All Countries and All Sectors

Bucking the trend in most MENA financial markets, the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) has performed well of late, rebounding strongly from the financial crisis and avoiding more recent downturns that some exchanges have experienced.

Although the Philippines economy looks set to grow in 2011, it seems likely that the rate of expansion will be less than that recorded over the past year or so, with both international and domestic factors weighing on growth momentum.

Regional events are forcing Jordan to look past its traditional sources of energy, both in terms of feedstock and physical location. Disruptions in the supply of natural gas to the kingdom coupled with rising costs, mean it may look elsewhere for feedstock, while also pushing forward with its own nuclear energy programme.

Oman is scaling up investments in its electricity sector in a bid to boost production to meet spiralling demand. Plans are in hand to construct new power stations across the country and diversify sources of supply, though it will take some years before the Sultanate will have a comfortable cushion of excess generation capacity.

Nigeria's plans to further develop its Islamic finance sector received a major boost on June 20 when the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) granted a local bank provisional approval to operate as an Islamic bank and unveiled plans to issue a sovereign sukuk in the coming years.

With fresh incentives attracting multinationals to locate in Bangkok, the capital is getting ready to adopt the next generation of building standards. Smart money these days is on environmentally conscious “green building” that combines cost-efficiency, social responsibility and productivity gains.