Saudi Arabia

Persian Gulf equity markets have so far failed to win a boost from last year’s inclusion of the United Arab Emirates and Qatar into the world’s main emerging market index, as well as the more recent opening up of the Saudi Exchange to foreign investors, market participants have said.

Saudi Electricity Co has received approval from its executive committee for a new sukuk programme and a revolving credit facility. If the firm deploys the former this year it should help breathe life into a sukuk market that has lost much of its steam after a strong start to the year.

We remarked last week that emerging markets could face a difficult time ahead. Well, we didn’t have to wait long before the early manoeuvers in a possible currency war had an impact on sovereign CDS spreads.

Saudi Electricity Company is asking to pay a margin of between 35bp and 50bp for a basket of up to $5bn of loans, according to a banker on the deal.

In this round-up, Hong Kong deposits rose in April, but cross-border RMB trade settlement fell, Macau announced its March deposit figures, ICBC opened two new offshore branches in Montreal and Riyadh, RMB clearing in South Korea has reached a daily average of Rmb25bn, and Japanese bank MUFG helped Brazilian clients settle trade with China in RMB.