Performance dividend. Live now to our middle east Business Correspondent sameer hashmi. Samir, Rhe Saudi State remains overwhelmingly aramco s biggest shareholder, so they remain the big winner in the aramco story. Well, thats right. They own around 90 of the company and the payout, the bulk of it, will go to the saudi government. If you look at aramco, every quarter they have been paying about 19. 8 billion of dividend. This time they have added another amount to that amount, because they said the cash flows are healthy and thatis said the cash flows are healthy and that is why they have decided to increase that overall dividend, which will be beneficial for the saudi government because it relies heavily on the Aramco Generating revenues for it, and that will help them in their Oil Diversification programme. They are these mega infrastructure projects, new tourist destinations. All this is being done keeping in that oil demand will decrease in years to come and they will have to come
to the new world, it wasn t really keeping up with lots of the most competitive countries, above all the united states and wasn t adjusting and it was very heavily reliant on that cheap gas for its energy. now with energy costs in germany, even after the sharp downturn that we have seen over the winter months and into the spring, they are just finding that they are very uncompetitive, particularly in sectors like petrochemicals. you add to that this problem with construction because of the housing downturn and also because businesses are not investing in structures in germany because they feel that germany because they feel that germany is a place for manufacturing is perhaps not the best place to be in the future. i think there is good reason to be concerned with the long term future. just
prices falling a penny. national average now $3.14 a gallon. mortgage rates have slipped, they re still much higher than a year ago. housing prices remain high in many parts of country. what s the outlook for both buyers and sellers heading into the new year? we have the expert for this, ceo of the real estate firm brown harris stevens a company with 3,000 agents in florida, new york, new jersey and connecticut. so nice to see you this morning. good morning, christine. great to see you. a gut check. we re talking about the housing downturn. only place in the economy you can really see the higher mortgage rates defentively working. but prices are still rising in many cases. they re not falling outright. it s sales that are falling. what s happening here? i think what we re seeing in some areas, and remember all real estate is so local, is that there is a lot of demand in some places, like in palm beach and certain areas of connecticut, and therefore the supply is tight and the p