Middle East Lending offsets Russian and African gloom

摘要

A steady flow of borrowing in the Middle East in the first half helped to offset the lack of activity in the Russian loan market, which has now been in the doldrums for two years, and in Africa, where lending to oil-dependent countries has been cut. Gulf sovereign borrowers and financial institutions have been seeking funds from either the international bond or loan markets to plug budget deficits opened up by the decline in crude oil prices. Saudi arabia secured a US$10bn five-year bank loan, the government's first significant foreign borrowing for over a decade, following on from the government of oman's US$1bn loan that signed earlier in the year.