A study by human resources consulting firm Mercer revealed that a vast majority of companies across the GCC aim to achieve higher or similar growth this year compared to 2008. Of these, 52 per cent have higher targets than 2008. And 94 per cent of these companies have real confidence that these targets will be met.

The global economic situation is still getting worse, but the pace of the decline should start to slow, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said. “As for whether we’ve hit bottom, I hope so in terms of financial markets,” Zoellick told journalists after a meeting with Nordic and Baltic central bankers. “I believe globally we are likely to see the rate of decline lessen.”

Islamic finance needs to address its over-reliance on real estate and the lack of a robust money market which puts the industry at risk, a top Malaysian central bank official said. Islamic financial markets were billed as a safe and moderate alternative as conventional banks plunged into a crisis, but a slump in property prices in the Middle East has hit some Shariah financial institutions.

Tentative hopes that the world economic crisis was easing took a new hit when Switzerland's largest bank UBS posted a quarterly loss of $1.7 billion and said it would axe thousands more jobs. In the United States, US consumer prices fell unexpectedly in March as slumping demand pushed down energy and food costs, showing that the world's biggest economy was still deep in recession despite US President Barack Obama's assertion that his remedies were starting to work.

WASHINGTON: Financial security might not be enough to ensure happiness or satisfaction with one's life, according to Talya Miron-Shatz, postdoctoral research fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. Contrary to expectations, many of those with plenty of money by conventional standards, are unhappy suggesting that there is more at play in obtaining peace of mind than simply having cash.

Twenty years from now, will Americans light their homes with solar power or wind? Plug their cars into an electric grid? Replace oil-based petroleum from the Middle East with bio-fuels made from algae? Entrepreneurs and venture capitalists at the recent Wharton Entrepreneurship Conference agreed that changes in the energy marketplace are inevitable, although there was some disagreement about the pace.

Gulf countries must start publishing timely and detailed economic data to convince investors alarmed by weak oil prices and the global financial crisis that they are still prime targets for investment. Some Gulf Arab states have not released economic growth data for 2007, let alone late 2008, a situation investors find increasingly unacceptable in such uncertain times.

Saudi Arabia, the Arab world’s largest economy, may record a budget deficit of $30bn this year, HSBC Holdings said, almost twice that of the government’s December estimate. The kingdom will record the same shortfall next year as well, Simon Williams, a Dubai-based economist at HSBC, said.

KUWAIT: Overall net profits of Kuwaiti firms listed on the Kuwait Stock exchange plummeted by more than 90 percent last year due to the global economic meltdown, an economic study said.

Doha: Qatar is the only GCC economy that promises to grow this year amid the global economic turbulence, a senior Standard Chartered economist has said.

The Kingdom-based global investment and asset management group, Investcorp said its full-year profits to June slumped by half when compared to the fiscal 2007, as the global credit crisis hit its deal volumes and investment returns.

DUBAI: Oman's annual inflation rate fell for a fourth month to 6.9 percent in March, its lowest level in 19 months, as food and housing cost pressures eased and growth in money supply fell, official data showed.