

“It is going to get much worse before it gets better,” Rabobank senior strate-gist Michael Every told AFP.

“It will get worse because nobody will back down: it’s a game of geo-political chicken, and nobody wants to swerve as nobody can afford to lose.”

Crude oil prices also sank heavily on concerns that a trade war could sap demand for the commodity that greas-es the wheels of the global economy — a concern echoed in Opec’s latest monthly report on Wednesday.

China meanwhile said it was “shocked” and warned it would im-pose countermeasures “to safeguard the core interests of the country and the fundamental interests of the peo-ple”.

Trump had previously warned he would hit a total of $450bn in Chinese goods, which essentially accounts for all the country’s US-bound exports, citing its unfair practices and intellec-tual property theft.

European stock markets were all well over 1% lower by the close, with Wall Street showing more modest losses approaching midday in New York. “Markets are panicking about the im-pact of a tit-for-tat trade war on eco-nomic growth,” Manulife Asset Man-agement investment analyst William Hamlyn told AFP.

Earlier the trade war jitters also rocked Asia. Tokyo’s Nikkei index dived 1.2%, with exporters hurt as the safehaven yen climbed against the dol-lar.

Hong Kong lost 1.3% and Shanghai ended off 1.8%.

Stephen Innes, head of Asia-Pa-cifi c trade at OANDA, cautioned that “nothing is written in stone and the tariff s are not set to take eff ect until September”.

He added however that the move was still “a very sobering reality check as to just how fragile sentiment around trade war rhetoric is”.

Observers will be keeping a close eye on the release tomorrow of Chi-nese trade data, which will give an idea about how the row has aff ected the country’s exports.

A visitor looks at a ticker of share prices at the London Stock Exchange (file). The FTSE 100 closed down 1.3% to 7,591.96 points yesterday.

Apple IncMicrosoft Corp

Exxon Mobil CorpJohnson & JohnsonGeneral Electric Co

Jpmorgan Chase & CoProcter & Gamble Co/The

Walmart IncVerizon Communications Inc

Pfizer IncVisa Inc-Class A Shares

Chevron CorpCoca-Cola Co/The

Intel CorpMerck & Co. Inc.

Cisco Systems IncHome Depot Inc

Intl Business Machines CorpWalt Disney Co/The

Unitedhealth Group Inc3M Co

Mcdonald’s CorpNike Inc -Cl B

United Technologies CorpBoeing Co/The

Goldman Sachs Group IncAmerican Express Co

Caterpillar IncTravelers Cos Inc/The

188.23

101.89

82.64

126.39

14.07

106.66

79.34

86.80

51.44

37.23

138.20

124.08

44.74

51.65

61.84

42.52

197.29

145.20

108.14

255.20

198.50

158.97

77.56

125.19

340.99

226.39

100.24

137.37

124.84

-1.11

-0.23

-1.22

-0.78

-0.74

0.04

-0.60

-0.47

0.19

-0.55

1.10

-2.75

-0.52

-0.98

-0.74

-0.79

-0.16

0.34

1.99

-0.13

-1.48

-1.03

-0.02

-1.47

-1.78

-0.20

0.33

-2.75

-0.82

7,276,154

7,030,970

3,456,694

1,942,974

20,945,283

4,435,464

3,003,970

2,452,222

4,971,089

8,201,036

3,722,307

2,569,994

3,025,435

6,875,011

2,414,157

7,057,311

1,243,781

1,732,745

6,432,856

478,134

731,130

1,373,621

1,372,184

1,706,756

1,291,445

714,765

1,215,712

1,986,533

346,407

DJIA

Company Name Lt Price % Chg Volume

Wpp PlcWorldpay Group Plc

Wolseley PlcWm Morrison Supermarkets

Whitbread PlcVodafone Group Plc

United Utilities Group PlcUnilever Plc

Tui Ag-DiTravis Perkins Plc

Tesco PlcTaylor Wimpey Plc

Standard Life PlcStandard Chartered Plc

St James’s Place PlcSse Plc

Smith & Nephew PlcSky Plc

Shire PlcSevern Trent Plc

Schroders PlcSainsbury (J) Plc

Sage Group Plc/TheAbi Sab Group Holding Ltd

Rsa Insurance Group PlcRoyal Mail Plc

Royal Dutch Shell Plc-B ShsRoyal Dutch Shell Plc-A Shs

Royal Bank Of Scotland GroupRolls-Royce Holdings Plc

Rio Tinto PlcRexam Ltd

Relx PlcReckitt Benckiser Group Plc

Randgold Resources LtdPrudential Plc

Provident Financial PlcPersimmon Plc

Pearson PlcPaddy Power Betfair Plc

Old Mutual PlcNext Plc

National Grid PlcMondi Plc

Merlin EntertainmentMediclinic International Plc

Marks & Spencer Group PlcLondon Stock Exchange Group

Lloyds Banking Group PlcLegal & General Group PlcLand Securities Group Plc

Kingfisher PlcJohnson Matthey Plc

Itv PlcIntu Properties Plc

Intl Consolidated Airline-DiIntertek Group Plc

Intercontinental Hotels GrouInmarsat Plc

Informa PlcImperial Brands Plc

Hsbc Holdings PlcHargreaves Lansdown Plc

Hammerson PlcGlencore Plc

Glaxosmithkline PlcGkn Plc

Fresnillo PlcExperian Plc

Easyjet PlcDixons Carphone Plc

Direct Line Insurance GroupDiageo Plc

Dcc PlcCrh Plc

Compass Group PlcCoca-Cola Hbc Ag-Di

Centrica PlcCarnival Plc

Capita PlcBurberry Group Plc

Bunzl PlcBt Group Plc

British Land Co PlcBritish American Tobacco Plc

Bp PlcBhp Billiton Plc

Berkeley Group Holdings/TheBarratt Developments Plc

Barclays PlcBae Systems Plc

Babcock Intl Group PlcAviva Plc

Astrazeneca PlcAssociated British Foods Plc

Ashtead Group PlcArm Holdings Plc

Antofagasta PlcAnglo American Plc

Admiral Group Plc3I Group Plc

#N/A

1,203.00

0.00

0.00

256.00

3,993.00

183.14

727.20

4,174.50

1,607.50

1,402.00

254.60

173.95

0.00

676.50

1,173.50

1,372.00

1,334.50

1,494.00

4,319.00

1,913.00

3,142.00

328.50

615.60

0.00

646.40

481.20

2,724.00

2,637.00

245.00

981.20

4,022.00

0.00

1,658.00

6,417.00

5,530.00

1,720.00

624.60

2,485.00

899.40

8,305.00

210.90

6,050.00

850.40

2,031.00

409.60

526.20

310.50

4,494.00

62.33

263.60

949.20

305.80

3,543.00

177.45

184.65

670.80

5,632.00

4,765.00

528.60

848.60

2,883.50

700.40

2,063.00

536.20

311.15

1,553.20

0.00

1,101.00

1,898.50

1,578.00

186.20

334.20

2,760.00

6,865.00

2,675.00

1,599.00

2,687.00

159.95

4,292.00

161.15

2,016.00

2,282.00

227.85

654.80

3,880.00

570.70

1,654.60

3,589.00

500.00

187.46

655.40

774.60

488.50

5,250.00

2,485.00

2,349.00

0.00

939.00

1,655.20

1,899.00

903.60

0.00

-2.04

0.00

0.00

0.00

-0.42

-3.10

-1.12

-0.54

-5.19

1.08

-0.04

0.06

0.00

-2.16

-0.68

-0.18

-0.26

-0.50

0.42

-0.88

-3.14

-0.27

-1.63

0.00

-0.89

-1.31

-2.03

-2.13

0.16

-1.31

-2.99

0.00

0.42

0.93

-2.91

-2.69

-0.45

-0.44

-0.97

-0.42

0.00

1.17

-0.16

-1.55

-0.22

-0.98

-0.13

-0.13

-0.27

-1.09

-0.62

1.43

-0.84

-1.42

-1.83

-0.92

-0.46

0.02

0.19

0.00

-0.74

-0.93

-0.34

-1.03

-4.83

-0.67

0.00

-2.95

-1.22

-2.05

-1.69

-0.33

-0.27

-0.58

-1.18

0.00

0.34

-1.90

-0.65

1.10

-4.05

-0.44

0.22

-0.79

-1.31

-3.19

-3.10

0.45

3.52

0.53

1.11

-0.49

-1.91

-0.59

-1.00

0.51

0.00

-3.14

-3.93

0.03

-1.48

0.00

2,503,994

-

-

7,691,937

383,085

88,472,048

2,523,450

2,391,517

1,627,308

1,211,213

21,537,863

12,081,913

-

5,855,565

924,072

1,954,228

1,786,206

7,066,640

1,913,492

1,078,112

462,609

7,071,674

2,633,982

-

2,221,416

4,552,447

4,374,009

3,832,927

25,335,492

2,346,294

4,360,327

-

2,138,902

1,141,358

685,788

5,095,802

440,077

1,197,837

2,171,936

212,533

-

642,934

5,169,400

1,234,282

1,526,491

694,316

6,239,291

454,925

133,053,973

13,026,273

1,654,227

6,394,071

432,041

11,592,923

1,581,886

3,393,061

386,141

388,246

2,652,426

7,128,492

1,404,789

21,929,330

743,431

2,446,100

58,669,305

5,468,510

-

1,013,649

1,950,185

1,595,585

2,798,568

4,087,593

2,352,006

176,567

1,335,398

2,229,938

739,236

25,534,936

1,217,070

5,183,295

2,990,751

616,151

28,100,690

2,213,488

2,841,269

35,916,137

6,764,247

699,664

13,350,491

35,837,327

8,299,437

1,427,608

10,177,147

1,488,406

1,110,483

2,841,446

-

2,357,209

5,838,981

616,856

1,601,149

-

FTSE 100

Company Name Lt Price % Chg Volume

Hitachi LtdTakeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd

Jfe Holdings IncSumitomo Corp

Canon IncNintendo Co Ltd

Eisai Co LtdIsuzu Motors Ltd

Unicharm CorpShin-Etsu Chemical Co Ltd

Smc CorpMitsubishi Corp

Asahi Group Holdings LtdKeyence Corp

Nidec CorpNomura Holdings Inc

Daiichi Sankyo Co LtdSubaru Corp

Ntt Docomo Inc

779.90

4,586.00

2,082.50

1,837.50

3,526.00

35,520.00

9,962.00

1,411.00

3,414.00

10,295.00

37,710.00

3,139.00

5,464.00

59,680.00

16,655.00

535.20

4,308.00

3,117.00

2,816.00

-1.30

-0.95

-0.45

-0.19

-0.48

0.03

-5.57

-0.81

1.55

-0.87

-2.58

0.22

-0.74

-2.15

-0.39

-1.07

-1.40

-1.61

0.14

13,423,000

4,874,400

2,217,100

3,733,000

4,198,900

1,361,600

4,684,400

1,884,300

1,234,200

1,021,600

209,100

3,497,900

1,386,500

352,400

549,300

15,035,000

1,501,800

4,439,500

2,919,500

TOKYO

Company Name Lt Price % Chg Volume

Sumitomo Realty & DevelopmenSumitomo Metal Mining Co Ltd

Orix CorpDaiwa Securities Group Inc

Softbank Group CorpMizuho Financial Group Inc

Central Japan Railway CoNitori Holdings Co Ltd

T&D Holdings IncToyota Motor Corp

Hoya CorpSumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdin

Japan Tobacco IncOsaka Gas Co Ltd

Sumitomo Electric IndustriesOno Pharmaceutical Co Ltd

Ajinomoto Co IncMitsui Fudosan Co Ltd

Daikin Industries LtdToray Industries Inc

Bridgestone CorpSony Corp

Astellas Pharma IncJxtg Holdings Inc

Nippon Steel & Sumitomo MetaSuzuki Motor Corp

Nippon Telegraph & TelephoneSompo Holdings Inc

Daiwa House Industry Co LtdKomatsu Ltd

West Japan Railway CoMurata Manufacturing Co Ltd

Kansai Electric Power Co IncDenso Corp

Dai-Ichi Life Holdings IncMazda Motor Corp

Mitsui & Co LtdKao Corp

Sekisui House LtdOriental Land Co Ltd

Secom Co LtdTokio Marine Holdings Inc

Aeon Co LtdFanuc Corp

Daito Trust Construct Co LtdOtsuka Holdings Co Ltd

Resona Holdings IncAsahi Kasei Corp

Kirin Holdings Co LtdMitsubishi Ufj Financial Gro

Marubeni CorpMitsubishi Chemical Holdings

Fast Retailing Co LtdMs&Ad Insurance Group Holdin

Kubota CorpSeven & I Holdings Co Ltd

Inpex CorpSumitomo Mitsui Financial Gr

Ana Holdings IncMitsubishi Electric Corp

Honda Motor Co LtdTokyo Gas Co Ltd

Tokyo Electron LtdPanasonic Corp

Fujitsu LtdEast Japan Railway Co

Itochu CorpFujifilm Holdings Corp

Yamato Holdings Co LtdChubu Electric Power Co Inc

Mitsubishi Estate Co LtdMitsubishi Heavy Industries

Shiseido Co LtdShionogi & Co Ltd

Recruit Holdings Co LtdJapan Airlines Co Ltd

Nitto Denko CorpKddi Corp

Rakuten IncKyocera Corp

Nissan Motor Co Ltd

4,034.00

4,108.00

1,791.00

647.70

8,812.00

188.00

21,840.00

16,675.00

1,592.00

7,132.00

6,174.00

4,368.00

2,978.50

2,232.00

1,640.50

2,534.50

2,042.00

2,660.50

12,710.00

856.70

4,060.00

5,742.00

1,748.50

794.10

2,102.50

6,177.00

5,049.00

4,371.00

3,862.00

3,098.00

7,738.00

19,500.00

1,550.00

5,280.00

1,963.00

1,317.00

1,871.00

8,071.00

1,901.00

11,435.00

8,325.00

5,223.00

2,182.00

21,455.00

18,015.00

4,875.00

592.90

1,406.00

2,872.50

632.90

842.30

936.70

47,420.00

3,394.00

1,791.00

4,495.00

1,183.00

4,264.00

3,957.00

1,460.00

3,238.00

2,873.50

18,705.00

1,398.50

725.00

10,035.00

1,955.50

4,290.00

2,985.50

1,675.50

1,894.00

4,038.00

8,423.00

5,516.00

2,950.50

3,893.00

7,872.00

3,096.00

792.40

6,149.00

1,020.00

-0.91

-1.68

-1.92

-0.96

0.62

-0.37

0.05

1.46

-1.64

-0.27

-0.15

-0.86

-0.82

-1.35

-1.17

-0.14

-0.51

-1.24

-2.34

-1.71

-2.52

0.65

-0.57

-0.50

-1.06

-1.22

0.42

-0.64

0.08

-2.52

-1.88

-2.33

-1.18

-1.82

-1.43

-1.13

0.19

0.16

-1.17

0.70

-0.47

-1.69

-1.82

-1.29

-1.23

1.60

-0.02

-0.67

-0.38

-0.57

-0.66

-1.24

-2.35

-0.38

-0.75

-0.20

0.21

-0.56

-1.22

-1.08

-1.07

-0.86

-0.56

-0.39

-0.51

-1.67

-2.00

-1.52

0.18

-0.09

-0.89

-0.76

1.18

-1.59

-4.61

-0.18

-2.65

-0.29

-0.60

-1.74

-2.06

TOKYO

Company Name Lt Price % Chg

Aluminum Corp Of China Ltd-HBank Of East Asia Ltd

Bank Of China Ltd-HBank Of Communications Co-H

Belle International HoldingsBoc Hong Kong Holdings Ltd

Cathay Pacific AirwaysCk Hutchison Holdings Ltd

China Coal Energy Co-HChina Construction Bank-H

China Life Insurance Co-HChina Merchants Port Holding

China Mobile LtdChina Overseas Land & Invest

China Petroleum & Chemical-HChina Resources Beer Holding

China Resources Land LtdChina Resources Power Holdin

China Shenhua Energy Co-HChina Unicom Hong Kong Ltd

Citic LtdClp Holdings Ltd

Cnooc LtdCosco Shipping Ports Ltd

Esprit Holdings LtdFih Mobile Ltd

Hang Lung Properties LtdHang Seng Bank Ltd

Henderson Land Development

3.25

31.45

3.64

5.51

0.00

36.10

12.08

84.25

3.04

6.85

19.60

15.96

70.45

24.85

7.03

35.55

25.90

14.20

17.42

9.47

10.52

86.70

12.96

6.72

2.20

1.13

15.90

198.70

42.00

-0.61

-1.87

-1.89

-1.78

0.00

-2.30

-1.79

-1.23

0.00

-2.00

-1.41

-0.50

-0.56

-2.74

-0.85

0.00

-1.71

-2.34

-3.54

-1.35

-1.31

-0.91

-0.61

0.15

-2.65

0.89

-1.24

-0.25

-0.12

12,262,927

852,901

371,355,401

30,962,806

-

13,837,281

1,447,896

3,915,574

7,957,213

419,335,439

30,309,115

4,458,981

13,769,487

14,371,442

87,054,328

3,186,324

12,362,896

5,511,130

36,882,478

28,790,649

11,473,366

2,888,964

52,474,082

1,470,443

3,486,192

5,135,148

2,378,311

960,065

3,857,553

HONG KONG

Company Name Lt Price % Chg Volume

Hong Kong & China GasHong Kong Exchanges & Clear

Hsbc Holdings PlcHutchison Whampoa Ltd

Ind & Comm Bk Of China-HLi & Fung Ltd

Mtr CorpNew World Development

Petrochina Co Ltd-HPing An Insurance Group Co-H

Power Assets Holdings LtdSino Land Co

Sun Hung Kai PropertiesSwire Pacific Ltd - Cl ATencent Holdings Ltd

Wharf Holdings Ltd

15.24

231.80

72.95

0.00

5.56

2.53

42.75

10.90

5.77

70.40

57.40

12.52

118.60

84.10

379.40

25.85

-0.39

-0.94

-1.29

0.00

-1.59

-2.32

-1.04

-1.98

-1.54

-0.98

-0.69

-1.73

-1.17

-2.38

-1.91

-0.96

11,957,782

4,072,204

16,004,370

-

298,554,823

27,398,469

2,721,282

11,490,996

96,378,450

37,229,653

2,691,957

3,254,424

3,575,391

1,405,762

24,515,081

3,279,632

HONG KONG

Company Name Lt Price % Chg Volume

Zee Entertainment EnterpriseYes Bank Ltd

Wipro LtdVedanta Ltd

Ultratech Cement LtdTech Mahindra Ltd

Tata Steel LtdTata Power Co Ltd

Tata Motors LtdTata Consultancy Svcs Ltd

Sun Pharmaceutical IndusState Bank Of India

Reliance Industries LtdPunjab National Bank

Power Grid Corp Of India LtdOil & Natural Gas Corp Ltd

Ntpc LtdMaruti Suzuki India Ltd

Mahindra & Mahindra LtdLupin Ltd

Larsen & Toubro LtdKotak Mahindra Bank Ltd

Itc LtdInfosys Ltd

Indusind Bank LtdIdea Cellular Ltd

Icici Bank LtdHousing Development Finance

Hindustan Unilever LtdHindalco Industries Ltd

Hero Motocorp LtdHdfc Bank Limited

Hcl Technologies LtdGrasim Industries Ltd

Gail India LtdDr. Reddy’s Laboratories

Coal India LtdCipla Ltd

Cairn India LtdBosch Ltd

Bharti Airtel LtdBharat Petroleum Corp Ltd

Bharat Heavy ElectricalsBank Of Baroda

Bajaj Auto LtdAxis Bank Ltd

Asian Paints LtdAmbuja Cements Ltd

Adani Ports And Special EconAcc Ltd

540.30

371.60

272.10

218.10

3,951.80

654.40

555.70

72.20

267.80

1,979.90

560.75

259.10

1,038.80

75.55

182.90

158.10

152.70

9,384.70

931.00

900.45

1,274.75

1,386.95

275.75

1,320.45

1,914.80

54.05

268.75

1,928.10

1,718.15

220.80

3,536.60

2,148.25

993.45

978.80

357.30

2,301.35

264.80

625.30

0.00

17,606.15

362.00

366.50

70.85

116.20

3,161.60

536.55

1,359.80

202.55

373.50

1,360.55

0.35

0.05

0.55

-3.52

-0.20

0.56

-2.28

-1.16

-2.78

5.59

-0.57

-1.76

1.28

-2.95

-0.62

0.09

-0.78

-1.53

0.05

-0.27

-0.77

1.08

-0.47

1.46

-1.05

-3.14

-1.70

-0.74

1.85

-3.60

-1.31

0.09

1.42

-1.20

-1.83

-0.88

-4.90

-1.07

0.00

-1.32

-1.58

-2.33

-0.98

-2.76

2.19

0.75

-0.78

-0.88

0.82

-0.76

SENSEX

Company Name Lt Price % Chg

WORLD INDICESIndices Lt Price Change

GCC INDICESIndices Lt Price Change

Dow Jones Indus. AvgS&P 500 Index

Nasdaq Composite IndexS&P/Tsx Composite Index

Mexico Bolsa IndexBrazil Bovespa Stock Idx

Ftse 100 IndexCac 40 Index

Dax IndexIbex 35 Tr

Nikkei 225Japan Topix

Hang Seng IndexAll Ordinaries Indx

Nzx All IndexBse Sensex 30 Index

Nse S&P Cnx Nifty IndexStraits Times Index

Karachi All Share IndexJakarta Composite Index

24,739.17

2,778.34

7,720.77

16,425.42

48,823.39

74,624.10

7,591.96

5,353.93

12,417.13

9,733.60

21,932.21

1,701.88

28,311.69

6,300.21

1,593.06

36,265.93

10,948.30

3,249.08

28,966.85

5,893.36

-180.49

-15.50

-38.43

-123.30

-167.53

-238.28

-100.08

-80.43

-192.72

-155.70

-264.68

-14.25

-370.56

-42.55

-3.41

+26.31

+1.05

-25.75

+20.19

+11.60

Doha Securities MarketSaudi Tadawul

Kuwait Stocks ExchangeBahrain Stock Exchage

Oman Stock MarketAbudhabi Stock MarketDubai Financial Market

9,355.02

8,388.66

#N/A N/A

1,344.89

4,455.54

4,691.80

2,892.43

-40.79

-29.25

#N/A N/A

+10.10

-42.80

+23.25

-3.21

“Information contained herein is believed to be reliable and had been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. The accuracy and completeness cannot be guaranteed. This publication is for providing information only and is not intended as an off er or solicitation for a purchase or sale of any of the financial instruments mentioned. Gulf Times and Doha Bank or any of their employees shall not be held accountable and will not accept any losses or liabilities for actions based on this data.”

1,021,000

1,661,900

4,824,400

4,600,400

6,911,200

98,910,500

236,900

536,300

1,570,500

5,667,100

940,400

981,700

4,575,300

813,600

1,693,100

960,800

2,021,200

2,178,500

844,900

3,705,800

3,044,100

7,463,900

7,256,600

17,102,800

2,077,700

1,159,600

1,883,100

1,179,700

1,386,600

5,927,500

700,200

1,348,300

2,133,800

1,552,900

4,119,100

4,832,400

4,569,700

1,133,900

2,383,900

423,900

554,400

1,692,400

2,778,900

1,029,300

317,400

1,674,100

8,143,200

2,315,400

2,430,400

51,293,400

5,288,100

5,477,000

648,600

1,624,800

2,833,300

2,574,400

4,617,300

4,025,600

968,300

7,402,000

4,038,200

1,040,900

1,526,700

6,826,200

9,323,000

799,200

4,189,700

1,022,100

1,473,300

1,259,300

2,641,300

1,056,300

1,986,300

1,169,100

5,917,100

1,191,900

980,000

4,201,400

18,818,800

1,181,500

19,984,700

980,155

9,957,006

4,253,095

17,267,997

247,168

5,824,787

6,516,011

3,046,641

8,057,869

24,061,165

3,709,039

13,443,507

9,070,629

16,540,567

2,195,984

6,967,185

4,030,009

344,117

2,794,976

2,774,633

1,390,665

1,481,842

12,118,303

6,249,059

1,819,549

18,895,552

13,383,422

2,500,803

1,236,356

10,141,369

410,736

1,503,825

5,288,508

801,732

5,839,622

878,587

4,636,394

1,723,387

-

14,076

1,977,599

4,335,011

5,673,476

12,548,985

1,243,910

6,700,004

821,936

2,620,655

2,684,041

457,421

Volume

Volume

Gulf Times Thursday, July 12, 2018

BUSINESS8

BUSINESS13Gulf Times

Thursday, July 12, 2018

Escalating trade row haunts emergingequities, currenciesReutersLondon

A sharp escalation of the trade

war between Washington and

Beijing battered emerging

markets yesterday with Chinese

stocks faltering, the yuan weak-

ening and falling commodity

prices adding to the pressure.

US President Donald Trump’s

administration raised the stakes

with China on Tuesday, saying

it would slap 10% tariff s on an

extra $200bn worth of Chinese

imports.

China’s commerce minis-

try said it was “shocked” by

Washington’s latest move, which

comes just days after both

countries imposed tit-for-tat

tariff s on $34bn of each other’s

goods.

The news soured the mood

on markets worldwide. MSCI’s

emerging market stocks bench-

mark snapped a three-day win-

ning streak, dropping 0.9%.

China mainland stocks

suff ered steep losses, with the

Shanghai Composite index and

the blue-chip CSI300 index

tumbling 1.8%.

“It’s a kneejerk reaction to the

overnight Treasury statement

about another $200bn worth of

imports from China that could

be taxed at 10%, and investor

concerns about the growth

reaction to this,” UBP emerging

markets strategist Koon Chow

said.

Investors are worried that

the trade row could harm an al-

ready slowing Chinese economy

in a blow to global investment

and growth, especially among

emerging market economies.

The escalating tensions also

hit emerging currencies with

the yuan weakening about 0.5%

both onshore and off shore for a

second straight day.

The yuan had steadied in

recent days after suff ering its

biggest monthly fall on record

in June. “So far the CNY Non-

Deliverable Forwards market is

not pricing in more weakness at

24-months, unlike in 2015/16,”

Rabobank analysts wrote in a

note to clients.

“That underlines that recent

CNY weakness, while a choice,

is not seen as a game changer

— yet.”

Currencies elsewhere were

also under pressure from a

sell-off in commodity markets

as copper prices slumped to

their weakest for a year and zinc

down at 13-month lows.

Copper exporter South Africa

saw its rand currency weaken

nearly 1% against the dollar

while Russia’s rouble eased

0.6%. Turkey’s lira slipped 0.7%.

Data showing its current

account deficit had widened

more than expected adding to

the woes.

Sensex and Nifty edge up; rupee ends flatBloomberg, ReutersMumbai

Indian benchmark indices BSE Sensex and

NSE’s Nifty 50 closed with little gains yester-

day as new US tariff threats on Chinese goods

dragged metal stocks down off setting gains in

TCS and Infosys.

In global markets, shares slumped, the

dollar gained and commodities slid along with

emerging-market assets as investors braced

for another escalation in the burgeoning trade

war between the US and China.

The BSE Sensex closed higher by 26.31

points, or 0.07%, to 36,265.93, while the Nifty

50 edged up 1.05 points, or 0.01%, to close at

10,948.30. The BSE MidCap and SmallCap fell

0.67% and 0.33%, respectively. Among the

sectoral indices on the BSE, IT gained most at

2.38% followed by teck 1.94% and realty 0.55%.

Metal fell most at 3.10% followed by basic

materials, industrials and auto. TCS led gains

by rising over 5%. Bajaj Auto, Hindustan

Unilever, Infosys and Reliance Industries were

among other top gainers. On the other hand,

Coal India, Vedanta, Tata Motors, UPL and Tata

Steel were among the major losers. Foreign in-

vestors sold shares worth a net Rs20.73 crore,

while local investors bought shares worth

a net Rs293.96 crore on Tuesday, showed

provisional data.

Meanwhile the rupee yesterday closed little

changed against the US dollar ahead of key

inflation data. The rupee ended at 68.77 a dol-

lar, up 0.04% from its previous close of 68.82.

The currency opened at 68.79 a dollar and

touched a high and a low of 68.75 and 68.90,

respectively. Traders are awaiting Consumer

Price Index-based (CPI) inflation and Index of

Industrial Production data due to be released

on 12 July. Retail inflation likely rose to a near

two-year high in June, driven by surging oil

and food prices, a Reuters poll showed.

According to a 4-9 July Reuters poll of 37

economists, retail prices rose at an annual

5.30% last month.

That would be the fastest since July 2016,

well above May’s 4.87% and keep inflation

above the central bank’s 4% target for an

eighth straight month.

The 10-year bond yield ended at 7.872%,

from its Tuesday’s close of 7.899%. Bond yields

and prices move in opposite directions.

So far this year, the rupee has weakened

7.15%, while foreign investors have sold

$827.90mn and $6.23bn in equity and debt

markets, respectively.

Asian currencies were trading lower after

Trump administration released additional list

of Chinese goods to impose tariff s.

The Trump administration pushed ahead

with plans to impose tariff s on additional

$200bn in Chinese products by releasing a

list of targets, marking a sharp escalation in

a trade war between the world’s two largest

economies.

China renminbi was down 0.44%, South Ko-

rean won 0.35%, China off shore 0.35%, Taiwan

dollar 0.27%, Thai Baht 0.25%, Singapore dol-

lar 0.20%, Malaysian ringgit 0.15%, Indonesian

rupiah 0.13%, Japanese yen 0.05%.

The dollar index, which measures the US

currency’s strength against major currencies,

was trading at 94.209, up 0.06% from its previ-

ous close of 94.158.

Asia markets fall on new tariff s threatAFPHong Kong

The uneasy calm that had de-scended on Asian markets was shattered yesterday after

the US threatened to hammer China with tariff s on a further $200bn of imports, ratcheting up a trade war between the world’s top two econo-mies.

Washington’s announcement comes just days after the two sides exchanged tit-for-tat measures on a range of goods worth tens of billions of dollars, with US Trade Repre-sentative Robert Lighthizer blaming Beijing.

“As a result of China’s retaliation (to Friday’s measures) and failure to change its practices, the president has ordered USTR to begin the proc-ess of imposing tariff s of 10% on an additional $200bn of Chinese im-ports,” he said in a statement.

China said it was “shocked” and warned it would impose counter-measures “to safeguard the core interests of the country and the fun-damental interests of the people”.

Tuesday’s announcement is the latest move by Donald Trump in his America First protectionist agenda that has also seen the US target Canada, the European Union and Mexico, who have also hit back with their own measures, sparking global trade war fears.

Trump has previously warned he would hit a total of $450bn in

Chinese goods, which essentially accounts for all the country’s US-bound exports, citing its unfair practices and intellectual property theft.

While observers have been nerv-ously expecting the next salvo in the trade row, the news jarred markets, which had enjoyed some stability this week from upbeat US jobs data and hopes for the upcoming earn-ings season.

“This latest story will serve as a reality check for the market, re-minding investors to reconsider how aggressive they want to be,” Michael O’Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading, told Bloomberg

News.”Regardless, the $200bn in potential additional tariff s is not a surprise.

The president made everyone well aware of them.”

The news sent risk assets into a nosedive.

Tokyo’s Nikkei ended 1.2% lower, with exporters hurt as the safe-ha-ven yen climbed against the dollar.

Hong Kong lost 1.3% and Shang-hai ended off 1.8%, while Seoul shed 0.6% and Singapore gave away 0.9%. Sydney retreated 0.7%, while Taipei and Jakarta were also sharply lower.

Stephen Innes, head of Asia-Pa-cifi c trade at OANDA, said “nothing

is written in stone and the tariff s are not set to take eff ect until Septem-ber” but the move was still “a very sobering reality check as to just how fragile sentiment around trade war rhetoric is”.

But Ray Attrill, head of forex strategy at National Australia Bank, added that he saw the move as “a negotiating tactic designed to get China back to the negotiating table on trade”, adding that higher tariff s would “inevitably impose signifi -cant burdens on US consumers”.

While the dollar slipped against the yen, the rush for safety saw the greenback pile ahead against high-er-yielding currencies, with the South Korean won down 0.3%, In-donesian rupiah shedding 0.1% and Thai baht 0.2% lower.

The Chinese yuan shed 0.4%, with many warning that Beijing stands to suff er most from a full-blown trade war, which comes just as its economy shows signs of stut-tering.

Observers will be keeping a close eye on the release Friday of Chinese trade data, which will give an idea about how the row has aff ected the country’s exports so far.

Oil prices also sank on concerns that a trade war could hit demand for the commodity.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 closed down 1.2% to 21,932.21 points; Hong Kong — Hang Seng ended down 1.3% to 28,311.69 points and Shanghai — Composite fell 1.8% to 2,777.77 points yesterday.

Employees work at the Tokyo Stock Exchange (file). The Nikkei 225 closed down 1.2% to 21,932.21 points yesterday.

Japanese dump Europe bonds in May on Italy political crisisBloombergTokyo

Japanese investors pared holdings of German sovereign bonds in May by the most June 2015, while selling the

most Italian debt in a year amid the po-litical crisis that gripped Rome during the month.

Money managers from the Asian nation sold a net ¥693bn ($6.3bn) of German debt, after withdrawing a net ¥685.1bn in April, balance-of-payments data released by Japan’s Ministry of Finance showed Monday. At ¥78.8bn, their sales of Italian securities were the biggest in a year. They

turned net sellers of French notes for the fi rst time since August. Italy’s benchmark 10-year yield had its biggest monthly jump in May since records began in 1993, as investors fl ed the nation’s debt amid a political impasse that stalled the forma-tion of a new government.

Euro-denominated sovereign bonds returned a loss of 1.2% in May to Japanese investors who hedged against euro weak-ness, according to a Bloomberg Barclays index.

The crisis in Italy and uncertainty over the European Central Bank’s monetary policy outlook left investors concerned, said Tsuyoshi Ueno, a senior economist at NLI Research Institute in Tokyo. It was

hard for investors to “position giving the diffi culty in predicting the path of the ECB’s monetary policy,” Ueno said.

The MOF data on selling of foreign bonds by the Japanese helps validate recent signs that investors, led by life-insurance companies, are turning to the local government-debt market. Yields on the Asian nation’s 20-, 30- and 40-year debt last week dropped to their lowest levels since 2016, and an auction of 30-year notes on Thursday drew the strong-est demand since October 2012.

Japanese funds sold a net ¥190.4bn of French bonds in May, ending an eight-month buying streak. They dumped a net ¥2.1tn worth of US sovereign bonds, the

most since February. “The trend of Japa-nese investors shifting out from US Treas-uries hasn’t changed, with high hedging costs continuing to curb demand,” Ueno said.

The Japanese were net buyers of UK bonds for a third straight month, taking in ¥122.6bn in May. They bought ¥64.4bn of Canadian debt in a second straight month of buying, while raising holdings of Aus-tralian securities by ¥133.9bn, the biggest increase since last July.

The balance-of-payments data in-cludes securities issued by governments, government agencies and local authori-ties, and covers bonds with original ma-turities of more than one year.

Foreign investors focus on defensive stocks in ChinaBloombergHong Kong

Foreign investors are zeroing in on healthcare and consumer stocks and ditching some old favourites, as they

sift through the spoils of a $2tn selloff in China’s equity market.

Companies exposed to China’s grow-ing middle class and resilient to external turbulence like the trade fi ght are popular picks for foreigners investing via trading links with Hong Kong. Kweichow Moutai Co, Han’s Laser Technology Industry Group Co and Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine Co are among those in demand, while Gree Electric Appliances Inc and Shang-hai International Airport Co have fallen out of favour.

“Investors are focusing on defensive stocks, such as companies with strong earnings visibility and a high probabil-ity of delivering growth regardless of the short-term macro slowdown,” said Caro-line Maurer, head of greater China equi-ties at BNP Paribas Asset Management in Hong Kong. “White liquor and healthcare

names are likely to be in this category.”Chinese shares have been on a down-

ward slide since hitting a more than two-year high in January, as investors worried about Beijing’s campaign to rein in lever-age and its impact on liquidity, as well as corporate defaults, the slowing economy and an intensifying spat over trade and technology investment between China and the US.

The CSI 300 Index of Chinese large cap stocks has fallen 22% from its January 24 high. Its consumer staples sub-gauge – which includes Moutai – is the third best performer on the index over that period, despite falling 14%. The healthcare sector is the one bright spot, advancing 9.6% as a group. Jiangsu Hengrui has helped lead the charge with a 21% gain.

The outperformance of healthcare stocks is a refl ection of the growing mid-dle class in China wanting better medical coverage, while steadily improving living standards have buoyed consumer stocks, said Tai Hui, chief market strategist at JP-Morgan Asset Management in Hong Kong.

According to Hong Kong Stock Ex-change data, foreign investor owner-

ship of Gree Electric via the trading links has fallen to 7.9% from 9.1% in January. It slipped to as low as 6.7% in late April, when the home appliance maker skipped a dividend payout for the fi rst time in 11 years.

BNP’s Maurer said the selling refl ects investor concern about China’s housing market.

While Shanghai International Airport remains popular among foreign investors – who hold almost a third of the company – that hasn’t stopped them from selling stock this year. Corrine Png, chief execu-tive offi cer of Crucial Perspective in Sin-gapore, wrote last month that it’s increas-ingly likely the escalating trade dispute spurs China to impose curbs on outbound tourism to the US.

International investors have bought a net 12bn yuan ($1.8bn) of Moutai shares since January, though the world’s big-gest distiller by market value has seen its stock drop 5.9% since then. Foreign hold-ings of Moutai and fellow liquor maker Wuliangye Yibin Co are both near at least 15-month highs.

“Foreign buying of consumption-re-

lated names could continue, as more for-eign funds are expected to fl ow into the A-share market in the second half thanks to the weakening yuan, cheap valuations and inclusion of onshore stocks in the MSCI Inc indexes,” said Banny Lam, head of research at CEB International Invest-ment Corp in Hong Kong, referring to the inclusion of mainland Chinese stocks in index compiler MSCI’s gauges last month.

Shenzhen-listed Han’s Laser is rap-idly turning into one of the most popular stocks in the eyes of foreign investors, who have boosted their stake to more than 11% from just 5% in January. That’s the biggest increase for any company listed in Shenzhen. The maker of laser-based products has attracted investors because of the potential for Chinese industry to use more laser technology, said Hiroki Lu, a fund manager at SinoPac Securities In-vestment Trust in Taipei.

“Foreign investors initially invested in home appliances and liquor,” Lu said. “Af-ter the MSCI inclusion, they researched China more broadly and began to notice smaller companies – there is still a lot of potential for Han’s Laser to grow.”

Traders look at computer screens in front of an electronic board showing stock information at a brokerage house in Shanghai (file). Foreign investors are zeroing in on healthcare and consumer stocks and ditching some old favourites, as they sift through the spoils of a $2tn selloff in China’s equity market.

BUSINESS

Gulf Times Thursday, July 12, 201814

Shadowy Chinese fund is at the heart of the copper routBy Andy HomeLondon

Copper prices are in free fall as the United States di-

als up the trade tension with China. On the London

Metal Exchange (LME) copper for three-month

delivery touched a one-year low of $6,081 per tonne

yesterday. The fall from last month’s high of $7,348

has turned brutal.

Slide has become rout as momentum-chasing

funds pile in on the short side.

LME broker Marex Spectron estimates that as

of last Friday the collective speculative short had

reached 18% of open interest, a level not seen since

2016. And it has almost certainly grown further

since. But it’s a fund of another kind that has

grabbed the market’s attention.

Few outside China will have heard of Gelin Dahua

Futures Co. But the Shanghai copper market has

been tracking its massive bull position since July of

last year.

Last week it sold out of that position big time,

coinciding with a collapse in the Shanghai copper

price.

There are echoes of January 2015, when another

previously unknown Chinese player, Shanghai

Chaos, was linked with a copper price implosion.

History never quite repeats itself, though.

This was no bear attack such as that three years

ago, but rather the last Chinese copper bull throw-

ing in the towel.

Gelin slashed its long position on the Shanghai

Futures Exchange (ShFE) copper contract from

43,538 lots to 16,022 lots over the second half of

last week, according to Thomson Reuters Metals

Content and Insight.

That’s nearly 140,000 tonnes of copper. The

most active Shanghai contract plunged from 55,450

yuan per tonne to 48,630 yuan over the same three

days. The volume impact was amplified by the

awareness of who was selling because so many had

been following for so long Gelin’s copper fortunes.

Gelin first placed its bull wager on copper in late

July of last year. Its positioning grew in just a couple

of days to almost 37,000 lots, according to Wenyu

Yao, analyst at the Metals Insight team.

By October 2017, the position had grown to

almost 70,000 contracts. It accounted for around

35% of total open interest on the front eight months

of the contract and had an implied value of almost

$3bn. The position has ebbed and waned with the

price since then, although Gelin may have thrown

down a partial smokescreen by rolling part of it to

the very end of the Shanghai copper curve, where

there are no daily disclosure reports.

What seems indisputable, however, is that this

one-year copper bet was largely liquidated last

week. Gelin’s exit is part of a broader investor re-

treat from the copper market as trade tensions rise.

Funds’ collective long position on the CME’s cop-

per contract has also collapsed, from 77,740 lots to

7,322 in the space of the last month.

Whatever copper’s fundamental undercurrents,

investors have taken fright at a deteriorating macro

outlook, not least in China.

The bulls have been routed. Including the biggest

Chinese bull of them all. But who is, or rather was,

the bull? Gelin Dahua is a member of the Shanghai

Futures Exchange. Member 0121 to be precise. Which

is how it is identified in the ShFE’s daily publication of

the top 20 long and short member positions across

the front part of the copper futures curve. It is a

broker for the position, not the originator.

The clue as to who’s prepared to punt $3bn on

the copper market comes in the form of Gelin’s par-

ent company. Shanxi Securities is based in China’s

traditional coal mining heartland and the word on

the Shanghai street is that it’s King Coal who has

taken such a keen interest in Doctor Copper over

the last year.

Whether King Coal is an individual coal billion-

aire, a collective of coal magnates or just a cluster

of Chinese super-punters who happen to be operat-

ing out of the coal province of Shanxi is not known.

“Funds” in China come in many diff erent shapes

and sizes. Understandably, given client confidential-

ity, neither Gelin nor Shanxi Securities are saying

anything.

When Shanghai Chaos burst into the limelight in

2015, it heralded the arrival of Chinese speculative

money to the copper market mainstream.

Andy Home is a columnist for Reuters. The views

expressed are those of the author.

The tax dodge that cost the German Treasury billions of eurosBy Karin MatussekBloomberg Businessweek

The manoeuvre was brilliant, a virtually

risk-free transaction that guaranteed hefty

returns after only a few days. Then the

taxman caught on. For the better part of

a decade, German authorities say, dozens

of banks and brokerages helped investors

snatch billions of euros from the national

treasury by exploiting an interpretation

of the tax code that appeared to let

multiple people claim ownership of the

same shares of stock and — crucially — the

right to a refund of taxes withheld from

dividends.

“They seemed to be creating money

from nothing,” says Tobias Rudolph, a

criminal defence lawyer in Nuremberg.

“Common sense should have told anyone

that this couldn’t be right.” The deals

involved a type of short sale made just be-

fore a company was due to pay a dividend.

(In conventional short sales, investors

sell stock they don’t own, hoping to profit

by repurchasing it later at a lower price.)

When German companies pay dividends,

they withhold about a quarter of the

money to cover any taxes the shareholder

might later owe.

Shareholders get certificates showing

how much was deducted, and the amount

can be credited against their tax bill or, if

they owe no additional taxes, refunded.

In the case of the short sales in question,

two parties claimed to own the same stock

and got certificates. Prosecutors say that

in some instances, three or more investors

may have received certificates for the

same withholding tax.

Financial houses, accounting compa-

nies, and law firms across Europe and the

US participated on some level: doing the

deals, arranging them for clients by acting

as custodians, issuing tax certificates, or

financing transactions. The practice —

which has come to be known as “cum/ex,”

a Latin phrase that means “with/without,”

a reference to the vanishing dividend pay-

ments in the trades — is widely reported

to have cost German taxpayers more than

€10bn ($11.7bn).

Frankfurt prosecutors in May said they

had charged six people, including former

investment bankers at UniCredit’s HVB

unit in London. Investigators in Cologne

are preparing their first indictments in

a parallel probe, according to people

familiar with the matter. That inquiry has

been under way for about a half-decade

but is picking up speed as suspects begin

to co-operate. The cases involve hundreds

of individuals at banks including Barclays,

Macquarie, Bank of America, and BNP

Paribas, say the people, who declined to

be identified because they’re not author-

ised to discuss the matter. A third team,

in Munich, is looking into an investment

fund that specialised in such transactions.

“A shockingly large number of players

sought to unscrupulously enrich them-

selves at the public’s expense,” German

opposition lawmaker Gerhard Schick said

in a report to parliament. “It was a glitter-

ing party.”

Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, HVB,

German private lender MM Warburg, and

Clearstream, the unit of Deutsche Börse

that settles trades, have acknowledged

that transactions they were involved in

are being investigated. Deutsche Bank

says it didn’t participate in cum/ex trades

as a short seller or buyer, but it worked

on deals for some clients. MM Warburg

& Co says any trades it made were in line

with the law. Clearstream Banking says

it’s cooperating with the prosecutors. The

other banks declined to comment.

The practice came to light about a

decade ago when off icials at various tax

off ices started questioning requests for

refunds on murky transactions totalling

hundreds of millions of euros. As they dug

more deeply, they stopped honouring the

certificates and alerted prosecutors.

A 2012 reform of the tax code brought

the practice to a halt, but authorities had

accepted the certificates for years, and

lawmakers did little to tighten the rules

despite repeated warnings, so the debate

today centres on whether the trades

were legal before 2012. Banks, funds, and

investors that participated in the trades

relied on legal opinions from lawyers that

said the transactions were allowed. But

prosecutors say those documents over-

simplified the matter and that it was clear

the transactions involved double-dipping

on the refunds.

The probes have led to raids in more

than a dozen countries over the past four

years, and investigators have reviewed

thousands of e-mails, voicemails, and

Bloomberg chat sessions that traders

used. They got a breakthrough last year

when a handful of participants agreed to

provide details of the deals. This summer

the Bonn Regional Court is set to rule on

whether the prosecutors can off er leni-

ency to key witnesses. The Bonn court,

which will hear cases resulting from the

Cologne probe, has beefed up capacity

and added an extra chamber to handle an

expected wave of charges.

Prosecutors have settled cases with

several banks and individuals, and oth-

ers are seeking to cut deals, but given

the magnitude of the tax damage, the

investigators are reluctant to do so, one

of the people says. Settlements, though,

are inevitable because the justice system

doesn’t have the capacity to try hundreds

of suspects. Although German law doesn’t

allow for criminal charges against compa-

nies, prosecutors can add them as associ-

ated parties to probes of their employees,

and they can face substantial sanctions.

“Many banks have started to explore cum/

ex internally,” says Heiko Gemmel, an

attorney at Hogan Lovells in Dusseldorf

who advises clients on the issue. “Those

who haven’t need to start now. The noose

is tightening.”

Bank of Canada raises rates,says more hikes to come

ReutersOttawa

The Bank of Canada raised inter-est rates yesterday as expected and signalled more rate hikes to

come, saying that while mounting trade tensions with the United States were a concern, their impact on growth and in-fl ation looked modest so far.

The fourth rate increase since July 2017 and the bank’s relatively sanguine view of the trade risk boosted the Ca-nadian dollar to its strongest in nearly four weeks, and economists said they expected the central bank to hike again by year end.

“At fi rst blush, it’s a little bit more op-timistic or hawkish than I would have expected — there’s nothing particularly shocking here, but just generally the tone is one of mild concern about the trade front,” said Doug Porter, chief economist at BMO Capital Markets.

“The overall impression is one of on-ward and upward and this isn’t neces-sarily the last rate hike of the year.”

The rate increase, by a quarter of a percentage point, took the bank’s over-night interest rate to 1.50%. While the bank said mounting trade tensions with the US would have a larger impact on investment and exports than previously thought, it nudged up its estimate for second-quarter economic growth and pointed to rising infl ation pressures.

The central bank said tit-for-tat tar-iffs imposed by the United States and Canada would cause some difficult adjustments for industries and work-ers, but that the impact of the tariffs on growth and inflation was expected to be modest.

The bank tweaked its standard lan-guage on future rate hikes, saying that while it would take a gradual ap-proach guided by data, it was moni-toring the economy’s adjustment to higher rates, the evolution of capac-ity and wage pressures as well as “the response of companies and consum-ers to trade actions.”

Pointing to a stronger-than-expected US economy, the bank boosted its es-timate of Canadian second-quarter growth to 2.8% from 2.5% forecast in April, but said growth would slow to 1.5% in the third quarter.

Infl ation was expected to pick up to about 2.5% before settling back to 2% by the second half of 2019, the bank said, while wage growth was running at about 2.3%, “slower than would be expected in a labour market with no slack.”

Murdoch’s Fox ups Sky bid to $32.5bn, all eyes on ComcastReutersLondon

Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox has raised its off er for Brit-ain’s Sky in an agreed deal valu-

ing the pay-TV group at $32.5bn, see-ing off rival bidder Comcast for now.

Fox, which has been trying to buy the pan-European group since De-cember 2016, off ered to pay £14 per share, a 12% premium to Comcast’s off er, but below the £15.00 Sky shares were trading yesterday.

Analysts said the bid threw down the gauntlet for Comcast, the world’s biggest entertainment company, to return with a higher off er.

The US cable group gatecrashed Murdoch’s attempt to buy the 61% of Sky his group did not already own in February, when Fox was still fi rmly stuck in the regulatory process.

One top-40 Sky shareholder said they expected Comcast to come back with a counter bid for Sky.

“The end price really depends on the appetite of those companies and how much they are willing to take their leverage up and at what stage their shareholders say enough is enough,” the shareholder, who did not wish to be identifi ed, said.

The fi ght for Britain’s leading pay-TV group is part of a bigger battle being waged in the entertainment industry as the world’s media giants off er tens of billions of dollars in deals to be able to compete with Netfl ix and Amazon.

Comcast and Walt Disney are locked in a separate $70bn-plus bat-tle to buy most of Fox’s assets, which would include Sky.

Disney secured conditional US approval to buy the assets last month, giving it an edge over Com-cast’s bid.

Hong Kong-based hedge fund Case Equity Partners, a Sky investor, said the fact Disney was in a slightly more favourable position for Fox’s US me-dia assets meant Comcast would fi ght even harder to get Sky.

“Today’s Fox bid is unlikely to be the end game as we see a fi nal Sky deal outcome at well over £15 per share,” said managing partner Michael We-gener. Comcast declined to comment on Fox’s new off er.

Present in 23mn homes across Eu-rope, Sky is a prized asset, with a di-

rect relationship with its customers and a slate of top sport and original drama content. “This transformative transaction will position Sky so that it can continue to compete within an environment that now includes some of the largest companies in the world,” Fox said.

Its off er represents an 82% pre-mium to Sky’s shares in 2016 before the takeover drama started, and a multiple of 21 times 2017 earnings per share. Sky’s senior independent di-rector Martin Gilbert welcomed the move. “This off er refl ects the strong position the business is in and is an attractive premium for shareholders,” he said.

However, British regulators have indicated that if Disney succeeds

in buying Fox, including the 39% stake in Sky, it would be required to offer the same price for the remain-der of Sky.

According to some shareholders, that has set an implied higher fl oor for Sky’s shares. Hedge funds including Elliott have bought into Sky in recent months and other vocal shareholders such as Crispin Odey have demanded that the independent directors secure a better deal.

“It’s too low,” Odey, a former son-in-law of Murdoch whose epony-mous hedge fund is a Sky shareholder, said of the sweetened Fox off er.

“Disney’s internal forecasts now, on the basis of the cash fl ows they’ve published for Sky, would value it at 16 pounds,” he said. Investors argue

that Sky’s continued strong trading performance, and its deal this year to secure the rights to English Pre-mier League football at a lower than expected price, meant it warranted a higher off er. Fox said the performance of Sky since 2016 justifi ed its new bid.

Analysts said it was not a knock-out, and Fox did not say it was its final offer.

“Fox coming back in for Sky isn’t a surprise in itself, but the fact the of-fer is slightly behind what some had anticipated brings another twist,” said George Salmon, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown. The British government is expected to fi nally al-low Fox to buy Sky this week, after the US group agreed to sell Sky’s award-winning news channel to Disney to

prevent Murdoch from owning too much of the British media.

Fox, run by Rupert’s son James who is also the chairman of Sky, has made a string of guarantees to help secure backing for its deal, including investment in British TV production, technology and the protection for Sky News.

Murdoch had previously tried and failed to buy Sky in 2011 when a phone hacking scandal at his News of the World tabloid sparked a political backlash over his role in Britain.

The opposition has not completely subsided despite the plan to spin off Sky News.

“There are enough sub-plots in the race to acquire Sky to commission a prime-time drama,” Salmon said.

A logo is pictured on a sign next to the entrance to pay-TV giant Sky’s headquarters in Isleworth, London. Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox has raised its off er for Sky in an agreed deal valuing the pay-TV group at $32.5bn, seeing off rival bidder Comcast for now.

BUSINESS15Gulf Times

Thursday, July 12, 2018

Ukraine’s PrivatBank open to settlement with former ownersReutersKiev

Ukraine’s biggest bank does not rule out settling a legal dispute with its former main sharehold-

ers out of court, the head of PrivatBank’s supervisory board said on Tuesday.

The Ukrainian authorities took Pri-vatBank into state hands in December 2016 and have spent nearly $6bn so far to plug a hole in its balance sheet caused by what the government says were fraudulent lending practices and money-laundering.

The former owners, two of Ukraine’s richest men, dispute the authorities’ assessment of the bank’s health when it was nationalised.

The case led to hundreds of lawsuits and the authorities see it as a test of their fi ght against corruption. An investigation commissioned by the central bank in Jan-uary found 95% of PrivatBank’s corporate loans had gone to companies linked to the former owners or their affi liates.

As a result, more than 85% of its portfolio is made up of non-perform-

ing loans as of June 1, the central bank says. Engin Akchakocha, head of the PrivatBank’s supervisory board, said “every option is on the table” when asked if he would consider an out-of-court settlement with the bank’s former main shareholders, although he said he did not want to comment di-rectly on the legal cases.

“Resolving a problem peacefully is easier and better than trying to resolve it through a fi ght,” he said.

“It all needs appropriate willpower and goodwill,” he said when asked about the prospect of the former owners help-ing tackle PrivatBank’s bad loans. “As of today, we are not in communication with the former shareholders of the bank on resolving these issues on a vol-untary basis,” he said, but he added that he did not rule out such a route.

Lawyers for Ihor Kolomoisky and Gennadiy Bogolyubov, the two former main shareholders, could not immedi-ately be reached for comment.

Akchakocha was appointed chairman of the supervisory board in January 2017, after working as chief banking regula-tor in Turkey during its fi nancial crisis

in 2001. Under his guidance, PrivatBank aims to return to profi t in 2018 after two years of losses and to fi nd a buyer by 2022. The bank’s strategy includes focusing mostly on retail banking and making only limited forays into corporate lending, said Akchakocha, adding that PrivatBank had implemented a range of changes to its governance since nationalisation.

The supervisory board “started to change the bank’s way of doing busi-ness, understanding of risk, and im-plementing controls,” he said, adding this included re-establishing a risk management unit, an internal audit department and a compliance offi ce.

PrivatBank’s non-performing loans needed to be removed from its balance sheet for a successful privatisation, he said, adding the bank might need to be split up to make it attractive for a sale due to its size.

The bank had assets of 254.6bn hry-vnias ($9.7bn) as of end-March 2018. Asked if foreign fi nancial institutions could become shareholders before a full privatisation, he said: “If we think that it will add to the value of the fi nal transaction, it may be an option.”

Customers queue to withdraw hyrvnia currency from an automated teller machine outside a Privatbank branch in Kiev. Ukraine’s biggest bank does not rule out settling a legal dispute with its former main shareholders out of court, the head of PrivatBank’s supervisory board said.

Airbus faces A330 delivery delays amid HNA Group woesReutersToulouse, France

Airbus faces a logjam of un-

delivered A330 jets worth well

over $1bn for airlines aff iliated

to China’s debt-laden HNA

Group following a stand-off over

late payments, according to

industry sources and a Reuters

examination of parked aircraft.

Companies belonging to

the troubled Chinese aviation-

to-finance conglomerate have

delayed payments for several

months, leading Airbus to with-

draw deliveries rather than step

in to finance the aircraft itself,

the sources told Reuters.

“After six months of talks,

Airbus took the decision to

withdraw the planes as it does

not want to play the financier,”

said a person familiar with the

discussions yesterday.

However, another person in-

volved in the matter cautioned:

“It is in the process of being

resolved”.

Airbus and HNA had no im-

mediate comment. The cluster

of undelivered A330 aircraft

came to light on the sidelines

of a ceremony on Wednesday

to introduce Airbus’s smallest

new jet.

Reuters journalists counted

five A330s dotted around the

delivery centre and another

parked further away — some

with reflective sunshade

protectors taped to the cockpit

windows and all painted in the

flame-red liveries of HNA Group

airlines.

These include Hainan

Airlines, Beijing Capital Airlines

and Tianjin Airlines.

Six A330s would cost a total

of $1.6bn at list prices.

Various semi-finished A320s

could be seen parked, though it

was impossible to tell whether

these were grounded for the

same reasons or because of a

wider problem of engine short-

ages for such planes.

Airbus has had a stockpile of

up to 100 undelivered single-

aisle jets, but said last week this

had fallen to 86.

The wide-body A330 aircraft

has no such engine supply

problems and it is the backlog

of those more expensive planes

that is causing most concern,

the sources said.

An aircraft finance source es-

timated the total financial bur-

den of holding such an asset, in

terms of lost value and the cost

of storage and maintenance, at

$10,000 per plane per day.

Airbus is already having to

handle cash shortfalls from the

late delivery of dozens of A320

aircraft. Unravelling the situation

could be made more diff icult

by the death last week of HNA

Group chairman Wang Jian, a

financial source said, though

HNA quickly named co-founder

Chen Feng as sole chairman of

the highly centralised group.

Wang, regarded as the archi-

tect of HNA’s $50bn acquisition

spree that pushed it into debt,

died in southern France on

July 3 in what local police said

appeared to be an accidental

fall from a wall while posing for

a photograph.

Pound mispriced for Algebris as Allianz bets on volatilityBloombergLondon

The UK government is engulfed in a crisis and time is running out to forge a Brexit deal – and yet

pound traders seem remarkably san-guine.

While the currency’s low volatility has puzzled some fund managers, Al-lianz Global Investors say it’s now bet-ting on greater swings in sterling. For Algebris Investments, the market is too comfortable with the risks and the pound should be trading almost 10% lower.

“For me there is a buying opportuni-ty in terms of the volatility side for ster-ling,” said Kacper Brzezniak, a portfolio manager at Allianz, which oversees €513bn ($601bn) of assets globally. “My view is that we could get a fairly large

move in either direction, you could say markets are perhaps complacent or maybe a bit fatigued with Brexit.”

Allianz’s Brzezniak said the fi rm went long volatility ahead of last week-end by buying options, with a bias for sterling-dollar puts.

The cost to hedge against turbulence in the pound versus the dollar over the next year climbed the most in a month after Prime Minister Theresa May saw two of her most senior ministers resign within 24 hours, but is still below long-term averages.

Even though the next 12 months en-compass a key European Union summit in October and the UK’s March 2019 exit, a one-year gauge of volatility is yet to show signs of panic. It touched 8.23% on Tuesday, its highest in three weeks, but lower than the annual aver-age of 8.44% and far from this year’s 9.32% high.

“Progress hasn’t been great in Brexit negotiations and it’s a bit surprising that one-year volatility hasn’t risen more than we have seen so far,” said Van Luu, head of cur-rency and fixed-income strategy at Russell Investments. The October summit is by when “we should make significant progress and if there isn’t significant progress then there is certainly scope for higher volatility in the exchange rate,” he said.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel called May’s new proposals a “solid step forward” though the UK prime minister faces a challenge getting them through Parliament while keeping her Conservative party intact. Eurosceptic Tory lawmakers are considering voting down the plans in a last ditch move that could bring down her minority govern-ment later this year.

With Brexit progress also a factor for

the Bank of England’s policy, it is get-ting more challenging to predict where sterling is headed. The pound is mis-priced and should be trading closer to $1.20, according to Alberto Gallo, a portfolio manager at Algebris.

“In this uncertain environment, with potentially a fall in the govern-ment, we don’t think the BoE can hike rates,” Gallo said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

“There is a serious risk that the UK will have to print its way out of trouble but in doing that, they will issue more debt,” he said, referring to the possi-bility of greater bond issuance under a hard Brexit scenario or the opposition Labour party coming to power.

Volatility in the currency may hit particularly high levels around events such as the EU summits in October and December, according to strategists at UniCredit who recommended a long-

volatility trade on euro-sterling this month. Credit Agricole also sees vola-tility as a good bet, with “better value” on the euro-sterling side.

“I would expect people to want to be compensated for the potential volatil-ity that you could see over the coming months,” Mike Bell, a global market strategist at JP Morgan Asset Manage-ment, said in an interview last week. “I would expect implied vol to be some-what higher given the extent of the choppiness we could see before we get to the eventual end state.”

Allianz’s Brzezniak is bearish on the currency’s prospects, while Russell’s Luu sees more upside from here – but both agree on more swings.

“Even if the fi nal outcome is a soft Brexit or something similar, I think it very unlikely that we get there smooth-ly,” Brzezniak said. “Long volatility is the right way to go.”

US producer infl ation rises on strong services gainsProducer price index increases 0.3% in June; PPI rises 3.4% year-on-year; PPI excluding food, energy, trade gains 0.3%

ReutersWashington

US producer prices increased slightly more than expected in June amid gains in the cost of

services and motor vehicles, leading to the biggest annual increase in 6-1/2 years. The report published by the La-bor Department yesterday also showed a pickup in underlying producer infl a-tion last month.

The data supports views of stead-ily rising price pressures, which will probably allow the Federal Reserve to increase interest rates two more times this year. Tariff s imposed by the Trump administration on imports of lumber, steel and aluminium pushed up prices last month.

“Tariff s are negative for economic growth but they are also infl ationary,” said John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics in New York. “We expect these price pressures will fl ow through into higher core infl ation at the consumer level as the year unfolds.”

The producer price index for fi nal demand climbed 0.3% last month after rising 0.5% in May.

In the 12 months through June, the PPI advanced 3.4%, the largest gain since November 2011.

Producer prices increased 3.1% year-on-year in May.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the PPI gaining 0.2% in June and rising 3.2% year-on-year.

A key gauge of underlying producer price pressures that excludes food, en-ergy and trade services rose 0.3% last month.

The so-called core PPI edged up 0.1% in May.

In the 12 months through June, the core PPI advanced 2.7% after increas-ing 2.6% in May.

Manufacturers have been facing a rise in the cost of inputs, but so far have not passed on most of the increases to consumers.

Infl ation is gradually rising against the backdrop of a labour market that is viewed as being near or at full employ-ment.

The Fed’s preferred infl ation meas-ure, the personal consumption ex-penditures (PCE) price index exclud-ing food and energy, hit the US central bank’s 2% target in May for the fi rst time in six years.

The Fed raised interest rates in June for the second time this year and has forecast two more rate hikes by the end of 2018.

US fi nancial markets were little moved by the data.

In June, the cost of services increased 0.4% after climbing 0.3% in May.

A 21.8% jump in the index for fuels and lubricants retailing accounted for about 40% of the rise in the cost of

services last month. The cost of health-care services rose 0.2% as a 1.0% surge in prices for hospital outpatient care off set slight declines in the cost of doc-tor visits and hospital inpatient care.

Healthcare prices nudged up 0.1% in May. Those healthcare costs feed into the core PCE price index. There were also increases in the cost of transport-ing goods by road, likely refl ecting an acute shortage of truck drivers.

Truck transportation prices soared a record 1.3% in June. But wholesale prices of apparel and footwear fell as did the cost of airline tickets.

Prices for goods edged up 0.1% last month after surging 1.0% in May.

They were last month restrained by a 1.1% drop in food prices, which fol-lowed a 0.1% gain. Wholesale gasoline prices rose 0.5% after jumping 9.8% in May. Excluding foods and energy, goods prices climbed 0.3%, rising by the same margin for a sixth consecutive month.

Motor vehicle prices increased 0.4% in June, the biggest gain in seven months.

In a separate report on Wednes-day, the Commerce Department said wholesale inventories increased 0.6% instead of the 0.5% gain it reported last month.

Stocks at wholesalers edged up 0.1%

in April. They rose 5.9% year-on-year in May. The component of wholesale inventories that goes into the calcu-lation of gross domestic product — wholesale stocks excluding autos — in-creased 0.8% in May.

Inventory investment was neutral to GDP growth in the fi rst quarter. The economy grew at a 2.0% annualised pace during the January-March period. Sales at wholesalers accelerated 2.5% in May, the biggest increase since March 2011, after rising 1.4% in April.

At May’s sales pace it would take wholesalers 1.24 months to clear shelves, the lowest since November 2014, down from 1.27 months in April.

A tug boat heads out to retrieve a container ship at the Port of Oakland in California (file). US producer prices increased slightly more than expected in June amid gains in the cost of services and motor vehicles, leading to the biggest annual increase in 6-1/2 years.

BUSINESSThursday, July 12, 2018

GULF TIMES

The cost of climate change — $535tnBy Hazem al-Anqar

Future generations will be handed a

massive bill, that could amount to $535tn,

resulting from the cost of climate change

due to delays in implementing significant

changes to reduce greenhouse gases.

These were the findings from a new

research to calculate the cost of the Nega-

tive CO2 Emissions technology needed to

remove carbon dioxide from air in order

to avoid the risks of climate change. The

study was conducted by an international

team of experts led by the American

climatologist scientist James Hansen;

previously the director of Nasa’s Goddard

Institute for Space Studies and published

at Earth Systems Dynamics.

The 2015 Paris Accords on Climate

Change has documented the international

community’s approval to limit the global

temperature increase to 2°C. The team led

by Hansen believes that safest approach

to reach this goal is to decrease the con-

centration of CO2 in the atmosphere from

the current annual average in excess of

400 parts per million (ppm) to the level of

the 1980’s. i.e., 350 ppm. In eff ect, this ap-

proach is considered to be in line with the

Paris Agreement to reduce the tempera-

ture increase to 1.5°C. Many climatologists

and policy makers believe that limiting the

temperature increase to 1.5–2.0°C will only

be possible by using the negative CO2

emissions technique.

Return carbon to EarthThe promising negative CO2 emissions is

termed Bio-Energy with Carbon Capture

and Storage (BECCS). It involves farming

products that are subsequently burnt at

power generation facilities, and the result-

ing carbon emission are then captured

and pushed through pipes to depths

lower than the earth crust for storage over

thousands of years. The scheme will allow

the generation of electricity availability

and reduce the amount of CO2 in the

atmosphere.

The BECCS technology has its own limita-

tions, such as land availability, as well as

suff icient amount of water and fertilisers

required to meet the demand for generat-

ing power. The main drawback, however, is

that this technology is not presently avail-

able at mass scale. Only few pilot plants

have been tested. There are other nega-

tive CO2 emissions techniques available

such as fertilising the oceans to increase

the photo-synthesis process and direct

capture of CO2 from air to be transformed

into plastics and other products.

The Hansen team investigated the cost of

removing excess CO2 from air by BECCS.

They concluded that it is possible to return

to a CO2 concentration level of 350 ppm

by re-farming the forests and improving

the soil, leaving around 50bn tonnes of

CO2 to be dismantled via negative CO2

emissions techniques. The plants culti-

vated through BECCS will absorb CO2 and

when burnt, the resulting CO2 is captured

at chimney stacks. This could only work if

the existing rate of emissions is curtailed.

Otherwise, more delays will mean that fu-

ture generations will be obliged to extract

ten folds the amount of CO2, by the turn of

this century.

The negative CO2 emissions cost approxi-

mately $150-350 to remove one ton of

CO2. And if global emissions are reduced

by 6% per annum, which is a diff icult sce-

nario but not impossible, then $8–18.5tn

is needed to return the CO2 concentra-

tion levels to the average of the 1980’s

(350 ppm), divided over 80 years. This

equates to an annual cost of $100-230

per year. However, if the emissions were

to stay at current levels or increase by 2%

per annum, the total cost will increase to

a minimum of $89tn and could reach to

$535tn. In other terms, the annual cost will

be $1.1–6.7tn per year for 8 decades. To put

these figures into perspective, the total

federal budget of the USA is about $4tn

and the global expenditure on military

defence by all nations is $1.7tn.

Climate balance Human activities have pumped more than

1.5tn tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere

since 1750. The issue is not only about the

total amount of CO2 generated but also

the rate of generation, considering that

oceans have limitations on the rate of

absorption of additional CO2.

The climate will eventually restore balance

over decades and centuries and the earth

will return to the position where it reflects

the same amount of energy it receives.

However, this balance will be attainable

at higher temperatures than the existing,

leading to the thawing of glaciers and

rising sea levels, resulting in even higher

temperature waves and more floods.

The last time planet Earth witnessed

similar conditions was some 115,000

years ago. The ocean levels were 6 to 9

meters higher than the levels of today.

The findings by the Hansen team suggest

that maintaining the current imbalance in

energy carries a risk of permanent seal-

level increase by several meters. The slow

process of glacier thawing is still in action

and the longer the climate imbalance

spans the more drastic the consequences

will be.

A major reason some nations are delaying

and slowing dramatic cuts to greenhouse

emissions is the due to the potential nega-

tive eff ects on their economies. Industries

still rely heavily on fossil fuels. The re-

sponse to climate change requires striking

a balance between economic develop-

ment and the desire to avoid the tragic

eff ects of climate change or the need to

adopt costly remedies in the future.

Regardless of the various assumptions on

economic development or cost reduc-

tions, it is not imaginable that the sum of

$535tn can be made available, even when

spread over 80 years. During this time,

the global population will grow to around

11bn and more and more produce will be

needed to feed them. Furthermore, with

the BECCS scheme in operation whilst

climate change is on-going, there are no

guarantees that this technology or for

that matter, any other negative emissions

technology will actually be eff ective. The

rates of increase of CO2 could be dramatic

and such pace could lead to catastrophic

consequences.

The author is sustainable development

expert and this article was provided by

Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiyah

International Foundation for Energy

and Sustainable Development.

GDI, Seadrill sign pactfor utilisation of off shore drilling rig ‘West Tucana’Gulf International

Services’ (GIS) sub-sidiary Gulf Drill-

ing International (GDI) has signed a definitive agree-ment with Seadrill for the utilisation of the offshore drilling rig ‘West Tucana’.

As a part of the agree-ment, the ‘West Tucana’, a ‘JU 2000E’ class, will be

contracted to work in Qatar offshore for a firm period of 440 days with options in place for further exten-sions, a GIS spokesman said.

GDI also announced that it has signed a strategic co-operation agreement with Seadrill that provides the foundation for future syner-

gies in Qatar’s off shore mar-ket between both the parties.

“This partnership with Seadrill will lead to greater strategic and competitive advantage strengthening our position as the leader in Qa-tar Off shore drilling market,” according to Mubarak A al-Hajri, GDI chief executive.

By bringing together

Seadrill’s high-specifica-tion jack up fleet and GDI’s diverse customer base, he said the combination of experience would ensure delivering market-leading level of operational and safety performance to cli-ents.

Seadrill chief executive Anton Dibowitz said the

company was delighted to have signed a strategic co-operation agreement and an initial contract for the West Tucana with GDI.

“We have the scale and high specifi cation fl eet re-quired for work now and into the future in such an impor-tant growing market as Qa-tar,” he added.

Al-Hajri and Seadrill senior vice-president and chief commercial off icer Matt Lyne ink the deal for the utilisation of ‘West Tucana’.

QIIB bags ‘Best Islamic Retail Services in Qatar’ award by World Union of Arab BankersQIIB has been chosen for the ‘Best Islamic

Retail Services in Qatar’ award by the World

Union of Arab Bankers. The award, QIIB

said, highlights the “prestigious stature of

the bank and the quality of the integrated

services it provides to its clients.”

QIIB senior manager (Treasury and

Investment Department) Omar Abdul Aziz

al-Meer received the award from Joseph

Torbey, chairman, Union of Arab Banks at

a ceremony held in Beirut recently.

On the occasion, QIIB chief executive

off icer Dr Abdulbasit Ahmad al-Shaibei

said, “This prestigious award given by

such a reputable professional institu-

tion — the World Union of Arab Bankers,

which represents most banks, financial

and banking institutions, is a proof on the

commitment of our bank to meet the lat-

est developments in the banking industry.

Award winners have been chosen for

providing excellent and quality service to

their customers.”

Dr al-Shaibei said, “QIIB being chosen

for the award indicates the success of

the Qatari banking sector in general and

Islamic banking in particular. It proves the

bank has been able to keep pace with the

best international banking standards and

introduce products and solutions that

cater to the needs of its customers and

comply with Islamic Shariah”.

Dr al-Shaibei noted the Qatari banking sec-

tor continues to make great accomplish-

ments, which has placed it at the forefront

of the banking sector in the region despite

the unjust siege on the country. Among

the accomplishments are the outstanding

growth rates being registered year after

year. The banking sector plays a leading

role in the renaissance of the Qatari

economy, meeting the requirements of

various sectors.

Dr al-Shaibei highlighted the importance

of the award, which is the result of long

years of experience of QIIB in the retail

banking sector and the importance it

brings to its customers in terms of provid-

ing all services and products that comply

with the latest international banking

standards.

“The recognition of an important regional

institution such as the World Union of

Arab Bankers, due to the quality and

advancement of our services in the retail

banking sector, emphasises the success of

our strategies and excellence in this area

among others. Same is the case with the

highly professional and specialised opera-

tions which we propose”, he stated.

“QIIB will continue its eff orts to provide the

best and most diverse banking services

and cater to the needs and meet the

aspirations of its customers, belonging

to diff erent segments and categories. We

aim at a distinct banking experience for

individuals and companies through our

diff erent channels, fulfilling all their needs

and ambitions.”

QIIB has recently received several awards,

among which are ‘The Excellence and

Achievement Award for Banking 2017,

‘The Best Supporting Bank for Al Dameen

Program’ and ‘The Best Islamic Bank in the

Qatari Retail Sector” 2016, from Cam-

bridge IF Analytica.

Dr al-Shaibei: Successful strategies.

Omar Abdul Aziz al-Meer (second right) receives the award for QIIB from Joseph Torbey (second left) in Beirut recently.

Istanbul stock turmoil invites contrarians to seize on discountBloombergIstanbul

A deepening discount may prove the cushion that Turkish stocks need to ride

out some stormy months ahead.Istanbul’s benchmark share

gauge is headed for its biggest two-day drop since July 2016, with banks leading the slump. The rout has dragged valuations for members of the Borsa Istan-bul 100 Index close to the lowest in more than nine years, as meas-ured by price-to-estimated earn-ings. For some investors, that may be juicy enough to turn the latest retreat into a buying opportunity.

“The next six to nine months will be highly challenging due to an acute need for rebalancing in the economy; earnings will see notable revisions in both direc-tions,” according to Emre Ak-cakmak, a portfolio adviser at

East Capital in Dubai who helps manage $4bn. “I can therefore imagine the majority of investors remaining on the sidelines until there is more clarity, but contrar-ians could build long-term posi-tions at highly attractive prices.”

Tuesday’s 3% selloff in Turk-ish equities was triggered after President Recep Tayyip Er-dogan tightened his grip over the central bank and named his son-in-law Berat Albayrak as the nation’s chief economic policy maker. The appointment sparked unease among investors as they saw the move as a signal that Erdogan intends to persist with pro-growth policies.

Marmara Capital Asset Man-agement agrees that there is a positive side to this week’s events for local equities. “Tur-key is among the cheapest emerging markets and the cur-rent sell-off is a buying op-portunity for some contrarian

investors,” said Haydar Acun, the head of the Istanbul-based money manager. Its equity fund has returned 4.1% this year, compared with a drop of 18% in the benchmark BIST 100 Index, according to data on Turkey’s Electronic Fund Platform.

The appointment by any leader of his family member to a fi nance ministry position would make investors uneasy anywhere in the world, regardless of his or her fi tness for the post, said East Capital’s Akcakmak. Even so, in-vestors should assess how much conditions have really changed.

“The majority of investors also didn’t like the departure of some market-friendly minis-ters, but I think this is an over-rated topic as I doubt investors were happy with the investment environment over the past few years, during which the market has de-rated signifi cantly,” Ak-cakmak said.