Kuwaiti investors who throng to Mount Lebanon's resort town of Bhamdoun during their holidays can trade their stocks on the Kuwaiti bourse courtesy of a dealing room at the Ambassador Hotel. Nearby, real estate companies help them buy land, houses and rent apartments. Construction work is under way on a new branch for the National Bank of Kuwait.
"When oil prices soared, Kuwaiti investors found a town ready with the necessary facilities to run their businesses and enjoy their holiday," said Osta Abou Rejaili, head of Bhamdoun's municipal council.
"In Bhamdoun, we actually plan for the future and read the conditions of the region's markets," he told Reuters.
With oil and share prices soaring in the Gulf, Arabs want to attract more petrodollars into their economies to help boost growth and create jobs. But investors say they need to deliver faster economic reforms and more liquid financial markets.
"Trying to attract more Gulf money has become something of a government policy in many Arab countries," said Hany Genena, senior economist at regional investment bank EFG-Hermes.
"Egyptian cabinet ministers travel regularly to the Gulf for this purpose... and it is also evident in countries like Jordan and Lebanon," he said in a telephone interview from Cairo.
Gulf investors have been busy re-investing their bumper profits in other regions. Their impact is being felt in European investments and in mergers and acquisitions markets.
But some cash has also gone into Arab real estate and telecom assets, partly to take advantage of ongoing, albeit slow, privatisation programmes.
Some Gulf investors have also pulled cash out of the United States, since the September 11, 2001 attacks, and sought investment opportunities closer to home.
Saudi Telecom Company and United Arab Emirates' Etisalat are among 13 firms bidding for 35 percent in Tunisia's largest telecoms carrier Tunisie Telecom.
Kuwait-based National Mobile Telecommunications Co (Wataniya) is already present in the Tunisian market with shares in Tunisiana.
The Gulf country's second operator Mobile Telecommunications Co has teamed up with Iraq's Atheer Telecom to create MTC Atheer, and also runs one of Lebanon's two mobile phone operation licences, MTC Touch.
"There has never been a better time for the telecom market in the region whether in terms of growth and stock performance," said Kamal Shehadi, managing director of Connexus Consulting in Beirut.
"Lebanon has one of the most attractive telecom sectors in the region. We have two mobile licences and one fixed line operator and they will be privatised," he said, noting Lebanon's higher return per user against other countries in the region.
Lebanon's market-orientated government said it hoped to start the privatisation programme soon, after long delays because of political squabbling, but it needs the parliament's nod to sell the profit-making telecom firms.
Gulf investors are already active in Lebanon, with their real estate investments almost doubling in the last four years, according to Raja Makarem of Ramco Real Estate in Beirut.
Dubai-based Emaar Properties said in August it would build a $3.9 billion real estate project in Cairo, with a 2010 completion date. The firm, which is one-third-owned by the Dubai government, also has a similar deal to invest in Syria.
Yet apart from buying real estate and telecom assets, the Gulf's petrodollars are still chasing few assets in the Arab world and this makes it hard to attract new investment.
"There is a lack of depth in the region's financial markets. Investors have very few stocks to choose from," said Steve Brice, senior Middle East economist at Standard Chartered bank in Dubai. "The debt markets are also underdeveloped... The Middle East region ranks pretty poorly in terms of business environment."
EFG-Hermes' Genena agreed, but saw the silver lining.
"This imbalance of supply and demand could trigger investment and stimulate development in equity markets. It is not negative all the time," he said.
Egypt's bourse is one of the most active outside the Gulf. A new foreign exchange interbank market launched in 2004 also made it easier for offshore money to come in and out of the country.
But analysts say more direct investment in the Arab world from the Gulf and elsewhere will depend on faster privatisation schemes and more initial public offerings on stock markets.
"There is plenty of cash from the Gulf to be invested in the Arab world," said Gregory Kronsten, emerging analyst at WestLB in London. "But the question is what to do with it."
Comments
Comments are closed.