Category: Uncategorized

Sheikh Ahmad Duaij Jaber Al Sabah-Chairman-Commercial Bank of Kuwait

Capital limits: The private sector pushes for additional finance amid a crowded lending market

Posted OBG AdminPosted in Uncategorized

  Financial intermediation – the process of matching savers with borrowers – is a primary function of the banking sector. Intermediation channels excess funds towards productive uses, spreading the risk across a bank’s entire depositor base so no single saver bears the losses in the event of a loan default. However, in Nigeria intermediation is slowing, with lending activity being affected by government borrowing. “When the government is borrowing so much from the economy, it means it is competing with the private sector operators, which also need to borrow from the system,” Marcel Okeke, chief economist at Zenith Bank, told OBG. (Diazepam) “The government is

Chaim Zach-Managing Director and CEO-Agric International Technology and Trade; Kabiru Rabiu-Group Executive Director-BUA Group; and Aliyu Abbati Abdulhameed-Managing Director

Positive disruption: An eager market looks to financial technology to boost growth

Posted OBG AdminPosted in Uncategorized

  Boasting Africa’s largest economy and population, but facing a number of structural constraints, Nigeria is a market ripe for digital disruption. It benefits from a high level of internet and mobile penetration. It also skews young: by 2020, roughly half of the country’s population will be under the age of 25. A number of start-ups have gained traction over the past decade, from retailers like Jumia, an e-commerce website, to streaming platforms such as iRoko. One of the start-up sectors that is currently attracting a significant amount of interest in Nigeria is financial technology (fintech). According to KPMG, investments in the space exceeded 0m

External trade: More eurobond issuance on the way

Posted OBG AdminPosted in Uncategorized

  Nigeria’s inclusion in JPM organ’s emerging markets bond indices for eurobonds is not affected by its exclusion from the index series for Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) bonds, and with good reason. Eurobonds are broadly traded on the sovereign’s external balance sheet, whereas the FGN exclusion was driven by the Central Bank of Nigeria’s foreign exchange measures and policies. The external story is easier to sell, because the indicators are more favourable. Current Picture The environment of still low international interest rates has been positive, but the four Nigerian sovereign eurobonds – maturities from July 2018 to February 2032 – are trading well within

Mark Geilenkirchen-CEO-Port of Sohar

Changing times: The country is conducting analyses of both the downstream and upstream segments

Posted OBG AdminPosted in Uncategorized

  The company Atlantic operates the most prominent downstream processing plant in T&T. In economic terms, it represents more than half of the output value of the refining industry. The plant is a four-train gas liquefaction facility located at Point Fortin in the south-west of Trinidad. It is the sixth-largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) production facility in the world, and the largest in the western hemisphere. The operating company was set up in 1995 as a joint venture between four major oil companies and the government of Trinidad and Tobago. Train 1 began operating in 1999, followed by Trains 2 and 3 in 2003, and

Nhon Luc Ly-CEO-AIA Myanmar; Son Nguyen-Country President-Chubb Life Insurance Myanmar; Daw Zarchi Tin-CEO

Policy shifts: New acts and reforms having a mixed impact on the country’s business climate

Posted OBG AdminPosted in Uncategorized

  While Papua New Guinea has a free and open economy, it is also a place where it can be exceedingly challenging to do business. General conditions are difficult, and some areas of administration and law can cause things to progress at a slow pace. The US State Department’s 2016 Investment Climate statement noted that the country “appears to have a liberal investment approach”, but then goes on to detail the many issues that make the country less open than it first seems. The situation may become more complex. While a series of positive reforms have been pursued over the years, with some recent efforts

Mohammed El Etreby-Chairman-Banque Misr

Trading relations: The country embraces free market principles while maintaining international trade deals and agreements

Posted OBG AdminPosted in Uncategorized

  Papua New Guinea’s market is remarkably open in terms of trade. Over the past two decades the country has gone from being a high-tariff jurisdiction pursuing 1970s-style goals of protection and import substitution, to one that embraces free market principles. The tenets of the Washington Consensus were accepted and implemented in a phased approach over several years. The country remains open and, so far, the rates hold. However, in recent years questions have been raised about the liberal policies that were taken on. As

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe

In demand: Property ownership is a high priority for many citizens, but affordability remains an issue

Posted OBG AdminPosted in Uncategorized

  With demand for high-end residential rentals declining significantly over the past year, the affordable housing segment is a bright spot in Papua New Guinea’s real estate sector and holds high potential for development, particularly in Port Moresby. Recent surveys have revealed considerable pent-up demand for property ownership in the country, with affordable housing purchases expected to keep the industry on a steady growth path despite the ongoing downturn. Limited availability of land still poses a challenge, as do relatively high construction costs, and low-income

Chaim Zach-Managing Director and CEO-Agric International Technology and Trade; Kabiru Rabiu-Group Executive Director-BUA Group; and Aliyu Abbati Abdulhameed-Managing Director

Conservative growth: Traditional bank financing competes with bond markets

Posted OBG AdminPosted in Uncategorized

  Loan growth in Thailand fell in 2016 as slower-than-anticipated infrastructure spending and weak private consumption weighed on the consumer segment, while corporate lending fell as firms increasingly turned to bond markets for more favourable terms. Outstanding bank loans in Thailand grew by just 2% in 2016 against 4.3% growth in 2015, according to the Bank of Thailand (BOT). The Thai Bankers’ Association (TBA) reports that this was the lowest lending growth recorded since a 1.7% contraction in 2009. Although lending in the food, rubber, plastic, commerce and utilities sectors grew during the second half of the year, small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) lending fell

George Richani-CEO-Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait

Fostering innovation: State agencies and successful businesspeople help cultivate an entrepreneurial spirit

Posted OBG AdminPosted in Uncategorized

  Given Kuwait’s cosmopolitan taste for fine dining from around the world, it is unsurprising that its most celebrated start-up story has a culinary flavour. It may be two years since the German company Rocket Internet paid $165m for Talabat, the Kuwaiti restaurant delivery app, but the story of its success has given a new generation of entrepreneurs a taste for e-commerce. TALABAT: While Talabat’s success story drew attention to Kuwait’s start-up scene, the story behind its expansion and sale differs in some key respects

George Richani-CEO-Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait

Infrastructure boom: Large-scale projects in the development pipeline will cater to growing demand for heath care

Posted OBG AdminPosted in Uncategorized

  Across the health care sector, infrastructure projects worth more than KD1.5bn ($5bn) are under way in Kuwait. The government is the largest service provider, currently representing around 90% of the market in terms of hospital bed numbers and facilities, and the state is working in accordance with the national plan to adopt the World Health Organisation’s proposal of allocating at least 22 hospital beds for every 10,000 people by 2030, according to the Ministry of Health (MoH). This particular approach to health care improvement,