The following appeared in the November issue of Business Diary Botswana:

Despite the IMF’s recent projection that Botswana’s economy will contract 10.3% this year, the lender expects a 4.1% uptick next year such that emergency funding would not be required. Back in June the country tapped a $1.5bn “budget support loan” from the African Development Bank–the largest such facility ever granted by the Bank–in order to finance part of a budget deficit then estimated at around 13.5% of GDP, and since revised to 14%. The IMF cited a renewal of demand for diamonds as a central facet of its optimistic forecast. Furthermore, it predicted, GDP growth across sub-Saharan Africa will rise to approximately 4% next year and 5% in 2011, up from 1.1% in 2009. “We think it should be possible for sub-Saharan Africa to recover quicker this time around and have a ‘V-shaped recovery,’”

Kuwait-based Abyaar Real Estate Development Company (Abyaar), which develops and manages properties in the UAE and in Dubai in particular, recently announced a net profit for the first nine months of 2009 of KD5 million ($17.5 million) and an EPS of 6.90 fils (a subdivision of currency used in many Arab countries, where KD1 roughly equals 1000 fils).  Per its chairman, Hesham Abdul Wahab Al Obeid, the firm reduced financing debt during the period by 30%, down to KD 77 million, compared to KD108 million during the same period of 2008.  Owners’ equity also increased, up to KD146 million.

The strong showing begs the question how quickly Abyaar will return to the debt markets; in October 2008 it postponed a proposed sale of Islamic bonds worth up to $1 billion in order to finance its expansion plans.  Rashed Al-Rashdan, its

Credit Suisse, for one, is maintaining an “overweight” rating on Egyptian equities in light of the country’s robust GDP growth–the strongest in 2009-10 GDP in the mainstream Europe, Middle East and African (EMEA) region–as well as its “solid external position and low currency risk.” In particular, the investment bank views Egypt as a “manufacturing base for neighboring Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, with excellent growth prospects [underpinned by] strong demographic support,” while also referencing a solid banking sector that “offers excellent asset growth potential funded by deposits” against the overall backdrop of an economy with an “extremely accommodative monetary policy.” Per Bloomberg, economic growth in Egypt, the most populous Arab country, rose from 4.9% in Q3 from 4.7% the previous three months. Yet growth is still below the average 7% seen from 2005-2008.

Sticking with Egypt, many analysts expressed surprise earlier this week when the central

According to Abdulla Salatt, chairman of the company’s fertilizer unit (QAFCO), Industries Qatar–the country’s largest firm by market cap–will increase production of urea (used as a nitrogen-release fertilizer) and related products to supply growing global demand with a specific focus on South America, and in particular, Brazil.  “We are thinking of sending more products to Brazil because it is a big agriculture country, consuming a lot of urea, and we see their appetite for urea opening up year after year,” Sowaidi told reporters.  The company is currently contemplating a proposed $610 million plant which would increase urea production to 5.6 million tons/year by 2012, up from the current rate of 3 million.  Upon completion the fertilizer unit would hold 15% of global urea production, say analysts.  Urea has the highest nitrogen content of all solid nitrogenous fertilizers in common use (46.7%).

The company overall is still reeling from recession,

UAE-based budget carrier Air Arabia, the Arab world’s largest listed carrier, announced its intentions to build a new hub in Egypt that would offer connections to Europe, Africa and the Middle East, one month after formalizing a partnership with Egypt’s Travco Group, the Middle East’s largest travel and hospitality group.  “At a time when the global aviation industry is witnessing serious challenges as a consequence of the worldwide financial crisis, we continue to move forward with our strategic expansion strategy, as demonstrated by this important announcement,” said Air Arabia Chairman Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammed Al Thani.

Despite the airline industry’s overall close historical correlation with broad market indices, “budget travel” represents an industry subgroup that, from an investment standpoint, can be as good a defensive play as any medical and consumer product company, brewery or tobacco firm.  Air Arabia may be a case in point, having been named the

Dubai’s government returned to the open bond market upon a growing sense that the notoriously ‘profligate’ emirate–as at least one analyst has previously criticized it in comparison to its more steady, oil-fueled sibling Abu Dhabi–can be trusted not to default on its $80bn or so of outstanding debt. On the heels of last week’s proposed Euro Medium-Term Note (EMTN) program which seeks to raise 6.5bn, divided into four billion dollars in EMTN and 2.5-bn in Islamic bond issue, or sukuk, the government on Wednesday successfully placed nearly $2 billion in new five-year Islamic bonds–divided into both a dollar and dirham tranche–the biggest sukuk sale from the Gulf region this year. Pricing was set at 375 basis points plus/minus 10 points over mid-swaps for the dollar tranche, and with the same spread over three-
month Emirates Interbank Offered Rate, or EIBOR, used for the
 dirham

Euromoney reports the launch of London-based Alcantara Asset Management’s Russia and CIS Fixed Income Opportunities Fund, which will reportedly focus on relative value and long-only opportunities in the fixed income markets in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, and which will be lead by the firm’s founders, former JPMorganers Sergey Grechishkin and Andrei Taskin.  “Relative value”, a strategy which aims to take advantage of temporary mispricings between two related and often correlated securities, came to into question during the latest economic crisis, as “Black Swan” events in practice tend to exacerbate rather than minimize such pricing anamolies between assets.  However, the dual-strategy fits the current economic climate nicely, explained Grechishkin, which had trended higher for months but is on the cusp of what many feel is an imminent correction: ”Our actively-managed long strategies take advantage of trending markets when associated with economic recovery, as well as market positioning. Our relative value strategies generally benefit

There is loads of great information and commentary on the entire gamut of emerging and frontier markets over at MyStockVoice.com, headed by a Facebook connection of mine, Paul Harper, whose knowledge of emerging telecoms in particular is probably second to none.

Interesting piece from MEED vis a vis Tripoli’s $54bn, 20-year commitment to develop joint ventures with multinational firms in order to transform the Gulf of Sitre–and namely the oil-rich industrial cities of Marsa el-Brega and Ras Lanuf–into energy hubs founded on oil and gas processing and distribution, as well as into a resort destination.  The two cities lack proper downstream investment, but the potential returns on FDI are enormous, gushed a source from the U.S. engineering firm Fluor Corporation, which was commissioned to oversee the project:

“Libya is virgin territory. It is coming out of a long embargo so there are great opportunities. The energy cities have these anchor investments but also provide for secondary industries, which take products from the heavy industries and produce plastics, for example. They also provide work for industrial and construction services. There is a much greater, wider and more open opportunity for investment, from oil

In upgrading Orascom Construction Industry (OCI)–Egypt’s largest listed builder and also the country’s biggest producer of nitrogen fertilizers–local investment bank CI Capital noted that the firm’s net EBITDA is largely a function of fertilizer prices, which most analysts expect to rise up to a further 40% in 2010. “We believe OCI’s 2010 fertilizer margins will be supported by a number of factors, including fertilizer price increases, the establishment of strategic alliances with global fertilizer distributors and production capacity growth,” CI’s report stated, while forecasting an increase in earnings for the company from $427.8m in 2009 to $668.9m in the coming year.

Sticking with OCI, last month Citigroup name the company as one of its twelve “long-term” emerging market plays. “The construction company enjoys many long-term qualifications. Its construction division dominates approximately 2.5% of total developments under construction in the GCC region. The division also grows