Business

AMMAN — Jordan’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 2.8 per cent at constant market prices during the second quarter of 2014, the Department of Statistics (DoS) announced on Wednesday.

According to results of quarterly estimates of GDP indicators, most sectors recorded positive growth during the April-June period compared with the results achieved during the same quarter of 2013. 

During the second quarter of this year, water and electricity sector achieved the highest growth of 11.2 per cent, followed by wholesale/retail trade and hotels/restaurants sector at 7.1 per cent. 

Producers of private services, a not-for-profit sector, grew by 6.5 per cent 

The growth of social and personal service, net tax on products, and construction sectors came at 4.7 per cent, 3.6 and 3.2 per cent respectively.

Finance, insurance, real-estate and business services grew at 2.9 per cent, followed by the mining and quarries industries at 1.6 per cent and the manufacturing sector at 1.3 per cent. 

Regarding sector contribution to GDP, the wholesale/retail trade and hotels/restaurants sector posted the highest contribution of 0.65 per cent. Net tax followed with a 0.64 per cent contribution. 

The finance, insurance, real-estate and business services’ contribution stood at 0.57 per cent whereas that of water and electricity sector was 0.23 per cent. 

The contribution of the social and personal service sector and the manufacturing industries sector was 0.21 per cent each, while the transport, storage and communications sector contribution stood at 0.17 per cent. 

PARIS — France's public debt has topped the symbolic level of 2 trillion euros for the first time, putting Paris on a fresh collision course with the European Union (EU) as the government prepares to unveil its annual budget.

The total national debt amounted to 2.023 trillion euros ($2.57 trillion) in the second quarter of the year, which represents 95.1 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP), national statistics agency INSEE indicated on Tuesday.

EU rules say that debt must not exceed 60 per cent of GDP, or be falling significantly towards this ratio.

In the first quarter of the year, debt stood at 1.995 trillion euros, or 94.0 per cent of GDP, INSEE noted.

President Francois Hollande stressed that he had inherited a difficult debt situation when he entered the Elysee Palace.

"In the five years before I came to power, public debt rose by 600 billion euros. Now we're at 2,000 billion. So our role has to be to get the deficit in hand so we can avoid pushing up the absolute level of debt," said Hollande.

France is already at loggerheads with the EU over its budget deficit, which is supposed to be kept under 3 per cent of GDP.

Paris promised to bring the deficit in-line by next year but, in a stunning about turn, announced last month that it was pushing back this target until 2017.

The deficit this year is forecast to be 4.4 per cent of GDP, dropping only fractionally to 4.3 per cent next year.

France is struggling with an economy at a standstill and sky-high unemployment.

There has been zero growth for the first two quarters of the year and Finance Minister Michel Sapin is banking on sluggish output of 0.4 per cent for the whole of the year.

'Very low rates'       

France will on Wednesday publish its annual budget, which is expected to confirm the gloomy outlook and reaffirm it will miss its deficit targets.

The economy ministry stressed that the government's plan to clean up the public finances and make sweeping cuts in public spending "should allow us to stop the growth in debt".

"France also enjoys the confidence of investors which allows the state, but also companies and individuals, to borrow at very low rates," the ministry said.

To combat the economic crisis, Hollande's deeply unpopular government has put in place a "Responsibility Pact" which offers companies tax breaks of 40 billion euros in return for creating 500,000 jobs over three years.

However, given the parlous state of the public finances, the tax breaks are compensated by 50 billion euros in public spending cuts.

Hollande steeled the French people for the budget by saying: "There is no painless savings plan, otherwise it would already have been done." 

"Savings are inevitably painful. No sector can accept seeing its habits, sometimes its finances, challenged," he added.

Christopher Dembik, an analyst at Saxo Bank, said: "The problem with France is there is no clear trajectory for reforms and the reforms that do exist are too unambitious and very, very slow to be implemented."

Even Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron has admitted that the French economy is "sick" due to its perennially high unemployment.

"There has been a fever for several years in this country which is called mass unemployment ... there is no choice but to reform the economy," stressed Macron, a 36-year-old former Rothschild banker, a recent surprise choice for economy minister.

Last week, former president Nicolas Sarkozy said he would change the tax system to help companies and pledged on Sunday to win back National Front voters one-by-one in his first televised interview since announcing his return to French politics.

The former president, who is seeking the leadership of the main rightist UMP party ahead of the 2017 presidential race, avoided giving policy details but sought to reassure companies and voters that he had heard their concerns.

"Today, global growth has returned to close to 4 per cent, Germany is prospering, Europe is not in crisis, and yet we continue to stagnate and have rising unemployment. Why? Because our model must be completely restructured," he said in the interview on France 2.

Sarkozy said the only question that mattered was to find a tax system that would allow businesses to create growth and jobs, and that would stop young people leaving France because they feel they cannot succeed at home.

"If you tax people and companies in France more, how can you expect them to be competitive? If companies lose market share, how can you expect unemployment not to rise? That's the key," he indicated. "What counts is giving our businesses the chance to gain market share."

Sarkozy, who as president raised the retirement age to 62 from 60, loosened the 35-hour workweek and made overtime more attractive through tax tweaks, remains a divisive figure.

CAIRO — In his first 100 days in office, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi has made a fast start on economic reform: slashing costly fuel subsidies, raising taxes and devising infrastructure projects to secure long-term revenues and ease unemployment.

Those are moves that have long been sought by foreign investors. But winning their full confidence will require pushing ahead with further politically-sensitive reforms and sealing an elusive deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

A loan from the global lender would serve as a badly-needed stamp of approval for a country battered by political turmoil since a popular uprising ended 30 years of rule by autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

For decades, Mubarak mostly avoided politically-risky reforms that might anger a population reliant on subsidised food and fuel. His Islamist successor Mohamed Morsi also showed little sign of progress during a tumultuous year in power.

Investors hope that Sisi, a former army chief who overthrew Morsi, cracked down harshly on his followers and won the election to succeed him, will have the authority to enact measures that his predecessors could not.

"We don't want politicking, we don't want drama. We want a leader who is going to implement an investment regime for Egypt focused on the longer term," said Bryan Carter, lead portfolio manager for emerging debt at Acadian Asset Management in Boston.

Raising fuel prices and taxes may ease the burden on the cash-strapped state, which faces a crippling budget deficit around 11 per cent of economic output and double digit unemployment.

But Sisi's ultimate challenge is luring back foreign investors who remain wary of Egypt's artificially strong currency, rising inflation, stifling bureaucracy and electricity shortages.

"The solution to Egypt's longer term economic problems will not come from any sort of austerity internally or restructuring of the fiscal budget. It's got to come from the catalysation of investments," Carter indicated.

Egypt has been consulting with the IMF about implementing a value-added tax (VAT), which the government predicts would generate more than $4 billion in revenues.

Investors are eager to see the VAT pushed through without opposition or unrest, though officials have not given a time-line for its implementation.

Egypt resumed regular consultations with the IMF last month for the first time since March 2010 — a necessary step before securing a loan package. Cairo had postponed the talks with the global financial body following Mubarak's overthrow in 2011.

Suez flagship project

Cairo is pinning hopes on an international investment and aid conference scheduled for February in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm Al Sheikh. It hopes foreign governments, private investors and international donor organisations will make hefty pledges there.

Investment Minister Ashraf Salman told Reuters in an interview last month he was aiming for $10 billion in foreign investment in the current fiscal year and hopes Egypt will attract $18 billion a year by 2018, highly ambitious targets.

Foreign direct investment was about $8 billion annually before the 2011 uprising and reached only $4.1 billion in the fiscal year that ended in June.

Sisi's flagship project is the expansion of Egypt's Suez Canal, a strategic global shipping lane which brings in about $5 billion of revenue and foreign reserves each year.

He hopes that figure will more than double with the new venture and has set an ambitious one-year target for completing the initial phase.

The former army chief appears also to be banking on the canal's symbolism and geopolitical importance to raise his public stature.

Egypt nationalised the canal in 1956, prompting shareholders Britain and France to invade along with Israel. The crisis ended after Egypt sank 40 ships and the United States, Soviet Union and United Nations intervened forcing the invaders to withdraw.

Egyptians flocked to banks last month to buy $8.5 billion worth of Suez Canal investment certificates, which the government held up as a public vote of confidence in the economy.

Some foreign investors are not as enthusiastic as Egyptians, who have been longing for an economic recovery and political stability.

"We do not have a lot of details. There are still some question marks because it is a big project," said Remy Marcel, co-fund manager for the Middle East and North Africa at asset management company Amundi.

"It is too early to really figure out what would be the consequences of this project. On paper it looks very positive; it would help to create some jobs and increase revenues," he added. 

No quick fixes

Sisi seems to have space for further manoeuvre. So far, cuts to fuel subsidies have not triggered unrest as was feared, even though they have driven up prices across the board.

But the breathing room may not last if the president remains committed to fiscal discipline as promised. That would require him to make further bold moves such as pushing ahead with more subsidy cuts and introducing the VAT.

"There are no quick fixes, including the removal of subsidies, which most foreign investors wrongly seem to believe can be achieved without social unrest," said Daniel Broby, chief executive of Gemfonds, a UK-based investment boutique.

Egypt's currency, another critical factor for foreign investors, has been stable in the official market since June, but the persistence of the black market and constraints on dollar outflows are keeping investors cautious.

Expectations of a significant currency depreciation following parliamentary elections slated for the end of the year have delayed some investors' return to the market and also caused the hoarding of dollars, keeping the black market alive.

Egypt's main index has gained 18.6 per cent since Sisi's election and now stands well above its level before the 2011 uprising. That signifies a vote of confidence by domestic investors, but official data does not show a substantial increase in foreign investors returning to the bourse.

A Cairo-based fixed-income trader noted that investors have not yet returned to the government bond market either.

"We haven't heard of foreigners buying government debt in the past two months or so," he said.

Realistic prospects

Egyptian ministers appointed by Sisi to oversee the economy seem far more realistic about prospects than officials who served under Mubarak and often painted a rosy picture.

Finance Minister Hany Kadry Dimian told Reuters last month the government was aiming to boost economic growth to 5-6 per cent within three years and halve the budget deficit in seven years, while acknowledging challenges ahead.

"There's been nothing earth shattering. But it's the relentless march toward progress and the realisation of this [reform] framework that matters, and that's exactly what we want to see," said Carter of Acadian.

BIRMINGHAM, England — British Finance Minister George Osborne spelled out plans for more spending cuts on Monday, betting that voters will accept his tough approach to fixing the economy and give an election victory to his Conservative Party next year.

Osborne announced a two-year freeze on a wide range of welfare payments as he sought to regain the initiative following a split within the party of Prime Minister David Cameron's over Britain's membership of the European Union (EU).

Osborne's fortunes have turned around dramatically along with Britain's economy, which started a strong recovery in the middle of last year.

In his speech on Monday, he sought to capitalise on the government's higher ratings over the opposition Labour Party on economic policy, even as Labour commands a small but stubborn overall lead over the Conservatives in opinion polls.

"The economy may mean nothing for Labour but it means everything for the people of Britain," Osborne said as he mocked Labour leader Ed Miliband for failing to mention the budget deficit in his conference speech last week.

Sticking to his once-derided programme to curb spending and fix Britain's still large budget deficit, Osborne stressed the scale of austerity ahead.

He ruled out any tax increases but said he would clamp down on technology companies which "go to extraordinary lengths to pay little or no tax here".

Labour hit back, saying the plan showed the Conservatives were the party of a privileged few. 

"Labour will balance the books as soon as possible in the next parliament, but we will do so in a fairer way," Chris Leslie, a Labour lawmaker, said.

The left-leaning Labour Party plans to eliminate the budget deficit, excluding investment spending, during the 2015-2020 parliament, a less aggressive approach than Osborne who is aiming to kill the shortfall in absolute terms.

The Conservatives' partner in Britain's coalition government also hit out at the plan to curb welfare payments.

"It speaks volumes about the priorities of the Conservative Party that they see benefit cuts for the working age poor as a crowd-pleasing punch line for a conference speech," a senior Liberal Democrat source said.

The defection of a Conservative lawmaker to the anti-EU UK Independence Party (UKIP) over the weekend marred the start of Cameron's last conference before May's national election. Conservatives fear the rise in UKIP support could hurt them in the poll, which is already expected to be a close race between them and Labour.

‘Humbled’ by scale of budget challenge

In a speech that is likely to form the Conservative's election pitch, the 43-year-old finance minister claimed credit for returning Britain's $2.8 trillion economy to growth.

"I don't stand here marvelling at how much we have done. On the contrary: I am humbled by how much we have to do," Osborne told applauding party activists, in front of a slogan "Securing a Better Future".

On entering office in 2010 as part of a coalition government, Cameron and Osborne bet that if they could get Britain's economy growing again and reduce a record budget deficit, voters would feel richer by the time of the election.

While the economy has recovered, wages are rising at the slowest pace in more than a decade and public debt is forecast to peak at 79 per cent of the gross domestic product in 2015-16.

With the public accounts still deep in the red, Osborne has little room to offer major tax cuts ahead of the election.

In one sweetener, he said he would scrap before the election a 55 per cent tax levied on pension pots of savers when they die.

But his aides said the pain of new austerity measures would be felt by households and eat into some of the help they have received from rising tax-free allowances from income tax.

Several welfare payments would be frozen for two years to save more than £3 billion a year and help fund £25 billion of annual spending cuts to eliminate the deficit.

Osborne also said efforts to cut spending by government departments would run for an extra two years after the election, accounting for a 13 billion-pound savings. Around 9 billion pounds of welfare cuts have yet to be spelled out, something aides said would take place before May.

Andrew Hood, an economist with the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a think tank, said the planned welfare cuts looked like an effective way to reduce benefits spending, even if they represented only a quarter of the total extra savings needed.

"If you want to reduce welfare spending, a freeze is a good way to raise significant amounts of money by hitting large numbers of people for relatively small amounts," he said.

Osborne's vow not to increase taxes as part of his austerity push contrasts with Labour's plan to restore the top rate of income tax to 50 per cent and raise new levies on expensive homes and tobacco companies.

DUBLIN — Ireland is mounting a spirited fight back from economic collapse but as recovery takes hold, a housing shortage has sparked talk of another dangerous property bubble.

Residential property prices in Dublin surged 24.7 per cent in August compared with a year earlier, according to official data. Nationally, prices rose by 14.9 per cent in the year to August.

The sharp jump in prices reminds many of the decade to 2006 when cheap credit and reckless lending fuelled a property bubble that saw Irish house prices rocket by about 300 per cent.

"The Irish property bubble is back with house price increases in double-digit gains," VTB Capital economist Neil MacKinnon told AFP. 

Buying frenzy

Earlier this month, images of people queuing for days to secure a house in a new development in north Dublin triggered a media frenzy that a property bubble was under way. 

Approximately 35,000 residences changed hands in the year to July 2014, nearly double the figure for 2011. Meanwhile, new mortgage lending was valued at almost 1.4 billion euros by midyear, 63 per cent up on the same period last year.

When the bubble popped in 2008, house prices plummeted by 50 per cent, unemployment soared and the taxpayer eventually bailed-out the banking sector to the tune of 64 billion euros ($82 billion).

On the verge of running out of money, Ireland turned to the European Union (EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for emergency funding in 2010. The following year, just 18,000 residential transactions took place. 

Now almost a year since exiting the bailout programme, with growth levels not seen since the mid-2000s, more people in work and banks starting to lend, house prices are surging again.

"It was cheap money, greedy banks, excess leverage, a sharp increase in mortgage debt followed by an inevitable bursting of the bubble that brought about the last financial crisis and in the process shattered the Irish economy," said MacKinnon.

"We don't seem to have learnt any lessons from the crisis and appear condemned to repeat the same mistakes," he added.

However, other experts argue that the price rises point to a lack of supply and years of pent-up demand, rather than a credit-fuelled bubble that defined the "Celtic Tiger" years a decade ago. 

Kieran McQuinn from the Dublin-based Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) believes prices, which fell 50 per cent in the five years from 2007, had dropped too much.

"The market had over-corrected and property was probably somewhat undervalued. Positive signs in the economy right now coupled with high demand is driving pricing up at present," he indicated.

The surge in demand means property prices are now 41 per cent lower across Ireland than their peak in September 2007.

According to the latest survey by property website Daft.ie, the average asking price for a residential property nationwide is 187,000 euros, compared to 171,000 euros a year ago and 380,000 euros at the peak of the market.

One of those home-hunters is Karen Creed, who moved back to Ireland to start a family after working as a journalist in Paris.

Despite almost two years of trying to find a family home with her husband Peter and their young baby, she has been unable to find an affordable and suitable property. 

"I've witnessed panic bids taking place on a first viewing and I got so caught up in the panic at one point that I was going to put a deposit on a house before I had even seen plans or stepped inside a show house," she told AFP.

Government dismisses bubble fears

Dublin has been quick to dismiss speculation of another housing bubble. Prime Minister Enda Kenny insists the price increases are being driven by the "law of supply and demand".

Trinity College Dublin economist and property market expert Ronan Lyons agrees: "The math didn't add up. We had a growing population in the Dublin area but we didn't have a growing housing stock. There's a huge backlog of demand."

The ESRI forecast 25,000 housing units are needed annually to meet demand but with banks reluctant to back major projects, only a fraction of that number is expected to be built this year and next.

The bursting of the property bubble left many unfinished developments, dubbed "ghost estates" due to their unsightly abandoned look, but few of these are in areas where demand for housing is most acute.

SYDNEY — High-cost Australian miners are battling for survival as plunging iron ore prices push many to breaking point, with analysts seeing no significant short-term recovery as Chinese demand for steel wanes in line with sliding property prices.

Australia, the world's largest exporter of iron ore, is heavily dependent on China's hunger for resources even as its economy transitions away from an unprecedented mining investment boom.

A year ago, iron ore fetched about $135 a tonne. This month it hit a five-year low of $81.90, slumping 40 per cent since January.

The weaker price has also hit Australian government coffers, reducing tax revenue just as it makes a push to bring the budget back into surplus. 

Australia produces 17 per cent of the global iron ore, second only to China's output of 39 per cent.

"I think the iron ore market's got a perfect storm at the moment," ANZ's global head of commodity research Mark Pervan told AFP.

Australian junior miners Termite Resources and Western Desert Resources — which operate at a much higher cost than majors BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Vale — have already collapsed, and there are fears others could follow.

On the supply side, record levels of iron ore production in Australia from the world's largest miners BHP and Rio have pushed millions more tonnes into the global market.

But demand from China has weakened as the property market softens. New home prices have fallen for four straight months, according to Chinese data, weighing on steelmakers that depend on the sector as a "pillar industry", Pervan said.

While the Australian jump in supply — driven by strong prices three years ago — was forecast, the continued output from Chinese miners has exacerbated the price decline.

The plunge in the iron ore price has been so severe that Goldman Sachs this month called it "the end of the Iron Age".

In a research note, analysts Christian Lelong and Amber Cai wrote that "in our view, 2014 is the inflection point where new production capacity finally catches up with demand growth, and profit margins begin their reversion to the historical mean".

"In other words, the end of the Iron Age is here," they remarked.

According to Lelong and Cai, the "weak demand outlook in China and the structural nature of the surplus make a recovery unlikely".

Despite the tough environment, BHP and Rio, as low-cost producers, are still raking in large profits.

The falling prices could also help them by removing smaller competitors, UBS global commodity analyst Daniel Morgan said.

HONG KONG — Asia is proving new and fertile ground for Western lobbyists and public affairs consultancies who are helping shape post-crisis financial reforms in a region where regulators traditionally operate behind closed doors.

As the reform agenda has become increasingly global, regulators in Asia are having to juggle local issues such as poor corporate governance and rampant insider trading, while implementing extensive Group of 20 reforms — from overhauling the derivatives markets to clamping down on shadow banking.

All this is going on across several markets, each with their own rules and watchdogs, making for disproportionately high compliance costs — a combined $89 billion last year for financial services firms operating in Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan and China, according to estimates by law firm Berwin Leighton Paisner and Oxford Economics research group. 

The more developed European markets of the UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy had combined compliance costs of $68 billion.

This is a potential gold-mine for lobbyists who have created an industry out of influencing policy makers in the West.

"The financial services public affairs industry in Asia is growing significantly," said Andrew Naylor, Asia-Pacific director at London-headquartered lobby firm Cicero Group. "The regulatory debate is much more global, and Asian jurisdictions are playing an important role in shaping it." 

Gentler tone 

The challenge in Asia is that information on policy developments can be hard to find. Lobbyists recalled times when foreign executives in Vietnam and Indonesia, for example, were horrified to learn of devastating rule changes that appeared virtually overnight.

"A key issue for the industry is knowing what changes are on the horizon," said Naylor. "No-one likes surprises."

According to lobbyists and bankers, it was not uncommon for regulators in smaller markets to freeze out foreign firms using Washington DC-style pressure tactics that can be critical, demanding and legalistic. 

"Western lobbying techniques don't go down well here," said Aaron Franz, a director at Southeast Asia public affairs firm Vriens & Partners. "They tend to come off as threatening."

Lobby groups that honed their tactics in the rough-and-tumble of Western financial realpolitik have had to deploy a more delicate touch in Asia. Written exchanges tend to be gentler and more appreciative in tone, and play to the national interest of often suspicious regulators.

Groups like ICI Global and the Asia Securities Industry & Financial Markets Association (ASIFMA) typically engage Asian regulators through formal private meetings with officials at their government offices — inviting a Vietnamese or Indonesian government official for a casual glass of wine is not advised, say lobbyists.

Franz discourages clients from airing problems in the international media, a common and effective pressure tactic in the West that often alienates Asian regulators. "This sets up the dialogue as 'Us versus Them'," he said.

Lobby groups in Asia also spend a lot of time on education around technical issues, such as bond market development — a long-term strategy that positions them as a useful resource for developing market regulators, who may lack expertise.

"It's not about pushing back," said Rebecca Terner Lentchner, head of ASIFMA's policy and regulatory affairs team. "It's about looking at Asia's development objectives and providing information and insight where we can."

Highlighting the group's growing influence, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd. said this year, after lengthy dialogue with ASIFMA and others, that it would review its position on introducing equity market trading controls, said brokers familiar with the matter.

Little choice but to listen 

To be sure, not everyone sees the expansion of Western lobbying into Asia as a force for good.

"One of the reasons why the crisis was so severe was because regulators listened to what the industry wanted," said Kenneth Haar of Corporate Europe Observatory, an EU think tank. "There's a risk of regulatory capture. Asian regulators need to make sure they get advice from various sources."

But some Asian watchdogs do believe the work of lobby groups generally improves the rule-making process.

Toshihiko Kurosu, a deputy director at Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, cited the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) as one group helping to smooth global implementation of cross-border derivatives trading rules.

The group was instrumental in defusing a potentially explosive stand-off a year ago that could have forced European banks to stop trading and quickly liquidate their positions. 

Amid growing uncertainty, European banks drew up contingency plans in the event that India's central bank refused to concede to post-crisis European union (EU) demands that it believed violated its sovereignty, according to bankers at the time. 

After several meetings with Indian government officials including the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), Keith Noyes, ISDA's Asia Pacific director, was able to help persuade the regulator to cooperate with the EU just days before a deadline — allowing European banks to continue trading in India. The RBI declined to comment.

The sheer complexity and magnitude of post-crisis reforms has left Asian regulators with little choice but to listen to the industry, say regulatory experts.

Eight of 11 financial lobby groups identified by Corporate Europe Observatory in April as being very active in Europe are now present in Asia. ASIFMA said it tripled its headcount in the region in the past two years.

Financial firms spent around $600 million on lobbyists' services in the United States and Europe last year, according to data from US research group the Centre for Responsive Politics and Corporate Europe Observatory. Asia Pacific data was not available, though trade groups can command sizeable fees.

ASIFMA, for example, charges around $176,000 a year for a top-tier bank membership, said the Asia head of compliance at a major US institution. "Lobbying firms are making a difference in Asia. They allow you to raise an issue without sticking your head above the parapet," he said.

Personal ties

Hong Kong's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), once notorious among bankers for ignoring consultation responses, has begun to engage more closely with industry, according to one individual at the watchdog, and now holds regular catch-ups with ASIFMA and other industry groups.

Lobbyists including the Global Financial Markets Association — the US-headquartered umbrella group that includes ASIFMA — ISDA and the Alternative Investment Management Association, a London-based hedge fund group, for example, won concessions on derivatives rules drawn up by the SFC and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority, including narrowing the product scope and territorial reach of the proposal.

As is often the case in Asia, personal relationship building can be crucial, too. Because Asian policy makers are less accessible than those in the United States and Europe, executives with connections to regulatory officials are attractive candidates for lobby groups.

Take Qiumei Yang, who last year established ICI Global's Asian arm. Her's was not the only group pressing China in May to relax rules on cross-border investment, but her previous experience working at China's Securities Regulatory Commission gave her access to the country's foreign exchange regulator.

"I think it's a bit easier for me because of my background," said Yang. "Personal relationships always help in Asia."

AMMAN — Amman Chamber of Commerce (ACC) President Issa Murad on Friday met with Bangladeshi Ambassador to Jordan Muhammad Enayet Hossain and discussed ways to develop commercial and economic relations. During the meeting, Murad stressed the importance of cooperation between the two countries’ private sectors, exchanging delegations and benefiting from investment opportunities. He noted that Jordanian exports to Bangladesh reached JD7 million, while Bangladeshi imports to Jordan amounted to JD10 million in 2013. Hossain invited ACC to organise a visit of a commercial delegation to Bangladesh to further develop bilateral relations. Also on Friday, Murad met with South African Ambassador Molefe Tsele and called for establishing joint commercial projects and benefiting from agreements that allow Jordan to export its products to the US, and other markets, without customs fees or limitations on quantities. Tsele valued Jordanian investment environment, stressing the important of implementing joint projects. Jordanian exports to South Africa reached JD22 million in 2013, with South African exports to the Kingdom estimated at JD15 million.

AMMAN — Much discussion of Jordan’s economic potential focuses on the mining and processing of minerals, but knowledge sectors like pharmaceuticals may offer a more effective tonic for the economy.

The latest data released by the Department of Statistics show that pharmaceuticals exports in the first half totalled JD218.5 million ($308.4 million), up 6.6 per cent from the same period last year. 

By comparison, the value of traditional export commodities such as crude potassium (or potash) and phosphates fell by 20 per cent year-on-year to JD223.6 million ($315.6 million) and 3.8 per cent to JD155 million ($218.8 million), respectively.   

Energy effects

The raw numbers, however, tell only part of the story. While the extractive industries and related spin-offs provide significant revenues, producers are doubly exposed — as buyers and as sellers — to shifts in global commodity markets. 

For example, Amman-based Arab Potash Company (APC) posted a fall in profit of more than 50 per cent in the first six months, which it attributed to both lower prices for its own products and higher ones for the energy it uses to produce them, the same factors it blamed for a 35 per cent drop in profit for 2013. 

The increased fuel costs are exacerbated by Jordan’s near total reliance on energy imports, which have been interrupted repeatedly by regional unrest in recent years, forcing companies like APC to burn more expensive heavy fuel oil. 

APC has agreed to buy gas from neighbouring Israel’s promising offshore fields but that flow is not scheduled to start until 2016.

By contrast, pharmaceuticals companies operate in the high-skill, high-tradability knowledge sector of the economy, which, while still relatively small in Jordan, continues to expand at a rapid rate. 

Companies in this segment, which also includes information and communications technology (ICT), and air transport, tend to be export-oriented, hire well-educated employees and offer relatively strong wage, and benefit packages.  

Employment driver

While extractive industries will always be partly hostage to energy supplies and costs, pharmaceuticals play to Jordan’s strengths. 

The country’s workforce is among the most educated in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region and it also ranks near the top of the region on the UN’s Human Development Index. 

In addition, the pharmaceuticals business enjoys multiple synergies with another beneficiary of Jordan’s reserves of highly skilled human capital: Its relatively advanced healthcare system, including a medical tourism industry. 

In recent years, the pharmaceuticals sector directly employed some 5,000 people in Jordan, with 3,000 more indirect jobs created in areas such as packaging, shipping and marketing.

“The pharmaceuticals industry is [Jordan’s] second-most-valuable export… after mining. The export market accounts for 80 per cent of all revenues… which shows just how strong the sector is in itself, and for Jordan,” Maher Kurdi, managing director of Hayat Pharmaceutical Industries, told Oxford Business Group (OBG).

Kurdi warns that the industry must not rest on its laurels, particularly in terms of training tomorrow’s workforce. “The education system in Jordan has been gradually slowing down… and I believe this will have ill effects on our long-term competitiveness, unless this is reversed,” he said.   

Regional ambitions 

According to the Jordan Association of Pharmaceuticals Producers, around four-fifths of production is for export, with around 90 per cent of foreign sales going to Arab countries, thanks to strong growth across the region.

London-listed Hikma Pharmaceuticals, which was founded in Jordan and has a US Food and Drug Administration-approved manufacturing facility in the country, pointed to strong growth in key markets such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia when reporting its first-half results in August, posting a 44 per cent jump in adjusted profit to $176 million and a 16 per cent rise in revenue to $738 million. 

In its annual report, it indicated that pharmaceutical sales for the top nine private retail markets in the MENA region grew by 7 per cent in 2013, to reach $11 billionn, according to IMS Health.

The Gulf’s own pharmaceuticals sector is relatively underdeveloped due to several factors, including the lack of focus on the development of a manufacturing sector in the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) until a few years back, the difficulty of raising funds for an industry that is inherently capital-intensive and involves a long payback period, as well as a shortage of suitably trained personnel, according to a sector report by Alpen Capital.

Here, the early establishment of Jordan’s pharmaceuticals industry in the 1960s is paying dividends. The Kingdom, along with Egypt, has matured into an important regional centre from which major multinational companies export drugs into the Gulf. 

It was the largest exporter of medicines in the Arab world in 2011, according to the World Trade Organisation data, as well as the second largest in MENA, behind Israel.

The GCC countries offer major markets in which drug prices are “significantly higher than the world average” and changing lifestyles are increasing the incidence of chronic health conditions such as diabetes, driving increased consumption of both prescription and over-the-counter medications, noted Alpen Capital.

This article is provided to The Jordan Times by Oxford Business Group team in Jordan.

SYDNEY — Rising sea levels could threaten infrastructure worth more than Aus$226 billion ($205 billion) in Australia if climate change is left unchecked, a study has warned.

The Climate Council report said the most serious consequences of rising seas would be an increase in the frequency of coastal flooding and the retreat of shorelines. 

Both these threats could cause massive damage in Australia, where the majority of the population live on the coast and where cities, towns and infrastructure are concentrated, it said.

"Coastal flooding is a sleeping giant," the report said, describing the potential for economic damage as huge.

"More than $226 billion in commercial, industrial, road and rail, and residential assets around Australian coasts are potentially exposed to flooding and erosion hazards at a sea level rise of 1.1 metres, a high end, but quite plausible, scenario for 2100," it added.

When he came to power a year ago Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who once said climate change science was "absolute crap", axed the government-funded Climate Commission in a bid to find savings.

It was soon relaunched as the Climate Council — an independent watchdog operating as a non-profit body funded by public donations.

Its report said the sea level had already risen and was still rising as a result of climate change, and was likely to climb 0.4 to 1 metre through this century.

But even a 0.1 metre rise in sea level increased the risk of coastal flooding, a potential problem in Australia where more than half the coastline is vulnerable to recession, it said.

A sea level rise of 0.5 metre could involve a potential retreat of sandy shorelines by 25 to 50 metres, it added.

The report said the combined impact of inundation and shoreline recession put thousands of homes and businesses and 27,000 to 35,000 kilometres of roads and rail at risk.

In addition, rising sea levels also posed dangers for many of Australia's species and natural attractions, including the Great Barrier Reef, due to the "drowning" of reefs, salt water intrusion destroying freshwater habitats and sandy beach erosion.

At particular risk of the rising sea levels were the coastal communities living on the Torres Strait islands in northern Australia, the report said.

The Climate Council said Australia's infrastructure had been built for the climate of the 20th century and was unprepared for the problems associated with unchecked climate change.

"We need deep and urgent cuts in greenhouse gas emission this decade and beyond if we are to avoid the most serious risk from rising sea levels and coastal flooding," it concluded.

Australia's conservative government recently scrapped a carbon tax designed to combat climate change but has said it is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 5.0 percent below 2000 levels by 2020.