May 17: Developing Stories
SHANGHAI SURGE
A rally this year on the Shanghai Stock Exchange has been a boon to Saudi Arabia. The Public Investment Fund (PIF) bought 153,000 shares in 阿里巴巴集团 during the first quarter of 2024, profiting from the stock’s 24% jump during the period, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reports, citing disclosures by the PIF to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. By contrast, the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund reduced its portfolio of U.S. stocks by about half to $18 billion. “Investors have relinquished the wait-and-watch approach [for Chinese equities] in favor of building exposure on incremental signs of easing and wiped out the underweight allocation from prior months,†美国银行 strategists said in a note on Thursday, cited by the newspaper. The MSCI China Index has surged nearly 28% since a January low, restoring over $2 trillion of value to Chinese companies listed on the mainland, in Hong Kong and New York, according to Bloomberg data.?
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BACK TO AFRICA
Emirates will resume flights to Nigeria in October after resolving problems with the repatriation of ticket sales revenue to the UAE that led to the route’s suspension in 2022. Nigeria has ranked as the top country worldwide for withholding revenue from international airlines as demand for foreign currency has outpaced supply and its banks have not been able to service currency repatriations, The National reports, citing data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) . It’s not alone. As of January, the amount of blocked airline payments in Africa and the Middle East stood at $1.8 billion. With the resumption of operations to Lagos, Nigeria’s biggest city, Emirates will run 19 routes to Africa, with 157 weekly flights from Dubai.