arsalank2 /Foter

The year 2012 may not appear to be any better than 2011 as many businesses had hoped. A new update of the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) World Economic Outlook, says global economy will rise 3.3% in 2012, a downward revision from 4% in its previous forecast.

Excluding Libya, MENA growth projections for 2012 and 2013 are set to be lower by -1.6 and -1.2 percentage points, respectively, than in the September 2011 WEO. READ MORE HERE

January 8, 2012

By Fitch Ratings

Spending by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2012 will likely be higher than budgeted, but the country will still run a fiscal surplus of 4% of GDP, says Fitch Ratings.

Spending growth will moderate in 2012 compared with last year. In 2011, spending growth reached 24%, the highest in a decade. The government raised public sector wages, created government jobs, injected capital into state-owned lenders and pledged more resources for housing. Capital spending - mainly on infrastructure - exceeded 12% of GDP.
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While the international community saw Libyans collectively rise up against the rule of Moammar Gaddafi and saw the emergence of the National Transitional Council (NTC) as the unifying force, the reality on the ground is quite different.

A new study by the International Crisis Group (ICG) brings into sharp focus the rivalries, the complexities and the number of militias, groups, and secular and religious parties that have come to the fore and are jostling for attention and representation in the new Libya. READ MORE HERE

Will 2012 be the year of “come together” consolidation for Islamic banks?

Size is often the justification for achieving economies of scale, used to access deals for league table prominence, used as a buffer in a challenging environment, used as defensive measure to ward off unwanted suitors, and so on.

Islamic banks are very much like Islamic (equity) funds. There are hundreds of Islamic banks and funds, but the paid-up capital and assets under management, respectively, is too small to be meaningful. Yet, both, more so Islamic banks, present a unique situation (of an industry risk) of “too small to fail”.

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By Alon Ben-Meir

Due to a host of common denominators in the Arab world including the lack of traditional liberalism, the tribes’ power, the elites’ control of business, the hold on power by ethnic minorities, the military that cling to power, and the religious divide and Islamic extremism, the Arab Spring could sadly turn into a long and cruel winter. These factors are making the transformation into a more reformist governance, slow, filled with hurdles and punctuated with intense bloodshed. At the same time, each Arab country differs characteristically from one another on other dimensions including: history and culture, demographic composition, the role of the military, resources, and geostrategic situations. This combination of commonality and uniqueness has had, and will continue to have, significant impacts on how the uprising in each Arab country evolves and what kind of political order might eventually emerge.

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By Rushdi Siddiqui, Global Head of Islamic Finance at Thomson Reuters

The time has arrived to take a deeper dive on better understanding of Shariah compliant companies in an Islamic (or Shariah compliant) equity indexes. To many informed and uninformed observers of Islamic equity investing, it seems to imply investing in publicly listed companies in Muslim countries.

The end results contradict the assumptions. This also rebuts the often heard allegations by many from the anti-Shariah movement that Islamic investing is about investing in companies linked to terrorism or financing terrorism. The largest companies in the S&P Global BMI Shariah include ExxonMobil, IBM, Chevron, Nestle, Microsoft, etc.
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Whether western countries and ME liberals like it or not, Islamic parties have emerged victorious in elections in North African states. Before typecasting and dismissing them, Islamic parties deserve to get a fair chance at leading their people.

The Western world and media are terrified of the rise of Islamic parties in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. READ MORE HERE

Renato Ganoza /Foter

Goldman Sachs takes stock of its 10-year BRIC investment model, adding new countries such as Egypt and Iran in the mix. But Societe Generale ridicules the BRIC acronym, calling it a Bloody Ridiculous Investment Concept. READ MORE HERE

By Rushdi Siddiqui, Global Head of Islamic Finance, Thomson Reuters

‘Don’t cheat the world of your contribution. Give it what you’ve got.’ - Steven Pressfield

On November 22, 2011, the world’s first Islamic interbank benchmark rate (IIBR) was launched. It is the result of a collaborative approach taken by many Islamic financial institution, industry associations, and Shariah scholars, over the course of 24 months, to a decades-old industry challenge: how to decouple Islamic finance from a conventional Western pricing benchmark (LIBOR) and the law of necessity when an ‘Islamic’ alternative was not available. The objective was to support and preserve Islamic finance authenticity.
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• 25 Rapid Growth Markets (RGMs) to grow by an average of 6.2% this year and by 5.9% in 2012, compared with 1.6% growth for the Eurozone this year falling to 0.6% next year.

• Qatar had the highest nominal GDP (US$) per capita at PPP in 2010 among the 25 RGMs and has also been the fastest growing economy over the last decade, with an average growth of 13%.

The dynamics of the global economy have changed with a new set of fast-growing markets challenging the position of the established advanced economies. The rapid growth markets (RGMs) are expected to grow collectively by 6.2% this year, almost four times more than the anemic growth expected in the Eurozone according to Ernst & Young’s new quarterly Rapid Growth Markets Forecast (RGMF).
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On the eve of the elections, Egyptians have washed off much of the feel-good afterglow of the first revolution that ousted Hosni Mubarak. Now they are faced with the cold hard light of economic hardship and political uncertainty.

While Egypt’s first revolution earlier this year was full of hope and a spontaneity that surprised even the protestors, the second revolution less than 10 months later has a much sombre undertone. READ MORE HERE

2011 was the year of black swans - those highly improbable occurrences that turn the world economy on its head. So what black swans could be in store for 2012? Central banks losing control over inflation, as a result of their policy of monetising sovereign debt to excess; or perhaps European growth in excess of 1.2%, a positive scenario that no economist is forecasting on today.
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The EU and the US economies are not the only headaches for Middle East economies. China’s faltering economy could also hurt the region’s growth prospects.

As the advanced economies were contracting and falling behind earlier in the year, the Gulf and the wider MENA states were hoping Chinese and wider Asian demand to ensure their oil production finding eager buyers. READ MORE HERE
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