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Banking Sector Survives Crisis: DIFC

The region has come through this difficult period without any systemic, or even institutional failures. “This is a great accomplishment and speaks well about the future of this region and the banking industry,” said Dr Omar bin Sulaiman, Governor of the Dubai International Financial Centre, or DIFC, and Vice-Chairman of the UAE Central Bank.

In his keynote address at the three-day Banking Outlook Middle East 2009 conference, he also sounded upbeat about Dubai’s resilience, saying “the worst is over.” He said the private sector should be interested in the upcoming $10 billion second tranche of Dubai’s $20 billion bond.

He said the global crisis proved to be “a watershed in the history of Gulf central banks and government policymakers” in terms of growing their monetary and fiscal policy toolkits as global and regional market conditions required bold intervention into domestic financial markets in order to influence credit, liquidity and the money supply.

There are many reasons now to be optimistic about the state of the banking sector in the Middle East, said Dr Sulaiman. “These include the tremendous size of the proven oil and gas reserves of the GCC, the shifting of the global centre of economic activity east — into our backyard — and the rebound in the price of oil and gas.”

However, the foremost challenge faced by the banking sector is the question of sufficient liquidity, he added.

“In the year since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, during a period of great strain on financial systems across the globe, markets, governments, regulators and institutions here in the Middle East have responded professionally and appropriately. The result has been improved policymaking and more powerful monetary policy tools,” Dr Sulaiman said.

Other important factors in the region’s ability to come through the global crisis included the growing importance of Islamic finance within the regional banking sector, generally prudent lending and conservative investment policies among banks, numerous market reforms and effective policymaking, Dr Sulaiman said.

He argued that the large current account surpluses and international reserves accumulated this decade by regional hydrocarbon exporters, and underpinned by conservative fiscal policies, helped cushion the twin impacts of lower oil and gas revenues and the global recession.

· issacjohn@khaleejtimes.com