Middle East News

Malaysian sharia finance experts, backed by the central bank, are studying possible conflicts between civil and Islamic law amid a raft of high-profile legal disputes which have dampened the industry's appeal. Legal wrangles have taken centre stage in Islamic finance in the last year as difficult economic conditions triggered defaults and exposed gaps in legal systems, some of which struggled to deal with sharia banking disputes for the first time. Where sukuk holders rank in priority of payment when ...

French engineering group Alstom signed an initial agreement with Iraq to build a power plant that could cost up to $2bn in southern Iraq, a senior French diplomat said on Thursday. French Ambassador to Iraq Boris Boillon said a final agreement between Iraq's Ministry of Electricity and Alstom, the maker of industrial power plants and high-speed trains, is expected to be signed before the end of the year. The steam power plant, which will be built near the southern ...

Opec is meeting only half its promised cuts in oil supply this month thanks to a big jump in exports from Nigeria and despite a smaller decline in production in Angola, a Reuters survey showed on Thursday. Supply from the 11 members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries with output targets, all except Iraq, has averaged 26.95 million barrels per day (bpd) this month, up from 26.75 million bpd in June, according to the survey of ...

JPMorgan Chase & Co plans to become the first US bank to open a full-service commercial branch in Saudi Arabia this year, six years after Citigroup Inc exited a venture in the world’s biggest oil exporter. The firm, building on an investment banking office, is adding services to attract more corporate and institutional customers, said Daniel Cotti, the New York-based bank’s executive for global trade services. It obtained a full commercial banking license from the Saudi government in ...

Major construction work at the Qatargas 4 liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility and Pearl, the world's largest gas to liquids (GTL) plant, will be completed by year end, with production ramping up in 2011, Royal Dutch Shell said on Thursday. Shell holds 30 per cent of the 7.8 million tonne per year LNG project which when completed will cement Qatar's position as the world's biggest LNG exporter with an annual production capacity to 77 mpta. "Major construction at ...

Kuwaiti real estate sales soared 113 per cent in the second-quarter compared to the year earlier period signaling a recovery in the sector, official data showed on Thursday. Property sales in the Gulf Arab state rose to 596.87m dinars ($2.07bn) from 280.8m dinars in the second quarter last year, the data showed. "Activity through most of 2009 was unusually weak. But at their current levels, sales volumes are well above the average of 608 (transactions) per month seen during ...

Oman will spend $300m on increasing capacity at its Sohar refinery in the northeast of the country, in line with expansion across its energy industry, a government official said on Thursday. The refinery, the largest in Oman, has capacity of 116,000 barrels per day (bpd), which would be increased to 190,000 bpd. "We see the upgrade completion taking place some time in 2013," the financial ministry official, who asked not to be named, told Reuters. Oman has been investing heavily ...

Rags-to-riches Saudi investor Sulaiman al-Rajhi started giving some of his vast fortune to relatives on Wednesday though sources close to the billionaire, belived to be about 90, said he remained in good health. The man behind Saudi Arabia's biggest bank, Al-Rajhi Bank, started off as a porter before he and his brother Saleh started a money exchange business catering mainly to Muslim pilgrims visiting holy shrines in Mecca and Medina. The two gradually extended their investments and founded the ...

Egypt's economic growth accelerated to an annualised 5.9 per cent in the three months to end-June, rebounding from the global downturn, a cabinet statement said on Wednesday. Gross domestic product (GDP) for the financial year to end-June grew 5.3 per cent, faster than the 4.7 per cent growth in 2008/09, the statement said. "This indicates a near full recovery from the global crisis and a return to the path of rapid economic growth similar to the period before the ...

Lebanon's Bank Audi said on Wednesday it had acquired 90 per cent of online brokerage Arabeya Online from the firm's chairman and majority owner Naeem Holding. "Bank Audi's investment in Arabeya Online comes in line with the bank's strategy to expand in the Middle East and North Africa," the Lebanese bank's chief executive officer, Samir Hanna, said in an e-mailed statement. The bank did not disclose the value of the deal. Naeem had held 80 per cent of the Cairo-based ...