UAE banks, Kuwait’s savings, Egyptian cafés

Reports this week echoed our concerns over the UAE’s banking sector, where non-performing loans were rising even before the onset of the coronavirus crisis. Elsewhere, Kuwait’s government is considering suspending the automatic transfer of some of its revenues to its Future Generations Fund reinforcing the idea that governments across the Gulf are no longer the large net savers that they were in the 2000s and the first half of the previous decade. Finally, the permanent curfew on cafés in Egypt after lockdowns end this weekend adds to worries over political repression in the country.