Covid-19

Importance of SMEs in GCC: Challenges amid COVID and way forward

Interview with Mr. M.R.Raghu, CEO, Marmore MENA Intelligence Are SMEs very important for the GCC region? How have SMEs contributed to the region? Small-to-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are vital to the economic development of the country as they foster innovation, entrepreneurship and create large-scale employment opportunities. The subject of SMEs touches upon many aspects of a nation’s economic network. By its very nature, SMEs can sprout up anywhere along the output value chain of a country, ranging from small shops to...

FAQ’s: Break-even Oil price

1. What is Break even oil price? What does an increasing or decreasing BEOP mean? Fiscal breakeven oil price (BEP) can be defined simply as the “oil price that balances an oil‐exporting country’s budget. Ever since the fall of Brent crude prices in mid – 2014, the GCC countries have envisioned various plans to reduce their dependence on oil revenues. The COVID-19 pandemic sent oil prices tumbling owing to a global lockdown and travel restrictions in place since March 2020....

Vaccine approval helps GCC markets recover most of the year’s losses

GCC stocks staged a strong recovery towards the end of the year after seeing a sharp fall in March and April due to oil prices crashing and fears of sharp economic slowdown due to Covid-19. The benchmark S&P GCC Composite index recovered from the lows and ended the year with a fall of just 1.7%. GCC markets rose in November after pharmaceutical firms Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca announced favorable news on COVID-19 vaccine development. Subsequently, several governments including many GCC...

A recap of Global Markets in 2020

Global stocks staged a quick recovery from the March lows The year began with global stock markets reaching new highs in February. However, global markets saw massive falls in March as the COVID-19 outbreak became a global pandemic. At its lowest point in March, the S&P 500 saw a drawdown of 34% from the record highs seen just a month earlier in February. However, the index recovered the losses and reached new highs by October in a mere time span...

Flurry of Bond issuances – How are GCC countries placed?

The year 2020 has seen bond issuances totaling USD 42billion so far by GCC governments as they try to raise funds in the market to plug record deficits due to the oil price crash and the COVID-19 crisis. GCC Sovereign yields have come down since the market selloff in March at the height of the crisis. As on October 6, 10-year yields for Kuwait Government bonds stands at 1.48% (a fall from 2.37%, 2020-start) while that of Saudi Arabia, Abu...

COVID-19 derails traditional Kuwait retailers

Kuwait’s retail sector is small in absolute terms when compared to regional peers like the UAE or Saudi Arabia. However, Kuwait has one of the highest concentrations of international retailers in the GCC, with luxury segment proving to be a major draw. The value of Kuwait’s retail market was KD 3.5bn or 9.1% of non-oil GDP, as of February 2018 (Oxford Business Group). Consumer preference towards international brands and better retail shopping experiences were exhibiting an upward trend until COVID-19...

How deep is the impact of COVID-19 on the GCC aviation industry?

Tourism has been one of the focus areas of GCC countries’ diversification agenda and aviation sector in the region has been an attendant beneficiary. Closure of borders and travel restrictions were one of the first measures taken by countries around the world to curtail the spread of COVID-19. These measures had brought the aviation industry to standstill. According to IATA, revenue of airlines in GCC region is expected to decline by 56% in 2020 and while the passenger numbers are...

Saudi Arabia Banking Sector – The worst might not be over yet

COVID-19 pandemic has pressurized banking asset quality and increased the demand for credit. As signs of normalcy returns, banks face the challenging task of managing the asset quality while expanding balance sheets. The strength of a country’s banking sector is often reliant on its underlying economic conditions. As is the case for Saudi Arabia, which has the second largest banking industry in the GCC by total assets, with roughly 29% of the region’s total banking assets. According to estimates from...

Has Coronavirus cases peaked in the World and GCC

The outbreak of novel Coronavirus across the globe, which affected lives of millions of people continues to take its toll on the global economies. With more than 7-8 months into the crisis the virus is still omnipresent. It forced countries to adopt control measures like lockdown, curfew, social distancing, masks etc. As a result of which many countries have been successful in curbing the rate of spread and have also moved past the peak in terms of maximum confirmed cases...

Online Education for School Children in the GCC

As children and parents in the GCC get a taste of remote schooling due to the impact of COVID-19, there are multiple themes emerging. It is a given that learner cohorts are very different, which means that felicity with computers vary significantly. Remote learning, especially for young children, is a complex affair due to the influx of technologies,various software, and communication capabilities of stakeholders involved. The GCC education sector’s response to COVID-19 quarantine needs to be judged objectively. It is...