Dhaman Publish its 1st Quarterly Bulletin “Dhaman Al-Istithmar” #1-2023

Arab Investment & Export Credit Guarantee Corporation (Dhaman) urged Arab countries to put in place urgent and comprehensive plans to improve their status in sovereign ratings and political, economic, financial and operational risk rating indices issued by specialized world monitoring and rating agencies, by means of forming high-level specialized committees comprising all state bodies concerned. They would undertake proposing necessary reforms and measures and coordinate with existing research teams that issue these indices.

In the editorial of Dhaman’s first quarterly bulletin for 2023, issued today, Director-General Abdullah Ahmad Al-Sabeeh underlined the corporation’s willingness to give a hand in this regard, due to the paramount significance of sovereign rating and risk indices to show how much regional and international multinational companies and finance, investment and trade corporations are interested in Arab countries, and thus determining their quota of investment, finance and commercial inflows, which are considered the core element of comprehensive development.

Al-Sabeeh elaborated that based on its realization of the significance of these ratings, the corporation pursues the region’s only accurate monitoring of more than 27 indices  issued by 14 international sovereign, credit and risk rating agencies, revealing relative stability during 2022 in sovereign Arab rating and political, economic, financial and operational risk rating, thanks to many regional developments and factors, primarily the continued considerable rise in oil prices by more than 41% compared to the previous year, and relative calm in several regional flashpoints. The key results come as follows:

• The sovereign rating of nine Arab countries stabilized, with the improvement of the rating of Qatar and the Sultanate of Oman against the decline in Tunisia’s rating, in addition to the change in the future vision of four countries, according to the four leading international agencies.
• The Gulf countries, then Jordan, Morocco and Egypt, continued to keep leading Arab rankings in most ratings of risk indices.
• The average global ranking of Arab countries improved in the Fitch and PRS indices for measuring the political, economic and financial country risks in the short, medium and long terms, as well as in the trade and investment risk indices of Dun & Bradstreet and Credendo agencies.
• The ranking of most Arab countries stabilized in the various risk rating indices of Coface, Allianz Trade, and Japan’s Nixie Agency.
• The Gulf countries and Morocco topped the Arab countries in the Atradius index of country risks by the end of 2022.
• The average ranking of Arab countries improved in the Global Peace Index, with an improvement in the situation in 13 countries.

The Director-General noted that the expected rating of the Arab countries for 2023 in the indices of those global agencies will be contingent upon the efforts of the Arab countries to promote their political, security, economic and financial stability, together with a set of external factors, the most important of which come as follows:

• The success of regional and international consensus among the influential parties in promoting relative stability in the causes of Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Libya and Palestine.
• The fate of ongoing efforts exerted to promote rapprochement between the Arab countries on the one hand and their regional neighbors, mainly Iran, Turkey and Ethiopia, on the other hand.
• The ability of Chinese and international mediation to halt the Russian-Ukrainian war, or at least to ensure a temporary truce that paves the way for a settlement that precludes potential war spillover, especially amid dwindling tensions between the United States and China over the Taiwan file.
• The ramifications of the recurrent hike of US interest rates on US and international banking conditions, as well as on emerging economies, especially Arab ones.
• The future of Arab-American relations in light of 2024 US presidential election results.