Foreign investments reached 620.8 million dinars (MD) at the end of March 2019, up 9.8% compared to 2018, according to statistics From the Foreign Investment Promotion Agency (FIPA).

Compared to the last three years, these investments edged up 37.4% compared to 2017 and 63.3% compared to 2016.

In foreign currencies, foreign investments reached € 204 million (-12%, compared to the first quarter of 2018) and $ 179.6 million (-5.6%), according to the balance of the foreign investments for the first three months of 2019.

The foreign direct investments (FDI) were worth 616.3 MD compared to the last three years, up 10.2% compared to 2018, 39.9% compared to 2017 and 68.4% compared to 2016.

On the contrary, the portfolio investment edged down 26.3% in the first three months of 2019 compared to 2018, only 4.5 MD compared to 99.5 MD in 2015.

The FDI are shared out by 46.4% for the energy sector (up 13.6% to 286.1 MD) and 43.9% for manufacturing industries (45.9%) to 270.5 MD.

The foreign investment in the services sector fell by 50%, from 116.2 MD in the first quarter of 2018 to 59 MD in 2019. The same is true for foreign investment in agriculture which plummeted 89.9%, to 0.6 MD.

Tunisia is targeting the attraction of 3 billion dinars of foreign investment by the end of the year, against 2.8 billion dinars in 2018.

Source: Africanmanager

The Ministry of Commerce and Industry said that it is setting up Investment Services Information Centre as first front for local and foreign investment.

This is decided in view of the outcome of the study about the reality of investment in the Sultanate as well as the government’s approach to strengthen roles of various sectors and support the idea of economic diversification.

The Investment Services Centre is aimed at developing investment environment in the Sultanate and making establishment of projects of various types easy by increasing transparency and speed of procedures and services, promoting foreign direct investment in Oman and overcoming obstacles being faced by the investors.

Engineer Ibrahim Bin Saeed Al Mamari, Chief Executive Officer, Investment Services Centre, said: "The vision of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry is to work through this centre seriously and address the challenges in the investment in the Sultanate of Oman.

It is also meant to find suitable solutions by opening direct channels with investors, and taking recommendations into account. It will help the investment sector in the Sultanate."

"From very first day, we started on the basis of the study about the performance of the portal InvestEasy to learn about the major challenges being faced by the investors.

This also helped us in knowing that to which level we have reached in the integrated electronic connectivity with all organisations concerned with the commercial registration, licensing and issuing permits of different times.

We have actually wanted to complete the procedures of investment swiftly without any hassle," he added.

"We would also look into the service and how it complies with the international standards in making the it more transparent so that environment for investment can be made more attractive to take advantage of the competitive atmosphere of the Sultanate.

This is important for Oman to gain its position both at regional and international levels," he pointed out.

He said that practically, eight government organisations have been linked with the system of ‘Invest Easy’ at different levels with the plan to link them completely.”



Al Mamari said that recently, a number of improvements have been made in the services provided through "Invest Easy” portal for commercial registration, commercial agencies, licenses etc.

These improvements are aimed at simplifying and making business environment suitable.

He said that 10 per cent of work on the plan is over. The next phase is called "Invest Easy Version 2", will also include Intellectual Property, licenses, permits, connectivity with other organisations and annual reports. It will also have mobile application and a dashboard.

Al Mamari said that the coming phase required concerted efforts of all parties involved in the success of the investment in the Sultanate. The Investment Services Centre has developed an ambitious plan which includes the main partners of the public and private sectors.

It is aimed at constructive dialogue and creation of joint platform where all can work in the interest of investment and removal of all obstacles.

He said that the plan would be announced shortly. For the plan a set of discussions with the concerned organisations were held and their recommendations were taken into account. It would make Oman as suitable place of local as well as foreign investments.

He said that the centre was working directly under the guidance of the honourable minister in coordination with the implementation and follow up unit so that whatever has come out in these discussions are implemented in toto to achieve the objectives.

He said that the centre was currently working on restructuring its administrative set up and developing strategies which are consistent with the role of the centre, in line with the investment and the business environment of the world at the regional and international levels.

The centre is also working to understand major challenges related to the Sultanate's position on business map in the annual report of the World Bank and to work to improve the its regional and international status gradually.

He said that to achieve this goal, the centre was working currently on developing a mechanism which divides investment projects into two one is Funnel Strategy and the second is Implementation Process. It is aimed at identifying strategic projects and focus on it without ignoring others.

He said that this strategy depended on the international standards agreed upon with the main partners.

Engineer Ibrahim Al Mamari said that the centre would include a specialised team for studies and planning to make a base as a solid ground for the development of investment plans and programmes.

Source: Timesofoman

Saudi Arabia seeks foreign direct investment to help diversify the economy away from oil.

The Saudi Arabia General Investment Authority (SAGIA) said that the number of new licences approved for foreign businesses in Saudi Arabia rose by 70 per cent in the first quarter from a year earlier.

Ibrahim Al Omar, the Governor of SAGIA, said that applications from British and Chinese companies drove the increase, rising by 86 per cent and 71 per cent, respectively.

The fastest-growing industries were education, which the Kingdom only opened to foreign investors in November, and information and communications technology, added Al Omar.

The year-on-year growth in foreign licences follows Saudi efforts to remove restrictions on international investments. Yet, fresh foreign direct investment in the country has been modest.

SAGIA is working with the World Bank to improve its ranking on the ease-of-doing-business index, where it currently ranks 92 among 190 countries.

“We are reviewing all licencing requirements, and you will see a 50 per cent drop overall from government departments in terms of the time, cost and number of requirements to invest in Saudi Arabia,” Al Omar said.

Source: bankerme

DMCC – the world’s flagship Free Zone and Government of Dubai Authority on commodities trade and enterprise – has completed three roadshows this month visiting Sweden, the United Kingdom and China highlighting the opportunities available through DMCC for companies seeking expansion to global markets through Dubai.

DMCC’s senior management visited the cities of Gothenburg and Stockholm in Sweden for the first time with its Made for Trade Live international corporate roadshow. The events were held in partnership with the Swedish Trade and Investment Council (‘Business Sweden’), and with the support of the United Arab Emirates Embassy in Sweden, and the Swedish Embassy in the UAE.

80 Swedish business leaders and senior delegates attended the events, and discussed wide ranging issues such as Dubai’s economic growth, governance, regulation and trade; as well as DMCC’s infrastructure, products and services, and the positive impact Expo 2020 Dubai will have on the city’s local economy and the opportunity on offer to foreign companies.

The next stop on the Made for Trade Live roadshow was London. Staged in partnership with the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, over 100 leading names of British business gathered in the room to discuss the opportunities for growth presented by Dubai.

DMCC’s position as a commercial hub and gateway to global trade flows was the focus of the discussion, especially within the context ongoing developments connected to Brexit.

To date, there are over 1,400 British firms registered with DMCC.

“Our mandate at DMCC is to drive new trade flows to Dubai.

These roadshows enable us to do just that by communicating the Dubai story and highlighting DMCC’s commercial appeal to foreign businesses. Our first visit to Sweden was very successful, and we look forward to working more closely with the Swedish business community and building partnerships in a new market,” said Ahmed Bin Sulayem, Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, DMCC.

 “With bilateral trade between the UAE and the United Kingdom expected to reach approximately Dhs 121 billion by 2020, it was important to visit London again this year.

DMCC offers British firms an unprecedented opportunity to expand their enterprise, and the economic impact of Expo 2020 Dubai should be appealing to all ambitious companies looking to do business in this part of the world,” he added.

 Peter Bishop, Deputy Executive Chief, London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, added: “The London Chamber of Commerce and Industry was delighted to partner with DMCC on this project. Representing the interests of London businesses, it made sense for us to support the latest Made for Trade Live roadshow and communicate the tremendous opportunity in Dubai for British firms.

Our members represent some of the finest businesses in the capital, and I was encouraged to learn of the support offered by DMCC to foreign companies seeking to do business in the Middle East, Africa and Asia and beyond.” Feryal Ahmadi, Chief Operating Officer at DMCC was invited by the Chinese Government to speak at the International Forum on Free Trade Zones Development, a two-day forum in Hainan focused on promoting free trade.

The event was organised by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) and The People’s Government of Hainan Province.

“DMCC has become a commercial hub and a critical connection point for trade ties between the UAE and China. Committed to driving the next phase of commercial growth between the two countries, DMCC has embarked on a comprehensive strategy to attract Chinese firms to DMCC.

We have launched a range of bespoke Chinese-language services that have seen a rise of Chinese companies set up in Dubai and register with DMCC. This is only the beginning and we look forward to creating more opportunity for Chinese firms in Dubai which will in turn, support China’s Belt and Road Initiative,” said Feryal Ahmadi, Chief Operating Officer, DMCC.

Since its inception, DMCC attracted over 3,000 businesses from 17 cities around the world to its international roadshows. The programme brings together business leaders interested in expanding their home base and offers them insights into the commercial appeal of Dubai and the opportunities it offers for growth in the region and beyond.

DMCC Headquartered in Dubai, DMCC is the world’s most interconnected Free Zone, and the leading trade and enterprise hub for commodities.

Whether developing vibrant neighbourhoods with world-class property like Jumeirah Lakes Towers (JLT) and the much-anticipated Uptown Dubai, or delivering high performance business services, DMCC provides everything its dynamic community needs to live, work and thrive. Made for Trade, DMCC is proud to sustain and grow Dubai’s position as the place to be for global trade today and long into the future.

Source: .Gulftoday

The bridge will bring the capital closer to the planned new free trade zone known as 'Silk City'

Kuwait inaugurated one of the world’s longest sea bridges on Wednesday, shaving an hour off the drive from the Gulf country's capital to an uninhabited area set to become the country’s major free trade zone.

The Sheikh Jaber Causeway, named after the late Sheikh Jaber Al Sabah who reigned during the Gulf War, is 36 kilometres long – making it the fourth longest bridge in the world.

Approximately 80 per cent of the bridge is over water and will connect Kuwait City to Subiya, where a 100-billion dollar mega-city is being built.

The bridge also makes Kuwait’s largest island 30 minutes from the Gulf state’s capital, having previously been a near two-hour drive.

The $3.6 billion causeway, designed by Paris-based engineering and consulting group Systra, took a consortium led by South Korea's Hyundai Engineering and Construction Co.

along with Kuwait's Combined Group Contracting Co four years to build.

The project is Kuwait’s largest construction feat to date and kicks off the country’s economic reform measures titled Kuwait 2035.

In addition to a free zone and port, Silk City envisions an airport, an Olympic stadium, a tower taller than Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, currently the world’s highest, and housing for up to 700,000 people.

However, some members of Kuwait’s democratically elected parliament have opposed what they say are laws that will allow the Silk City to function as a “state within a state”.

Some of Kuwait's top parliamentarians have expressed fears over how the project could fall outside of their jurisdiction, claiming that the laws governing Silk City could be completely different to those followed in the country.

The Silk City project is being led by the Emir Nasser Al Sabah, the deputy prime minister, and will see Kuwait partner with China to build the zone.

The opening ceremony was attended by Kuwait's emir, Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmed along with South Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yeon and the leader of the French senate, Gerard Larcher.

The Minister of Public Works and Minister State for Housing, Jenan Boushiri was also present, saying the bridge’s inauguration marks the first step towards Kuwait’s future away from an exclusively oil-dependent economy.

"We are beginning a new era in building Kuwait 2035, under the vision of your noble Highness and your high guidance, bearing in mind the aspirations of citizens and their aspirations for a better life committed to building a better tomorrow for the future of our generations,” she told reporters.

Mr Nak-yeon said Wednesday the causeway would establish Kuwait as an international trade centre connecting the Middle East with the rest of Asia.

Source: Thenational

Tweets from Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid state that there are around 6,800 investors eligible for the first batch of visas

The United Arab Emirates has launched the permanent residency system for investors and exceptionally skilled foreigners, the ruler of Dubai and prime minister of the UAE announced.

The permanent residency visa named the ‘Golden Card’ will be granted to investors and exceptionally competent individuals in the fields of medicine, engineering, science, and all arts, according to the official twitter of account of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum.

The first batch of those eligible for permanent residency for a "Golden Card" in the UAE reached 6,800 investors, whose total investments reach 100 billion UAE dirhams ($273 million), according to one Arabic tweet by the ruler of Dubai.

Another tweet added that the permanent residency will be granted to those who contribute positively to the success story of the UAE.

”We want them to be permanent partners with us in our journey. All residents in the UAE are our brothers and part of our great family in the UAE,” the Arabic tweet said.

According to Anir Chatterji, Middle East immigration & employment leader at PwC Legal, the UAE has been at the forefront of driving change to the existing immigration structure (which is broadly the same across the GCC) and for opening opportunities for highly-skilled professionals to benefit from longer-term residency - thereby offering these individuals greater investment security and stability.

“This new development of permanent residency is an extension of this policy and it is likely to be viewed positively by the ‘in-scope’ individuals and business community at large as it will open the doors to more foreign direct investment and, in turn, sustained economic activity and development,” he said in emailed comments to Zawya.

“Many expatriates call the UAE home and this new development will allow individuals to stay in the UAE for a longer period, which is welcome news for investors, entrepreneurs, specialised talents, researchers, and outstanding students (and their dependents),” he added.

The announcement follows the approval of the Saudi Cabinet last week for granting ‘green card’-style visas for highly-skilled foreigners and owners of capital funds with other sets of benefits as part of a ‘Privileged Residence System.

“The recent announcement in Saudi didn’t necessarily have a direct impact on this. That being said, there has been a drive to standardise a number of initiatives in the immigration space in the GCC countries, and to continue to find innovative ways to attract sustained economic investment activity and prosperity,” Chatterji said.

“This means the opening up of the historically static immigration regime is a key enabler for facilitating such change, and we consider that the recent announcement in the UAE is a welcome step for the business community at large,” he added.

Source: ZAWYA

The risk of an entire investment portfolio is always less than the sum of the risks of its individual parts. Many investors lose sight of that fact when making investment decisions.

When adding an additional security to your portfolio, you might look at the risk of the additional security only, not at its ability to reduce risk overall.

In this article, we'll explain how you can make your portfolio safer by adding risky investments.

Reduce Risk By Incorporating Risky Strategies

Hedging Strategies
Shorting a stock is always considered a risky strategy. You can, at best, make a 100% return on the position if the stock declines to zero.

In theory, the losses are infinite if the stock continues to rise. For example, if you shorted a $10 stock and it climbed to $50 you would lose five times your original investment.

Similarly, buying a leveraged inverse ETF is also risky. For example, the ProShares UltraShort S&P 500 ETF aims to provide performance that is the inverse of, and double that of, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index. So if the S&P 500 rises by 1%, the leveraged inverse ETF should fall by 2%; and if the S&P 500 falls by 1%, the inverse ETF should rise by 2%.

The above strategies would be considered risky, but if done properly in a portfolio context, you can reduce your risk instead of increasing it. For example, if you hold a large position in a stock that you cannot sell, by shorting the same stock in an equal amount, you have effectively sold the position and reduced your risk of the stock to zero. Similarly an investor with a portfolio of U.S. stocks can reduce their risk by buying the appropriate leveraged inverse ETF. A 100% hedge will insulate you from risk, but it will also effectively reduce your exposure to any upside.

Buying Insurance With Options
A put option is a risky investment that gives you the right to sell a stock or an index at a predetermined price by a specified time. Buying a put option is a bearish strategy because you believe the stock or the market will go down.

You make money on a decline, and the most you can lose is the price you paid for the option.

Given the leverage of an option, it would be considered a risky investment. However, when a put option is paired with a stock that you currently own, it provides protection against a lower stock price.

Unlike hedging, which limits your upside, buying a put would still provide you with unlimited upside. It is, in effect, like buying insurance on your stock, and the cost of your put option is the insurance premium.

Using Low-Correlation Assets
A portfolio consisting mostly of bank stocks and utilities is considered relatively safe, whereas gold and gold stocks are generally considered risky. However, buying gold stock rather than another financial stock might in fact lower the risk of the portfolio as a whole.

Gold and gold stocks typically have a low correlation with interest-sensitive stocks and, at times, the correlation is even negative. Buying riskier assets with a low correlation with each other is the classic diversification strategy.

Reducing Benchmark or Active Risk
Which is considered the riskier portfolio: one that contains 100% U.S. Treasury bills or one that has 80% equity and 20% bonds? In absolute terms, T-bills are the definition of risk-free investment. However, an investor might have a long-term asset mix of 60% equity and 40% bonds as their benchmark. In that case, compared to their benchmark, a portfolio containing 80% equity will have less risk than one with 100% U.S. Treasury bills. For the investor who has all cash, they can reduce their risk relative to their long-term benchmark by purchasing the risky equity.

The risk that your investment will not match that of your benchmark is called tracking error or active risk. The greater the difference in performance between the two, the greater the active risk or tracking error.

One of the attractive features of index funds and ETFs is that they are meant to replicate benchmarks, thus reducing the tracking error to almost zero. Buying an ETF that matches your benchmark is always considered a safer investment than an actively managed mutual fund, from the perspective of benchmark or active risk.

Understanding Your Real Risks

Many investors consider doing nothing a less-risky strategy than making a decision. However, as John F. Kennedy said, "There are risks and costs to a program of action, but they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction." A safe investment portfolio of all cash will allow you to sleep at night, but can be considered a risky strategy if it falls short of meeting your objective.

In the long run, safe investments like bonds and cash will never protect an investor against the risk of inflation. Only by purchasing riskier investments like equities, commodities or real estate can an investor provide the protection they need against losing the purchasing power of their assets. In the long run, a portfolio of all safe investments will turn out to be too risky for protection against inflation.

Consider an American couple who lived in the U.S. all their lives, and then moved to Canada to retire. All the investments were left to be managed in a diversified portfolio of U.S. securities. Currently, all their expenses are in Canadian dollars.

They now have exposure to a weak U.S. dollar. By investing some of their assets in "riskier" Canadian securities, or by hedging the U.S. dollar with currency futures, they are providing protection against a weak dollar and making their portfolio safer.

The Bottom Line

Many investors look only at the risk of their individual securities, not at the combined effect on their portfolio. In fact, portfolios can be made safer by investment strategies that by themselves might be risky, but that in the context of the entire portfolio can make it safer.

This is especially true when confronted with the "real" risks that investors face long-term, such as inflation.

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Source: investopedia

Over the years, I have become a “data hound” looking for every morsel of wisdom I can ge to help me make smarter decisions. The good news here: accurate data is king.

 You can’t effectively manage your business without accurate data. Getting it is not always easy but without it you risk making the wrong business decisions -- hurting your business when you thought you were helping it. Allow me to explain.

Managing a sales pipeline.

In B2B businesses with long sales cycle the only way to assess the effectiveness of your sales team and predict future revenue is based on data your sales team enters into your CRM. 

Watch if a salesperson’s number of accounts is growing, how those leads are working their way through the sales funnel and total dollar value of the pipeline being managed.

But, think about what I just said: you are evaluating the success of your sales team based on the data they are entering (or not entering) in the CRM system. That creates multiple problems.

I have seen situations where salespeople enter false information to look more successful to save their jobs.

More generally, there is plenty of room for error any time you rely on humans for data.

For example, did the salesperson remember to enter a new lead into the CRM? Did they remember to update the status of a lead (e.g., from active to dead)? Did they update the dollar value of that lead from $20,000 to $10,000 after they learned the client didn’t need as many products as they first thought? Did they update the expected close date from April to June, after they learned the project has been delayed?

You get the point. Most businesses are making mission critical decisions based on future expected revenues from this data. More often than not, the data is not very accurate, updated or reliable.

If your CRM suggests you are working with more than $1,000,000 of potential leads, and your normal conversion rate is 20 percent, you would think there is a reasonable chance to close $200,000 in sales. That's money you count on to run the business, pay your bills and meet payroll. 

Bad data could put you in an illiquid position, unless you have a cash reserve cover the $200,000 that didn’t show up as predicted.

You need to scrub the data when managing a sales pipelines. Every week, remind your salespeople to update their data. In your one-on-one meetings with the team, talk through their list, line by line, to ensure what the system data is telling you is reality. Where you can, build automated systems that update data for any actions made (e.g., as new email leads come into business, they automatically get entered in CRM). 

This includes building in automated tasks and reminders to make sure the leads are moving forward and the salespeople are getting system-triggered actions they need to take for each lead.

Managing marketing spend.

The quality of your marketing efforts depends on the quality of the data being managed and studied. Typically, there are two problems. First, is your marketing team managing towards the right data metrics in the first place.

Second, is credit being given to the marketing channel that actually drove the lead? In a multi-device world it's not easy to get proper attribution.

Recently we hired an ad agency to manage our paid search campaign. We told them the key metric to drive was immediate return on ad spend (ROAS), defined as clearly attributed revenues from the campaign divided by marketing cost of campaign. 

A strange thing started to happen in our business: our low ticket, online ecommerce transactions started to take off, but our desired high ticket, offline B2B transactions were not growing at all.

 By telling our agency to focus on “immediate” ROAS, the only way they could hit the desired target was by focusing on smaller orders that were immediately ready to book online. 

That excluded the desired longer sales cycle leads we really wanted to be growing.

So, after six months of these learnings, we switched directions. We told the agency immediate ROAS was no longer the goal. We would be happy waiting until the end of our three-month sales cycle before studying our ROAS.

We switched the key metric to immediate B2B leads from the marketing effort. As soon as we made that change our quick, low ticket sales fell back to normal levels but our desired B2B leads rose to record highs. 

We were thrilled, thinking we had finally “cracked the code” to scaling our business.

But, did we? We did a retroactive cohort analysis of all B2B leads that came into the business over our normal three month booking window. What we learned was concerning: the B2B leads were coming into the business in record numbers, but were converting into sales at levels far lower than our typical conversion rates.

 After researching this further with our sales team we learned the leads coming in were very price sensitive.

They were shopping many websites for the lowest price and often needed last-minute deliveries that were impossible to fulfill in time.

So, now we are back to the drawing board, trying to figure out the right metric to find leads we can actually work with and properly attribute the leads so we are not missing anything important. 

We also want to be careful not to “throw the baby out with the bath water”. Maybe the marketing agency is actually doing a great job and something operational is getting in the way of sales converting. Time will tell.

These are examples in sales and marketing but I easily could have given you data-driven examples from operations, finance, human resources or technology.

 You are living in a world where accurate data is king. Be sure your business is driven by the metrics that are the most important and reliable for predicting and driving desired outcomes. The data is only as good as the effort you put into it.

Source: Entrepreneur