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Mon - Feb 01 - 2021
News Summary Report EXTERNAL RELATIONS
Kuwait is the 2nd in the Arab World in Democracy
V-DEM INSTITUTE data, which is specialized in checking condition of democracy worldwide, which is part of Corruption Perception Index, in 2020 Kuwait occupies the 106 rank globally among 179 countries after it was at the 111 position in 2019. In this way, Kuwait has been rated as the second in the Arab world for the first time after Tunisia, which is in the 41st position globally.
The Institute rates democracy in countries of the world based on 71 factors, including freedom of speech, freedom of joining political parties and protection of governments for freedom and others. Despite the fact that Kuwait has advanced 7 ranks in Corruption Perception Index for the year 2020, it still occupies the last rank and a less degree among GCC countries. However, it partakes Bahrain in the same rank.
Al-Qabas
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ECONOMY
KD 1.4 Billion are the Gains of Boursa Kuwait in January
Boursa Kuwait achieved gains in the market value that reached KD 1.4 billion during the month of January 2021 to be stable at KD 34.3 billion in comparison to KD 32.9 billion by the end of last December.
All market indices closed on good gains during the month of January to minimize part of it’s annual losses in 2020. The premier index has achieved monthly gains of nearly 4.2% opposite losses that reached 13.2% last year.
Moreover, the main market index rose by 5.2% and the general by 4.2% in comparison to losses by 7.3% and 11.7% in 2020 respectively.
Al-Qabas
Don’t Save your Data on WhatsApp: CBK
The Central Bank of Kuwait warned from the risks of storing any data or information via Whatsapp in order to avoid reaching such information, and then use or abuse it.
The CBK continues its awareness campaign at the banking sector, requesting banks at the same time to raise awareness of clients.
Recently, the CBK warned from the risks of saving any data or information via Whatsapp.
Further, it urged banks to develop digital channels in order to provide a better service for clients.
Al-Jareeda
Specialized Research Series on Governance to be Issued: Reconnaissance Reconnaissance Center for Research and Studies announced that it is about to issue a series of research papers tackling the issue of governance in Kuwait due to its importance, especially after governance has become one of the basic pillars upon which rational, developed and efficient administration system in both public and private sectors is built. Governance aims to support enforcement of the principle of sovereignty of law and justice. Further, it aims to enhance auditing and accountable to achieve quality performance and achieve
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good use of material, natural and human resources in a way that protects the rights of stakeholders.
“ The Center will publish this specialized research series during the upcoming month of February; and it will tackle several key issues related to the reality of enforcing governance in the public and private sectors in Kuwait in comparison to what is stated in laws, agreements and international instructions”, said Deputy CEO of the Center Mr. Yousef Al-Ghusain.
Further, this research series will focus on two key points:
The first is the role of the government in standardizing governance,
The second is the applications of governance at the Central Bank of Kuwait and Kuwait Capital Markets’ Authority.
“ The center, as a dialogue platform” aims through this series in cooperation with competent experts in governance to shed the light on the concept of governance and the positive and negative effects of its enforcement in order to optimize social awareness in general; and to enlighten the decision-makers in particular on its importance in controlling organizations’ businesses, and in protecting the country in a way that is matching the current updates in all economic, social and political fields to reach the best practices related to enforcing governance principles that are agreed upon.
Al-Anbaa
Fiscal Year 2021/2022 Draft Budget
Local media published the Ministry of Finance’s estimate of the public expenditures and revenues for the fiscal year 2021/2022 draft budget. The published figures mention that the public expenditures are about KD 23.048 billion and the public revenues are about KD 10.929 billion, of which about KD 9.127 billion are oil revenues or about 83.5% of the total estimated revenues.
The Ministry estimated the barrel of Kuwaiti oil price at USD 45 or higher by 50% than the August 2020 estimate. Despite this, the size of the potential budget deficit scored about KD 12.119 billion or 32% of the estimated 2020 GDP. The increase in the estimated public expenditures from KD 21.555 billion for the current fiscal year up to slightly more than KD 23 billion means growth
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in public expenditures by 6.9%, which is a contradictory and an opposite path to the promised financial reform policies.
The public expenditures distribution on the various budget chapters is the same as the traditional distribution or 85% of it, including current spending and the other 15% is called capital spending. The latter is not defined and has nothing to do with the declared development goals nor with the number of sustainable citizenship job opportunities that can be created. While the concern includes most government's financial policy observers domestically or abroad, from the aspect of its inability to deal with the liquidity crisis, or from the aspect of its lack of creativity in developing a medium-term vision to extinguish the public finance fire, while all that it did was the adoption of the same policies during oil prices boom. The difference is that this was not an option, as everyone now knows that they are circumventing the direct or indirect withdrawal from the future generations’ reserves. Besides, everyone also knows that all they are concerned with is buying a few months and maybe a year perhaps to have some sense of continuity. We believe that what encouraged it to continue buying a dangerous time is the possibility that 2020 was a good year, and that future generations' reserve investments achieved a high return due to the rise in asset prices as mentioned by the Minister of Finance; but it is an unsustainable rise and is simply the result of overly expanding monetary policies and quantitative facilitations operations. It seems that the government preferred to mortgage the country's future to risks and undermine the prospect of sustainability by presenting a very short goal related to political maneuvering in an atmosphere of internal political tension. But its cost in the medium term will not be tolerable.
We still hope that the reason for the government's haste to announce the draft budget is to respect the constitutional deadline for that announcement and that the announcement came from a government whose task is to take action for urgent matters which means that the next government will perform a fundamental review of the project and present an alternative that suggests seriously adopting financial and economic reform policies. Certainly, such a government should not be allowed to borrow.
Al-Shall
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Most Important Public Properties in “Boursa Kuwait” 2020
The performance of the Boursa Kuwait in 2020 was declining at the regional level, and also declining at the level of the global stock exchanges. Al Joman Center published details of the declared properties of several public institutions.
We calculated the negative performance impact of the Boursa over the portfolios of the four most important public institutions within the limits of their declared ownership. Value declines are of course governed by price movement and ownership interest. The largest value of the declared properties was for the Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) whose ownerships increased to 9 listed companies at the end of 2020 (8 companies at the end of 2019), with the addition of the Shamal Az-Zour Al-Oula Energy and Water Company which was listed on Boursa Kuwait. Its ownership value in these companies decreased from KD 2.260 billion to KD 2.147 billion at the end of 2020. In other words, their investment value decreased by 5% or by KD 113 million, which is lower than the percentage decline in the All-Share Market index of Boursa Kuwait.
Kuwait Finance House (KFH) achieved the greatest decline by KD 110.1 million, followed by Kuwait Investment Company that contributed the second highest decline at KD 12.2 million of that value, then Warba Bank the third- highest decline at KD 11.3 million. While "Zain" contributed about KD 7.2 million in the increase in that value, and 5 out of the 9 companies contributed losses in the total value at KD 137.4 million.
The contribution of the Public Institution for Social Security to the value of its investments in Boursa Kuwait was not far from the KIA’s contribution, but it was broader and included 33 companies. The value of the public institution's investments at the end of 2019 was KD 2.055 billion but their capital value declined by 14.4%, which is higher than the decline in the All-Share Market index, and the value of its investments at the end of 2020 scored about KD 1.759 billion, declining by KD 296 million. In summary, the prices of 25 companies within its portfolio decreased while 5 companies’ prices increased, in addition to the entry of announced investment in 4 new companies during 2020 and the exit of one company from the portfolio investments. The largest decline in the value within its portfolio was achieved by Ahli United Bank (Bahrain) by KD 122 million. NBK came next with a KD 61.7 million decrease, KFH dropping by KD 54.3 million.
The third significant contributions of public institutions were by the Public Authority for Minors Affairs. Value of its declared contributions in three
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companies at the end of 2019 scored KD 604 million, and by the end of 2020 it reached KD 555 million, with an 8.1% loss. The investment in KFH decreased in its capital value by KD 47.9 million or by 8.1%.
Al-Shall
Kuwait Oil Price up 4 Cents to $ 54.89 pb
The price of Kuwaiti oil went up by four cents to $ 54.89 per barrel Friday after it was at $ 54.85 pb the day before, said the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) Saturday.
In global markets, Brent crude rose up 25 cents to stand at $ 55.35 and US West Texas Intermediate also went up 7 cents to settle at $ 52.36 pb.
KUNA
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DOMESTIC AFFAIRS
No Entry to Kuwait Unless with MUNA Program
An official source disclosed that the bodies working at Kuwait Airport are about to refer the Cabinet recommendation, which is represented by adding a new condition for arrivals to the country as no entry will be allowed unless health data of a traveler is available at MUNA program. The program is an electronic system that has been updated to link the external labs approved by the Ministry of Health through which he could identify the health information of a traveler and the place of conducting PCR prior to arrival.
MUNA program is considered as the first defense line as it is associated with a wide network of approved labs, which ensure reliability of PCR test certificates to enable the health authorities in the country to check through that program all PCR test details prior arrival to Kuwait, including date and name of the lab.
This procedure has been taken because it has been found out in the obligatory test of arrivals to the airport that COVID-19 infected cases have been detected despite the fact that they carry recent PCR tests’ certificates.
Al-Qabas
Arrival of 200,000 Doses of Oxford Vaccine
200,000 doses of anti-COVID-19 Oxford Vaccine – AstraZeneca arrived to Kuwait Airport. The Ministry of Health announced on Saturday licensing emergency use of the vaccine after getting the international health approvals.
Health officials have disclosed to Al-Qabas Newspaper that the first specific quantities will be 200,000 doses, followed by successive shipments that reach 800,000 that is sufficient to 400,000 individuals by the end of February or the 1st of March pursuant to the updates of maximizing demand on manufacturing corporations.
The Assistant Undersecretary for Medicine and Food Control at the Ministry of Health Dr. Abdullah Al-Bader that emergency licensing of the vaccine, which is being manufactured at Serum factor in India came based on a decision from the joint technical panel between Medicine and Plant Control Department and Public Health Department to assess and register the vaccines.
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He pointed out in a press statement that this vaccine has got an approval from the EMA and the MHRA, and that Serum Factory is approved by the WHO.
Al-Qabas
Kuwaiti Min. Inspects Latest Health Procedures at Kuwait Airport
Minister of State for Housing Affairs and Minister of State for Services Affairs Dr. Abdullah Marafi inspected at Kuwait International Airport (KIA) the latest regulatory and health measures following the Cabinet’s mandate for airlines to conduct Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) tests for all arriving passengers to the country.
In a statement to KUNA on Sunday, Dr. Maarafi said that the task of checking passengers arriving at KIA will be assigned to ease the burden on health teams from Kuwait’s Ministry of Health (MOH), which have done great efforts since the start of the COVID-19 crisis.
The airlines, in cooperation with the country’s ground services companies and local laboratories, will conduct PCR examinations to travelers arriving to the nation, he added, underlining that MOH will only monitor and supervise these swabs.
During Marafi’s tour, he commended the great efforts made by the MOH and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) during this phase, which played a vital and clear role to confront the COVID-19 Pandemic in various fields and sectors.
He appreciates the efforts from the officials at KIA, including members from the Ministry of Interior, Kuwait General Administration of Customs, as well as all workers at the airport to serve passengers, facilitate arrival procedures, and to ensure utmost health security.
All travelers and workers in the airport buildings should abide by the health controls and guidelines issued by either MOH or DGCA, he pointed out.
KUNA
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Sources:
KUNA: http://www.kuna.net.kw/Default.aspx?language=en
Al Rai: http://www.alraimedia.com/
Kuwait Times: http://www.news.kuwaittimes.net/website/
Arab Times: http://www.arabtimesonline.com/news/
MEED: http://www.meed.com/
Al Anbaa: http://www.alanba.com.kw/newspaper
Al-Seyassa: http://al-seyassah.com/
Al-Anbaa: https://www.alanba.com.kw/newspaper/
Al-Jareeda: http://www.aljarida.com/
