Dubai firms look at US opportunities

Dubai: For the region's business leaders and investors, the current global crisis has thrown up opportunities in different ways.

Soud Ba'alawy, executive chairman of Dubai Group, and Samer Al Ansari, chief executive of Dubai International Capital, believe that amid the credit crisis and declining stock markets, there are prospects both domestically and internationally.

DIC was looking to turn its attention back to Europe and United States as valuations were beginning to look better, although there was still some room for assets to bottom out, Al Ansari said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Dubai on Saturday.

Ba'alawy said at a press conference at the Forum that the region's investment banks present a good investment choice - they have good liquidity and are regulated by the central banks.

But most of them are 80 per cent down in terms of pricing. Other finance experts at the WEF said that next week's G20 meeting in Washington on the financial crisis and coming into office of a new US president will provide fresh impetus for reshaping the international financial architecture.

With inputs from Reuters