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How do investors navigate a climate in which currencies are potentially unstable and the Fed and central banks stand accused of becoming printing presses?
Small- and medium-sized enterprises arguably hold the key to the economic development of the Middle East, but poor access to financing presents a challenge for entrepreneurs.
Commodity strategies have a major and multidimensional role to play in a diversified portfolio — especially for investors in the MENA region.
There is much potential for Islamic finance to promote sustainable economic development through such approaches as widening access to finance (including microfinance), financing infrastructure projects, and expanding the reach of takaful (Islamic insurance).
At the Middle East Investment Conference, Khaled Sifri, CEO, Emirates Investment Bank provided unique transparency into Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) high-net-worth individuals.
It isn't often that you get a chance to listen to a former sitting president discuss the art of negotiation; and it is rarer still that you learn negotiating secrets from a leader whose peace treaty helped to end an intractable conflict and garnered him a Nobel Peace Prize nomination.
Not surprisingly, the 2008–2009 global financial crisis sent many financial professionals looking to history for a sense of appropriate context and perspective to understand the magnitude of such a catastrophic financial shock. This, in turn, sparked a general interest in financial history, but with few professional sources to turn to. At the 2014 Middle East Investment Conference, professor Adrian Bell, head of the ICMA Centre at the University of Reading's Henley Business School considered the question of whether or not modern finance existed in the Middle Ages.
Investment professionals in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) expect the local economies to grow and think that Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar present the best growth potential and investment opportunities in 2014.
According to Khaled Sifri of Emirates Investment Bank, MENA's new private wealth client is an entrepreneur versed in company growth and attuned to investment banking deals.
News and geopolitical analyses of the Middle East coming from outside of the region tend to be monolithic: It’s all about the oil. Raghida Dergham has a more nuanced understanding of the region.