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Eni profit falls due to dip in oil prices

Q2 net profit fell by 18% to $637 million.

Emirates NBD H1 profit $3.40bn

Total income rose by 12 percent in the same period.

ADIB H1 pre-tax profit $1.08bn

Q2 pre-tax net profit increases by 14 percent.

AstraZeneca to invest $50bn in US

Bulk of funds to go into a Virginia manufacturing center.

UAB net profit up by 50% for H1

Total assets increase by 11 percent.

Covid-19: Big MENA economies’ benchmark lending rates rise at snail’s pace

    • 69 of the 82 countries tracked by CEIC data see the lending rates fall

    • Saudi Arabia, UAE witness rise in rates by 0.8 and 0.3 bps

    Benchmark lending rates — the basic rates set by central banks in countries for banking institutions to follow — rose at a much slower clip in bigger economies in Middle-Eastern and North African (MENA) countries than in smaller ones since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to CEIC Data. 

    For example, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates saw the rates rise by just 0.8 and 0.3 basis points, respectively, from April 2020 to March this year. Israel, in fact, saw its central bank reduce the rates by 0.1 percentage points in the same period!

    Egypt, on the other hand, saw the interest rate rise by 9.9 percentage points, while the number was as large as 20 percentage points in Turkey. Morocco, however, bucked that trend somewhat with a hike of 1.5 percentage points in the rate. 

    Meanwhile, across the world, interest rates rose in 10 countries, fell in 69, and were unchanged in just three countries, said CEIC Data in its survey of 82 countries.