Islamic Finance

The administration of President Hassan Rouhani in a cabinet meeting on Sunday approved a bill to switch Iran’s national currency from rial to toman, an official said here on Monday. The secretary of the Cabinet Mohsen Haji Mirzaei said the issue had been scrutinized in the government’s economic commission during the past six months. He added the move aims to facilitate the transactions by the public. The move is aimed at improving the performance of banking sector, he added.

The millennial generation could be worth as much as $24 trillion in three years’ time, according to UBS, not bad when it’s roughly 1.5 times the size of the U.S. economy in 2015.

But the research shows a surprise: in the Middle East millennials are more hard-working and entrepreneurial compared to their global peers.

Qatar’s stock market plunged on Monday after Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain severed ties with Doha, accusing it of supporting terrorism.

Every stock listed on Doha’s headline index was trading sharply lower in early trade. QNB fell by 7.6 per cent, with Masraf Al Rayan and Industries Qatar down by over 9 per cent.

Oil prices rose in response to the shock decision to isolate Qatar, announced early this morning by state news agencies in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Luxury estate agent Knight Frank and research firm Wealth-X have released their annual report on where the ultra-wealthy are snapping up property across the world. The list focuses on high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) – those with $30 million or more in net assets – and examines their migration patterns.
The report notes: “The latest data on HNWI migration confirms the strong and growing attraction of Australia, the US and Canada as destinations for the footloose wealthy. “Cities such as Sydney and Melbourne top the list of growth markets,” it adds.

Saudi Arabia is set lo launch its first international bond on Wedsneday, as the Financial Times reported; the initial price guidance of the bond is set to be somewhere between $10 billion and $15 billion, the largest ever from West Asia. The final figure will be released on Tuesday.
It comes at a time where Saudi Arabia is looking to plug the budgetary deficit it has had since the drop in oil prices last year.

Oil price is rallying in the opening day of the meeting of OPEC in Algeria; Brent and WTI mark both fell around 1.50 percent, after morning’s declaration, made by Iran’s oil minister, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, who seems to have erased the little chance of a deal today for a freeze or cut production of crude oil.

Algeria is changing its economy and opening up a market system, the state-owned banks will be listed on the stock exchange and therefore funded by private capital and foreign capital.

The North African country is thus implementing a clear change of direction than in the past, when the organisation was based on a state-run and centralized system since its independence from France and the economy was at 60% on profits derived from petrodollars, ie the proceeds from the sale of oil, which was strictly public.

Russia and Iran tighten relations in oil field building together five platforms in the Persian Gulf; the deal, which is worth a billion dollars, also involves the gradual transfer to Iran of the necessary offshore technologies, and this "is a dream come true", as stated Ehsanollah Mousavi, managing director of Iranian company TODC.

The agreement was signed by the shipbuilder, russian Krasnye Barrikady and the Iranian company TODC: the project, for $ 1 billion, involves the construction of five offshore platforms in the Persian Gulf. According Ehsanollah Mousavi, CEO TODC (Tasdid Offshore Development Company), the agreement provides for the construction of an offshore platform every two years off the Iranian port of Khorramshahr, situated in the extreme south-west of Iran, on the mouth of the Arvand River (also known as Shatt ul Arab).