Statistics

Statistics

ME assets above global average
The Middle East’s assets under management at the end of last year were around $1.5 trillion with the average wealthy family holding an estimated $1 million, well above the global average of $400,000.

That is one of the findings of the report “A Wealth of Opportunities in Turbulent Times.”
“The region shows signs of continued economic growth and diversification,” the report states.
“The steady rise in the price of oil has no doubt played a major role in the region’s economic boom, but GCC governments have upheld their efforts to expand their economies beyond oil, with a strong emphasis on trade and services, including financial services, tourism, health and education,” it says.

Slower growth for Kuwait
Kuwait will see slower economic growth in 2009 due to falling oil prices and a weakening global economy as the Opec member makes slow progress with diversifying its economy away from energy, EFG-Hermes said.
The only Gulf state without a dollar peg will see its real GDP rising 3.1 per cent in 2009 after 5.7 per cent in 2008 as oil prices were expected to settle at an average of $85 per barrel next year, the bank said in a country report.
For 2008, it forecast an average oil price of $105.8 million.
Despite the fall in oil prices, EFG said government spending would remain expansionary as Kuwait with its large oil and foreign reserves was able to support its population and plans to upgrade its infrastructure and oil sector.
But the world’s seventh-largest oil exporter would make only slow progress to diversify its economy due to tensions between parliament and the government, the bank said.
The bank estimated only 14 per cent of planned state investment projects have been started or concluded yet — the slowest rate in the region — due to parliament’s resistance to some projects, poor planning or bureaucracy.
Growth outside the dominant oil sector in the third-largest Gulf economy after Saudi Arabia and the UAE would slow to 7.2 per cent in 2007 after 8.8 per cent in the previous year, EFG said.

UAE expenditure grows
The UAE raised its 2009 state expenditure by 21 per cent to Dh42.2 billion ($11.49 billion) in a balanced budget, the official Wam news agency reported.
The budget forecast that there will be no shortfall, but did not say at which price it calculated oil revenue.
The price of oil, a key revenue earner in the world’s fifth-largest exporter of oil, has dropped by about half since July.
Thirty-seven per cent of spending was allocated to services and 21 per cent to education, Wam said, adding that the cabinet approved the bill.

Electronic trade up 15pc
Electronic goods trading in Dubai touched about Dh18.8 billion ($5.12 billion) during the first half of 2008, an increase of 15 per cent, compared with the same period in 2007.
The study by Dubai World’s Statistics Department showed that Iran topped the list of re-export destinations while China topped among countries from where Dubai imported electronic goods during the period. Most of the export was to Morocco.
Nassim Al Mehairi, acting head of the Statistics Department, said the value of electronic equipment and devices trade, particularly those of mobile phones, computers, video and audio devices, jumped by Dh2.4 billion, increasing from Dh16.3 billion in the first half of 2007 to about Dh18.8 billion during the first half of 2008.
Dubai’s import of electronic goods rose to Dh12.3 billion in the first half of 2008, compared with Dh9.7 billion in the first half of last year.
Imports from China topped the list at Dh4.5 billion, followed by Hungary in second place at Dh1.68 billion, and Japan in third place at Dh970 million.
Dubai’s re-exports of electronic goods in the first half of 2008 was Dh6.3 billion compared with about Dh6.5 billion during the corresponding period last year. Iran came in first place at Dh1.58 billion, followed by Iraq at Dh763 million and Libya at Dh262 million.
Mobile phones were the most traded electronic product during the first half of 2008 for a value of about Dh7.6 billion, followed by computer parts for about Dh4.8 billion and video/audio systems for about Dh2.9 billion.
Dubai’s total non-oil foreign trade showed a surge of Dh104.4 billion in the first half of 2008, reaching about Dh296.6 billion  compared with Dh192.2 billion last year

Help to stem crisis
The UAE Prime Minister Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum has ordered the transfer of Dh70 billion ($19.06 billion) to the finance ministry to pump into the banking sector to protect against global volatility, state news agency WAM said.
It said the new funds came on top of a Dh50 billion emergency facility already announced in September.

Private sector salaries up
Private sector salaries in the Gulf region increased at an average rate of 11.4 per cent over the last year, according to a study.
The UAE and Qatar topped the list of pay rises with increases of 13.6 per cent and 12.7 per cent respectively. This was followed by Oman at 12.1 per cent, said the survey of salary trends in the region done by GulfTalent.com, a leading online recruitment firm.
Bahrain came fourth at 10.5 per cent. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia once again came at the bottom, with average rises of 10.1 per cent and 9.8 per cent respectively, though still high by historical standards, said the survey titled “Gulf Compensation Trends 2008”.
All six markets saw pay increases accelerate relative to last year. The majority of these, however, are still below the forecast rates of inflation for 2008, suggesting diminishing net disposable incomes as pay rises fail to keep up with the rising cost of living.
A notable exception is Bahrain, where the average salary increase of 10.5 per cent is marginally higher than the 9.0 per cent inflation rate forecast for the country this year.

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