Sovereign Wealth Funds Falling in Value

Perhaps not surprisingly given the economic conditions, the sovereign wealth funds of Qatar and other states are now falling.

According to a report by Morgan Stanley sovereign wealth funds fell by between US$500 billion and US$700 billion in 2008, reducing the total value of assets under management from US$3trillion to between US$2.5 and US$2.3 trillion.

Qatar and the rest of the Gulf have not escaped the trend.

The value of Qatar, the UAE and Bahrain's reserves is estimated to have fallen by around $300 billion in 2008.

Concerns

The size of the fall is complicated by the magnitude of the rise in the value of the funds - a rise that is projected to continue.

Morgan Stanley projects that the funds will reach a value of close to ten trillion by 2012.

Concerns instead lie with the size and intentions of the funds.

Falling asset prices provide a good opportunity for sovereign funds with a long term view to acquire foreign property and companies abroad.

But these are funds run not by companies but by foreign governments, and at times they are viewed as a threat.

Groundless fears?

Gulf countries have defended these fears as groundless. According to Mohammed Al Jasser, Vice governor of the Saudi Monetary Agency:

Sovereign wealth funds have been found guilty before being proven innocent

Gulf countries claim that their motives are pure, and that they take a hands off approach to the management of the companies they buy.

However, those countries seeing their assets slowly gobbled up by foreign governments are unlikely to stop fretting in the near future.

Greater Transparency Needed

Greater transparency would not only overcome these concerns but would help sovereign wealth funds to invest more easily and help provide much needed funds to the cash strapped West, says the Carnegie Middle East Center.

In addition to opening up to governments abroad, SWFs should also be more accountable to the public and stakeholders in their own countries - especially after the significant paper losses they have incurred in recent months.

Which for some countries would raise a question not everyone seems willing to answer.

Who actually owns the SWFs - the people, or the rulers?

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Qatar Hotels and the Credit Crunch

I recently went on to booking.com to look up Qatar hotels.

I was hoping to see some reduced prices in the wake of the global downturn.

Not only did prices still seem high, there were also very few available rooms.

Qatar Hoteliers to Weather Downturn?

Perhaps because of the continuing high occupancy, Qatar is hoping its hotels will weather the credit crisis.

It certainly has much less of a fall to contend with than Dubai - according to an article in AIM Info, whereas Dubai had almost seven million visitors in 2007, Qatar had less than a million.

Many of Qatar’s visitors are not true tourists, but people looking for business opportunities, those coming for conferences and people visiting friends and families.

Qatar is also targeting the short stay, top end of the market - a move reflected by hotels which are luxurious but low key compared to those of Dubai, as well as its investment in cultural icons such as the Islamic Museum.

High Occupancy Rates

As suggested by our brief foray into Booking.com, occupancy has remained reasonable - consistently above 60% for all tiers of hotels in 2008. And that’s despite Qatar’s hotels being the most expensive in the world!

However, Qatar does not just need to maintain visitor numbers in 2009 - it needs to increase them.

The Need to Grow

As we saw with Dubai in our Sunday's blog post, Qatar’s plans depend on a big increase in visitor numbers.

Two hotels are opening next month alone - March should see both the W hotel and the Hyatt hotel opening in the West Bay area.

By 2012 it hopes to have quadrupled its hotels rooms - and almost doubled the amount of planes in its fleet.

Although if its airport lives up to its capacity of 50,000,000 passengers a year, filling hotel rooms should be the least of its problems!

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Qatar Hotel Reviews

Qatar Newspapers - Still going strong?

The End of An Era

In the USA newspapers are starting to hit the dust.

The Philidelphia Enquirer, the third oldest newspaper in America, has sought bankruptcy protection.

The company will be joining the Journal Register, a group which owns 20 local newspapers, which had filed for bankrupty protection at the weekend.

With news available at the click of a button, and many online surfers finding that news through aggregate news compilers such as Google News rather than through identification with a brand, the writing had been on the wall even before the beginning of the credit crunch.

A Different story?

On the face of it Qatar's English Language newspapers appear to be doing well.

Not only are the Gulf Times and the Peninsula battling things out, with the Peninsula trying hard to gain ground, but a new newspaper, The Tribune, has entered the fray.

Not bad for a country whose native language is not even English.

The Future

Whether things will stay the same depends much on the development of the internet.

Already a website, Qatar Living, sells more cars than any newspaper here - and one one employer told me that she has had far more response advertising for a personal assistant on Qatar Living than she did in a newspaper.

Yet with the online advertising spend in the MENA region (Middle East and North Africa) a fraction of what it is in the Western world, newspapers may be protected by a lack of awareness among local businesses as to the potential of the internet.

With online advertising spend set to double in 2009, there is every reason for newspaper to get their act together and start creating an effective online business.

A Paper Business

Local newspapers have been slow to move online.

The Qatar Tribune only recently opened its website after operating for more than two years.

And those newspapers that are online lack many of the features of other popular news sites such as video and video - and provide no easy way of sharing news stories.

So far they have been lucky that there has been a no serious competitor to take them on.

When one does come along, local papers could find themselves hitting the dust after a much shorter history than the Philidelphia Enquirer.

Also see: The Death of Interruption Marketing

Find newspapers on Qatcom.com

Rocky Times for Dubai

Economy in Crisis

Not so long ago vendors in Dubai were camping outside offices to buy property - and then breaking out into fist fights when the off-the-plot property was sold out.

Yet the Huffington Post notices that former bustling cafes and restaurants are now half dead, while ABS-CBN news points out that the trend of thousands of working flocking to the Emirate has now been reversed:

Foreigners, who make up 90 percent of Dubai's population and were responsible for helping build the emirate from the ground up, are now unemployed and returning to their respective countries.

Could the party be over for the high spending GCC member?

Huge Borrowings

The current hangover will not be surprising to those who have been following Dubai's economic story.

For several years the country has been on a borrowing and spending spree.

And according to an article in Business 247, the huge expansion it has been undertaking - as well as the foreign credit it has been gobbling up - means that its banks have been left the largest debtors in the UAE.

The hunger for credit in Dubai along with credit speculation by foreign investors has seen a growth in bank debt by an incredible 400% in just three years, from just over 23 billion US dollars in 2005 to an over 90 billion dollars in 2008.

This has left Dubai's banks with close to 50% of total UAE debt.

Vulnerable

With fewer remaining natural resources than neighboring countries, Dubai's strategy for years has been to diversify.

At breakneck speed the country has been trying to diversify into a trade, tourism, services and financial hub.

Few of these are likely to be unaffected by the credit crunch.

Reliant on Tourism

As we noted before, many of Dubai's projects rely on forecasts of a doubling of 2007 visitor numbers to the country by 2015 - which means targeting a number of over 15 million.

Yet visitor numbers are likely to be hard hit - especially as the UK, where Dubai is most popular as a tourist destination, is suffering worst than most.

Regional Competition Increasing

Qatar's own plans for boosting tourism means regional competition is only going to increase.

While Qatar is planning to target the top-end short stay market - hopefully avoiding some of the culture clashes Dubai has seen - the target quadrupling of hotel rooms by 2012 and the huge expansion of both its airport and its national airline does not bode well for the future of Dubai's tourist industry.

And while Qatar can expect to see a drop in revenue due to the falling price of oil and an increase in the supply of Natural Gas, unlike Dubai it enters the credit crunch with plenty of financial clout - financial clout which it is not afraid to use.

Harry Potter Publisher Comes to Qatar

Bloomsbury, the publisher that finally accepted the Harry Potter books which were to become a publishing phenomenon, is coming to Qatar at the invitation of Qatar Foundation.

The publisher will be joining Qatar Foundation to set up a joint venture known as Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing.

One Hundred Books a Year

The new publishing house aims to publish 500 books a years as part of a five year publishing programme.

Books will be published in both Arabic and English and will cover diverse topics ranging from fiction to classic Arab literature.

The books will be published around the world.

Expanding Literacy

It is hoped the project, which will also involve the publishing house reaching out to the public via read/write initiatives will expand literacy.

This has been one of the aims of the Qatar government for a number of years.

Literacy in Qatar used to be low - perhaps not surprising given that within living memory of the older citizens of Qatar a portion of the population lived as unschooled Bedouin nomads scraping a living from the desert.

Literacy is now estimated as above 80%.

Fighting for Change

In attempting to increase literacy the government is trying to reverse a trend that has seen the Arab nation fall behind the rest of the world.

While once Arabs lead the world in science, literature and mathematics, according to Kalima translation only one book per million adults per year is published in the Arab world today.

Let's hope that in a year's time Kalima will have to recalculate its statistics to take into account the books being published in Qatar.

Also see:

Qatar Reading

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Qatar Telecoms Competition Hotting Up

Vodafone Yet to Start Operations, Already Having Effect

Vodafone is yet to start operations in Qatar, although it has already started registering its first 1000 customers, but its impending arrival is making waves. 

Qtel, which has already lowered prices since it was announced that it would face competition, will not be happy to hear that Vodafone intends to compete on price as well as on service. 

Users, who often have to wait for an hour just to get a reply from Qtel's operators, were always going to choose the new operator when it came to service, but many assumed that Vodafone would charge more than the incumbant operator. 

The move was let out of the bag not by Vodafone but by ICT director William P Fagan, according to a story in the Tribune yesterday. 

Trial Period 

While Vodafone will not begin full operations until the summer, the company is hoping to begin a trial period in March. 

Initially the company will be using Qtel's network but will ultimately move on to using its own network. 

Qtel Upgrade?

In the meantime Qtel is choosing to get ready for the competition by upgrading its equipment. 

The company has chosen to use Digitech technology to try and improve voice quality on its phones. 

Improvement Needed

According to a story in Networked News improvement is certainly needed. 

Al Jazeera, the Qatar based news station which has been innovative in using social networking on the internet to reach out to users across the world and bypass US censhorship, complains that it has been held back by Qtel technology. 

The national telephone operator blocks some of the live streaming technology which the Al Jazeera needs - meaning that on occassion the station has even popped over the border to Saudi Arabia, which it said was more open.

“If you say to a group of citizen journalists, be the eyes of Al Jazeera, and the first thing that happens is QTEL blocks them, even if there’s a way around it, it’s not good for anybody,” said one spokesman. 

Hopefully the arrival of Vodafone will put an end to that. 

Huge Fall in Rents Predicted

Huge falls in rent of up to 25% are predicted in Doha as over 9000 apartments come online over the next year.

If the predicted falls materialise they will bring much needed relief to expatriates who have struggling to cope with years of rising rents.

According to the article in the Peninusula, prices are expected to fall between 20 and 25% during the next 12 months.

Conflicting Predictions

A Global Investment House report predicts a much milder fall of 10%.

The report also focussed on a decrease in the cost of land - pointing out that the cost of land in some suburbs fell by 30% in one month alone last year.

Rents Already Falling

After rising 154% between 2005 and 2007, rents already appear to have fallen from their 2008 peak.

A glance through the newspapers quickly shows that landlords are now asking for more reasonable rents , and the Peninsula puts current rents at 2006 levels.

Plummeting Profits

Property's contribution to GDP is also expected to fall from its 2008 level of 10.7% to 9.7% in 2009.

This trend is likely to be exacerberated by the large number of properties nearing completion.

And with firms also slowing down the recruitment process as business confidence declines as a result of the credit crunch, now is probably a bad time to be in the property letting business!

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Oversupply of LNG in 2009

Only last week we wrote about the fall in LNG demand in the USA.

There the high prices of LNG have spurred investment in hard-to-get-at and previously neglected reserves of Natural Gas. As a result, the cost of extracting the natural gas fell and supplies rose just as expensive Liquid Natural Gas terminals were coming on line.

Now Business 247 is predicting that there will be an oversupply of Natural Gas in 2009 as new reserves come on line in both Australia and Qatar.

Rising Supply

In total there is likely to be an increase of 100 million tonnes in the supply of Liquid Natural Gas to the world - which equates to a rise of 50% over last year's production.

Much of the increase will come from Qatar, which plans to increase production from the 30 million tonnes it currently produces to 70 million tonnes by 2010.

New projects in Kuwait and Australia are also likely to come online by 2010.

A Long Term Business

Qatar has shown that is able to plan for the long term.

In this it contrasts with countries from the UK to Saudi Arabia, both of which mismanaged the use of their reserves.

Natural Gas Consumption is set to rise from 105 trillion cubic feet in 2005 to 158 trillion cubic feet in 2030.

And ironically, when revenues at home suffer from the falling price of oil and gas, Qatar's huge investments in stock markets and businesses abroad are likely to reap the benefits of those same low prices.

New Development Announced as Property Prices plunge

Falling Prices

According to New Wire Investor property prices are now falling across the Middle East - and that includes Qatar.

Qatar, which has already experienced real falls in property prices, is now concerned that the more serious fall out from the credit crunch being experienced in Dubai could spread to its shores.

With over a third of its population engaged in construction Qatar could feel some real pain, even with its huge reserves of natural gas.

Perlitz Gardens

Despite the gloomy economic situation, one Qatar company is now unveiling its latest project.

In words which seem to have been lifted directly from the The Land's press release, MENAFN announced the launch of Perlitz Gardens, Qatar's "first private gated comunity".

The company acknowledged the current economic backdrop to the launch, stating that:

While many developers are cutting back or cancelling projects, the land remains confident that Qatar's real estate market will remain a long term investment attraction, due to numerous factors that make the market so appealing in spite of the prevailing international crisis.

More realistically, perhaps, the massive projects planned by the government should provide some support for jobs in Qatar's construction industry.

Looking to the Gulf

Ironically on a bad news day for the Gulf economy, companies in the rest of the world are being urged to head towards Qatar and the Gulf as a potential area of stability in these rough times. During a visit to Yorkshire Chadi Abou Daher, the regional manager of World Trade Centre Doha, proclaimed:

"Despite the current economic situation, the Gulf region is showing a high growth rate and generating financial surpluses that will provide an incentive for international companies to consider expanding their operations towards these markets."

Chadi Daher made the statement during a trip to Yorskshire in which he was promoting an International Business Development Forum, Futurallia Qatar, which will be held in Doha from May 10 to 12.

Qatar Unaffected by Credit Crunch?

Qatar has not had one business close down as a result of the global meltdown so far, stated the Qatar Minister for Business and Trade in an article by the Peninsula today: Qatar Businesses Not Hit by Global Meltdown.

He also stated that reports of firms laying of staff were simply not true, and that banks had not put restrictions on lending - contradicting recent reports by local newspapers.

Quite how far Qatar has escaped the global recession is harder to judge, although generally the feeling in Qatar is that there has been some effect.

Certainly, the fall in the population of Qatar in December, though slight, seems to point to a reduction in economic activity.

Furthermore, the forcible merging of some Qatar companies, including property giants Barwa and Qatar Real Estate Investment, certainly seems a sign that all is not well in at least some areas of the economy.

However, as many expats returning from holiday have noticed, Qatar certainly does not have the air of despondency that many other countries have.

How Qatar will fare in the future remains to be seen - as we saw in our last blog post there has been a major fall in US demand for Liquid Natural Gas.

However, as we have noted before huge government plans to invest in the infrastructure of the country could help to balance the negative effects of the global credit crunch.

The Minister confirmed this saying that the budget for 2009 is set to be the largest ever unveiled by the State of Qatar with massive funds being allocated for various projects.

Of course, the good news for those with an economic interest in Qatar is that unlike the UK, tax-free Qatar can actually afford to buy its way out of a potential recession!

Fall in LNG Demand in US

A huge shortfall in US demand for imported Liquid Natural Gas into the States is expected, according to an article today in the Wall Street Journal.

In 2003 Greenspan argued that due to rising prices and a shortage of Natural Gas reserves in the US, America should become a major importer of Natural Gas.

Since the US companies have invested billions into building the expensive LNG terminals that are required to receive and convert Liquid Natural Gas back into its natural form.

Increase in Domestic Production

However, since that statement rising prices encouraged the US investors to put their money into extracting the harder-to-get Natural Gas that lay in shale reserves.

In the process they got quite good at it – meaning that increased efficiency has now brought down the cost of extracting and lead to increased supplies.

All of this is happening not just at a time when global recession is leading to a major fall in demand for the fossil fuel but when new sources of Natural Gas are coming on line from a number of sources – one of which is from Qatar.

Effect on Qatar

Quite how this will affect Qatar remains to be seen. Qatar’s first port of call is Europe, where higher prices are being paid for the resource. Europe’s alternative is Russia – not averse to turning off the tap in order to come out top in local regional disputes.

However, following years of massive investment into LNG in Qatar – and with increased supplies appearing this year in other parts of the world too – it can’t be good news!

Find Natural Gas companies on the Qatcom Business Directory

The Death of Interruption Marketing

And the Rise of Targeted Internet Advertising

Traditional marketing both in the West and in Qatar focuses on interrupting the consumer.

Consumers are watching television when an advert rudely interrupts their pleasure. There is no guarantee the advert will be watched; the viewer may leave for a coffee, take a toilet break or switch channels. The same is true of radio - and of magazines.

Seth Godin, author of permission marketing, once conducted a small experiment in to the effectiveness of magazine adverts. He watched several people flicking through a newspaper – then approached the readers and asked them to name the adverts they had seen. Not one single consumer could name one single ad.

Banner Blindness

There is a name for it in advertising – Banner Blindness.

When consumers first started using the internet, websites were funded by banners. Consumers initially noticed and clicked on the banners. However, they soon learned to ignore the banners and concentrate on what they were interested in – what was on the web page, which was, of course, what they were searching for.

The difference between banners on the net and tv/radio/magazine ads is that action taken from banner ads is far easier to measure. Webmasters can easily measure how many times someone clicks on a banner ad and takes action as a result; it is far more difficult to measure how many people take action as a result of a magazine ad.

Interruption Advertising in Qatar

Interruption advertising may well be far less effective in Qatar. In the West interruption marketing relies upon its ability to reach huge numbers of people in the hope that at least some of them will be interested in the product. Many adverts in Qatar may only reach a very small segment of people – some magazines have circulations of little more than 20,000 people.

If we associated the same level of banner blindness with magazines, the results are truly dire. Facebook has a click through rate of just 0.4% - i.e. only 4000 in every million people are interested enough to click on an ad.

If the same rate carried through for a magazine with a circulation of 20,000, only 80 people would be interested in the ad. When you consider that it takes a lot more effort to get into a car, drive to a shop or business and buy something, you may start to wonder whether the thousands of riyals you spend on magazine and newspaper advertising is worthwhile.

Brand Awareness versus Action

Of course, many ad sellers will argue that the true value lies not in the immediate action a consumer will take when they see an advert but in the increased awareness consumers have of their brand.

But how much better would it be if you combined increased brand awareness with immediate action by the consumer?

The Rise of Targeted Internet Advertising

The answer to the conundrum of interruption marketing is to advertise to the consumer at the time he is actively searching for your product.

The consumer has been changed from a passive, reluctant and maybe even annoyed participant to one who is actively engaged in looking for you. Instead of rudely interrupting his browsing you are helping him to acquire what he needs right now.

Google understood and exploited this with Adsense ads. Consumers see these small ads – which bear a strong resemblance to Google search results – and click on them because they are relevant to what they are searching.

Qatcom, the Qatar Business Directory, is similar in that users only see company’s listings when they are actively searching for the companies. However, there is a further difference.

Every time somebody clicks on one of your Google ads you pay. On Qatcom, starting from just two riyals a day, advertisers can click on your ads over and over again – and you will pay no extra.

And on Qatcom every one of our thousands of users is searching for businesses and nothing else. Which is why 73% of searches made on our website result in the searcher contacting a business.

And that is something interruption marketing will never be able to achieve.

Falling Population a Sign of Recession?

The spectacular increase in population that Qatar has seen over the last few years may finally becoming to an halt.

Qatar, which according to official statistics has seen an increase in population of around 100% in the last four years, saw a 15,000 fall in its population according to statistics released by the Qatar Statistics Authority.

While no reasons for the fall in the population was given, with the majority of the population formed by expat workers a slowdown in business activity could well be a reason.

Through word of mouth, we have heard of companies sending employees home already.

Although Qatar seems to be relatively unscathed, at least so far, by the recession, the burden of the credit crunch may be falling unevenly.

While airlines and hotels continue to grow, we hear that oil support services have been hit - and rumours are that construction companies may also be suffering, despite the continued strong sales at the Pearl.

Prices at the Pearl Holding Up

Against all odds, it seems, both prices and sales are holding up at the Pearl Qatar.

According to Sotheby's Qatar, demand for the Porto Vista residential tower has been overwhelming - which must be a bright spot in a sector which elsewhere has been bruised by the global drying up of credit and consumers' plunging incomes.

If Sotheby's is correct, the Pearl's exclusive appeal is providing some resistance to the chill wind of recession despite the delays that have beset the development.

The real secret behind the property's success may be its location - not the old pearl beds which it has been built upon, but the tiny country which came up with such an ambitious project.

Qatar is one of the few countries forecast to grow its economy in real terms next year. Its huge natural resources are still luring investors both large and small to the country, and its zero tax rate on personal income make it a tax haven for the rich.

Meanwhile, residents and business people already here can obtained guaranteed residence permits by purchasing property in the country - and, by doing so, release themselves from the burden of sponsorship.

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