The results of the survey by International Budget Partnership reflected recent efforts exerted by the Saudi government to enhance transparency and disclosure in public finance.

Saudi Arabia has made a marked improvement in terms of budget transparency and accountability, according to the Open Budget Index survey released on Wednesday.

According to the survey, conducted by International Budget Partnership (IBP), an international non-profit organization concerned with evaluating disclosure and transparency of general budgets worldwide, Saudi Arabia has advanced 18 ranks compared to the previous survey, after scoring 18 points compared to one point in the previous survey conducted in 2017.

The results of the survey reflected recent efforts exerted by the Saudi government to enhance transparency and disclosure in public finance.

Commenting on the result of the survey, Dr. Saad Alshahrani, deputy minister for macro-fiscal policies at the Ministry of Finance, highlighted the importance of this achievement that the Kingdom managed to realize within a short period of time and confirmed that with this progress, we aspire in the future to achieve a higher ranking that reflects efforts made in the framework of improving the quality of fiscal data and enhancing the level of transparency and disclosure thereof, which is one of the important tracks pursued by the government of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques in line with the Kingdom's Vision2030.

The Ministry of Finance has sought to develop its fiscal systems, providing the greatest possible amount of information about its fiscal policy, disclosing its fiscal and economic data and publishing relevant periodic reports to inform specialists, analysts and citizens in a timely manner.

This has also allowed the private sector and investors to plan ahead and make informed decisions.

Dr. Alshahrani said that the budget forum held annually by the ministry is an effective way to enhance communication and an important channel for identifying the best ways to develop the budget preparation process.

He also said that this forum underscores the importance of partnership between different government agencies to share challenges in preparing the budget and mechanisms to achieve the goals.

The forum is considered a successful initiative to inform the public finance stakeholders on the various projects of the finance ministry and related programs, and to provide training opportunities following the highest international standards.

The deputy minister added that the jump in the Kingdom’s score was the result of several concrete measures taken to enhance transparency. Since the launch of the Kingdom's Vision2030, the ministry has released many reports and has continuously developed its content on an annual basis according to best practices.

The reports address a broad base of specialized recipients and the general public inside and outside the Kingdom.

In 2017, the ministry issued the first detailed budget statement, quarterly (periodic) reports for the budget performance, the citizen’s budget, in addition to the publication of its medium-term fiscal framework. During the past two years, the ministry began periodically publishing the pre-budget statement and year-end report on its website.

Dr. Alshahrani explained that transparency is one of the important aspects of concern to international financial and investment institutions, impacting their investment decisions and is usually reflected in their reports.

He added that, in the past year, the Kingdom’s government joined the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) adopted by the International Monetary Fund, as well as implemented the Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange (SDMX) initiative on the national data page, making the Kingdom the first among the G20 countries adopting SDDS and to apply SDMX.

The general government coverage was also introduced in the presentation of fiscal data for the first time in the past year. Also, the National Fiscal and Economic Data Page was created on the website of the Ministry of Finance with the participation of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority and the General Authority for Statistics.

All of these measures contributed to a material and unprecedented shift in the levels of disclosure and transparency in the Kingdom, leading to an enhanced position on various international indicators and contributing to supporting domestic and foreign investment, as well as the credit rating of the Kingdom.

The Open Budget Index (OBI) is an important global tool, independently prepared every two years to assess the transparency of government budgets around the world.

Countries covered by the open budget survey are ranked according to their scores in the survey.

source: zawya

The central banks of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia, the two largest Arab economies, on Saturday announced stimulus plans worth a combined $40 billion to ease the impact of the coronavirus outbreak in their respective countries.

The UAE regulator plans to support banks and businesses in the country, where the outbreak is affecting major economic sectors such as tourism and transport, with a 100 billion dirham ($27 billion) economic plan, it said on Saturday.

In a separate statement, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority said it had prepared a 50 billion riyal ($13.32 billion) package to help small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) cope with the economic impacts of coronavirus.

The disease has so far infected 85 people in the UAE and 105 in Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi funding aims to grant SMEs six-month deferrals on bank payments, concessional financing and exemptions from the costs of a loan guarantee program, SAMA said.

Concerts, sporting events and industry conferences have been canceled or postponed in the past few weeks in the UAE to contain the spreading of the new coronavirus.

In Dubai, the Middle East’s trade, finance, tourism and transportation hub, some businesses have started to feel the pain from the global travel slowdown caused by the outbreak.

Saudi Arabia, which has already suspended the Umrah pilgrimage and locked down its eastern Qatif region where many infections are located, plans to halt all international flights for two weeks from Sunday.

The UAE central bank said it will provide 50 billion dirhams through collateralized loans at zero cost to all banks operating in the UAE while an additional 50 billion dirhams will be freed up from lenders’ capital buffers.

“The CBUAE is allowing banks to free-up their regulatory capital buffers to boost lending capacity and support the UAE economy,” it said in a statement.

It said the scheme offers banks relief for up to six months from the payments of principal and interest on outstanding loans for affected private sector companies and retail customers.

Committed to peg

Adding to a likely economic slowdown caused by the virus, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are also expected to face wider fiscal deficits this year because of lower oil prices, due to an oil price war between Riyadh and Moscow.

The Gulf states’ currencies, which are pegged to the U.S. dollar, weakened in the forwards market last week.

The UAE regulator said on Saturday it maintained its commitment to the peg for the dirham, and said foreign currency reserves amounting to 405 billion dirhams as of March 10 were “adequate” to safeguard the stability of the currency.

Other measures introduced by the UAE central bank on Saturday include reducing by 15-25% the amount of capital banks have to hold for loans to SMEs, and better terms for first-time home buyers.

Importantly for the local real estate sector - which has been struggling in Dubai for the past decade - banks will be allowed to increase their exposure to real estate loans.

“When the exposure reaches 20% of the banks’ loan portfolio (measured by risk-weighted assets), banks will be allowed to increase it to 30%, but will be required to hold more capital,” it said.

The central bank also introduced regulations which reduce banking fees for small companies.

The Dubai and Abu Dhabi stock exchange indices dropped last week amid coronavirus concerns and because of tumbling oil prices.

To contain volatility in the markets, the central bank said it plans to issue guidelines on margin calls, asking banks to request additional collateral before liquidating stocks in the event of a market downfall.

source: cnbc

If there is one pastime that people in the Middle East are unlikely to give up, it is watching television. In 2018, the daily time spent watching TV per capita in the region was 6 hours and 20 minutes according to Statista, more than double the global time of 2 hours and 48 minutes.

But this is set to decline to 6 hours this year as users in the region switch from watching their shows on traditional television sets to streaming them online.

Between 2013 and 2019, the number of people watching television offline dropped from 98 per cent to 86 per cent in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) according to the Media Use in the Middle East report.

This drop has been driven by cheaper and faster internet connectivity and the rise of video on demand (VOD) and streaming services, also known as over-the-top (OTT) players.

As a result, the space has become more competitive, but the penetration of these services in the region pales in comparison to other parts of the world.

Starzplay, a UAE-based subscription VOD service partly owned by Lionsgate, launched in 2014 in response to rising demand for good quality content. Now, the company has the biggest market share in the subscriptions market with 29 per cent compared to US-based Netflix which has the second largest share in Mena with Wit24 per cent, according to the IHS Markit in its Pay TV & Online Video Report Mena 2019.

Netflix arrived in the Middle East in 2016, giving the industry a boost and bringing with it a sense of credibility and awareness of subscription-based streaming services.

Telecommunication and pay TV operators like OSN have launched their own OTT services as a way to maintain market share, while the parallel launch of Apple TV+ and Disney+ into the streaming television space last November in the US poses the threat of even more competition once they are launched in Mena.

“It is not a ‘one player wins it all’ business, different providers complement each other. OTT subscription prices allow customers to have more than one service.

It is a great time to watch content,” says Danny Bates, co-founder and chief commercial officer at Starzplay. 

The online subscription video market is pursuing the same growth pattern that the pay TV market had followed in the region.

By 2023, online video subscriptions will reach almost five million, while revenues will reach $416 million according to the IHS Markit report.

Much of the demand for streaming services is coming from the UAE and Saudi Arabia which together account for 49 per cent of the total subscriptions in Mena. The demand for online streaming subscriptions is likely to overtake pay TV subscriptions like OSN and beIN by 2025.

However, streaming services need to have premium content from the biggest studios in the world in order to stand a chance to compete and bring customers on board, and content remains an expensive product.

Additionally, the significance of telling relevant stories catering to Mena audiences is becoming key, hence the surge in investment in original content production.

Earlier this year, Shahid, MBC Group’s streaming platform relaunched, announcing a partnership with Disney and Fox to bring more than 3,000 hours of content to the biggest streaming library of Arabic content.

“Over the next two years, we aim to substantially increase the size of our investment into drama productions, thus increasing them fourfold, of which the majority will be original and exclusive content,” says Marc Antoine d’Halluin, group chief executive at MBC Group.

Netflix has also increased its original content offerings for Arab audiences while Starzplay recently announced a partnership with Academy Award-winning media and entertainment company, Image Nation Abu Dhabi, to create its first original content series.

Jawwy TV, an OTT platform launched in 2018 for the Mena region through Intigral, a digital provider of sports and entertainment, is seeking to make an impact in the way content is consumed in the region.

“Our roadmap is very intense, and we are trying to develop a product in order to match all the major OTT players in the world, but it will be dedicated for Mena content,” said Tony Saab, vice-president of products and content at Intigral.

The service continues to explore agreements with numerous players, in addition to creating original content and acquiring Arabic content.

As more users begin to consume content online, competition will no doubt intensify. One casualty of this growing competition was Malaysia-based iFlix, which pulled out of the Mena region two years after its launch in 2017, unable to replicate the success of its core market in South East Asia.   

“Streaming services have just scratched the surface of the market in Mena, despite all the [high] numbers,” says Bates who believes that the market is still establishing itself, and businesses will have to continue to evolve and strengthen their product to meet the rising demand.

According to Bates, “iFlix never really came into the region, they had success in Asia, but they came to Mena with the exact model, while it is a different territory, people, culture and ways of doing business”.

For him, it was not about lack of market demand that caused iFlix to exit, it was unfit execution, something that every OTT player should bear in mind.

source: wamda