Maturing Economies In the Persian Gulf

Despite political unrest at the fringes, the GCC is emerging as the region’s voice of stability, thanks to maturing economies that are moving away from hydrocarbons.

由Adrian Murdoch

Emerging markets in general have had a stormy 18 months or so. But thanks to political stability and robust economies, it is the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates—that have stood out as oases of calm among the world’s emerging economies

The International Monetary Fund predicts gross domestic product growth of 4.2 percent for the GCC based on exchange rates pegged to the US dollar and strong sovereign balance sheets. They are all running large external surpluses with comfortable buffers.

海湾合作委员会仍相对不受政治l unrest on its border and in the surrounding Middle East & North African (MENA) region so far. Neither the difficulties between Israel and Palestine, nor the threat of ISIS, the militant Islamic State movement in Syria and Iraq, have spilled over. “Political risk used to knock confidence in the Gulf, but not this time,” explains Paul Gamble, director, Africa and Middle East sovereigns group, at ratings agency Fitch in London.

More than that, a new role is emerging for the GCC as peacemaker. “It has a role in consolidating the fragile recovery and stabilizing economies in the rest of the region,” says Alia Moubayed, head of MENA research at Barclays.

One good sign is that the MENA economies seem serious in their shift away from a near-total reliance on hydrocarbons. “There is a diversification of flows away from oil and gas,” says Jan Dehn, head of research at specialist emerging markets investment manager Ashmore. In Saudi Arabia, for example, while growth slowed marginally to 3.8 percent in 2013 thanks to lower oil production, non-oil growth was robust, at 5 percent. GDP has outpaced growth in the oil sector itself for seven of the past eight years.

At a grass roots level this has been helped in the way that MENA banks are financing expansion of local non-oil businesses. In mid-August, for example, Qatar National Bank was the lead arranger with Goldman Sachs on a US$800 million loan to help Abu Dhabi-based entrepreneur B. R. Shetty acquire a majority stake in the world’s largest foreign exchange operator, Travelex.

它还部分地由该地区的基础设施融资中的繁荣驱动，为各国政府承担的大部分。也许最明显的是苏伊士运河的新的72公里频道，由埃及的总统阿卜杜勒·菲差亚·埃尔 - 斯西岛宣布，于8月初宣布。苏伊士运河管理局在运河周围拓展港口和航运设施的一部分，苏伊士运河管理局估计，40亿美元的项目将在2023年将年度收入增加至135亿美元。

“对银行和投资者的项目金融资产的需求非常强烈，”Colin Fraser，执行副总裁Colin Fraser，Abu Dhabi商业银行（ADCB）。虽然政府支出的增长可能已经越来越低，但绝对金额仍然很高。

外国人可能会获得更多访问权限

All good news, but foreign investors have, for the most part, had to look on enviously. They have long enjoyed access – and profits – in, for example, Egypt. Good first half results in the banking sector saw Egypt’s main index, the EGX30, jump 1.32 percent in early August. Leader of the pack was Commercial International Bank (CIB) which rose 2.72 percent.

但尽管GCC的增长，但很难获得访问。所有这些即将改变。At the end of July it was announced that Saudi Arabia’s stock exchange, the Tadawul All Share Index (TASI), would open to foreigners in 2015. Frequently mooted in the past, there is a conviction this time that the Riyadh-based Capital Market Authority means what it says.

There are of course questions to answer and when the rules for participation are published in September, they will be examined closely. “We know that trading systems were tested a couple of years ago but it remains to be seen what thresholds will be set for foreign investors, in terms of assets under management and years of operation, and for aggregate foreign ownership in individual stocks,” says Hasnain Malik, head of frontier markets strategy at Exotix Partners.

Nonetheless the excitement is almost tangible. “This is not like a frontier market opening up,” says Kaan Nazli, senior economist for the emerging market debt team at investment management firm Neuberger Berman. The Saudi market is the largest and most liquid of those in the Gulf Cooperation Council region. With a market cap of more than US$500 million, it accounts for half of that of the GCC markets as a whole and 70 percent of trading volumes, according to Kuwait’s Global Investment House.

What investors and especially funds are really waiting for is potential entry to the MSCI indexes. Watchers reckon that thanks to its size, the Saudi stock exchange is unlikely to be placed in the MSCI Frontier Markets Index – the normal point of entry. The Saudi index would become a very large part of the whole frontier index. Instead, it is likely to be on the emerging markets index, where it would have a more modest weighting of around 4 percent of the index. And this could happen as early as July 2015.

全球投资社区在指数上存在的重要性不应低估。8月中旬，MSCI宣布将新兴市场指数的卡塔尔的加权调整为0.47％至0.59％。基于CAIRO的投资银行EFG HERMES估计，这可能导致无源流入约为1亿美元。在沙特阿拉伯的案例中，美国银行Merrill Lynch审议该指数的一个地方可能导致13.3亿美元的流入，达到266亿美元，而斯科罗德将这些数字达到400亿美元。

The growth of Sukuk debt issues

If there is good news in the equity markets, the growth of Sukuk debt issuance appears unstoppable, too. Ernst & Young predicts that the Sukuk market as a whole will triple to US$900 billion by 2017, up from US$300 billion in 2012. This year already the Dow Jones Sukuk Index is up 4.39 percent, compared with a return of 0.22 percent in 2013.

中东债务发行遵循类似的增长。根据Dealogic的数据，它在2011年上半年达到了304.6亿美元，从2011年的Paltry 131.13亿美元。H2看起来好像它会好起来的。

But this is not just a MENA phenomenon. Luxembourg and South Africa are all considering Sukuk issuance. In Asia, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Pakistan are currently looking to raise up to a combined US$3.5 billion by the end of the year. This follows the British government which sold its inaugural £200 million (US$336 million) Sukuk at the end of June.

几个因素落后于苏科克发行的全球兴趣。“低利率，与沙特里亚尔可持续地挂钩目前的美国利率是促使企业木筏通过债务和Sukuk文书筹集资金。由于他们的伊斯兰教格遵守，该地区的许多企业首选苏克鲁克结构。Sukuk资金的胃口是由伊斯兰教的投资者推动，寻求固定收益型退货，谁仍面临着相当狭隘的企业选择，“Exotix Partners'Malik解释说。

还有帮助的是，Sukuk发行的成本已经下降。英国Sukuk问题公寓出售给同等的吉尔茨，证明了Sukuk和常规债务之间的定价差异最多。“当新的时候，它并不容易，”惠誉解释道。“熟悉创造了一个良性的圈子。”

Sukuk have also moved out of niche and into the mainstream. Investors who used to be wary, have taken heart from the point that in the wake of the debt crisis, the debt restructuring was with the banks and not with the bonds themselves. “The Sukuk market has become a dedicated investor market in the same way as the Eurobond market is,” says Neuberger Berman’s Nazli. He cites the example of Kenya, which sold its debut dollar bond at the end of June and now talking about Sukuk issuance.

Rising property prices

也许该地区经济成熟的最大迹象是它如何应对房地产价格上涨。例如，乍一看，在查看房地产价格时难以避免Déjà-VU的感觉。这是2009年迪拜的房地产崩溃，威胁到全国其他一些国家联系公司的多亿美元违约。

At the beginning of the
一年，汇丰分析师预测2014年房地产价格增长10-15％，而根据房地产顾问CBRE的过去两年，租金平均升至45％。

但这一次是不同的。ADCB的弗雷泽指出，阿联酋在近几个月的价格上有一个平衡 - 虽然交易量仍然稳定。“这表明呼吸暂停，表明房地产市场是可持续的，”他说。房地产产量为6-7％，伦敦或纽约百分之规，仍有价格上涨的空间。

It is the same in Dubai. “The property market is being driven by fundamentals rather than speculation. Only a third of deals are financed by banks. There isn’t the same amount of leverage as last time,” says Fitch’s Gamble.