Business

AMMAN — The Jordan Securities Commission (JSC) has prepared draft new instructions that allow trading unlisted securities on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE).

The listing instructions to the stock exchange have been amended in accordance with the new draft, prepared in cooperation with the ASE and the Securities Depository Centre (SDC), and the instructions to issue and register securities have been amended as well.

Under the draft, a special market to trade securities unlisted on the ASE will be established, JSC Chief Commissioner Mohammad Hourani said.

He added that all shares of public shareholding companies registered at the JSC and  SDC and not listed or traded at the ASE can be traded in this market, stressing that the companies will still be committed to disclose financial statements in accordance with the law.

Establishing this market will provide an opportunity for shareholders of companies whose listings were annulled or whose share trading was suspended to sell their shares through brokerages based on market supply and demand.

Also, investors will be able to buy the shares of these companies because, at present, such transactions whether buying or selling are not allowed, Hourani continued, noting that the trading in this market will be separated from that of the ASE-listed securities and will not affect the index calculated by the bourse.

The amendment aims at having the company, officially listed on the stock exchange, to be financially sound with high-level disclosure, in accordance with international practices, which  companies have to achieve in order to have the privileges of being listed in a licensed financial market. 

According the amendment, “the third market will be cancelled after a whole year elapses from the date the new amendments are implemented”, and then the situation of companies listed in the market will be reviewed.

When that happens, companies that will have achieved the conditions of being listed in the ASE will be moved to the second market and the rest will be unlisted and the trading of their stocks will be moved to the newly-established special market.

The draft includes reconsidering the measures taken against companies that do not disclose annual financial statements during the period set according to the law as to suspend their stocks on the same day of the deadline to issue the statements until they issue them, according to Hourani.

The draft will allow listing and trading the stocks of private shareholding companies and corporate bonds issued by them in accordance with the Companies Law, which views stocks and bonds issued by a private shareholding company as securities that a company may want listed and traded in the market, he said.

The amendments can add new securities to the market to increase its liquidity and those investing in it, Hourani added, noting that there are around 1,000 private shareholding companies registered at the Companies Control Department.

Moreover, he said the recommendations were put on the JSC's website and were distributed to all the concerned parties interested in expressing their opinion towards suggested amendments in order to take them into consideration before issuing the final draft of the new instructions.

TUNIS — Tunisia should adjust its development model to counter economic slowdown and build “inclusive growth”, the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) country representative said, ahead of an expected line of IMF credit.

The authorities have failed to redress the economy since the uprising five years ago that ousted longtime president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Tunisia’s economic growth slowed to 0.8 per cent last year from 2.3 per cent in 2014, and unemployment nationwide stands at 15 per cent.

In January, a wave of protests spread to several cities including Tunis in some of the worst social unrest since the 2011 revolt.

“This trend needs to be reversed... The idea would be to build the base for inclusive growth and revise Tunisia’s development model,” Robert Blotevogel told AFP.

An IMF delegation is in Tunisia to discuss a new aid package at least equal to a $1.7 billion credit line granted in 2013.

Blotevogel said the government and the IMF had agreed on “the goal for big reforms and the diagnosis” of the situation, and were now “mostly focusing on the timeline for implementation”.

The IMF’s board is expected to approve the new line of credit, to be over four years at the request of Tunis, on April 22, he added.

“Expected growth for 2016 does not correspond to the aspirations of the Tunisian people. It will not be strong enough to reduce unemployment,” he elaborated.

He expects 2016 to be a “stabilisation year”, explaining that the agriculture sector was projected to perform less well than in 2015.

Olive oil and date exports gave the economy a boost in 2015, the finance minister indicated in October.

Tourism hit by attacks 

In tourism, “initial signs... do not lead to believe that there will be any great recovery” this year, Blotevogel said.

Tunisia lost more than a third of its vital tourism revenues in 2015, after attacks claimed by Daesh that killed 59 foreign tourists.

According to Blotevogel, Tunisia should adjust its budget to relaunch the economy and ensure growth can “reach the most vulnerable and also the disadvantaged regions”.

“We are facing a problem in the composition of the budget,” he added, describing the civil service as “a great drain on state expenses” and “a great challenge for Tunisia’s economy”.

Tunisia’s last line of credit from the IMF in 2013, which was over two years with a seven-month extension, came as support for the political transition after the 2011 uprising.

The package was implemented in “very difficult conditions”, Blotevogel said, citing slow growth in the European Union, Tunisia’s largest trade partner, and the crisis in neighbouring Libya.

The democratic transition “took longer than expected” and was “accompanied by social unrest... then by the security aspect whose importance increased with the terrorist attacks in 2015”.

A Daesh-claimed attack on the National Bardo Museum in Tunis in March last year killed 21 tourists and a policeman, while another killed 38 tourists at a beach resort near Sousse in July.

A suicide bombing on a bus in Tunis in November, also claimed by Daesh, killed 12 presidential guards.

Tunisia showed a “certain resilience because the greater macro-economic balances were maintained”, Blotevogel said.

The authorities also “made considerable progress in several fields including the financial sector” with the restructuring of public banks.

But the country still faces “a number of challenges, weaknesses”, he added.

SHANGHAI — The world's top economies declared on Saturday that they need to look beyond ultra-low interest rates and printing money to shake the global economy out of its torpor, while renewing their focus on structural reform to spark activity.

A communique from the Group of 20 (G-20) finance ministers and central bankers flagged a series of risks to world growth, including volatile capital flows, a sharp fall in commodity prices and the potential "shock" of a British exit from the European Union (EU).

"The global recovery continues, but it remains uneven and falls short of our ambition for strong, sustainable and balanced growth," said the communique, issued at the end of a two-day meeting in Shanghai.

"Monetary policies will continue to support economic activity and ensure price stability... but monetary policy alone cannot lead to balanced growth," it added.

Faltering growth and market turbulence have exacerbated policy frictions between major economies in recent months, and the statement also noted concerns over escalating geopolitical tensions and Europe's refugee crisis.

The reference to "Brexit" had not been included in earlier versions of the text, according a senior official who had seen various drafts, but was added after British officials pressed for it. Britons will vote in June 23 referendum on whether to remain in the EU.

"Our view is that it's in the national security and economic security of the United Kingdom, of Europe and of the United States for the United Kingdom to stay in the EU," US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said after the meeting.

Volatility vs fundamentals

The G-20 ministers agreed to use "all policy tools — monetary, fiscal and structural — individually and collectively" to reach the group's economic goals.

Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said she sensed renewed urgency among the group's members for collective action, warning that without it there was a risk that the recovery could derail.

But there was no plan for specific coordinated stimulus spending to spark activity, as some investors had been hoping after markets nosedived at the start of 2016. Over the course of the two-day meeting in Shanghai comments by policymakers made clear the divergence of views on the way forward.

Finance chiefs had agreed that "the magnitude of recent market volatility has not reflected the underlying fundamentals of the global economy", the communique draft said.

To pep up the global economy, faster progress on structural reforms "should bolster potential growth in the medium term and make our economies more innovative, flexible and resilient", it added. 

"We are committed to further enhancing the structural reform agenda," it continued.

Divisions have emerged among major economies over the reliance on debt to drive growth and the use of negative interest rates by some central banks, such as in Japan.

Germany had made it clear it was not keen on new stimulus, with Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble saying on Friday the debt-financed growth model had reached its limits.

"It is even causing new problems, raising debt, causing bubbles and excessive risk taking, zombifying the economy," he indicated.

The G-20, which spans major industrialised economies such as the United States and Japan to the emerging giants of China and Brazil and smaller economies such as Indonesia and Turkey, reiterated in the communique a commitment to refrain from targeting exchange rates for competitive purposes, including through devaluations.

They pledged to "consult closely" on foreign exchange markets.

Currency concerns

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, chairman of eurozone finance ministers, said G-20 members had agreed to inform each other in advance about policy decisions that could lead to devaluations of their currencies.

G-20 host China used the meeting to try to allay concerns about the world's second-biggest economy, and Beijing's ability to manage it, that have grown since a market rout and a surprise devaluation last August.

"Monetary policy will probably have to be kept appropriately loose, even though people have realised that its role cannot replace fiscal policy," said China's Finance Minister Lou Jiwei.

Chinese policymakers reiterated pledges not to devalue the yuan again, and Premier Li Keqiang told the G-20 opening session on Friday there was no basis for continued depreciation of the yuan.

But there appeared to be concerns that some members may seek a quick fix to domestic woes through a weaker currency.

Japan implemented negative interest rates this month to spur growth, and Bank of Japan (BOJ) Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said he had "fully gained [their] understanding" from G-20 ministers about the BOJ's thinking with regard to negative rates as a tool for escaping the deflation that has dogged its economy for years.

Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said he had urged China to carry out currency reform and map out a mid-term structural reform plan with a time frame.

"Chinese authorities need to present a mid-term structural reform plan with concrete schedule and a package of measures to stabilise yuan, based on recognition that communication between Chinese authorities and markets has caused market volatility and capital outflows," he told reporters.

But analysts were underwhelmed. 

Lu Zhengwei, chief economist of Citic Bank International, said the language used showed ministers realised the seriousness of the world economic situation, "but the problem... is the implementation".

"The contradictory opinions voiced by Germany means that the consensus among the countries is still not adequate," he added.

'Loud and clear' 

While the US Federal Reserve raised interest rates in December, many analysts believe it will delay any more tightening given renewed risks for the US recovery.

This year the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank adopted negative interest rates and huge quantitative easing programmes.

"Every country is trying to stimulate their own economy," said Zhang Jun, director of the China Centre for Economic Research at Fudan University in Shanghai. "The key is not to sacrifice other economies... and avoid a currency war caused by the stimulus."

The G-20 meeting was a "platform for communication", he added, but could not restrain any of its members and the communique "won't have a big impact on [the] world economy". 

Lagarde said that Keqiang and all Chinese representatives said "loud and clear" that "there was no intention, no determination, no decision whatsoever to devalue the currency".

Pierre Moscovici, European commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, said there were no discussions about the country, "not because China was our host, but because China is a major partner".

AMMAN — The Amman Chamber of Commerce (ACC) and the Sharjah Chamber of Commerce and Industry agreed on Saturday to organise a Jordanian-Gulf investment forum in the last quarter of this year to enhance investment and commercial cooperation between Jordan and Arab Gulf countries in sectors suiting both sides.

At a meeting between ACC President Issa Murad and Abdullah Owais, president of the Sharjah Chamber of Commerce and Industry, both chambers also agreed to coordinate in drawing visions that can render the forum success and guarantee the participation of several Jordanian and Gulf economic institutions.

The meeting also reviewed current and future cooperation between the two chambers and their roles in encouraging the local private sector to interact with events the other chamber organises.

They also highlighted the importance of exchanging commercial information, investments laws and joint action to organising exhibitions and benefiting from the services offered by Sharjah Expo.

JACKSONVILLE, Florida — President Barack Obama used a trip to a lithium-ion battery factory on Friday to defend his economic record against arguments made by Republicans in the race to succeed him after the November 8 presidential election.

Obama said his policies, including the $760 billion economic stimulus he brought in when he first took office, helped the American economy bounce back from the 2007-2009 recession that he inherited much faster than European nations that adopted austerity measures.

"If we don't recognise the progress we've made and how that came about, then we may chase some snake oil and end up having policies that get us back in the swamp," Obama told workers at the plant built by French company Saft with $95.5 million from the stimulus.

"We knew that it's going to take more than one year or even one president to get to where we need to go, but we can see real tangible evidence of what a new economy looks like. It looks like this facility right here," he said.

The Saft plant, which opened in 2011, created almost 300 jobs in the region but has struggled with sluggish demand for lithium-ion batteries. The French company had to take a writedown and its chief executive has said it would probably take two to three years to become profitable.

Obama acknowledged the pace of changes in the economy has been “scary sometimes”.

Those economic fears have helped propel the campaign of Donald Trump, the billionaire businessman who is the front-runner in the race to be the Republican candidate for the November 8 presidential election.

Florida, home to Republican presidential candidate Senator Marco Rubio, is critical to both the March 15 primary vote and the general election that follows.

Obama brought Democratic US Representative Patrick Murphy from Florida with him on the trip. Murphy is running for Rubio's Senate seat.

Stimulus investments to advanced battery makers were panned by Republican lawmakers after A123 Systems, a lithium-ion battery maker, went bankrupt in 2012 and was bought by Chinese auto parts maker Wanxiang.

Battery maker LG Chem came under fire after a 2013 Energy Department Inspector General report found that the company used some of its funding for a Michigan battery plant to pay employees to watch movies, volunteer at non-profits and play games because there was little work for them to do.

But Obama said the stimulus helped America compete in the global race to boost solar and wind power. "Taxpayers are getting their money back, and some," he added.

Separately, Warren Buffett bemoaned the "negative drumbeat" on the US economy from presidential candidates in his annual Berkshire Hathaway Inc. shareholder letter on Saturday, saying they are misleading Americans into believing their children will be worse off then they are.

"It's an election year, and candidates can't stop speaking about our country's problems [which, of course, only they can solve]," Buffett wrote, italicising "they" for emphasis.

As a result of their dour outlook on the US economy, many Americans now believe that their children will not live as prosperously as they themselves do, the 85-year-old Buffett said.

"That view is dead wrong: the babies being born in America today are the luckiest crop in history," Buffett added.

Buffett did not single out any presidential candidates by name. The billionaire in December officially threw his backing behind Hillary Clinton, a Democrat.

"During presidential elections where no incumbent is running, both sides who are running for president always say they are the ones to solve the nation's problems and point out what those problems are," said Bill Smead, who invests $2.1 billion at Smead Capital Management in Seattle.

Trump, who won New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's endorsement on Friday, has offered  a bleak assessment of the US economy, repeatedly saying it is in a "bubble" that he hopes will pop before he takes office. 

"I don't want to inherit all this stuff," he has said.

In his letter, Buffett said "some commentators bemoan our current 2 per cent per year growth" in real gross domestic product (GDP), "and, yes, we would all like to see a higher rate".

But he added America's population is growing about 0.8 per cent per year, and that 2 per cent GDP growth equates to a 1.2 per cent per capita growth rate.

"That may not sound impressive," Buffett elaborated. "But in a single generation of, say, 25 years, that rate of growth leads to a gain of 34.4 per cent in real GDP per capita."

Buffett, whose home in Omaha, Nebraska sits on less than an acre, said society has advanced significantly since he grew up during and after the Great Depression.

"All families in my upper middle-class neighbourhood regularly enjoy a living standard better than that achieved by John D. Rockefeller Sr. at the time of my birth," he indicated.

"His unparalleled fortune couldn't buy what we now take for granted, whether the field is, to name just a few, transportation, entertainment, communication or medical services. Rockefeller certainly had power and fame; he could not, however, live as well as my neighbours now do," he concluded.

CAPE TOWN — South Africa's finance minister on Wednesday hiked taxes and targeted what he called wasteful and corrupt government spending in a "crisis" budget, aimed at staving off a ratings downgrade to junk status.

Africa's most developed economy is struggling with shrinking growth, unemployment running at 25 per cent, and widespread poverty.

"We cannot spend money we do not have. We cannot borrow beyond our ability to repay," Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan told parliament. "Until we can ignite growth and generate more revenue, we have to be tough on ourselves."

In a press conference before he delivered the budget, Gordhan was even more direct.

"There is no doubt about the fact that we are in crisis," he said.

The local rand currency fell by 2.25 per cent against the dollar shortly after the minister spoke to parliament.

"I expected a much firmer austerity budget," Mohammed Nalla, head of strategic research at Nedbank, told AFP. "This budget will not be enough to help us avoid a credit downgrade in the near future, but it may have helped us buy a bit of time."

Presenting the budget, Gordhan announced greater cooperation with the private sector in an effort to boost growth, which he forecast would drop to below one per cent this year. 

Although he denied moving towards privatisation, the minister opened the way for private sector investment in under-performing state-owned enterprises. 

These include the loss-making national carrier South African Airways, long a target of government critics.

Increased taxes on excise duties, capital gains, fuel, sugary drinks, alcohol and tobacco and environmental levies are expected to bring in an extra 18 billion rand ($1.18 billion).

Personal income tax was not increased, but "current taxes on wealth are under review", Gordhan said.

The government spending ceiling will be cut by 25 billion rand ($1.64 billion) over the next three years, mainly by trimming posts in the bloated public service.

Confidence issues 

Government corruption will be tackled through a crackdown on tender processes, while wasteful expenditure clamps will extend to a downgrade in the value of cars bought for politicians.

Abuses in the private sector will also be targeted.

"We will continue to act aggressively against the evasion of tax through transfer pricing abuses, misuse of tax treaties and illegal money flows," Gordhan said.

Winning the confidence of the ratings agencies, which help determine how much countries pay to borrow money, was made more difficult when President Jacob Zuma shocked markets in December by firing two finance ministers within four days.

Gordhan, who was widely respected when he held the position from 2009 to 2014, was recalled in a panicked attempt to limit the damage to the country's credibility.

In an immediate reaction to the budget, the main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, said the minister had "announced no significant new measures to boost economic growth and create jobs".

Gordhan faced the difficult balancing act of trying to please both the financial world and a government facing voters in municipal elections this year.

He said in his press conference that spending cuts would be made without affecting social services.

South Africa is regularly rocked by protests over service delivery for the poor, and in the past year the unrest has spread to university campuses with students pressing for free education. 

Gordhan announced an extra 16 billion rand ($1.05 billion) for higher education, saying "we are crafting solutions to the voices of students regarding fees and housing."

A central objective of the budget was to stabilise debt as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), he said. 

"Net national debt is projected to stabilise at 46.2 per cent of GDP in 2017/18, and to decline after that," the minister added. 

Efforts are also being made to rein in the budget deficit, which is expected to be 3.2 per cent of GDP this year on total spending of 1,324 billion rand ($86.9 billion), declining to 2.4 per cent in 2018/19.

Apart from policy missteps, the resource-rich economy has been hard hit by falling commodity prices on reduced demand by China, and an agricultural sector hobbled by the worst drought in more than a century.

WASHINGTON — The International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned Wednesday that the world economy is "highly vulnerable" and called for new mechanisms to protect the most vulnerable countries.

In a report on economic challenges ahead of the Shanghai meeting of finance chiefs of the powerful Group of 20 (G-20) economies, the global crisis lender said world growth had slowed and could be derailed by market turbulence, the oil price crash and geopolitical conflicts.

"The global recovery has weakened further amid increasing financial turbulence and falling asset prices," the IMF said.

"Strong policy responses both at national and multilateral levels are needed to contain risks and propel the global economy to a more prosperous path," it added.

The report, to be presented to the finance ministers and central bank chiefs of the G-20 leading economies meeting in Shanghai on Friday and Saturday, said the fund expects to lower its forecast for world growth in 2016, barely six weeks after making its most recent estimate of 3.4 per cent.

"Global activity has slowed unexpectedly at the end of 2015, and it has weakened further in early 2016 amid falling asset prices," the report said.

How countries should react to the threats will be the main agenda in the Shanghai talks. The IMF is urging countries to boost fiscal stimulus and to push through reforms in order to increase demand.

It added that central banks, including the US Federal Reserve, need to keep monetary policy accommodative to be sure tighter financial conditions do not stifle growth momentum.

However, the fund stressed, "to avoid over-reliance on monetary policy, near-term fiscal policy should support the recovery where appropriate and provided there is fiscal space, focusing on investment".

Besides the shocks to the world economy from China's slowdown and the crash in commodity prices, the IMF said geopolitical issues like the Syrian refugee crisis and the rising infections in Latin America from the Zika virus pose economic threats.

For countries shouldering the biggest burden of those crises, and countries otherwise fit but left vulnerable by the commodities downturn, the IMF said the world's financial safety net, which includes the fund's own programmes, could be enhanced.

Without any specifics, it called for new financing mechanisms to help countries in financial turmoil.

"Many countries at the centre of such shocks are shouldering a burden for others, with often limited capacity and fiscal space," the report said.

"Recognising the global public good nature of their actions, they could be backed up by a coordinated worldwide initiative to provide financial support," it added.

The IMF continued that uncertainty over Britain's future in the European Union (EU) risks negatively affecting the country's growth outlook.

Britain's economy was set to grow by 2.2 per cent this year and next, matching official gross domestic product for 2015, it remarked.

But it warned that "uncertainty associated with the outcome of the forthcoming referendum on EU membership could also weigh on the outlook" along with various other factors including "potential shocks to global growth and asset prices".

As Britain prepares for a June 23 referendum on its EU future, British Prime Minister David Cameron has warned that the country's departure from the European Union would threaten its economic and national security.

But London Mayor and Conservative rival Boris Johnson has dealt a blow by backing a "Brexit" despite Cameron winning a deal on EU reforms.

"Quantifying how a decision to leave the EU would affect the economy is difficult, given that the terms of staying in the EU are still being negotiated and the nature of post-exit relations with the EU are unknown," the IMF said in its latest outlook for Britain. 

"However, analysts have raised concerns that the exit debate could bring a period of uncertainty that could weigh on investment," it added.

Almost 200 bosses of top British companies on Tuesday urged voters to keep Britain in the EU, warning that an exit from the 28-nation bloc would threaten jobs.

Some 198 business leaders including Roger Carr, chairman of BAE Systems, BP Chief Executive Bob Dudley and Ron Dennis, chief of F1 team McLaren, wrote a joint letter published in The Times newspaper, backing Cameron's deal to reform the EU.

BEIJING — China's overcapacity in heavy industries is wreaking "far-reaching" damage on the global economy, with steel production "completely untethered" from market demand, the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China said this week.

The Asian giant's steel industry manufactures more than the next four largest producers combined — Japan, India, the US, and Russia — the chamber indicated in a report, warning that more than 60 per cent of China's aluminium industry has negative cash flow. 

And in just two years, its cement production equalled the amount produced in the United States during the entire 20th Century.

"China has not followed through on the attempts it has made over the last decade to address overcapacity," chamber president Joerg Wuttke said in a statement. 

Brussels has launched new anti-dumping probes into Chinese steel imports, as producers in both Europe and Asia struggle with global prices that have plummeted in the face of oversupply.

"Overcapacity has been a blight on China's industrial landscape for many years now, affecting dozens of industries and wreaking far-reaching damage on the global economy in general, and China's economic growth in particular," the chamber's report said.

The issue has led to trade tensions between the world's second-largest economy and developed countries that accuse it of dumping in their markets. 

China accounts for half of global steel production but internal demand has slowed sharply along with economic growth, forcing it to look overseas. Its steel exports soared 20 per cent in 2015, according to Chinese Customs data.

The European Union (EU) launched probes this month into imports of Chinese steel, with trade commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem warning: "We cannot allow unfair competition from artificially cheap imports to threaten our industry."

This month, Luxembourg-based world leader in steelmaking ArcelorMittal blamed China for a colossal $8 billion loss in 2015, at a time when thousands of jobs are being cut across the industry.

But many Chinese steel firms are also losing money, and Beijing has announced plans to cut production by as much as 150 million tonnes over the next five years.

Protectionism 

Despite authorities' vows to tackle excess production, the EU chamber report said Beijing's prioritisation of industrial policies over consumption meant "the Chinese government's current role in the economy is part of the problem".

To achieve change, it added that the government needed "a willingness to change itself".

Wuttke told reporters: "We are now in a far more worse position than we were before."

"Beijing increasingly has the same problems as Brussels:  making things happen. That was not the case 10 or 15 years ago. Local protectionism is very strong," he said.

Beijing hopes to soak up overcapacity by selling its excess production to markets in Central Asia and the Middle East as part of President Xi Jinping's One Belt One Road plan, which has been touted as a revival of ancient Silk Road trade routes. 

But those markets were not big enough to absorb China's overcapacity, Wuttke remarked. 

It "is a complete mismatch, it will not put even a minor dent in the overcapacities in China", he said.

With traditional heavy industries facing persistent weakness, foreign investors favoured the more robust services sector and higher-value, hi-tech manufacturing last year, data from commerce ministry showed recently.

China attracted $126.3 billion, or 781.4 billion yuan, in non-financial foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2015, up 6.4 per cent from 2014, despite its cooling economy.

The services sector has utilised $77.2 billion, or 477.1 billion yuan of foreign investment, up 17.3 per cent from 2014.

United States ride-hailing firm Uber has committed to invest 6.3 billion yuan ($956.33 million) in China as it aims to break into its huge tourism industry with businesses ranging from transportation services to automotive financing.

The world's largest coffee chain, Starbucks Corp., said it aims to open 500 stores in China this year, its largest market outside of the US, and aims to create 10,000 jobs in China every year through 2019.

At present, investment from overseas companies contributes to half of all foreign trade in China, one-quarter of industrial output, one-seventh of urban employment and one-fifth of tax income, the ministry statement indicated.

While FDI is a key measure of general overseas investment interest in China, it is a small factor within overall capital flows and when compared to the huge export sector.

According to Reuters calculations, China attracted $12.23 billion, or 77.02 billion yuan, in non-financial FDI in December.

High-tech manufacturing accounted for $9.41 billion, or 58.35 billion yuan, of foreign direct investment in 2015, up 9.5 per cent from 2014 and accounting for 23.8 per cent of investment in China's manufacturing sector, according to the commerce ministry's statement.

Almost no FDI was approved for industries suffering from overcapacity such as steel, cement and ship-building, the statement said.

Free trade zones in Guangdong, Tianjin and Fujian attracted investment of 445.81 billion yuan from 6,040 overseas companies between January and November 2015, according to the statement.

The government has encouraged firms recently to expand investment abroad to gain global competitiveness.

DUBAI — Like the prototype drone of Emirati student Talib Alhinai, the ambitions of young people across the Gulf Arab states need to soar if they, and their economies, are to prosper in the age of cheap oil.

The 23-year-old now researching for his Ph.D is just the kind of innovator that the region requires, along with youngsters who want the risky life of an entrepreneur rather than a safe but unproductive job working for the state.

Wearing a crisp white Arabian robe and headdress, Alhinai cranes his glasses upward as his drone climbs above an outdoor amphitheatre in downtown Dubai, and explains how it can swoop down and squirt 3D printed sealant onto damaged oil pipelines.

Petrodollars won Gulf Arab states decades of prosperity, when loyalty and stability could be bought by giving graduates with subpar education cushy government posts.

No more. The collapse in oil prices is forcing governments to make good on old promises to turn their growing youth populations into a workforce that can compete globally.

Showing off the prototype he built with classmates at Imperial College London, winning a state-sponsored "Drones for Good" competition at the amphitheatre, Alhinai said Gulf Arab youngsters were eager to make livelihoods from their ideas, not handouts.

"There's a realisation, an awakening, among my generation that the age of oil can't last forever and that we need to pick up the pace to give back to our societies, especially through innovation and technology, to shred this stereotype about us being idle," said Alhinai.

Over half of Gulf Arab nationals are employed in public sector jobs; in Kuwait the figure is nearly 80 per cent.

But now the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts economic growth in six oil-exporting states of the Gulf Cooperation Council will slip to 2.8 per cent in 2016 from 3.25 in 2014, and private sector growth has likewise fallen.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia have both launched initiatives this year to outsource services from the state to the private sector, rein in spending and invest in education and vocational training.

Reckoning

Nowhere is the problem so acute as in top oil exporter Saudi Arabia, which is running a $100 billion budget deficit and has used up $90 billion of its foreign assets in the past 18 months. At that rate they would be gone in just a few years.

Underlining the problem, the Standard & Poor's agency downgraded the credit ratings of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman last week in its second mass cut of large oil producers in almost a year.

Vast energy reserves and tiny populations in Qatar and Kuwait mean they have more time to get their nationals into more productive work, but Saudi Arabia can no longer buy off its 20 million citizens with public sector welfare.

State-owned oil giant Aramco, the largest Saudi company and a paragon of efficiency in the kingdom's often hidebound economy, is trying to encourage innovation by giving entrepreneurs training and loans.

One such beneficiary is 28-year-old Loai Labani, who owns tech company Innosoft based in Dhahran Techno Valley in the country's east. 

He said risk-taking was still foreign to Saudi job culture and few of his peers understood why he would strive for his own success rather than take a plum official post.

"My family and my friends were trying to tell me you shouldn't focus on this, just get a government job and the security that comes with it," Labani added.

"Of my 20 employees, half are Saudi and I need 10 more, but it's a struggle to get the quality developers, web-designers and programmers. We have to do 2-300 interviews to hire just one Saudi, because not just the knowledge but the personality for private enterprise is so hard to find," he indicated.

According to a study by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, promoting those skills will be one of the greatest challenges for Gulf countries and will entail a rethinking of the "social contract" under which state generosity won stability in a turbulent region.

"There is a clear tension between countries' wish to encourage economic creativity and risk-taking on the one hand and their desire to maintain relative social and political quiescence on the other," wrote author Carolyn Barnett.

Igniting the imagination

The UAE leads its neighbours in trying to diversify away from oil. In June last year, the IMF said the country could keep spending at current rates for 30-40 years — but then the oil price promptly halved.

This month, the UAE staged its largest ever government restructuring, merging ministries to reduce costs and creating state bodies to advance science, human capital and youth.

"Education is the essential prerequisite to creating a generation that's productive," said Sultan Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a senior member of the ruling family in Abu Dhabi, the largest of the emirates.

"We want it so that when a student graduates — whether in engineering, humanities or anything else — they can open doors," he told reporters at his  palace before dog and camel races that he sponsors. 

"We want the education standards to be strong, not weak like they are now, which can't be denied," Sultan added.

At the reception, tables groaned under lobster and gazelle meat for his guests, and costumed desert knights on horseback held aloft banners of the ruling sheikhs' faces — trappings of largesse and reverence familiar to the Gulf.

But at Dubai's Museum of the Future, a glimpse of what may await Gulf Arabs was on show. Emirati boys in robes and groups of young women dressed from head to toe in black roamed the exhibition's purple-lit chambers, gazing at concept inventions: goggles that detect others' moods, earpieces that translate and brain implants that can transmit thoughts.

The Museum, set to open fully in 2018, aims to work with research companies and universities to turn such gizmos into "Made in the UAE" reality, and also to inspire.

"Some of the technology highlighted here is not set to be realised until 2030," said museum director Saif Al Aleeli. "We present it here to ignite the imagination of our young people, so they can get an idea of the world that they will live in and hopefully create themselves."

AMMAN — Jordan Investment Commission (JIC) President Thabet Al Wir on Wednesday said the commission has prepared necessary arrangements to acquaint Georgian sovereign funds with high-value added investment opportunities in the Kingdom.

The JIC will join an economic delegation scheduled to visit Georgia next month to sign a technical cooperation protocol with the Georgia State Financing and Investment Commission to enhance Jordanian exports to Tbilisi and invite Georgian businesspeople to invest in the Kingdom, Wir said.

It is important to benefit from Georgia, home to sovereign funds of assets worth some $10 billion, the JIC president added, noting that he received confirmations of possible cooperation with the Georgian embassy in Amman to attract these funds to invest in Jordan. Wir also voiced his aspiration to enhance Jordanian exports to Georgia, encourage commercial exchange between the two countries, promote tourism and boost agricultural cooperation. Commercial exchange volume between Amman and Tbilisi in 2015 stood at around JD6.5 million.