RIYADH: The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) said yesterday it planned a $500 million Islamic bonds, or sukuk, issue to finance its 2009 financing program, the first sukuk issue this year in a tightening industry. “We are planning to go ahead with the issue in the next few months,” the bank’s Chairman Ahmed Mohammed Ali told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in Riyadh. The global credit crunch and slowing economies in key Islamic financial centers are applying pressure on the $1 trillion Islamic bond industry and putting it to its biggest test in its 30-year history.
Nonoil exports growth halves
RIYADH: The growth of Saudi Arabia’s nonoil exports in 2008 slowed down to less than half its level the previous year, the central bank governor said yesterday, after the global financial crisis hit foreign demand. The growth of nonoil exports is a key indicator of the Kingdom’s success in diversifying its oil-based economy fast enough to create jobs for a rapidly-growing native population, which is the largest population among other oil-exporting Gulf countries. Muhammad Al-Jasser, governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA), said nonoil exports in 2009 grew 10.2 percent to SR115.1 billion ($30.7 billion) in 2008 against a 22.5 percent growth in 2007.
US inflation up, trade gap shrinks
WASHINGTON: US inflation rose in February on higher gasoline and apparel prices, government data showed yesterday, indicating some pricing power in the recession-hit economy and easing fears of deflation for now. In another snapshot of the US economy, the Commerce Department said the US current account deficit for the fourth quarter contracted sharply as imports fell more rapidly than exports. But it was the Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index that attracted the most attention. In February, the overall CPI rose 0.4 percent, the biggest monthly gain since last July, and above January’s gain of 0.3 percent.
