Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Gulf News
Abu Dhabi A federal law has been drafted based on the federal government’s role in supporting and developing the public debt market, Obaid Humaid Al Tayer, UAE Minister of State for Financial Affairs, said here yesterday.
Delivering the keynote address at a Ministry of Finance hosted public debt management conference, Al Tayer said in line with the Council of Ministers directives, the Ministry of Finance began establishing a public debt management office to develop debt management strategies.
“MoF seeks to provide effective public debt management to enhance public finances in the national economy. It will carefully monitor and assess risks contained in the structure of government debt and will suggest strategies to mitigate those risks,” said Al Tayer.
He spoke about the financial and economic aspirations of the UAE as well as the federal government’s plan to develop a domestic market for government securities and the public debt management office.
“Previous crises have highlighted the importance of effective debt management practices and the need for efficient and strong capital markets. In parallel with sound financial and monetary management practices, the implementation of prudent public debt management policies would be the solid foundation needed for this market,” added Al Tayer.
Younis Haji Al Khoury, Undersecretary in the Ministry of Finance, said his ministry, the UAE Central Bank and the Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA) will have to come together to work out the federal debt strategy. “Debt issuance strategy comes at a later stage,” Al Khoury told conference delegates. Saif Al Shamsi, executive director in the UAE Central Bank’s treasury department, said as matters stand, the Central Bank cannot sell short-term treasury bills outside the scope of the commercial banks.
He said once the public debt law is published, there will be scope to create a secondary market.
“It depends on the government, how much [debt] it plans to issue,” said Al Shamsi, adding that his understanding was that the federal government won’t issue a high level of debt immediately, but would scale it up gradually.
Mounther H. Barakat, Senior Adviser and Head of Research and Financial Analysis at the Securities and Commodities Authority, saida couple of regulations must be amended to issue new federal securities.
investment
inflows jump 50%
Capital inflows to the UAE jumped by up to 50 per cent over the past year to around $80 billion (Dh294.24 billion), a senior official at the country’s central bank said yesterday.
“Since June last year... it has increased to around $80 billion. So it has increased from $40 billion-$50 billion I would say,” said Saif bin Hadef Al Shamsi, senior executive director and head of treasury at the UAE Central Bank.
Al Shamsi said the increase was largely in the past six months but denied it was a result of regional turbulence, instead attributing it to high liquidity and the UAE’s favourable investment infrastructure.
— Zawya Dow Jones
In parallel with sound financial and monetary management practices, the implementation of prudent public debt management policies would be the solid foundation needed for this market.”
Obaid Humaid Al Tayer,
Minister of State for Financial Affairs
By Himendra Mohan Kumar?Staff Reporter
Gulf News 2011. All rights reserved.
