“Markets performed well in the beginning of Q2 but market volatility continued due to US debt struggle, Europe’s sovereign debt crisis and the fall of oil prices affected the region’s markets and had a severe negative sentiment on investors. Although regional countries generally are surplus countries and not shortage countries, the big challenge for decision makers in Kuwait and the Gulf is to channel these surpluses to development projects that will help the region’s population and create new investment opportunities,” Diraar Al Ghanim Chairman and Managing Director of Markaz, said.
“We firmly believe that the Private and Public Partnership (PPP) is the ideal way to achieve an effective and sustainable development in our country. We believe that the development plan, which is achieving a steady progress, can positively stimulate Kuwait stock exchange based on solid fundamentals, as did the current tenders of the two new projects Al Zoor water and energy Plant and Kuwait Health Insurance Company,” Al Ghanim added.
“Concentrating on the fundamentals of corporate governance, risk management and the commitment to ensure a safe financial management practices enabled Markaz to weather and overcome markets’ cycles. Over a period of time these fundamentals have remained the core of Markaz corporate culture and investment approach,” Manaf Alhajeri CEO at Markaz, said.
“The nature of market conditions in present times and the fast changing variables require quick actions to provide highly dynamic investment solutions with the flexibility to move between various asset classes to cater to investors’ demands. We have recently sensed a change in investors’ appetite towards highly transparent and low risk investment tools that will generate more returns than bank deposits,” he added.
“We remain optimistic for the rest of the year as we expect solutions for the European debt crisis and we also presume that the U.S. will raise its debt ceiling, which currently stands at USD 14.3 trillion, in upcoming period. We remain cautious on China as consumer prices have risen at quick pace in the past couple of months, by 6.4% in June from a year earlier.”