Business

LONDON — Total has become the first major oil and gas company to strike a deal to explore for shale gas in Britain, boosting a technology which has brought cheap energy to the United States but sparked protests by environmentalists and local communities.

The French group said this week it had bought a 40 per cent interest in two licences in the so-called Gainsborough Trough area of northern England for up to $48 million.

Total’s involvement, which follows shale gas deals by utilities Centrica and GDF Suez, puts Britain firmly on the map as one of Europe’s strongest prospects for the development of unconventional oil and gas resources.

The investment is tiny in industry terms, but experts say it paves the way for similar moves by other top oil and gas firms.

“We expect further international energy companies to follow the lead taken by Total (...) and ramp up their plans for signing ‘farm-in’ agreements with UK firms that already have licences to explore UK shale reserves,” said Glynn Williams, partner at Epi-V, an investor in oil and gas services.

However, shale gas extraction or “fracking” — using chemicals, water and sand injected underground at high pressure to fracture rock formations and release the gas — is bitterly opposed by environmentalists who fear it could pollute water, blight landscapes and add to global warming.

Britain’s shale gas resources are estimated at more than 400 times the country’s annual gas consumption and the government has thrown its weight behind exploration at a time when rising energy prices have become a hot political issue.

In the United States, shale gas exploration has transformed the energy market, caused prices to collapse and set the country on the path towards energy independence.

Tighter planning and environmental regulation, and denser population, mean Britain is unlikely to see a shale gas boom of the kind experienced in the United States.

Nonetheless, the British government supports shale gas exploration as a way to reduce the country’s growing dependence on gas imports and to increase revenues.

AMMAN –– 2014 is excepted to be a promising year for the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) as the growth seen last year is likely to gain momentum, according to the market chief.

Nader Azar, acting chief executive officer of the ASE, told The Jordan Times in a recent interview that the bourse is set for faster recovery to pre-global 2009 financial crisis levels after the price index closed 5.5 per cent higher in 2013.

“I’m very optimistic that the ASE performance will pick up this year, which will be more stable in terms of prices and trading volumes,” Azar said, stressing that the Kingdom’s stock market was attractive for non-Jordanian investors in 2013.

Trading at ASE reached around JD3 billion last year compared to JD2 billion the year before, Azar indicated.

According to the ASE report, the total value of shares bought by non-Jordanian investors last year reached JD939.5 million, almost triple the JD322.9 million recorded in 2012.

ASE figures show that non-Jordanian purchases last year represented around 31 per cent of overall trading at the bourse, with the value of shares sold by foreign investors amounted to JD792.6 million.

In 2012, the value of shares bought by non-Jordanians represented 16.3 per cent of overall trading, while the shares sold were worth JD285.3 million.

Noting that market capitalisation was JD18.5 billion by the end of last year, Azar indicated that non-Jordanians own nearly 50 per cent of the market capitalisation.

He said that over the past 15 years, non-Jordanian bought shares in the stock market for long-term investments, emphasising that ASE remained attractive for non-Jordanian investors despite political instability in neighbouring countries.

“These capital inflows are here to stay for a long term as strategic investments,” Azar stated, adding that non-Jordanians are board members in a number of shareholding companies.

Out of the 50 per cent of shares owned by non-Jordanians, Azar pointed out that 35 per cent of ASE shares are investments by Arab governments, sovereign and different investment funds and wealthy families, while the remaining 15 per cent is owned by foreign investors from over 100 countries.

According to the ASE, purchases of Arab investors in 2013 stood at JD818.5 million, or 87.1 per cent of the overall purchases by non-Jordanians, while the value of non-Arab purchases amounted to JD121 million, constituting 12.9 per cent of the total purchases.

Sales by Arab investors amounted to JD693.2 million, 87.5 per cent of the total sales by non-Jordanians, while the value of non-Arab sales stood at JD99.4 million, representing 12.5 per cent of the total sales by foreigners, the data revealed.

Non-Jordanian ownership in companies listed on the ASE by the end of 2013 represented 49.9 per cent of the total market value, 35.5 per cent for Arab investors and 14.4 per cent for non-Arab investors.

At the sector level, foreign ownership in the market capitalisation of listed companies at the end of last year reached 54.9 per cent for the financial sector, 30.5 per cent for the services sector and 52.3 per cent for the industrial sector, according to the ASE.

Azar attributed the increasing demand for shares by non-Jordanians to attractive low-price shares, “good dividend yield”, political stability of Jordan and the securities regulations that protect investors rights.

“Both Jordanian and no-Jordanian investors are treated on equal footings,” Azar remarked.

Azar concluded that stock markets in other Arab countries, mainly Gulf region, demonstrated better recoveries than the ASE, because of the improved fiscal performance in those countries.

TEHRAN — Unblocking billions of dollars in funds to Iran under a landmark six-month nuclear deal with the West will have a significant economic and psychological impact on the Islamic republic, experts said Monday.

Iran and Western powers announced on Sunday that the deal will take effect from January 20.

Tehran had agreed in November to roll back parts of its nuclear programme and halt further advances in exchange for the release of billions of dollars in frozen assets and limited relief from crippling sanctions.

A senior US administration official told AFP that the first $550 million (400 million euro) instalment of $4.2 billion in frozen assets would be released early next month.

“The instalment schedule starts on February 1 and the payments are evenly distributed” across 180 days, a senior US administration official told AFP.

Analysts say unblocking the funds will breathe new life into the economy and provide much-needed relief across Iran.

“The political and psychological effect will be [more] considerable,” than the amount of funds involved, economic expert Saeed Leylaz said.

“It will be easier to sell our oil, our petrochemical products and recover our petrodollars. And all the products we buy abroad will cost 10 per cent less,” Leylaz indicated

The international community has slapped Tehran with punitive measures that strangled its economy, with the United States leading the way since Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979.

Washington tightened the noose over the years by imposing sanctions targeting Iran’s banking and oil sectors, as well as goods, services and technologies needed for its petrochemical industry.

The European Union (EU) has taken similar steps since 2010 and the UN Security Council has also approved four sets of sanctions since 2006.

The deal between Iran and the six world powers known as P5+1 foresees the six-month suspension of “certain sanctions on gold and precious metals, Iran’s auto sector, and Iran’s petrochemical exports”.

It will also “license safety-related repairs and inspections inside Iran for certain Iranian airlines” and unblock the $4.2 billion from sanctioned Iranian oil sales, according to an official statement released in November.

Oil, inflation and

the auto sector

According to Leylaz, sanctions relief could bolster state coffers in the long run, and estimates that annual revenues will rise by $20-$25 billion.

The increase will help the government control inflation, which officials put at 40 per cent, and meet the demands of a population hungry for more consumer goods, he said.

The head of international relations at Iran’s national oil company, Mohsen Ghamsari, expects oil exports will grow if sanctions relief becomes a long-term exercise.

Ghamsari, in comments published by Iranian newspapers, said oil exports had already increased in recent months to 1.3-1.4 million barrels per day (mbpd) compared to 1.2 mbpd.

Leylaz pointed out that Iran has sold $34 billion worth of oil and byproducts during the past nine months, earning $32 billion.

Former Tehran Chamber of Commerce official Mohammad Reza Behzadian said that with this “supplementary revenue, the government will be able to import consumer products which are needed by the population”.

“The government will also be able to pay its debts to private firms, and this will breathe new life into the economy,” he told AFP.

Iran’s auto sector — which accounts for 10 per cent of its gross domestic product and is the country’s second-biggest industry after oil — is also likely to benefit from sanctions relief.

Iran manufactured 1.6 million cars in 2011, but a year later, production was halved.

“By 2016 we could reach our 2011 production level and we will certainly have more access to new technologies,” said Leylaz.

In a sign of things to come, major international carmakers and parts suppliers showed up in Tehran for a conference in late November, hot on the heels of the nuclear deal, to assess future potential.

US analyst Mark Dubowitz said in an opinion piece in Iran Daily on Monday that the economy has been recovering since the deal was struck and that this had changed the “market psychology”.

But a US official has warned the sanctions relief will be terminated if Iran does not comply with the terms of the deal.

Iran’s top negotiator Abbas Araqchi said his country will keep to its side of the bargain — namely not to enrich uranium over 5 per cent and to dilute or oxidise half of its 20 per cent enriched uranium.

TOULOUSE, France — European aircraft maker Airbus beat US rival Boeing with record sales and orders last year but came second in terms of finished airliners delivered, figures from the company showed on Monday.

Airbus said that in 2013 it took 1,503 net orders, allowing for cancellations. This compares with 1,355 orders taken by Boeing. Total orders taken by Airbus is a record for the whole industry.

Airbus also said that at the end of last year it had record orders to build 5,559 aircraft, equivalent to eight years of production. Results published by Boeing on January 6 showed that the US firm had a total order book for 5,080 aircraft.

However, last year Airbus delivered 626 planes, trailing behind Boeing which delivered 648 aircraft.

In 2012, Boeing had beaten Airbus in terms of orders and deliveries.

For 2014, Airbus aims to sell more than the minimum 623 aircraft it plans to deliver.

Airbus Chief Executive Officer Fabrice Bregier said the manufacturer has no expectations of repeating 2013’s bumper year of orders.

Airbus’ parent company Airbus Group, formerly known as EADS, publishes its annual results on February 26 that will include detailed sales and profit information.

At catalogue prices, the 2013 orders were worth a record $240 billion (176 billion euros), but airlines often receive considerable discounts.

Airbus increased its catalogue prices for aircraft by 2.6 per cent as of January 1.

Ramping up A320

Bregier said the company was considering increasing production of its best-selling plane, the Airbus A320 which is popular with low-cost airlines, to satisfy global demand for medium-range aircraft.

“If the market remains positive, if the customer needs more aircraft, I think we would be silly not to ramp up again,” he told journalists.

Airbus is producing 42 A320 aircraft per month and had previously said that it did not want to increase this rate of production until it had converted to producing the latest, more fuel-efficient version, the A320neo.

The first A320neo is due to be delivered in 2015.

With the passenger air traffic growing by 5 per cent per year and greater fuel economy promised by the A320neo and new versions of Boeing aircraft, there has been strong demand from airlines to update their fleets.

“We believe there is a potential to go higher than [the] rate 42. There is an upside and we are studying it. Some upside that we will confirm in the coming months,” Bregier said.

“I would like to ramp up but be in a position to remain steady,” he added. After 2018, “when we have moved to the neo aircraft, we know that we will ramp up again, whatever we do now or not, we know that we will ramp up again”.

A source told AFP that Airbus is looking at increasing output to 44 aircraft per month by the end of this year and to 46 by 2016.

Airbus won orders for 377 A320 planes last year and has taken more than 1,000 orders since it announced at the end of 2010 the launch of the A320neo.

Boeing plans to increase the rate of production of its 737, the competitor to the A320, from 42 per month currently to 47 in 2017, an unprecedented tempo.

Airbus chief operating officer-customers, John Leahy, said the company was also considering offering more fuel-efficient engines for its best-selling long-range aircraft, the A330, as a number of airlines, including low-cost airline Air Asia, has recently urged.

Bregier said no new engines were currently being offered to clients, and even without them updates being made to the plane would keep it competitive.

The company has two variations of the aircraft in development.

One, to be delivered from 2015, will be able to carry more fuel to give it longer range, and has already been ordered by US airline Delta.

The second, a regional version aimed at the Chinese and Indian markets, reduces the range but increases the seats to 400. Airbus says this A330 should cost the same as a medium-range aircraft but have twice the number of seats.

Bregier says new engines were heavier than current models and cost more to maintain, so they were not completely advantageous.

BAGHDAD — Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki threatened on Sunday to cut Kurdistan’s share of the federal budget if the autonomous region exports oil to Turkey via a new pipeline without central government consent.

The Kurdistan regional government said last week that crude had begun to flow to Turkey and exports were expected to start at the end of this month and then rise in February and March.

“This is a constitutional violation which we will never allow, not for the [Kurdistan] region nor for the Turkish government,” Maliki told Reuters in an interview.

He reiterated Baghdad’s insistence that only the central government has the authority to manage Iraq’s energy resources.

“Turkey must not interfere in an issue that harms Iraqi sovereignty,” Maliki stressed.

The central government and the Kurds differ over how to interpret the constitution and share revenue from the world’s fourth-largest oil reserves. The Kurds are in theory entitled to 17 per cent although they frequently complain they get less than that.

Maliki said the Kurds had not met their budgeted commitment to export 250,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil in 2013, with the revenue going to the national treasury, but that so far the government had not retaliated by reducing their share of the budget.

“We did not do that as we did not want to affect the Kurdish people and we were looking to find acceptable solutions...that would preserve national unity and the national wealth, but this year the situation looks difficult,” Maliki declared.

Referring to a dispute over the costs of oil companies operating in Iraqi Kurdistan, he said: “We have been telling these companies... give us the oil and we will pay your costs, but they did not deliver, so there will be no payments.”

Maliki added that it was unfair to expect Baghdad to pay the oil firms’ costs plus the Kurds’ 17 per cent budget share, when they had failed to meet their export target and oil revenue was not being channelled through the government.

Crude from Kurdistan used to be shipped to Turkey through a Baghdad-controlled pipeline, but exports via that channel dried up a year ago from a peak of around 200,000 bpd due to a row over payments for oil companies operating in the region.

Since then, the Kurds have been exporting smaller quantities of crude to Turkey by truck whilst laying their own independent pipeline, which was completed late last year.

Maliki met with Kurdish members of the Iraqi parliament later on Sunday and said he wanted to resolve the dispute through negotiation. A delegation from Kurdistan is due in Baghdad later this week to study the issue.

Turkish envoy meeting

Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister for Energy Hussain Al Shahristani summoned Turkey’s consul in Baghdad on Sunday and reiterated his objection to Ankara’s role in exports from Kurdistan.

Shahristani said that Ankara had prevented representatives of the Iraqi oil ministry from supervising exports from Turkey’s Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, as previously agreed.

“The government of Iraq holds the Turkish side legally responsibile for this act and reserves the right to demand compensation for all damages that resulted,” Shahristani added in a statement.

Iraqi Kurdistan has prospered over the past decade, largely escaping the violence that has afflicted the rest of the country following the US invasion that toppled president Saddam Hussein.

Officials in Baghdad say the pipeline sets a dangerous precedent for other Iraqi provinces to pursue their own independent oil policies, potentially leading to the break-up of Iraq. US officials have echoed that view.

Kurdish leaders publicly say they are committed to remaining part of a federal Iraq, rather than seeking secession, but oil is a highly sensitive issue in volatile relations with Baghdad.

Companies that have risked exploring for oil in Iraqi Kurdistan had welcomed its plans to pipe oil to Turkey as a signal they might begin to generate export income from their investments, despite Baghdad’s objections.

Those companies include Gulf Keystone, Genel Energy, Norway’s DNO, Hungary’s MOL and Britain’s Petroceltic and Afren.

JAKARTA — Indonesia, among the world’s biggest suppliers of natural resources, halted all mineral ore exports on Sunday to try to promote domestic processing, but threatening the country’s nickel and bauxite industries worth more than $2 billion in annual shipments.

Halting exports of nickel ore could spark the biggest shake-up in the global nickel industry in more than five years, with Chinese stainless steel factories that make everything from kitchenware to cars and buildings set to hurt the most.

In one of his most far-reaching economic policy decisions since taking office nearly 10 years ago, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono approved the mineral ore export ban.

But in last minute changes at the weekend, he diluted it to allow exports of copper, iron ore, lead and zinc concentrates to continue, giving a reprieve to US mining giants Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold and Newmont Mining Corp., which together produce 97 per cent of Indonesia’s copper.

No such relief was offered to the nickel and bauxite industries, clouding the future for state-owned nickel miner PT Perusahaan Perseroan Aneka Tambang (Antam) and hundreds of other smaller miners.

“Minerals that have to be refined before export are bauxite, nickel, tin, chromium, gold and silver because they don’t have intermediate products,” Sukhyar, director general of coal and minerals at the ministry, told Reuters.

The long-planned ban hopes to eventually boost Indonesia’s profits from its mineral wealth by forcing miners to process their ores before export. But officials fear a short-term cut in foreign revenue could widen the current account deficit, which has undermined investor confidence and battered the currency.

Indonesia is also the world’s biggest exporter of refined tin and thermal coal and home to the fifth largest copper mine and top gold mine. Mineral shipments totalled $10.4 billion in 2012, around 5 per cent of total exports, according to the World Bank.

Yudhoyono’s last-minute regulation significantly lowers the minimum processing requirements for copper, manganese, lead, zinc and iron ore to be defined as concentrates. However, officials have said that such exports would only be allowed until 2017.

Under the proposed changes, government officials said 66 companies, which include Freeport and Newmont, would be allowed to continue to export “processed mineral” as they have provided assurances to the government that they would soon build the necessary smelters.

“As long as they can fulfill the requirements, Freeport and tens of national miners are still allowed to export,” Industry Minister M.S. Hidayat said.

More details are expected to be announced this week.

The companies likely to feel the most impact from the ban are miners of nickel and bauxite, numbering in the hundreds.

Shortly before the ban took effect, Freeport halted copper exports and said it would not resume them until there was clarity on which minerals can be shipped.

Freeport Indonesia Chief Executive Officer Rozik Soetjipto told Reuters he believed the company would be allowed to continue shipping copper concentrate, but was awaiting government confirmation.

Freeport, Indonesia’s dominant copper producer with 73 per cent market share, has not made a shipment from its remote Papua port since December 15, said union official Virgo Solossa.

A company spokeswoman said Freeport continued to provide copper to a local smelter.

More than 100 mining companies have been forced to reduce or shutdown operations because of the uncertainty.

Along with Freeport, Antam also stopped nickel ore exports a few days ago, the firm’s corporate secretary Tri Hartono said.

The Indonesian Mineral Entrepreneurs Association said it plans to challenge the ban in the supreme court and constitutional court, the two highest courts in the country.

A major economic impact could make the ban a hot political issue in this year’s legislative and presidential elections in the world’s fourth most populous country.

Thousands of mine workers have already been laid off ahead of the ban, sparking protests in Jakarta.

“We call on all mining workers to prepare to go on the streets and swarm the presidential palace if the government goes ahead with the implementation of the ban,” said Juan Forti Silalahi of the National Mine Workers Union in a statement on Saturday.

Police have been stationed at ports and around mines to secure those places in case of public disturbances, said national police spokesman, Boy Rafli Amar.

NETIV HAGDUD — An international campaign to boycott Israeli settlement products has rapidly turned from a distant nuisance into a harsh economic reality for Israeli farmers in the West Bank’s Jordan Valley.

The export-driven income of growers in the valley’s 21 settlements dropped by more than 14 per cent, or $29 million, last year, largely because Western European supermarket chains, particularly those in Britain and Scandinavia, are increasingly shunning the area’s peppers, dates, grapes and fresh herbs, according to settlers.

“The damage is enormous,” said David Elhayani, head of the Jordan Valley Regional Council, which represents about 7,000 settlers. “In effect, today, we are almost not selling to the [western] European market anymore.”

Israel has played down the impact of the campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions launched by Palestinian activists in 2005 to pressure Israel to withdraw from occupied lands.

“By and large, it’s unpleasant background noise,” said Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor, arguing that its overall effects have been negligible.

Israeli supporters of a land-for-peace deal with the Palestinians have warned that Israel could face a snowballing boycott — of the magnitude that brought down apartheid in South Africa — if it rebuffs proposals US Secretary of State John Kerry is to present in coming weeks.

Finance Minister Yair Lapid, speaking to the news website Ynet, warned Israelis on Friday that “a continuation of the existing situation will hurt the pocketbook of each of us”, particularly by hitting exports.

The Palestinians, too, could face repercussions if the talks collapse, such as less foreign aid from Europe.

Israeli security hawks say the valley must remain under Israeli control forever. The Palestinians argue that this would prevent them from establishing a viable state because they need the farm lands and open spaces.

Uzi Dayan, a former Israeli national security adviser, said Israel needs the valley, which makes up close to one-fourth of the West Bank, for strategic depth.

“Being here in the Jordan Valley, it is something existential,” he said last week, standing on a mountaintop overlooking sprawling date palm plantations. “The national security of Israel is based on defensible borders, not on boycotts.”

But economic worries are growing for some of the valley’s farmers.

Niva Benzion, who lives in the Netiv Hagdud settlement, used to sell 80 per cent of her sweet peppers and grapes to supermarket chains in western Europe, particularly in Britain.

Sales to western Europe plummeted in the past two years, she said, adding that she now sells mostly to eastern Europe and Russia, for up to 40 per cent less. She reduced her growing area by one-third this season and doubts she can make ends meet in the future.

Zvi Avner, head of the agriculture committee in the Jordan Valley, confirmed that sales of peppers and grapes to western Europe — mainly Britain and Scandinavia — have dropped by about 50 per cent and fresh herbs by about 30 to 40 per cent.

Avner and Elhayani said they are confident they can overcome the difficulties by selling in new markets and by farming more effectively.

The European Union (EU) says Israel’s settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, now home to more than 550,000 Israelis, are illegal under international law, but has not called for a consumer boycott of settlement products.

As part of the US-led peace talks, the EU has promised Israel and the Palestinians an unprecedented partnership, just short of full membership, if they strike a deal. However, if talks fail, the Palestinians might expect a cutback in EU aid, while Israel might have to brace for a tougher anti-settlement stance by Europe.

This might include reviving plans for EU-wide guidelines for labelling settlement products. Currently, about half the 28 member states support such labeling, a step that would enable consumers to observe a boycott.

Britain issued guidelines to retailers for the voluntary labelling of settlement products in 2009. In December, Britain’s overseas trade body strongly discouraged firms from doing business with settlements.

In recent years, several British supermarket chains have either begun labeling or stopped selling goods from Israeli settlements.

“Supermarkets are now starting to realise that there’s a really big reputational risk involved here,” said Michael Deas, a Britain-based coordinator for the international boycott movement.

Marks & Spencer said it hadn’t sold any products from the West Bank since 2007. Upscale supermarket chain Waitrose said it stopped selling herbs from the West Bank several years ago. Morrisons, Britain’s fourth-largest grocer, said it stopped selling dates from the West Bank in 2011.

In 2012, the Co-operative Group (Co-op), the country’s fifth-largest grocer, banned Israeli settlement produce from its shelves.

Some retailers, like Co-op, said they were taking a moral stand, decrying the settlements as illegal. Others, like Waitrose, said their decision was commercial.

In Germany, the Kaiser’s supermarket chain said it stopped carrying products from the West Bank and the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights in 2012.

Israeli officials say the boycott has strong anti-Semitic overtones and aims to delegitimise the Jewish state.

Supporters of the campaign say they are gaining momentum and have pointed to a string of recent successes.

Last week, Dutch pension asset manager PGGM said it divested from five Israeli banks because they are involved in financing the construction of Jewish settlements.

Other moves, such as a recent decision by an American scholarly group to boycott Israeli universities, invited a broad backlash, in part because it targeted Israel and not just settlements.

Jordan Valley settlers say a boycott also hurts about 6,000 Palestinians employed on their farms.

Palestinian officials counter that Israel has suppressed virtually all Palestinian economic development in the valley and that Palestinians could create tens of thousands of jobs if freed from Israeli shackles.

While some settlers hope to see the valley annexed to Israel, Benzion, 57, said she wouldn’t stand in the way of peace, even if it means dismantling her life’s work.

“Nothing breaks my heart so easy, especially not bricks,” she said. “I will not even have a second thought of leaving here, if it’s for a peace treaty with our neighbours. I will cherish that.”

But expressing anger at the decision by Dutch pension asset manager PGGM to divest from Israeli banks over settlement building in the West Bank, the Israeli foreign ministry summoned Ambassador Caspar Veldkamp “for clarification” over the decision.

The ministry “told the Dutch ambassador that the decision of the PGGM pension fund to divest from Israel is unacceptable and relies on false pretence”.

“We expect the government of the Netherlands... to take an unequivocal stance against such steps, which only wreak damage to the relations between Israel and the Netherlands,” the ministry said.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said that PGGM’s decision “was their own and has nothing to do with the Dutch government”.

“We are against a boycott and against sanctions [against Israel],” he told journalists at his weekly news conference in the Hague. “But we are against the settlements.”

Dutch “companies are free to do business within the settlements, but we would not support that”, Rutte said.

PGGM’s divestment came a month after a major Dutch water supplier ended a partnership with an Israeli water company which supplies Israeli towns and Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

“PGGM recently decided to no longer invest in five Israeli banks,” said the company, which manages about 153 billion euros ($208 billion) in funds. “The reason for this was their involvement in financing Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories.”

PGGM said there was “a concern, as the settlements in the Palestinian territories are considered illegal under humanitarian law”, and regarded by international observers as an “important obstacle to a peaceful [two-state] solution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict”.

Senior Palestinian official Hanan Ashrawi commended PGGM for “translating its corporate social responsibility policy into practise”.

“Steps by corporations such as PGGM, as well as practical measures that European governments have been taking, finally make Israel realise that it is not above the law,” she said in a statement.

AMMAN — Planning and International Cooperation Planning Minister Ibrahim Saif on Saturday met with Finnish Minister of International Development Pekka Haavisto and discussed prospects for further economic cooperation.

Saif voiced his appreciation for Finland for its support to enable the Kingdom to continue providing humanitarian services to Syrian refugees. 

AMMAN — The National Council for Competitiveness and Innovation on Saturday held a meeting during which discussions covered means to develop the production of the economic sectors and enhance their competitiveness.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour, president of the council, underlined the need to follow up on the needs of different economic sectors. Participants at the meeting listened to a briefing on the Jordanian Competitiveness Programme, which will be implemented over the next five years by the public and private sectors to create some 40,000 work opportunities in high added-value sectors and attract more than $700 million in foreign investments, while increasing exports by 25 per cent.

AMMAN — Fitch Ratings announced Thursday in a press statement issued in London and received by The Jordan Times that it has downgraded Arab Bank Plc.’s long-term issuer default rating (IDR) to ‘BBB-’ from ‘A-’ and viability rating (VR) to ‘bbb-’ from ‘a-’ and removed them from rating watch negative. “The outlook is negative,” the press release said.

“The downgrades reflect heightened risks associated with parts of the bank’s operations across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).” According to the press release, the effects have so far been manageable for Arab Bank (for example, loan impairment charges fell).

Nonetheless, the operating environment in Jordan is tough and underlying risks associated with the bank’s exposures, particularly in Egypt and Tunisia, have, in Fitch’s view, increased.

“The bank’s geographic diversification of operations, along with solid capitalisation, conservative overall risk appetite, stable funding profile, the structure of its network and affiliates and its liquidity management policies mean Fitch believes Arab Bank is able to mitigate risks associated with its domicile, but cannot completely offset them,” the press release explained. The bank’s profitability is currently sound and consistent, but Fitch considers it vulnerable to downside risks related to some markets.