the bottomline
ISTANBUL:
Turkey’s central bank will take its own measures and the current situation is temporary, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said after the Turkish lira touched a new low on Wednesday, adding that growth and investment will continue.
Yildirim, who was speaking in Istanbul, also said that the recent case against the US gold trader Reza Zarrab was starting to harm economic relations with the United States, and this should not be allowed. (RTRS)
ISTANBUL:
Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek on Wednesday attempted to talk up a lira currency that has hit record lows for two days running, telling investors that a widening rift with the United States was “temporary”.
Investors have hammered the lira since September, sending it down some 17 percent on worries about relations with Washington, and nagging concerns about pressure from President Tayyip Erdogan on the central bank. (RTRS)
ALGIERS:
Algeria is trying to cope with falling revenue from oil and gas by cutting imports, which deplete its shrinking supply of the hard currency needed to pay for products made abroad. It’s not having much luck.
The key to its effort is requiring licenses to import a wide range of products. But the system for granting licenses is tangled in red tape, and by curbing imports of raw materials, it’s hobbling local production, business people say. (RTRS)
DUBAI:
International equity index compiler MSCI may shift to using offshore foreign exchange rates to value Qatar’s equities market because sanctions against Doha have made it more difficult for foreign investors to obtain riyal onshore, MSCI said.
If it goes ahead, the shift could lead to changes in the weighting of Qatari stocks in MSCI’s emerging market index, which is used as a benchmark by funds managing around $1.6 trillion of assets. (RTRS)
ABU DHABI:
The UAE central bank is looking at regulation for crowdfunding in the emirates as part of measures to boost financing for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), its governor said on Wednesday,
“We are looking at crowdfunding regulation which will help SMEs,” Mubarak Rashed al-Mansouri told a banking forum in Abu Dhabi. (RTRS)