Modi to visit UAE, skipping the rest of the Gulf, as part of five-country tour

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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to arrive in the UAE today in what will be the first stop of a five-nation tour. Modi will later head to the Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, and Norway. The UAE is the only Gulf stop, and the visit comes as higher oil prices, shipping disruption, and pressure on India's FX buffers weigh on India’s economy.

An IMF mission to Cairo kicked off the combined seventh and eighth reviews of the country’s economic reform program on Wednesday, over a month earlier than previously anticipated, a senior Egyptian official told our Egypt desk. Egypt is looking at a USD 3.3 bn disbursement if it passes the combined review.

The backdrop: The Egyptian government has been working to demonstrate to the IMF that a specific set of policy shifts — including on state ownership and energy pricing — will outlast the loan program itself.

Also worth a moment of your time this morning: Our friend Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair, wearing his hat as head of the UAE Federation of Banks, is the latest senior Emirati leader to signal that however things suck right now, (a) the economy isn’t in horrible shape just yet and (b) most of us have been through much worse.

His argument: Banks just turned in record earnings for 1Q despite taking a hit from the war — and only 65k clients across all UAE banks took advantage of a UAE central bank relief program, compared with some 1.5 mn during the pandemic. And at a little over AED 6 bn, the total value of the relief program this time around is about 3% of the covid-era package, he pointed out.

The summer season salvation some had hoped would come for Lebanon’s struggling tourism industry is increasingly looking out of reach, as occupancy levels and arrivals continued to flatline ahead of the highly anticipated Eid Al Adha season. There are no signs of recovery for the Eid season, with hotel occupancies still hovering at 8% or less depending on the area, Pierre Achkar, head of the Lebanese Hotel Owners Association, said in remarks widely picked up by the Lebanese press.

Why this matters: The lackluster recovery deals a blow to the industry’s hopes that the normalization of regional flights would spur just enough demand to keep establishments afloat, as we previously reported. It is another sign that the sector’s recovery mostly hinges on the improvement of the security situation as Israel continued to strike Southern Lebanon and Beirut despite a purported ceasefire.