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Saudi Arabia has no plans of changing peg to US dollar

October 21, 2016

Jeddah, Oct 21: The government has no plans to change Saudi Arabia’s exchange rate, Finance Minister Ibrahim Al-Assaf told a television program early Thursday.

Saudi

The MBC network’s program was broadcast hours after the Saudi government sold $17.5 billion of bonds, the largest emerging market debt sale ever, in its first international bond sale.

Analysts, quoted by Reuters, believe the bond will allow Saudi Arabia to slow the drawdown of its foreign assets to pay its bills, which is a focus of recent speculative pressure on the riyal.

Al-Assaf praised the government’s economic plans and reforms drive, saying it had impressed US President Barack Obama among others.

The international debt issue did not include Islamic bonds; Al-Assaf said the government planned to issue sukuk in future as one way to cover its budget deficit.

The bond issue prospectus noted that Saudi Arabia might eventually abandon the peg of its riyal currency to the US dollar, but the minister said that was included for legal reasons and the government has no intention of changing the exchange rate.

The Saudi stock market rose sharply as bank shares rallied after the mammoth international bond sale.

The bond issue was hailed as historic by investors.

Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul All-Share Index gained 2.3 percent, with Samba Financial shares jumping 5.2 percent.

Fitch Ratings recently noted that banks in Saudi Arabia and Qatar are better placed than GCC peers to cope with an eventual deterioration in asset quality brought about by a prolonged period of weak oil prices.

Commenting to Arab News, Eric Dupont, senior director, financial institutions, gave two key reasons for this assessment.

Dupont said: “Firstly, an operating environment that provides banks with lots of good lending opportunities and secondly strong loss absorption capacity in the form of excess loan loss reserves, excess capital and earnings generation.”

Speaking on the MBC program, Al-Assaf also said that delays in state payments to construction firms are due to “technical reasons” and the payments will increase in the coming period. He said payments to companies were now “stable” and would rise.

Mohammad Al-Tuwaijri, deputy minister of economy and planning, said Saudi Arabia would have faced bankruptcy in three to four years if it had not imposed austerity policies.

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Agencies
July 28,2020

Dubai, Jul 28: Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) (ADCB.AD) is letting go hundreds of employees, sources said, the latest in a round of lay-offs by regional banks as pressure mounts to cut costs amid lower oil prices and the coronavirus crisis.

The UAE’s third-biggest lender is laying off 400 employees, two sources familiar with the matter said, after it had committed to not cutting staff because of the crisis.

In a statement, a spokesman said ADCB had pursued efficiency over the last decade by managing out its lowest underachievers after regular reviews, while ensuring talent was deployed in high-growth areas, such as digital banking.

“A certain number of redundancies are therefore expected every year in the normal course of business,” the bank spokesman added.

The sources said the cuts would involve ADCB’s consumer business and several in top management were among those being let go. One source said the bank was looking to close 20 branches.

In March, ADCB had declared, “No employee will be made redundant during 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

UAE banks have been hit by government measures to rein in the spread of the virus, forcing many businesses to shut temporarily.

Last week, Dubai’s largest bank, Emirates NBD, reported a slump of 58% in profits. In June, sources told Reuters the bank started a new round of hundreds of lay-offs.

In May, ADCB reported a fall of 84% in first-quarter net profit as it took impairments of $292 million on debt exposure to troubled hospital operator NMC Health and payments group Finablr.

It was a major lender, with an exposure of about $981 million, to NMC Health, which went into administration this year after months of turmoil following questions over financial reporting.

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News Network
April 20,2020

Riyadh, Apr 20: Six more people have died in Saudi Arabia after contracting coronavirus as 1,122 new coronavirus cases were reported on Monday.

The Saudi health ministry said that total number of cases in the Kingdom had increased to 10,484. It also recorded 92 new recoveries, raising the total to 1,490.

The ministry said precautionary measures shall remain to limit the virus spread.

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Agencies
April 27,2020

Riyad, Apr 27: The Saudi-led Arab Coalition supporting Yemen’s UN-recognized government on Monday urged all parties to end any escalation of hostilities and return to the status that existed before the Southern Transitional Council (STC) declared self-rule.

In a statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), the coalition emphasized “the need to cancel any step that violates the Riyadh agreement and work to accelerate its implementation.” 

On Sunday, the United Arab Emirates-backed STC scrapped a peace deal with the internationally recognized government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

Accusing the government of corruption and mismanagement, the separatists said they would “self-govern” the key southern port city of Aden and other southern provinces.

Yemen’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Al-Hadhrami described the move as a “resumption of its (STC’s) armed insurgency and rejection and complete withdrawal from the Riyadh agreement.” 

Authorities in Yemen’s southern provinces of Hadramawt, Abyan, Shabwa, Al-Mahra and the remote island of Socotra also rejected the separatist group’s claim to self-rule.

The government said local and security authorities in the five provinces dismissed the move as a “clear and definite coup.” 

Some of the provinces issued their own statements condemning it.

The coalition appealed to all parties to “give priority to the interests of the Yemeni people over any other interests”. 

It also urged the parties involved not to lose their focus on working to achieve the goal of restoring the state, ending the Houthi “coup” and “countering terrorist organizations”.

“The Coalition has and will continue to undertake practical and systematic steps to implement the Riyadh Agreement between the parties to unite Yemeni ranks, restore state institutions and combat the scourge of terrorism,” the statement said. “The responsibility rests with the signatories to the Agreement to undertake national steps toward implementing its provisions, which were signed and agreed upon with a time matrix for implementation.”

The STC has been part of the coalition-backed forces fighting the Iran-backed Houthi militia, which seized control of the Yemeni capital Sanaa and other provinces in 2014.

The Houthi “coup” has led to the formation of the Saudi-led coalition, which had since driven away the Houthis from the south and other provinces. President Hadi’s government has made Aden as its temporary seat.

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