Euromoney Kuwait Conference
We are pleased to announce Mr. Faisal Al-Mutawa’s participation into “The Euromoney Kuwait Conference – Kuwait and the Global Economy: Strategies for Uncertain Times”, which was held on 27th March 2012 in Kuwait.
2012 Euromoney aimed at providing a global perspective and an independent platform to look at the future of the Kuwaiti and the global economy, since it has been an interesting year across the globe as countries deal with the repercussions of the global economic slowdown and debt crisis. The conference discussed how is Kuwait itself affected and what will change in the light of a changing global economic landscape.
Mr. Al-Mutawa participated into a panel discussion on “Investment Strategy in a Low/No Return Environment”. The panel featured a group of investment professionals from Kuwait and outside, they discussed the new investment landscape, the new strategies for asset allocation, whether investment has returned to the old paradigm of deal and manager selection, will growth be sectoral and specific or can one still find markets and asset classes to buy, and should investors of all types benchmark their performance-relative or absolute return.
Some of the key points Mr. Al-Mutawa raised and received a great audience interaction were:
- Political instability is number one enemy to the development of the local economy.
- Effect of the Arab Spring on its countries, the Arab world, and the rest of the world, with different degrees.
- The large stagnated government bureaucracy and its control over most sectors of the Kuwaiti economy.
- According to a release given lately by the Chairman of the Kuwaiti Industries Union, the government has not given any industrial land to investors since 1970’s, with few exceptions.
- Very old regulations that do not serve the vision of His Highness the Amir of turning Kuwait into a Trading and Financial Center.
- Economic freedom creates wealth, however Kuwait lacks this freedom when compared to other GCC countries; an example of this economic freedom is that countries that don’t enjoy natural resources are ranked the highest in income per capita and the richest in the world, i.e. Japan, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Singapore ….etc.
- Lack of credit is one of the major obstacles facing the investment sector in Kuwait.
Lack of investment opportunities is putting a burden on the banking system as they don’t find proper channels for lending due to the continued drop in asset prices. - According to World Bank, G20 spent US$ 12 Trillion in their domestic economies to reduce the impact of the financial crisis, while Kuwait enjoys surplus assets of approximately US$ 300 billion and a daily income around US$ 300 million on a daily basis, but spent almost nothing in its local economy to reduce the effect of the financial crisis in its economy.
- Many countries have reduced their interest rate to between 1% – 2%, however interest rate in Kuwait still at 2.5%
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