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Transforming the Middle East, a Mainstream Destination for International Investment

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Transforming the Middle East, a Mainstream Destination for International Investment MIDDLE EAST INVESTMENT SUMMIT 2014 Transforming the Middle East, a mainstream destination for international investment olitical and economic trends are transforming reforms in Morocco may clear the way for strong A man sand skis in the Middle East into a mainstream destina- growth in the next few years. As soon as this year, a the desert near Tabuk, Ption for international investors. In the Gulf, diplomatic agreement on Iran’s disputed nuclear pro- 1,500 km (932 miles) the stock markets of the United Arab Emirates and gram could allow the country of 80 million people to from Riyadh December Qatar attracted billions of dollars of fresh foreign begin rejoining the global trading system. 27, 2012. REUTERS/ money this year as they were upgraded to emerging These issues and others were discussed at the an- MOHAMED ALHWAITY market status by equity index compilers, while Saudi nual Reuters Middle East Investment Summit, where Arabia announced it would open its $550 billion Reuters journalists interviewed some of the region’s bourse to direct foreign investment early next year. top policy-makers and executives in cities including Returning political and financial stability in Egypt, Abu Dhabi, Cairo, Doha, Dubai, Rabat and Riyadh, after the turmoil of the Arab Spring, and economic producing exclusive stories and investable insights. 1 MIDDLE EAST INVESTMENT SUMMIT 2014 As oil price slides, Gulf’s private business may benefit BY ANDREW TORCHIA DUBAI, OCTOBER 26, 2014 uwait’s privately owned Jazeera Airways is preparing to bid for a Kbig stake in state-run flag carrier Kuwait Airways, Jazeera’s chairman told Reuters. If the deal goes through, it will be a sign that the business scene is changing in the Gulf. For several decades, Gulf Arab econo- mies have been dominated by the heavy hand of the state. Governments’ huge oil revenues have eclipsed private sector activ- ity. Benefiting from these revenues, state- owned firms have prospered while many private companies have struggled to raise financing and become ensnared in official red tape. But pressures are growing for a new The first oil well of the region (L), which was discovered in 1931, is seen with new and advanced oil model. North Africa’s Arab Spring upris- pumping machines in the background in Sakir, south of Manama, October 11, 2014. ings of 2011, fuelled by high unemploy- REUTERS/HAMAD I MOHAMMED ment, underlined to Gulf governments the need to create jobs for their citizens - and to enlist the private sector in that effort. Sultan noted that the region had a his- Summit that his company was preparing Meanwhile this year’s plunge of global tory of entrepreneurship - before the dis- to enter a bidding process for a 35 percent oil prices, to below levels which some gov- covery of oil, economies were supported strategic stake in loss-making Kuwait Air- ernments need to balance their budgets, has by small, flexible trading and transport ways. Parliament originally approved the exposed the risks of relying entirely on oil businesses, many using the wooden sailing airline’s privatisation in 2008 but the proj- for growth and revenues in the long term. ships known as dhows. ect was delayed; it now appears to be mov- The result is a string of economic re- “People have to think, how can we do ing ahead again. forms and steps to open up financial mar- without” the oil revenues that have sus- “We believe in privatisation and think kets that may create more opportunities for tained the region for the last few decades, governments should focus on political private firms - foreign as well as domestic he said. administration, and not on managing air- - in coming years, company executives from line companies or transportation or other REFORMS around the Gulf told the Reuters Middle firms,” Boodai said. East Investment Summit. Jazeera Airways may be a step towards that Executives at the Summit also cited a The oil price slide is not causing panic in change. Set up in April 2004, it is one of a range of other efforts to stimulate private the Gulf but it is “getting people to think in handful of privately owned airlines in the business across the Gulf, including partial the right direction”, said Tarek Sultan, chief Gulf and now operates a fleet of 15 Airbus deregulation of areas such as telecommuni- executive of Kuwait-listed logistics giant A320s. cations and aviation in Saudi Arabia, and a Agility , which is majority privately owned. Chairman Marwan Boodai told the drive by the United Arab Emirates to make 2 MIDDLE EAST INVESTMENT SUMMIT 2014 it easier for smaller companies to borrow The company launched an industrial public offers of shares in state-linked com- money from banks. zone at the port in 2010, offering tax and panies, billing the sales as a way to share These steps will not by themselves re- other incentives to attract private compa- the country’s corporate wealth with their duce governments’ economic dominance in nies’ logistics and manufacturing opera- citizens. the region, but there are signs that they are tions. Kuwait’s sovereign wealth fund an- boosting private sector activity enough to Current operations include auto parts nounced last week that it would resume at least partially offset a slowdown in the storage and distribution, and a chrome selling stakes in local companies to the region’s oil industries. smelter; British-based Tri-Star Resources public, planning to offer its majority stake For example, Saudi Arabia’s economic plans to build a $60 million plant supplying in Kuwait Investment Co in the first half growth in the second quarter of 2014 fell about 12 percent of current global produc- of 2015. to an annual 3.8 percent, the lowest rate in tion of antimony, Edwin Lammers, Sohar’s Saudi Arabia’s state-owned National a year, because of a slowing oil sector. But executive commercial manager, told the Commercial Bank IPO-NACO.SE is in growth in the non-oil private sector accel- Summit. the process of conducting a $6 billion IPO, erated, to 4.7 percent. the largest ever launched in the Arab world. MARKETS One of the biggest shifts in the Saudi “The reopening of the IPO market in economy for years is due to labour reforms, In the long run, the most far-reaching the region will attract more interest to our which are using quotas and fees to push boost to private sectors in the Gulf may markets and encourage other companies to hundreds of thousands of foreign workers come from the expansion of stock markets go public,” said Katerji. “This will help pri- out of the country and replace them with and efforts to draw more foreign investors vate equity and M&A activity in our mar- Saudi citizens. into them. kets as IPOs.” The reforms have been criticised for rais- Governments want foreign participa- Yasir al-Rumayyan, chief executive of ing companies’ costs, disrupting industries tion in local markets not because they need the investment banking arm of Banque such as construction, and putting unquali- the money, but because they think activist Saudi Fransi, Saudi Arabia’s fourth-largest fied, unproductive employees into some foreign funds will help to impose market listed lender, said Saudi companies were posts. Some firms have been hiring Saudis discipline on listed companies and promote becoming more interested in listing with for the sole purpose of meeting quotas. international management practices. the encouragement of regulators. But the reforms are clearly having some In May, the UAE and Qatari stock mar- “We have an excellent deals pipeline... success in pulling Saudis into the private kets won upgrades to emerging market We think we will see one IPO every quar- sector. The number of local citizens work- status in the classification of international ter from Saudi Fransi Capital for the com- ing at private firms jumped to 1.5 million index compiler MSCI. In July, Saudi Ara- ing five quarters,” he told the Summit. by the end of 2013 from 681,481 in 2009, bia announced it would open its bourse to according to labour ministry data. direct foreign investment in early 2015. Additional reporting by Ahmed Hagagy in Muhammad al-Agil, chairman of Sau- “The upgrade to emerging market status Kuwait, Azza Al Arabi in Dubai, Amena Bakr in di retailer Jarir Marketing, said this trend has been an important marker,” said Hai- Doha and Marwa Rashad in Riyadh; Editing was lifting Saudis’ disposable incomes and them Katerji, chief investment officer at Al by Olzhas Auyezov spending. Partly as a result, Jarir plans to Rayan Investment, a subsidiary of Masraf invest 1.1 billion riyals ($293 million) over Al Rayan, Qatar’s largest Islamic bank by five years to roughly double the number of market value. its stores in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. “The expected opening of Saudi Arabia “We are not employing Saudis only be- will be even more significant given the size cause of the rules but because we think it is of the Saudi economy and stock market. In good for business,” Agil told the Summit. the coming years the region is likely to be- Oman is taking a different tack in trying come a more mainstream investment desti- to diversify its economy beyond oil. It wants nation for global investors.” to develop its Sohar Port and Freezone, on After several years of inactivity in the its coast about 200 kilometres (125 miles) wake of the global financial crisis, most of to the southeast of Dubai, into a gateway the governments of the six-nation Gulf for imports to the Gulf. Cooperation Council are now promoting 3 MIDDLE EAST INVESTMENT SUMMIT 2014 Egypt vows economic reforms, but what about politics? BY LIN NOUEIHED CAIRO, OCTOBER 27, 2014 rom mega-projects to tax reforms, Egyptian ministers presented de- Ftailed initiatives last week to revive an economy battered by three years of up- heaval and decades of neglect.
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