Middle Eastern governments and companies rose to the financing challenge set by falling oil prices in 2016, rethinking their operations, cutting costs and turning to the international bond markets in committed fashion to plug funding gaps. Issuers in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries raised $66bn last year, and this year’s first quarter total of nearly $25bn suggests issuance will be similarly high in 2017.
At GlobalCapital’s roundtable in Dubai on March 27, hosted by Standard Chartered, leading participants discussed the steps needed to take the region’s debt capital markets from nascent to mature, to ensure that they can continue to function, whatever happens to the oil price.
May 02, 2017