Finance:

Alqabas daily reports (10/6) that the largest 150 listed companies in the GCC (six Arab countries on the Persian Gulf) markets have lost about US$ 115 billion in market value so far this year. Large price declines affected almost all listed companies, so that they have had little effect on relative company sizes. Based on the 150 largest companies, country shares of GCC market capitalization were as follows:

Saudi Arabia- 59.5% (57 out of 150 companies);  UAE- 18.6% ;    Kuwait- 11.6%         

Qatar- 8%;     Bahrain- 1.6%

What is interesting is that 21 new companies entered the list of the largest 150, and even more interesting is that 16 of these came as a result of initial public offerings (IPOs) done over the past year. Almost all these IPOs were for UAE and Saudi companies.

Unlike more mature economies, the GCC markets do not reflect the importance of various sectors in the economy. The largest sectors of the GCC economies (all oil industry activities, utilities, transports, much of telecoms) are not represented in the markets.

Ramadan:

In the Saudi press there were complaints the other day that the prices- that is what the newspaper said, prices- of Asian housemaids have gone up with the advent of Ramadan. I am not sure why that is, because people in Arabia usually do not eat their Asian housemaids any more in Ramadan than during the rest of the year. It is true, these semi-indentured maids do not lead the life of au pairs in Manhattan, and they are not always treated very nicely by Western standards, perhaps no better than their employers would treat them back home. But talking about the price (and not the wage) of a housemaid has become the norm in the Arab World, especially in the Gulf area. Perhaps more food needs to be prepared, which requires more maids, which pushes the price up.

Originally the holy month was a time of fasting from all food, drink, and other physical diversions from sunrise to sunset. It still is, between sunrise and sunset. What is notable is that the consumption of food and drink goes dramatically up during Ramadan, to the extent that there are shortages of certain items and prices increase as Economics 101 told us that they should in college. There are long lines at all supermarkets. Sunrise through sunset is a period of virtually no work: bureaucrats in the Gulf states turn surlier if at all possible, and schools go in hibernation mode for a month. Sunset to sunrise has evolved so that it is an orgy of eating, mostly fatty and sugary foods, and drinking stuff that does not cause the hair to grow on one’s chest. Many people I know gain weight during Ramadan. As far as I know, there are no studies on the effect of Ramadan on the average weight of the Arab man or woman, perhaps because it would be an embarrassing revelation.

There have also been a series of Ramadan crimes, mostly family crimes. One man in Egypt threw acid at his wife when she was slow in responding to his exhortation of more food, she was busy talking on her cell phone and ignored him. The woman died. An Algerian man brough home sheep head, chickens and other items for his wife to cook, then took a nap. Upon waking up he beat his wife for being slow in preparing the food then divorced her by simply telling her ‘you are divorced’ three times. Later, with a full belly and the sensual curfew lifted, his attention turned to more interesting topics, and he wanted to un-divorce her. I believe in his sect a man cannot remarry his divorcee until after she marries someone else and this new marriage is fully consummated. Now he will spend the rest of his life in terror, wondering how he compares with the interim husband. Or then again maybe not.

I wonder if any of these people have heard the story of the Donner party or the Andes crash. When we were kids somewhere on the hot and arid, and in those days poor, shores of the Gulf- our Gulf not the Mexican one- we got pretty close to experiencing how the Donner party felt. We did not eat each other, not even in Ramadan, and we had no Asian housemaids, but we ate everything else that moved, and some things that could no longer move.