Saudi Arabia

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.