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Gulf stock markets dive with oil price

Shares on Dubai’s DFM General Index slump 6.7 per cent during Sunday trading and have fallen 34 per cent since October

Business Staff
Monday 15 December 2014 01:26 GMT
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Dubai’s stock exchange yesterday suffered its biggest one-day drop since the global financial crisis in 2008 amid signs the Opec cartel of oil-producing countries could let the oil price fall another third to $40 a barrel.

Shares on Dubai’s DFM General Index slumped 6.7 per cent during Sunday trading and have fallen 34 per cent since October, erasing all the previous gains seen this year.

Qatar’s stock exchange, the QE Index, also fell 5.9 per cent, bringing its decline from its September record high to 23 per cent.

Suhail Al-Mazouei, energy minister of the United Arab Emirates, said Opec plans to stick with its decision not to cut output. “We are not going to change our minds because the prices went to $60 or to $40,” he said.

The plummeting oil price, down 45 per cent since June from above $100 to $60, is hard for traditional Opec producers but worse for producers of alternative energy such as shale gas and tar sands, which require high prices to pay for the costs of extraction.

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