Month: April 2025

Card transactions in the UAE are projected to reach AED565.5 billion ($154 billion) this year, according to research company GlobalData.

The shift toward electronic payments is being driven by increasing consumer preference for digital transactions and government support for financial inclusion.

Last year, UAE card payment values rose 13 percent year-on-year to AED511 billion. GlobalData is predicting a further 11 percent growth this year.

“While cash remains the most preferred mode of payment, the dynamic is gradually changing with the rise in card payments,” said Ravi Sharma, GlobalData’s lead banking and payments analyst.

Government initiatives promoting electronic payments include a wage protection system – which ensures employers pay salaries electronically via authorised financial institutions – and a financial infrastructure transformation programme, which promotes mobile payments.

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The ‘Dubai Cashless Strategy’ was launched in October 2024 and aims for 90 percent of all transactions to be digital by 2026.

Mobile point-of-sale terminals are gaining popularity for payments, particularly among small and medium-sized enterprises. SMEs comprise 94 percent of UAE companies and contribute over 60 percent to the country’s GDP.

Source:https://www.agbi.com/banking-finance/2025/04/uae-card-payments-to-surpass-150-billion-in-2025/

China’s state-run Sinopec said on Monday it had signed an agreement with a unit of Saudi Aramco to establish a joint venture company with a registered capital of 28.80 billion yuan ($3.95 billion).

The agreement was signed by Sinopec, its unit Fujian Petroleum Chemical Industry Co, and Saudi Aramco’s Singaporean unit Aramco Asia Singapore.

Sinopec and its unit will contribute 7.20 billion yuan and 14.40 billion yuan in cash, respectively. The remaining amount, representing 25 percent of the registered capital of the joint venture, will come from AAS.

The joint venture company, Fujian Sinopec Aramco Refining and Petrochemical Co, will engage in port operation, crude oil transportation and other activities at the refinery and petrochemical complex in the Gulei Port Economic Development Zone, Zhangzhou, in China’s Fujian province.

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Sinopec and Saudi Aramco started constructing the complex in November last year, as part of the Middle Eastern company’s plans to grow its downstream business outside the kingdom and to supply 1 million barrels per day of crude oil to China for oil-to-chemicals investments.

Source:https://www.agbi.com/petrochemicals/2025/04/chinas-sinopec-in-4bn-joint-venture-with-saudi-aramco/

Kuwait’s approval of a debt law and the easing of housing curbs on foreigners is likely to stimulate banks after a period of subdued activity, according to a US rating agency.

Fitch said it expects 8-9 percent growth in 2025 if planned large government projects are awarded, following last month’s approval of the debt law.

Credit growth in the banking sector, which was a low 2 percent in 2023, accelerated to 7 percent last year as the Gulf emirate pushed ahead with reforms, the agency said.

Approval of the residential mortgage law could also bolster growth by unleashing demand for housing loans, Fitch said.

“Key new laws in Kuwait are set to drive growth and diversification in the country’s banking sector. These reforms, including public debt and residential mortgage laws, will create new lending opportunities and support economic expansion following a period of fairly subdued conditions,” a Fitch report said.

It said that the residential mortgage law, if approved, could transform Kuwait’s housing finance landscape.

For the first time banks would be allowed to offer mortgage loans, potentially up to KD200,000 ($660,000) and with a term of up to 25 years.

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Given Kuwait’s population of 1.5 million, even modest uptake could generate a substantial volume of new loans, expanding the banking sector and stimulating the construction industry, Fitch said.

Kuwaiti banks were the most profitable within the listed companies in Kuwait last year, with profits exceeding 63 percent of the total.

Source:https://www.agbi.com/real-estate/2025/04/new-kuwait-laws-will-stimulate-banks-says-fitch/

Profits at Saudi Telecom Company (STC) rose in the first quarter of this year, pushing the share price of the kingdom’s biggest telecoms operator to a yearly high.

Net profit rose 11 percent year on year to SAR3.6 billion ($973 million) in the first three months of 2025.

Revenues for the quarter rose 2 percent to SAR19 billion.

In a separate filing to the Saudi stock exchange, the company said it would distribute cash dividends of SAR0.55 per share, or 5.5 percent of the capital, for the first quarter of 2025.

On Monday, shares of STC, which is 64 percent owned by the Public Investment Fund, rose to SAR48.30 on the Saudi stock exchange, a 52-week high, before pairing gains to trade at SAR48.10.

In January, STC won a SAR32.6 billion contract to develop new telecommunications infrastructure in the kingdom from an unknown government entity.

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STC, which has a market capitalisation of nearly $60 billion, also started a bank called STC Bank, which in January received authorisation from the Saudi Central Bank (Sama).

In November, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund sold a $1 billion stake in STC in a deal that could mark the start of further equity sales as government entities seek to raise money for infrastructure spending.

SOurce:https://www.agbi.com/telecoms/2025/04/stc-profit-and-revenue-rise-in-first-quarter/

Kuwait Investment Authority, the world’s fifth-biggest sovereign wealth fund, is suing global investment company Axa Investment Managers in connection with a planned tower in London’s financial district that risks blocking light to a KIA building.

St Martins Property, the investment authority’s property development unit, is suing Hygie, a special purpose vehicle controlled by Axa Investment Managers, according to court documents seen by AGBI.

Hygie owns the long leasehold to the proposed 36-storey tower development at 50 Fenchurch Street in the City of London. Nearby is the Willis Building, a 28-storey office complex which St Martins owns.

In the case filed at the UK High Court, St Martins says the Hygie development would “materially reduce the light enjoyed by the Willis” through some of its windows, according to the court documents.

“The said reduction of light … would amount to a substantial interference with the ordinary enjoyment of the Willis Building and constitute a nuisance,” the claim reads.

In the UK, a so-called “right to light” is a legal principle that gives a longstanding – 20 years or more – owner of a building the right to maintain an adequate level of natural light through its windows.

According to the court documents, St Martins is seeking an injunction compelling Axa to alter the shape and form of the proposed development.

Alternatively, it has requested unspecified damages to compensate for any light obstruction that would arise.

The KIA manages assets worth more than $1 trillion, according to the US-based Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute. Kuwait is the world’s seventh largest oil exporter.

The court case was filed in November. A defence has yet to be submitted.

“We believe these claims are without merit but as a policy we do not comment on potential or ongoing legal proceedings,” said a spokesperson for Axa.

Stephenson Harwood, the law firm acting for St Martin, declined to comment on the case. The KIA did not immediately respond to AGBI’s request for comment.

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The Willis Building is one of the City of London’s most recognisable skyscrapers, featuring a stepped design across 28 floors and a separate 10-storey building on a neighbouring street.

It was designed by architect Norman Foster and is the headquarters of insurance broker Willis Towers Watson.

It was one of the tallest towers in the area at the time it was built in 2008, but has since been overtaken by others.

50 Fenchurch Street, designed by Eric Parry Architects, is due to be completed in 2028.

It is planned to provide office space, including to the Clothworkers’ Company, a City of London professional guild that has occupied the site for over 500 years.

Source:https://www.agbi.com/real-estate/2025/04/kuwait-wealth-fund-sues-over-london-tower-project/

First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) reported an increase in profits in the first quarter of this year, fuelled by higher revenue from its retail, wholesale and investment banking segments.

FAB’s net profit rose 23 percent to AED5.1 billion ($1.4 billion) in the January to March period, while revenue saw an 11 percent growth to AED8.8 billion, compared to the same period last year.

The growth in revenue was driven by a 22 percent rise in non-interest income, which accounted for 43 percent of the group’s total revenue, FAB said in a statement on Tuesday.

Loans and deposits at the bank – the biggest lender by assets in the UAE – grew 8 percent and 4 percent respectively on an annual basis. Total assets rose 6 percent to surpass AED1.3 trillion ($354 billion) for the first time.

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FAB’s shares have risen by nearly 3 percent percent year-to-date on the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX). The shares closed at AED14.1 on the exchange on Monday.

Last month, FAB announced the highest-ever cash dividend on higher annual revenues in 2024.

Source:https://www.agbi.com/banking-finance/2025/04/first-abu-dhabi-q1-profit-rises-by-nearly-a-quarter/

Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways is not seeing any effects from the turmoil caused by US President Donald Trump’s tariff policies, its CEO Antonoaldo Neves told Reuters on Monday, while adding it was too early to fully gauge the impact of the levies.

Trump’s announcement of sweeping tariffs on dozens of US trading partners this month – and then his pausing of most of them – created widespread market uncertainty and raised fears of a global economic downturn.

Neves said Etihad had recorded strong seat occupancy levels in recent weeks despite the trade tensions and that the volatility could even create opportunities in some instances. He expects more Europeans, for example, to take advantage of the euro’s recent gains against the dollar and the Gulf region’s dollar-pegged currencies to travel.

“It means that the euro now is stronger when you compare it to the Middle Eastern currency… So I expect to see more Europeans coming,” Neves said on the sidelines of the Arabian Travel Market fair in Dubai.

Neves’ comments echo Gulf airline Riyadh Air, which said earlier on Monday that global economic uncertainty had not reduced demand for travel to the Saudi capital.

If tariff-induced turmoil does impact passenger numbers, Neves said Etihad, which has a fleet of around 100 aircraft, had a contingency plan and could rely on its flexibility: “About 60 percent of our planes are unencumbered, so they’re all fully paid for. If I get a crisis one day, I park planes … and save 75 percent of the cost.”

At a press conference earlier on Monday, Neves said Etihad planned to add 20 to 22 new planes this year, as it aims to expand its fleet to more than 170 planes by 2030 and boost Abu Dhabi’s economic diversification strategy.

The UAE’s capital is investing heavily in sectors such as tourism to cut its dependence on oil revenues and in 2023 it launched a new terminal at Zayed International Airport that tripled the hub’s annual capacity to 45 million passengers.

Etihad, which is owned by Abu Dhabi’s $225 billion wealth fund ADQ, has been through a multi-year restructuring and management shake-up, but has expanded under Neves.

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He said that 10 of this year’s new aircraft would be Airbus A321LRs, which the carrier launched on Monday and will start operating in August. The remainder include six Airbus A350s and four Boeing 787s.

Airlines in recent years have been plagued by delayed plane deliveries as manufacturers like Boeing and Airbus struggled with the pace of orders in a post-pandemic travel boom, among other issues.

Neves, who declined to give specifics on the order pipeline, said he was not happy with the delays but that they were not compromising the airline’s growth plans.

Etihad is always in talks with plane makers, he said, when asked whether the carrier could be interested in acquiring some of the dozens of planes that Boeing is looking to resell after they were locked out of China due to tariffs.

Source:https://www.agbi.com/aviation/2025/04/i-expect-more-europeans-to-come-etihad-chief-shrugs-off-tariffs/

UAE petrochemical company Borouge, a specialist in polyethylene and polypropylene, has unveiled expansion plans to increase annual production capacity to more than 6.6 million tonnes by 2028.

The expansion is expected to contribute $165-$200 million in earnings before interest, tax and depreciation, the company said in a statement.

Borouge, backed by Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) and Austria’s OMV, has awarded two contracts for the expansion.

Adnoc has 54 percent while Borealis, a joint venture between Adnoc and OMV of Austria, has 36 percent, leaving a free float of 10 percent.

One contract has been awarded to UK-based Linde Engineering to boost the capacity of a second ethane cracker – an industrial facility that converts ethane gas into ethylene – by 15 percent.

The second contract has been awarded to Abu Dhabi-based Target Engineering Construction to expand production capacity at two of its polyethylene units, which is scheduled to be completed in the first quarter of 2027. Following the expansion, its capacity will increase from 540,000 to 700,000 tonnes per annum.

Together with the Borouge 4 mega-project, the new expansion projects are expected to increase the company’s annual total polyolefins production capacity to more than 6.6 million tonnes per annum by 2028, the company said.

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Borouge 4 is one of the largest industrial projects underway in the UAE. The project, once complete, will boost the company’s total production capacity by 1.4 million tonnes.

“The expansions of our ethylene and polyethylene capabilities will enable Borouge to meet growing market demands, unlock new revenue streams, and further strengthen our global market position,” Hazeem Sultan Al Suwaidi, CEO of Borouge, said.

Earlier this month, the company announced it would launch a share buyback programme and increase its dividend payout as it pushes ahead with global expansion, despite mounting trade tensions and sluggish demand.

Source:https://www.agbi.com/petrochemicals/2025/04/uaes-borouge-to-expand-its-production-capacity/

Delays in the delivery of Flydubai’s first wide-body aircraft from Boeing are hampering the carrier’s expansion into long-haul routes and it may seek compensation, its CEO has told AGBI.

The low-cost carrier is waiting for 30 Boeing 787-9 twin-aisle planes, part of an $11 billion deal announced at the 2023 Dubai Airshow.

The first deliveries were due next year but that has been pushed out to at least August 2027 and potentially beyond.

“Unfortunately, we still have a big challenge because, if you ask me when the 787 is going to be delivered, I would say I don’t know,” Ghaith Al Ghaith told AGBI on the sidelines of a travel exhibition in Dubai.

Flydubai, which is owned by the Dubai government and is a sister airline of Emirates, has been expanding its fleet of single-aisle Boeing 737s and its network of destinations – now at 124 – since it was founded in 2008.

Its focus is primarily on connecting Dubai with secondary cities as far away as Salzburg in Austria and Penang in Malaysia.

Competition among Gulf airlines such as Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad is fierce, leveraging the region’s location to fly non-stop to the US west coast and New Zealand.

Flydubai currently flies 88 Boeing 737s and 59 of that total are the more recent Max models. Another 127 of the 737s are on order and 12 are due for delivery this year.

While the Max has a range of as much as 3,850 nautical miles and carries no more than 204 passengers, the Boeing 787’s range is 7,565 nautical miles and it can carry almost 300 passengers.

“Once we know there is a definitive date we will announce where we will go with these aircraft,” Al Ghaith said.

The 787 order is central to Flydubai’s ambitions to break into the long-haul market, with potential new routes to cities in Africa, Australia and Western Europe.

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Beyond the Gulf, that will put Flydubai in competition with carriers such as Turkish Airlines and Ethiopian Airlines, which fly a mix of single and twin-aisle aircraft.

Flydubai is among a long list of global carriers affected by delays at Boeing, which has a commercial backlog of 5,600 planes worth an estimated $545 billion, as per the company’s first-quarter results.

The airlines is in discussions with the US planemaker around potential compensation for the delivery delays, Al Ghaith said.

“Boeing is one of our biggest partners,” he said. “We have a beautiful relationship with them and there is never any issue we cannot resolve.”

SOurce:https://www.agbi.com/aviation/2025/04/boeing-delays-are-hampering-flydubai-expansion-says-ceo/

A major ratings agency has downgraded its outlook on Bahrain to negative, warning that fiscal reforms may be insufficient to lower the kingdom’s debt-to-GDP ratio and that foreign currency reserves remain weak.

Lower oil prices and reduced crude production due to maintenance work at Bahrain’s Abu Safah oil field, which it shares with Saudi Arabia, potential higher borrowing costs and increased social spending will keep fiscal deficits elevated, S&P Global Ratings wrote in a report this week.

A fiscal deficit occurs when a government spends more than it receives in income, usually funding the shortfall through borrowing. Bahrain’s fiscal deficit will rise to 7 percent of GDP this year from 5.2 percent in 2024, S&P estimated.

This widening shortfall is partly due to lower oil prices, which will average $65 per barrel, S&P forecast, down from $80 in 2024. Oil provides 60 percent of state revenue and 16-18 percent of GDP, S&P estimated.

Bahrain’s economy will average 2.3 percent annual growth from 2025 to 2027, which S&P described as “muted”.

A negative outlook means the agency may lower its Bahrain ratings in the next 6-12 months unless the government can ease its debt burden “which has been higher than anticipated in recent years”.

Other factors that may lead to S&P to reduce Bahrain’s B+/B long- and short-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings include deterioration in the country’s foreign reserves and the failure of its Gulf allies to provide additional funding.

In 2018, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and UAE pledged $10.2 billion to Bahrain, in addition to $7.5 billion the country received from a GCC body in 2011.

Conversely, S&P said it would raise its outlook if Bahrain enacts reforms that “materially increase the revenue base and narrow fiscal deficits” and if foreign currency reserves improve.

S&P forecast Bahrain’s fiscal deficit will narrow to 4.4 percent of GDP in 2028 as crude production increases following the completion of maintenance and non-oil revenue also rises. Oil production is currently only about 200,000 barrels per day.

Bahrain has introduced a 15 percent tax on multinational companies and will implement similar corporate income tax on local companies. This follows the introduction of value added tax in 2019, initially at 5 percent and doubled to 10 percent in 2022.

Despite these measures, Bahrain’s finances will worsen from an already weak position. Its debt-to-GDP will rise to 144 percent in 2028 from 130 percent in 2024 and 112 percent in 2021.

Annual debt repayments now represent about 29 percent of state revenue, S&P estimated.

Bahrain lending, debt and account balance
Bahrain’s foreign currency reserves will fall to about $3 billion this year, while it has $3.6 billion in foreign currency debt maturing over the next 12 months.

“We anticipate Bahrain will seek to refinance these maturities to avoid a significant drop in foreign currency reserves,” S&P wrote. “The government’s foreign currency reserve account has historically been restored via external issuance and fiscal support from other GCC sovereigns.”

SOurce:https://www.agbi.com/analysis/economy/2025/04/ratings-agency-moves-bahrain-outlook-to-negative/