Don’t you just hate it when people get into a blue funk needlessly ? Passion and enthusiasm are one thing , panic and over-reacting quite another ! You’d think that in our automatic ”need it yesterday” settings one’d get used to handling day-to-day pressure without flying off the handle. Not always apparently. Now , if every second thing is a “crisis” or “we’ve got a situation” – and you get to hear a lot of that ! – gosh , where does that leave one when the real crises and situations arrive ?
Pardon the irritation – it’s probably this flu i am down with . . . 
Right , its the time of year for Q2 / H1 results and i was just going through a few numbers in the UAE. No shocks or surprises . Bank earnings down anything from 30-60% YOY what with reduced lending , increased provisioning and overall balance sheet stagnation. What a double whammy were Dubai World and Saad-Al Gosaibi, turning up together in the region to add to the woes from the global crisis . On telecom , Du have strong growth in their H1 numbers and this growth is something we are seeing in our daily lives – but it’s coming off a low base. The overall sector topline , driven by the much larger Etisalat , has flattened. Real estate / construction / property – nothing much to be said here. It’s been downhill for a while now.
Ballparks 3 has a few of the key listed results - the list is not only not exhaustive but its not even representative but i think it does have some of the overall flavour of the season. Not looking too hot is it ! Also in there is a track of how property prices and rentals have dropped in UAE over the last couple of years.
Cheers
