UAE Invites Companies to Bid for 40% Stake in 1.5 GW Solar Plant – Bloomberg — www.bloomberg.com
Highlights:
– Emirates Water and Electricity Co. will seek bidders to build a 1.5-gigawatt plant in the Ajban area of the UAE’s desert.
– It aims to have 20 GW of solar power by 2030 and 44 GW by 2050, energy minister Suhail Al Mazrouei said on Monday.
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Emirates Trims Annual Loss, Sees Profit Ahead as Travel Revives – Bloomberg — www.bloomberg.com
Highlights:
– Seat capacity rose 150% as aircraft including the largest fleet of Airbus SE A380 superjumbos returned to service, helping to spur group revenue by 86% to 66.2 billion dirhams.
– The revival allowed Emirates to increase its cash balance by 30% to 25.8 billion dirhams.
– Dubai International airport, where Emirates is based, reported its busiest quarter since the start of the crisis in the first three months, attracting 13.6 million passengers.
– The Emirates workforce stood at just over 85,000 in March and the group is still hiring across all divisions in an attempt to keep pace with the travel rebound.
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Saudi Arabia Gloom Shows Toll Inflation Is Taking During Economic Boom – Bloomberg — www.bloomberg.com
Highlights:
– Facing higher prices, Saudi companies responded by building up stocks, with purchasing activity and inventories both rising at the sharpest rate since December 2017.
– New order growth in the Saudi non-oil private sector slipped to a three-month low in April as companies sharply raised selling charges to pass on higher input costs, according to a survey of purchasing managers published by S&P Global on Monday.
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Should You Sell Your Bitcoin, Stablecoins, NFTs? Advisers Say Don’t Panic – Bloomberg — www.bloomberg.com
Highlights:
– Bitcoin briefly fell below $30,000 Wednesday, its lowest level in nearly a year. Shares in Coinbase Global Inc., one of the largest crypto exchanges, slumped to a record low.
– Bear markets are typically a great time to accumulate the coins you have long-term conviction in,” said Gritt Trakulhoon, lead crypto analyst at investing app Titan.
– the cryptocurrency has largely tracked the Nasdaq 100 index of the largest tech stocks, which are notoriously sensitive to rising prices.
– Matt Hougan, a chief investment officer of Bitwise Asset Management, argues that Bitcoin is both a risk asset in the short term and a hedge against inflation in the long term.
– Bitcoin is not fully mature, and investors allocating to Bitcoin are betting in part on a future outcome where it is widely accepted as a store of value like gold or evolves into other mainstream use cases.
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Coinbase, Binance Bosses’ Wealth Drops in Weeks After Bitcoin, Luna, UST Crash – Bloomberg — www.bloomberg.com
Highlights:
– There is “no risk of bankruptcy” even amid a “black swan” event and users’ funds are safe, said Armstrong, the firm’s chief executive officer.
– Michael Novogratz. The CEO of crypto merchant bank Galaxy Digital has seen his fortune plummet to $2.5 billion, from $8.5 billion in early November. He’s been a champion of TerraUSD, the algorithmic stablecoin that’s now at risk of a complete collapse amid a breakdown in the price of a crypto token in the same ecosystem, Luna.
– Changpeng Zhao, the CEO of closely held Binance, has lost an even larger fortune than Armstrong or Novogratz. He debuted on the Bloomberg wealth index in January with a net worth of $96 billion, one of the world’s largest. By Wednesday that had shrunk to $11.6 billion.
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Africa Faces Unrest as Thumping Food Prices Hit It Hardest – Bloomberg — www.bloomberg.com
Highlights:
– Some countries including Ethiopia, Zambia, Sudan, and Nigeria have food weightings above 50%, economists Jacques Nel and Petro van Eck said in a research note.
– Egypt and Nigeria have delayed plans to end costly food and fuel subsides while Morocco, Kenya, and Benin have increased minimum wages. South Africa has extended monthly stipends for the jobless and cut its general fuel levy for two months.
– Ghana and Tunisia, may face a popular backlash.
– Lebanon, Mozambique, Togo, Jordan, Tunisia and Namibia are among the most susceptible to political unrest, given their high import dependency on oil and food, low incomes and already elevated social risks, Moody’s said.
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The Powerful Rajapaksa Dynasty Bankrupted Sri Lanka in Just 30 Months – Bloomberg — www.bloomberg.com
Highlights:
– The Rajapaksa family now is in full damage control mode, racing to ensure basic goods for the citizenry while seeking emergency funds from the IMF, World Bank, China and other lenders. It has stopped paying back foreign debt, defaulting for the first time since achieving independence from the British in 1948.
– The Rajapaksas are afraid that if they go, they’ll be very vulnerable both in and outside the country. They face human rights violations, accusations of war crimes, and corruption charges.”
– Fears of a broader meltdown first emerged with the pandemic, which suddenly sapped revenue from tourism and remittances. Credit rating companies downgraded Sri Lanka. To stay afloat, the government printed money, boosting supply by 42% between December 2019 and August 2021 — helping to stoke what would become Asia’s fastest inflation.
– Last April, Sri Lanka suffered another shock: the government abruptly banned chemical fertilizer imports.
– The policy mistakes led to shortages of food, electricity and medicine for the poor, and soon prompted angry protesters to hit the streets.
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