6,600 jobs at tourism port - Oman Observer

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16 PANORAMA The town of Niagara Falls, Canada, is seen past a cloud of mist rising over Horseshoe Falls, the largest of the Niagara Falls across from Niagara Falls, New York. The falls, which have a combined highest low rate of any waterfalls in the world, stradle the US-Canada border, drawn through the Niagara River, which drains Lake Erie into Lake Ontario. — AFP A worker tosses ish on to a mat for drying during dry ish processing at Cilincing beach in North Jakarta yesterday. — Reuters Tycoon slapped with $2.5 m wedding fine SAN FRANCISCO — Tech billionaire Sean Parker has agreed to pay a $2.5-million ine for building an elaborate Lord of the Rings-style set in a protected coastal zone as the backdrop to his weekend wedding. Parker, 33, a founder of the pioneering music service Napster and of Facebook, married singersongwriter Alexandra Helen Lenas in a lavish ceremony on Saturday staged at the Ventana campground. However, oficials from the California Coastal Commission, acting on a tip, raided the site before the wedding and only allowed the ceremony to go ahead after Parker agreed to pay $2.5 million to pay for coastal conservation programmes. THURSDAY, JUNE 6, 2013 Isaac, aged three, from London plays in the sea on a sunny day in Brighton, southern England yesterday. — Reuters A Mongolian herder with his lock of sheep, goats and cattle head towards grasslands in Mongolia. — AFP Website bans searches for 'yellow duck' BEIJING — A popular Chinese microblogging service banned searches for "yellow duck" after users circulated a mockedup image of a famous 1989 Tiananmen square tank protest with the military vehicles replaced by plastic ducks, results on yesterday showed. The picture, a parody of the iconic "Tank Man" photograph of a civilian staring down a long row of tanks. A large yellow duck artwork is currently on display in Hong Kong, and imitations have been put up in several mainland cities. Sina Weibo, China's most popular microblogging site, blocked searches for "yellow duck", with attempts to do so returning a message reading: "Due to relevant laws and regulations... the search result is not displayed." — AFP Lion tamer Oleksiy Pinko dances with a lion in a Kiev, Ukraine, circus. Pinko has trained seven lions for his performance in the circus where he dances with the lions and puts his head into a lion's open mouth. — Reuters A woman uses a pail as a base while weaving strips of recycled newspapers and magazines to form a basket in Tondo city, metro Manila, yesterday. . — Reuters
Inside P 19 France minister in Silicon Valley seeking allies P 24 Turkish markets fall, CDS hit 8-month high P18 P19 P24 INTERNATIONAL Mobile payment transaction to surpass $235 bn WORLDWIDE mobile payment transaction values will reach $235.4 billion in 2013, a 44 per cent increase from 2012 values of $163.1 billion, according to Gartner, Inc. “We expect global mobile transaction volume and value to average 35 per cent annual growth between 2012 and 2017, and we are forecasting a market worth $721 billion with more than 450 million users by 2017,” said Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner. FULL STORY ON PAGE 19 Euro zone economy stuck in doldrums BRUSSELS — The 17-nation euro zone continued stuck in recession for a sixth consecutive quarter in the irst three months of 2013 but showed some signs, especially in powerhouse Germany, of stabilisation, oficial data showed yesterday. The Eurostat statistics agency said the euro zone economy shrank 0.2 per cent compared with the last quarter of 2012, and contracted 1.1 per cent compared with a year earlier. For the 27-member EU, the economy shrank 0.1 per cent and 0.7 per cent, respectively, its said. FULL STORY ON PAGE 18 China hits back at EU over solar panel duties EUROPE’S squeezed utility irms say they cannot cut prices to stop their big industrial clients moving to the United States, where fuel costs around a quarter as much. Losing the business of heavy energy users, such as chemical giants, cement and steel makers, could force the power companies to put up prices for households, hurting consumer budgets and making it harder for Europe to spend its way out of recession. FULL STORY ON PAGE 23 www.omanobserver.om Thursday JUNE 6, 2013 | RAJAB 27, 1434 AH Inside China, Mexico agree on partnership Japan dotcom jailbird back in business Bank Nizwa CEO on Islamic finance editor@omanobserver.om Private financial wealth in ME-Africa region grows to $4.8 trillion By A Staff Reporter MUSCAT — Wealth in the Middle East and Africa saw near-doubledigit growth at 9.1 per cent in 2012, according to The Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) thirteenth annual global wealth management report. In Maintaining Momentum in a Complex World: Global Wealth 2013, its thirteenth annual study of the global wealth-management industry, BCG addresses the current size of the market, the performance levels of leading institutions, and the state of offshore banking. The report also provides a thorough analysis of the key trends shaping the business landscape. On a regional level, the report shows that private inancial wealth in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew to $4.8 trillion in 2012, an increase of 9.1 per cent from $4.4 trillion in 2011. Wealth held in equities in the MEA region grew by 18.3 per cent in 2012, as compared to increases of 9.2 per cent in bonds and 5.2 per cent in cash and deposits. “Qatar ranks irst in the world with the highest density of millionaires, with 14.3 per cent holding private wealth of at least $1 million. Kuwait ranks third with 11.5 per cent, while Bahrain (4.9 per cent) and the United Arab Emirates (4 per cent) ranks Dollar, shares fall on concerns about Japan, Fed stimulus LONDON — The dollar sank below 100 yen and global shares fell yesterday, as modest additions to Japan's growth strategy and renewed concerns of a cut in US stimulus efforts hit demand for riskier assets. With markets dominated by speculation on when the Federal Reserve will taper its bondbuying programme, there was little reaction to data showing euro zone business activity eased slightly in May, and conirming the region's economy contracted in the irst quarter. Japan's main Nikkei share index earlier led the equity market falls, dropping 3.8 per cent to a two-month low, while the dollar fell 0.5 per cent against the Japanese currency to 99.50 yen. The MSCI world equity index was down 0.4 per cent, close to its lowest level in over a month, and the FTSE Euroirst 300 index of top European shares fell 0.15 per cent. US futures pointed to a weaker start on Wall Street. In the third tranche of measures aimed at boosting growth in Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged to boost incomes and attract foreign businesses, but did not mention a proposal to encourage Japan's public funds to seek higher returns by investing more in riskier assets like equities. "Investor expectations were for more speciic growth policies and the disappointment has only exacerbated a trend for a correction in Japan's stock market," Lee Hardman, currency analyst for Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ said. Since the Nikkei index rose to seventh and ninth, respectively,” said Markus Massi, Partner and Managing Director at BCG Middle East. The report asserts that private wealth in MEA will grow to an estimated $6.5 trillion by the end of 2017, with a projected CAGR of 6.2 per cent. This increase will largely be driven by new wealth creation linked to strong a 5 1 / 2 year high on May 23, up more than 50 per cent this year, doubts about the effectiveness of Abe's economic reforms and the Bank of Japan's stimulus efforts have led to a steady retracement of the gains. per centComments late on Tuesday from two senior Federal Reserve oficials highlighted divisions over the future of the central bank's stimulus programme Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher and Kansas City Fed President Esther George — both longterm critics of the bond-buying scheme — reiterated their concerns over the risks of waiting too long to cut it back. "The markets are hanging on every word of the central bankers in Europe and the US," said Berkeley Futures associate director Richard Grifiths. The focus on Fed policy meant a euro zone business activity survey for May was largely ignored, as it did little to change the out- GDP expansion in oil-rich countries. “The growth of private wealth in the region has been largely driven by a buoyant GCC equity market and an improvement in the global equity markets overall. Additionally, the recovery of the local real estate markets has helped to free up additional liquidity for i- look for the region's long-running recession, now virtually certain to extend into the second quarter. "Policymakers and politicians will nevertheless seek solace in the fact that the rate of decline has now eased for two consecutive months, and that Germany is stabilising," said Chris Williamson, chief economist at survey compiler Markit. GDP data conirmed the 17-nation region contracted by 0.2 per cent quarter-on-quarter in the January-March period. Brighter news from Britain's big service companies boosted sterling, which climbed to high of $1.5372 and within sight of its recent three-week peak of $1.5376 struck on Monday. British and German government bond futures fell on the UK data, which extended a run of positive readings, though Bunds later stabilised to be little changed as the weakness in equity markets lent support. — AFP A stock indicator in the window of a securities company in Tokyo. nancial investments. Wealth held in equities saw strong growth in 2012, although individual markets in the GCC region posted sharply different results. The Dubai Financial Market (DFM) Index enjoyed growth of 19.9 per cent and the Abu Dhabi Exchange (ADX) improved by 9.5 per cent, while other GCC exchanges have seen mod- A staff displays TCB International Corp's new products, the ‘Health Bracelet’ and its APP ‘Blood Management Your’, during the 2013 Computex in Taipei yesterday. Computex is Asia's biggest annual IT trade fair, which opened on Tuesday. — AFP Parliament holds up bank deal GENEVA — The lower house of the Swiss parliament refused yesterday to debate a government deal settling a dispute with Washington over the alleged complicity by Swiss banks in tax evasion by Americans. With 100 votes opposed and 90 votes in favour, the National Council decided to freeze its urgent handling of the settlement agreed upon last week until it has more information about the conditions demanded by Washington, the ATS news agency reported. The deal, dismissed as an "American dictate" by the Swiss press, has sparked outcry in the wealthy Alpine nation. Washington has repeatedly accused Swiss banks of complicity in tax evasion, since they hold billions of dollars belonging to American citizens that are not declared to US tax authorities. The United States has agreed to halt any prosecutions of the Swiss banks in erate growth (6 per cent for Tadawul) or as low as 2 per cent in the case of the Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE),” Massi added. The Middle East also ranks highly by ultra-high-net-worth (UHNW) households, deined as households with more than $100 million in private wealth. Qatar ranks fourth in the world, with 8 out of 100,000 households falling into this category. Kuwait ranks seventh and UAE comes in ifteenth with 7 and 3 households per 100,000 in this segment, respectively. Globally, private inancial wealth grew by 7.8 per cent in 2012 to a total of $135.5 trillion. The rise was stronger than in 2011 and 2010, when global wealth grew by 3.6 per cent and 7.3 per cent. The total number of millionaire households reached 13.8 million globally in 2012, or 0.9 per cent of all households. The US had the largest number of millionaire households (5.9 million) overall, followed by Japan (1.5 million) and China (1.3 million). “Globally, we anticipate that the af- luent segment will continue to grow their assets. Over the next ive years, wealth among households worth $5 million to $100 million will grow by a projected CAGR of 8 per cent, while the ultra-high-net-worth segment is expected to see a CAGR of 9.2 per cent,” Massi concluded. question, but the conditions have yet to be divulged due to a conidentiality clause. The deal would enable Swiss banks to circumvent some elements of the country's cherished bank secrecy laws and turn over key information to US authorities It also requires parliamentary approval, but members of parliament cannot amend the content. Swiss Finance Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf acknowledged last week that US authorities had proposed a "unilateral offer, one that we couldn't negotiate." Washington has said the conditions will only be disclosed once the deal has received a green light from parliament. How much the banks will have to pay to win legal closure is not yet known, but Swiss media have reported that the overall igure could hit 10 billion Swiss francs ($10.5 billion, 8 billion euros). — AFP
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6,600 jobs at tourism port - Oman Observer

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