Transcripts For BLOOMBERG Bloomberg Markets Middle East 20170312

In london and midday in hong kong. This is Bloomberg Markets middle east. Lets start with how markets closed in the u. S. On friday. We had a big day on friday thanks to the payroll report coming in at 235,000 jobs. Put all the major indexes in the green. 33 and the russell 0. 38 percent. It should give you some indication of the optimism taking place in markets. Here in the middle east we are two hours away run the opening of the emirates market, dubai and abu dhabi. Theyntrast to the u. S. , had a bit of a rough close. All three of those indices down last week. A lot of optimism around oil and into this to feed equity prices. A different story elsewhere in the region. Egypt almost up 1 . A good end of the week for catch our. Quatar. Talk about bitcoin. We had a major decision from the u. S. Securities regulator about the proposed bitcoin etfs. Take a look at this chart. You can see the timeline of the proposal of this bitcoin etf in the summer of 2013 at a now we have the decision to reject the etf proposal that has since the bitcoin prices down 18 . A lot of has in this amend the market about whether or not we bitcoin other etf related offerings in the works decision. This sec lets check in on the first word headlines from around the world. Formerld Trumps National security adviser Michael Flynn a knowledge to that he worked as a Foreign Agent representing the interests of the turkish government during the Election Campaign last year. This according to a report by the new york times. A turkished by american businessman with links in and kara. The white house says President Trump did not know. Invitedt trump has Mahmoud Abbas to washington. He stressed his attempts for a Peace Process between israelis and palestinians. Ansays he is committed to establishment of a caliphate city and state alongside israel. Prime minister Narendra Modi has secured his place as indias most influential leader in more than three decades after his party won a majority in hr pradesh. Uttar tos victory allows the bjp push forward its reform agenda. Global news 24 hours a day powered by more than 2600 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. This is bloomberg. Tracy back to our top story. President donald trump has fired bhararan attorney after he refused to leave. Of how expected this was. We do have a Jeff Sessions asking 46 attorneys to resign. Did people respect expect him to be one of them. They did not expect him to be one of the attorneys that had to resign. It was not expected that they would ask this many to resign at once and tendered their resignations and leave the office by midnight. What was surprising with bharara who it said in november that he had met with donald trump as well as a Jeff Sessions and they told him that were going to keep him on. Tracy he developed a reputation for being tough on wall street. Since donald won the election, we have seen ranking stocks up and talk about rolling back doddfrank, what does this mean for the Financial Sector . Is remains to be seen. Number of investigations are ongoing into various of things such as a Deutsche Bank and potential Money Laundering regarding russia. It will take some time to see whether or not those investigations are impacted in any way from being run by career prosecutors. Whether donald trump will appoint someone that he wants to see in office. Been off to ahas mixed dark in terms of his relationship with the Judiciary Branch and the Enforcement Branch of the u. S. , what does this mean for that relationship . It means is that this continues to be very tense although this was a big move to essentially wipe out any obama remnants in those top ranks that may or may not have been getting in the way of what he wanted to do. Of i think it might depend on who disappointed to those offices. In the past we see a lot of career people put into those thoughts people who may not be extremely political but from what im seeing it is going to depend on who this people are. Bloombergs Tom Schoenberg sending us the latest. We are going to stick with trump now because we have the first full sets of jobs numbers under the trump administration. Upsaw jobs increasing 235,000 which means we now get the tugofwar as he will debate whether this is about trump or an obama legacy. Thes take a look at what National Economic Council Director had to say. He said he is optimistic about growth in the u. S. And is confident of surpassing the gdp target. The trumphat administration has said the very realistic economic projections. I think we havent freely a fairly easy answer. Today is our 50 day halftime. Seven weeks ago today was inoculation. In the first 50 days we have had an enormous amount of ceo traffic into the white house. We have had a big announcements from ceos weather is than the automobile manufacturers or intel. Bringingilding, manufacturing back into the nine states. Those jobs are not in these numbers. Those jobs will come in the future. We think there is enormous demand for American Workers just from what we are seeing from the ceos coming into the white house. That is going to grow demand for workers and those workers will grow demand for other workers. It will be an enormous trickle down. We are excited about the job prospects in america. You have the benefit of talking to the ceos, you have various people in place, based on that and putting together a budget, what sort of growth projections are you building in . We are very optimistic on growth. The one thing we are going to do in the white house is a we are going to set very realistic growth projections. We have looked back at all of the prior administrations in the beginning and saw what they put out for gdp forecast and none of them got close to beating their gdp projections. To put out gdp projections that we think we can not only meet but beat. We would rather underpromise and then overdeliver underpromise and overdeliver. Seeing the activity we have seen from all the ceos we have engaged with and were going to be rolling back regulation and bringing back new tax policy, we are very optimistic about the gdp growth we think is coming. Look at walt disney company, you want to overpromise and under deliver, but if you look at the projections for gdp growth it is something in the , do you expecte something materially better than that . We are already in the middle of this year. In moving the 2. 32. 4 projection higher, it is going to be cuffed to move that higher. We will like to outperform the 2. 32. 4 projection for this year. As we grow over the next year or two, we will expand on that number as we get tax reform done in the second half of this year, as we continue to get the jobs created from the Companies Said that committed job growth in the future. We think growing the gdp ford is going to be relatively in line with our projections. Our projections are coopted like cautiously optimistic. This year is starting to be where we will outperform. Nracey that was gary coh talking about u. S. Plans for economic growth. Withwe will be sticking politics. There is lots to talk about. We will have alastair campbell, the downing street press secretary under tony blair. Talking brexit, european populism a to the goings on in the sea d. C. This is bloomberg. Tracey the diplomatic row between turkey and the netherlands is escalating. On thursday, president erdogan close to dutch access to a plane waser his grounded. And he stirred up controversy by calling the touch fascists. Our foreigntop ministers plane all you want, lets see how your planes will come to turkey from now on. Im talking about the diplomacy here, not about this and travels. We will a valuate all of these accordingly. Citizens about travels. These nazi remnants are fascists. Tracey its the second time in over a week since erdogan has th european leaders. We are joined by the former chief of the government of tony blair. We started with that clip of erdogan because it is indicative of the wave of populism that is gathering speed not in europe only but around the world. When you look at that nationalist backlash, especially in your own country, what you think is the reason behind it . It is complicated. If i had to pick one thing that happened, i think this partly explains trump and partly explains rex it, the financial crisis happened, a lot of people ed itthat those who caus are just carrying on regardless and the people have paid a price. There may be some truth in that. What politicians like trump have done and what erdogan is trying to do their and what brexit in thiseferendum is is ability to exploit anger and isn it into the reason not what drives you, it is anger and emotion. Tracey why hasnt the labour party been able to tap into that anger as much . The labour party in a sense is not managed to adapt to the changes that have gone on and also we have elected a leader who is very much about looking backwards in most peoples minds rather than looking forward to different sort of politics. I think it is difficult to be in politics right now. I think that if you look at ,omething like brexit and trump if you look at the arguments in brexit, it is hard to work out why did that happen. But as you look at the answers, there are a lot more about emotion and people having a sense of something that they want that they cant quite get. Didrwise would trump things and said things that in most campaigns into this countries, he would have been finished, that he wasnt tapping into the emotions and the anger of a certain section of the population. This thing about anger is a difficult to deal with. In a sense of that is what erdogan is a doing. Explains why the dutch made the decision they made in the first place. They are trying to capitalism globalism. Sm with it is complicated, this stuff. I think you are right it is a global thing. It also coincides with a decline in deference for little leaders anyway political leaders anyway and it has the effect of people looking for these strong man leaders. He is thriving on the idea of being a strong man. He looks at putin with a weird a chelsea but also because putin has been able to get control of his country. Tracey we cant have you on without asking about scotland. Potentialg about the for another Scottish Referendum on independence. Have Nicola Sturgeon telling the bbc there could be another vote. Again there are all sorts of unintended consequences of bre xit. I will say we are not totally opposed to brexit. Two of the unintended consequences i worry about is it could affect the total makeup of the United Kingdom including scotland and ireland. If you look at the end economic after the economic case for independence, it is got weaker since the last referendum but that might not be the deciding factor. I was born in england but im scottish and my family is garbage, my background is scottish. I am passionately in favor of the United Kingdom but im also passionately in favor of the United Kingdom being in the European Union. That sense of scotland having a fairly good majority while land has voted to come out a fairly good majority to stay in all england has voted to come out at the moment you cant predict what is going to happen. Has put theit future of the United Kingdom at risk. No one has explained to me how you can have the u. K. Come out of the European Union, Northern Island Northern Ireland becomes a land border but it cant be done without bringing back borders. Tracey hold that slightly concerning thought for a second. With mr. Ave more campbell coming up. Well be talking about donald trump, more on the rise of populism. This is bloomberg. Tracey Jpmorgan Chase a gaming diamond told Jamie Bloomberg if only some of trump s proposals are inactive, they will be good for business. Look at the policies, the tweaks, look at the people on the ground, they are top professionals. Serious people with deep knowledge and courage, and their mission is to have a growth agenda and that agenda is to reduce Corporate Tax is, building better interest richer, reducing some of the Regulatory Regime that holds the back growth. I think the growth agenda is good for all americans. Business confidence has a jumped a lot. Probably because of the probe growth agenda. Tracey do you have any doubt that he will be able to follow through . I have been watching politicians for years, the republicans have the house, the senate, and governorships, they have a better chance of getting those things done. Thee on the a for you euphoria from programs and business is that they have to get this done. Everyone wants a good the republicans are against wasting money. People are looking at the Regulatory Regime and make sure it is conducive to growth. Questionhat is the one you get asked by your clients . How come you want take our deposits . How come the cost rico is so high . It is mostly around the new administration. That is traditional. You have a change in leadership. People will both be concerned and interested. Tracey that was a Jpmorgan Ceo Jamie Dimon talking about the prospect for growth under donald trump. Speaking of trump, we have the former u. K. Secretary for tony. Lairs government im curious to hear your thoughts with it comes to trump about his relationship with the media. You have the of experience in that area. How would you characterize trump s first relationship with u. S. Journalists . Recently i saw a story where there was a bit of a crackdown on the media in cambodia and their defense was trump is attacking the media. The president of america is a Global Leader and i cant decide whether it is a really thought through strategy which is designed to now that you think about the strongman leader undermine every other source of information and opinion and s become what people listen to and relate to or he is blundering into it through the nature of the campaign. It is an interesting thing. Some really tough exchanges with parts of our media but i think he is taken it to a completely different level. That report you have about jamie dimon, if jamie dimon has said the economy was not going well and your headline was of the economy is taking under trump, it is fake news. If you are not reporting something he does not want to hear, you are line. I think steve bannon saying were going to hit the media wery day, that is something are getting used to. Its not something so far removed from what erdogan has a dumb with the media and what they do to journalist in far less aar more democratic than america. Tracey if you were in downing street right now, what would you advise theresa may in terms of the timing of triggering article 50 . Not in downing street, im not advising theresa may and i think the course she is taking, this very hard brexit, is going to be a catastrophe for britain. You have got to think of how you reach a position when you can allow the British Public to have another look at this because of the course were going down regardless of what she does or when she does it, we are setting yearse a train of two of the most complicated negotiations at a time when the rest of the European Union is looking on and saying listen, these guys are messing us around so much. It is going to be very tough and she has chosen that path. I dont know why but she has chosen this very hard brexit route regardless of the cost to the economy. Tracey what are the chances of that the u. K. Does a full brexit . I think the chances are very high. The Prime Minister is a determined to get this hard brexit. I think it is going to be terrible. Tracey that was alastair campbell. Coming up, we will be talking about the price of oil. Tracey welcome back. Lets get you a check of the first word headlines from around the world. Here is dudley humphrey. Thanks, tracey. President trump has fired the manhattan u. S. Attorney after he refused to resign from his post. He was seen as wall streets top enforcer and also is handling several high profile cases. He refused to step down after he and 45 other appointed obama u. S. Attorneys were asked to resign by attorney general Jeff Sessions. Bharara was widely praised by democrats and republicans for aggressively prosecuting corruption in new york. The diplomatic row between turkey and the netherlands has escalated with turkish protesters clashing with dutch police in rotterdam on saturday. President erdogan closed access to dutch diplomatic posts in ankara and istanbul after his Foreign Ministers plane was prevented from landing in the netherlands so he could attend a political rally for turks. He has stood off controversy by calling the dutch fascist. You can stop our Foreign Ministers plane all you want. Lets see how your planes will come to turkey from now on. Of course im talking about the diplomacy here not about citizens travels. Its another issue. We will evaluate all thoof of these accordingly. They are so shaky and cowardly. These nazi remnants, they are fascists. We should know this. A syrian man living in wisconsin has won a temporary exemption from President Trumps new travel ban in what may be the first defeat for the administration after revising its immigration restrictions. A district judge said he allowed the man to apply for asylum for his family in aleppo because he is at great risk of suffering harm if the request is denied. The judge said the risk of harm to the mans family outweighed the governments argument that the travel restrictions may not ven apply to them. The price plummeted after u. S. Regulators rejectd proposal for a publicly traded fund based on the digital currency. The rejection of the e. T. F. Dashed hopes that a government approval would lead to wider interest in virtual money. The decision ended the months long rally that pushed the virtual moneys value higher than gold. The brothers have vowed to continue working with the s. E. C. To make bitcoin a reality. Global news 24 hours a day powered by more than 2600 journalists and analysts in more than 120 countries. This is bloomberg. Tracey . Tracey thanks so much. Bringing us a little bit of bitcoin there. Well, lets talk about oil. Because crude capped the biggest weekly loss since november after surging u. S. Supplies erased three months of gains from opecs output cuts. Anthony, it was a terrible week for crude. Exactly what are the factors that are actually driving the market right now . Anthony as you said, it was the supply. Thats one of the big factors there. Opec has decided to cut back for this First Six Months of the year. Theyre trying to draw the extra supply off of the market. What they did in doing those coordinated cuts with countries like russia and 10 others, is that when they took supply off the market they brought the price back up and that gave shale producers in the u. S. Some impetus to produce more barrels. Thats come back on. Opec stated their aim was to reduce the inventories, the stockpiles that are also weighing on the price and we saw those numbers get back up to record levels last week according to u. S. Data. Those are really the count veiling factors. Tracey lets dwell on shale for a second. I do have the chart which shows the latest u. S. Count surging for the eighth consecutive week. And of course that is pushing up total u. S. Crude production which is the purple bars in the chart right there. As you point out, anthony, this wasnt unexpected, right . These are the questions that were being asked of opec before we got the production agreement. Wont this bring u. S. Shale producers back into the mix . What exactly went wrong here . What is the balance between opec and u. S. Shale . Anthony i think opec said in the beginning that shale wouldnt rush back into the market. Saying it would take those producers longer to ramp up production. What weve seen in the intervening two years since opec started this kind of battle to get back their market share, the shale producers reduced costs. So as oil came up marginally, and those costs came down, the shale producers were able to ramp up much more quickly and start hedging and kind of lock in some of those gains to get them back to the market. As you said weve seen again record u. S. Production. Record u. S. Rig counts and record stockpiles. So the calculus there was that by bringing the price up in the immediate term but opec saying the deal is only going to last six months, they would keep the future price lower and that would induce people to take oil out of storage. Tracey right. All right. Those were sort of the high level factors in the market right now. What is driving prices in the immediate past few days . Because we did see that big drop, which, you know, all of these things have been happening for a while. Why suddenly the price dropped this week . Anthony there was a big conference in houston. I think prices were very susceptible to what people were saying in terms of the sentiment and how we were going to move ahead in terms of opec, nonopec coordination, plus there was that big news about the stockpiles rising to records. Opec was in the united states, russia was in the united states. All eyes were focused there. Then you saw very bullish data out of the u. S. In terms of how the u. S. Industry is doing. You saw that coming out of the u. S. And i think it really weighed on the prices last week bringing us down to the levels below 50 for the first time this year. Tracey all right. Anthony stays with us and muhammad now is alhaj. We were just talking about oil. As an equities strategist you keep an eye on it, too. Let me ask you the tough question. If the opec production agreement was about keeping a floor under the oil price and we now have w. T. I. At 458 barrel 48 a barrel does that mean opec has failed . We dont think opec has failed. I dont think the shale production uptick was a surprise. Our view is oil would remain lower longer and fiscal reforms remain in place. So it is not really about oil anymore but the governments ability to diversify the economy away from oil. I think opec is no longer the shale producer. Unless you get an agreement where the shale producers are part of it i dont think the supply glut will go anywhere any time soon. Longer term that would depend on Global Demand growth and whether what youve seen over the last two years will impact Oil Production going forward. In the meantime for this year we dont think oil is going anywhere. Anthony perhaps it is too early to say opecs plan was a failure. Mohamed yes. Anthony if if they do see the prospect of the rising shale and say were not going to extend the agreement for six months but end the agreement now what message would that send to the market in terms of the future of the oil price . Youd have perhaps the count veiling factors of morrow peck production or more production on the market but if we see a lower price does that take more shale off the market . How do you see an end to the deal . Mohamed i dont think there would be really an answer. They will leave it up to supply and demand as the saudis said initially. Basically it will be, you know, the oil prices go back down again if the output from opec comes to an end, shale production and counts fall back in the u. S. , shale producers, until they become more cost proficientt and can produce even at the lower level of oil prices, at some point you might find balance and have the longer term plan worked out by the oil majors come into play where production kind of slows down and that balances itself out. I tng would be a free oil market. I dont think there is an Oil Swing Producer in the market at the moment so unless everyone comes to one single table doint think anyone can control the oil price. Tracey if we have oil prices that are lower for longer that probably makes break Even Oil Prices more important when it comes to investing in the region. Who has the lowest break even . Who do you think would be best at weathering this particular down turn in the commodity cycle . Mohamed its good you mentioned that. One is kuwait, which is an under owned market. It has the lowest budget break even. It hasnt spent in years and spending levels remain well below its gtc peers. I think it is one of the key markets to keep an eye on at the moment because this is a market where fiscally they are very comfortable. Externally theyre comfortable. I think if they have just some Capital Spending that could add some growth to that economy and the stock market becomes very interesting. Anthony youre talking about the markets here. Weve got the dollar likely going to be strengthening you would expect on Interest Rate rises which are expected this year. That would we fectively make oil more expensive for people that are not getting dollars. At the same time that maybe puts some additional pressures on the markets here. So how do you see the markets here reacting to a rise in the dollar price perhaps lower consumption hurts them, perhaps an Interest Rate that is not ripe for the economy . Mohamed rising rates and stronger dollar is a key ssumption for this year. The trade and aviation hub could be the most impacted because it the most correlated to emerging markets. It benefits and flows from emerging markets with currencies not backed by the dollar. We think the market will suffer from less foreign inflows into the. I think governments will react by raising rates as well so that will put a liquidity squeeze on some of the markets. We think low e. M. Correlations, uncorrelated markets are better off. Markets like kuwait or egypt we like, for example, where the dollar dynamic is important but not as important as in countries like the u. E. Or even saudi arabia. Tracey mohamed, one of the most exciting stories right now in both oil markets and the equity market in the region is of course saudi aramco and your company did an interesting poll recently about the potential valuation of the oil giant. You said it might be worth no more or excuse me your survey responded saying it may be worth no more than 1. 5 trillion which would be below the kingdoms basic 2 trillion estimate. Walk us through the idea there. Mohamed we had the Conference Last Week and did the survey off a number of questions people are interested in. Theres been a lot of chatter about how much is it worth and the ipo. Obviously this is not my area of expertise but i think, you know, the aramco valuation will depend on the tax level saudi arabia will have on the oil and form pany and also what it will take. Will it be oil and gas only or other developments . I think it is too early to answer that question but all of these changes and obviously the flow into the ipo would be important in determining the valuation. Tracey right. Anthony weve been hearing for years about countries here trying to develop bond markets and get more foreign capital into the markets to help finance. You mentioned that some of those finances of some of the countries were getting squeezed. We need to bring down the break even levels. Maybe getting the capital in is a way to do that. With the Interest Rate format changing now, how do you see markets reacting . Do you see them bringing in more funding to try to finance more projects . Which markets are you looking at for that to happen more quickly . It med one key assumption, gives you an Interest Rate that wont impact currency. I think it is still attractive for a lot of people in these markets, yields, especially the gcr much higher than developed markets. With the banks yielding 7 i think it is an attractive region to invest in and on the project financing side as well. Tracey we have to leave it there. Thank you for talking oil to us like you do almost every week. And moled al hajj, thank you so much for joining us. Much appreciated. Coming up next we have our guest who built the mall of egypt, with a cinema, ski slope, and high end brand but will the shoppers come to visit . Well talk about that next. This is bloomberg. Tracey we are talking egypt and the Retail Sector specifically and before we begin i want to point out a certain chart. Its this one. We have inflation surging to 30 . That is urban prices. Urban inflation surging 30 after egypt opted to float the pound back in november. That is obviously putting pressure on various retailers. Speaking of the Retail Sector, right now we have a very big name in the Retail Sector. We have the c. E. O. Of Majid Al Futtaim joining us now. Thank you so much. Thank you. Tracey when you look at a chart like that do you get nervous about opening a megamall in egypt . No. Tracey why not . Weve been in egypt now for almost 20 years so it is not the first time that we go through a situation like the current one. Egypt has a lot to offer and of course it is going through very difficult times and some serious challenges. If i look at egypt today and the outlook i think we are at the end. We start to see the end of the tunnel. I think in 2016 and early 2020 egypt has had very Good Progress on very important Structural Reforms. Of course, you point out the inflation which is absolutely true but this is a result of floating the currency. I think in the coming year in 2017 this will start to offset itself. On the other side i think the important Structural Reforms have taken place although it it is actually a step in the right direction. Very tough steps. Youre talking about cutting subsidy, fiscal conservation, talking about floating the currency. These are very tough steps. And if you look at the market, also being the Financial Markets when you look at the floating sorry the issuance that the Egyptian Government did in january, it was a sign of confidence and i think that the egyptian economy is arting to actually show some good, positive side. Of course investments like ours in egypt are extremely important. We are one of the largest investors in the construction and Retail Sectors. This has a very big impact on the global economy. Tracey alain, youre on the ground in egypt. Give us some color on what youre seeing in terms of consumer demand right now. Are domestic consumers recovering now . Are you seeing interest from foreign consumers who might be visiting the country . Alain egypt has a very deep consumer segment and very deep consumer demand. The reality is there is still growth in consumer demand. This being said there is a change of pattern of consumption that has been compacted by the last two years. Thats absolutely true. This also has been impacted by the change in the offering in the market given the restrictions on import that were there primarily by the lack of foreign currency. So i would say that the consumer demand is still good. Were seeing more and more tourism coming into egypt. I think in the last month weve seen some very good news in that respect. So over all were positive on that. Tracey and setting egypt aside for one second, when you look at the region and you look at potential areas for growth, what catches your eye . Alain well, we look very closely on we still believe there is a lot of growth potentially in egypt as well. As you know, Majid Al Futtaim is growing in the region, growing and getting deeper in our local markets but also growing in east africa, kenya, so there is still room for growth in our current markets but also in some additions. Tracey hold the thought about africa. I am going to follow up on that. First, coming up, just over an hour to go before the open of the markets here in the emirates. Well get you a preview of what to expect and zr more from the c. E. O. Of Majid Al Futtaim coming up next. This is bloomberg. Tracey welcome back to Bloomberg Markets middle east. Lets zero in on this part of the world and get a market update. You know, weve been talking about oil. Weve been talking about the fed all through the show. A pretty big week for the regions equities, right . Even though the action isnt necessarily happening just here. Definitely, tracey. Its interesting that we had a very bad day for saudi stocks last week and that was exactly the day when we had Oil Prices Going very bad in a direction that no one was expecting so fast. So anything related to oil prices and any development in conversations this week tend to have an impact in saudi and mostly we have always to consider that this is a market that is retail driven. We have seen a disconnection between the correlation between oil prices and saudi stocks since the dollar bonds last year. We had basically almost six months off the trading not exactly in line with oil prices but, still, they are the biggest exporter globally. Anything that is very bad or any kind of tension that comes from oil prices tend to impact. Tracey are the investors and traders that you talked to expecting a volatile week . Felipe definitely. Most people it is hard to come up with a clear idea of where we are going to especially in saudi at this moment because it as market we dont have a lot of development in different firms that would actually be catalysts for stocks. One interesting point in saudi is that we had a story last week talking about a potential issue of bonds in the local market and that was something that had an impact in stocks off the Financial Sector there. Because that could drain liquidity from banks. We saw reaction in banking stocks. Tracey all right. Felipe, hold that thought, please. We are going to widen out our conversation because still with us is the c. E. O. Of Majid Al Futtaim. Alain, we were just talking about financing there across the gulf. Youve been tapping markets, selling 500 million worth of bonds quite recently i believe and actually got 1. 8 billion worth of orders for those. Alain absolutely. Tracey a lot of demand out there. Where are you looking at for funding for future expansion . More bond sales . Alain we continue to fund ourselves to tap into the markets when we see that there is an opportunity and this is what we did about 10 days ago. We issued a 500 million hybrid. Its a testimony to the market but also to the strength of Majid Al Futtaim as a brand and our business model. So we had very good it was the right time. We had very good terms. We are very happy about it. Felipe how do you see the evolution of the local market in terms of im always looking at stocks in the region as a whole and for example in saudi we have consumer stock that is being majorly hit considering everything thats happening in the country now. How do you see the stock markets for Retail Companies in the region . Alain i think what weve been witnessing in the past two years and what youre currently seeing on the equity markets is that, is a result of the disturbance thats happened in the market primarily driven by the commodities prices as well as the strong dollar. And what you just pointed to actually is a testimony of that. We are entering into a phase where some of the very important structure reforms that happened are now put in place and actually now are happening. This has an impact on the markets. But this also had an impact on consumer confidence, on spending, so on and so forth. I think what we are going to see by the end of 2017, early 2018 is actually the things will actually get better because the outflow is going to get better. I think the region would have to take 2016, 2017 to really adapt to a new reality. This is more or less where they are as well as governments in this part of the world have sorted out clear direction for funding requirements and Structural Reforms. Tracey whenever we have these sort of turns in the cycle we always get rumors about consolidation. Weve had some rumors in the Retail Sector. Or instance weve heard that jaont might be up for sale. Would you be interested in acquisition snst alain we always look at opportunities but i dont have anything specific that i can mention today. Tracey all right. Thank you so much for joining us today. A fascinating discussion about the future of retail. Now, very quickly, before we go, wed like to bring up a new feature on the bloomberg. It is of course our interactive tv function. Find it at tv go. Youll not only be able to watch us live but you can also see previous interviews, dive into any of the securities or charts that we mention, you can also become part of the conversation by sending us instant messages during the show. Thats for bloomberg subscribers only. But its very cool. Check it out at tv go. At is it for this edition of Bloomberg Markets middle east. This is bloomberg. 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