Arriving at New Heights

Amman Stock Exchange (ASE)'s index set a record high of 4020.5 and volumes broke their all time highs reaching JD178.2 million, while both AMI and ASMI settled at 322.22 and 438.11 up 8.75% and 2.76, respectively.

For the banking sector, Arab Bank (ARBK) signed an agreement with the Gulf Cement Company in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to finance a big portion of the company's AED370 million expansion project, as the bank will fund the project with 153 million. ARBK saw vigorous trading activity with 156,000 shares valued at JD33.222 million were traded, which gave the stock a boost to reach JD225 soaring 15%. Export & Finance Bank (EXFB) and Jordan Islamic Bank (JOIB) both jumped by 14% and 8% to settle at JD4.54 and JD2.90, respectively.

Finally, the case between Industrial Commercial & Agricultural (ICAG) and Unilever Company was settled after long negotiations between the two parties, where Unilever approved to compensate ICAG for its losses, in addition ICAG plants will be utilized to produce some of Unilver's products and promote them in Jordan as well as the region. This led the stock up 21% to close at JD1.21.

Investors paid attention to Specialized Investment Compounds (SPIC) since an agreement will be signed next week with the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector to finance the construction of 60,000 square meters of industrial structures to attract investors to the compounds city. The stock, which trade on a trailing P/E of 10.70x compared to a market sample's trailing P/E of 21.91x, landed at JD3.39. On the other hand, Ministry of Tourism released numbers that indicated a 13% increase in tourist arrivals in the first 9 months of 2004. Zara Investment, the biggest operating company in the tourism field with a capital of JD125 million, soared 9% to end the week at JD1.05.

Jordan Investment Board (JIB) announced that the value of projects that took advantage of the Investment Promotion Law (IPL) in the first 10 months of 2004 amounted JD376 million compared with JD239 million in the same period of a year earlier, translating an increase of 57%. In the meantime, 341 industrial projects exploited the IPL against 426 and 358 projects for the years 2003 and 2002, respectively. This is attributed to the decline in the growth rate of the industrial sector.