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DUBAI – Dubai and Abu Dhabi are in talks to merge the two emirates stock exchanges offering the possibility of lower costs and higher trading volumes, Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

A merger between publicly listed DFM and Abu Dhabi Exchange would create a larger and more liquid platform, which would better reflect the size of the UAE economy, the Gulfs second largest after Saudi Arabia.

Issa Al-Kazim, chief executive of Dubai Financial Market, said “the story has been there for a while, but it would certainly see marginal costs going down,” Kazim told reporters, adding that the trend of exchange mergers had already proved popular in European and US markets. “There have been discussions at the top levels meaning the owners of the exchanges,” he noted.

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KUWAIT CITY – Gulf central bank chiefs on Wednesday wrapped up a one-day meeting on financial stability in the face of the global economic downturn and progress on regional monetary union.

Monetary officials of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states also reviewed plans to establish monetary union and launch a single currency.

“The GCC monetary council will meet at the end of the month to approve plans and the time-frame to complete the necessary financial infrastructure,” Kuwait Central Bank Governor Sheikh Salem Abdulaziz Al-Sabah told a news conference.

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DUBAI: The central bank of the United Arab Emirates forecast the countrys growth to be low in 2010 but better than the previous year, its governor told a media briefing on Monday, according to a source at the briefing.

Sultan Nasser Al-Suweidi told local media the central bank expected the growth rate in 2009 to be slim, while the 2010 rate would be low but better than in 2009, the source said.

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Dubai has the World at its feet and in the Palm of its hands. Perhaps one can have sympathy for the emirates rulers (both past and present) because they were beguiled by those profligate promoters with their mesmerizing models.

When the emirate started pondering its future as Dubai without oil almost two decades ago, it was almost like the Wild West in terms of money-making ideas and hype. Scions hardly out of their nappies and armed with swaggering American and English accents, and some with a penchant for Jaguar and Aston Martin cars, and ambitions as expansive as the Trans-Siberian Railway, could not wait to influence their highnesses with the wisdom and efficacy of this project or that.

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DUBAI – The Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates may step in and guarantee the $59 billion in debt of Dubai World, the investment arm of Dubai, media reports said on Saturday.

The report, citing persons familiar with the matter, said the measure would allow local UAE banks exposed to Dubai World to avoid taking provisions.

Dubai Worlds largest creditors are domestic banks in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Earlier this week, Dubai requested that Dubai World be allowed to skip six months of interest payments.

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ABU DHABI – An Abu Dhabi court has ordered banks in the UAE to freeze the assets of troubled Saudi conglomerate Saad and its partners over bad debts, the Emirate News Agency Wam reported.

Giving its decision on a writ filed by a leading national bank in the UAE, the Summary Proceedings Court in Abu Dhabi issued the ruling on Thursday affecting the assets of Saad Trading, Contracting and Financial Services and Saad Holding, as well as their partners.

The court also ordered the provisional seizure of any movable properties in any emirate as well as the major amount of shares they own in a number of companies listed in the stock markets in the UAE.

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FRANKFURT – The Middle Easts first regional currency union is still “on track” despite the decision of the United Arab Emirates to opt out of the program, Muhammad Al-Jasser, governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority, said Thursday.

At a briefing on the sidelines of a conference aimed at promoting Islamic finance in Germany, Al-Jasser said that the UAEs opt-out is “definitely not a fatal blow” and that he still expects the UAE and Oman, which has also opted out of the Gulf Cooperation Councils monetary union plans, to rejoin the project at a later date.

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DUBAI – Dubais government could issue the second tranche of a $20 billion government bond program as soon as this month, a ruling council member said in remarks aired on Friday, but did not give the size of the issue.

Dubai raised $10 billion in emergency cash from the United Arab Emirates central bank early this year through a bond issue as part of a plan to raise a total of $20 billion to finance obligations still pending.

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People generally shy from starting a new business during a financial crisis, I however did just that. It was the autumn of 2000 the world had just gone through a financial crisis known as the dotcom bubble that although not as large as the one we are suffering from today was historic nonetheless.

I had just graduated from university two years before and was itching to start my own business. I found a dormant brokerage license in our company books that was suspended on the orders of my late father just prior to the great UAE crash of the late 1990s. Emaar had reached 140 dirhams then, although no one really knew what the record price was since all trading was conducted over the counter (or under it) as there was no official stock markets. Still, brokerage houses, twenty of whom existed then recorded the prices and a lot of work was done on the basis of trust. As Emaar broke the two digit ceiling my father ordered the company to cease work since it looked like a crash was imminent.

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ABU DHABI: Gulf Arab banks have more exposure to two struggling Saudi family groups than previously thought, two central bankers said yesterday, the latest setback for lenders recovering from a regional liquidity crunch.

Oman’s central bank chief raised the specter of Gulf banks having to take provisions on Saad Group and Ahmad Hamad Al-Gosaibi & Brothers Co. (AHAB), saying the sultanate’s largest lender, Bank Muscat, was probably less exposed than other regional counterparts.

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