“阿拉伯之春”尚未释放外国投资热情

    不少投资者都在关注“阿拉伯之春”（即去年12月份由突尼斯一个小贩为抗议警察暴力执法而自焚引发的抗议和革命浪潮），但他们认为它无碍大局。富兰克林邓普顿（Franklin Templeton）新兴市场投资大师马克•莫比尔斯长期看好中东经济。他认为，这场动荡只是中东地区迈向民主和自由市场过程中的一个“小小的颠簸”。

    其他投资界人士可没那么肯定。哈立德•阿布杜拉•玛济德在伦敦管理着一支专门投资北非国家的小型对冲基金，客户大部分是美国和欧洲的基金和捐赠基金。他说他的客户们现在比较紧张，因为他们在自己国内已经遭遇了太多麻烦。

    这些机构投资者担心后卡扎菲时代的利比亚会出现怎样的政府，担心埃及的大选和持续的暴乱。他们担心埃及境内的穆斯林与科普特基督徒之间以及沙特境内逊尼派和什叶派穆斯林之间的紧张对立。他们担心残暴的阿萨德政府还会在叙利亚延续多久，代价如何。他们担心伊朗的核武器，以及以色列可能的应对之策。

    “投资者现在没有冒险的欲望，而且我们所处的地区一向被视为一个充满风险的地方，”玛济德称。玛济德于2004年创立了其MENA Admiral基金，初始规模2,200万美元，2008年6月增至1.20亿美元。现在，他又回到了1,500万美元的规模。“就像是一个折返跑，”他说。

    事实上，自从2010年12月突尼斯抗议活动开始以来，海外资本就在撤离这个地区。道琼斯MENA指数（“MENA”是中东-北非的缩写，通常指阿拉伯国家，有时包括土耳其）已从2010年底的558点跌至今年3月460点的低点。最近，该指数徘徊在470点附近。标准普尔泛阿拉伯综合指数今年下跌约13%。这个地区内人口最多的国家——埃及的股市今年早些时候因暴乱而关闭了55天。埃及股市EGX 30指数今年已下跌约40%，从约7,000点跌到了目前的4,000点。11月底示威人群回到解放广场，抗议埃及军队在第一轮国会大选前开始强化控制力。在此之前，该指数一度稳定在4,500点左右。鲁比尼全球经济咨询公司（Roubini Global Economics）估计2009-2010财年仅60亿美元左右的埃及外国直接投资现已直线下跌了68%。

    A few investors look at the Arab Spring -- the wave of protest and revolution that began last December when a Tunisian street vendor set himself on fire to protest his harassment by police -- and don't see a particularly big deal. Franklin Templeton emerging markets guru Mark Mobius, a longtime bull on the economies of the Middle East, has called the tumult just a "bump" in the road towards more democracy and freer markets in the area.

    The rest of the investing world is not so sure. Khaled Abdel Majeed runs a small London-based hedge fund that invests in the countries of North Africa, and he says his clients, mostly U.S. and European pension funds and endowments with plenty of trouble in their home economies, are nervous.

    These institutional investors worry about what kind of post-Qaddafi government might emerge in Libya and about the elections and ongoing violence in Egypt. They worry about tensions between Muslims and Coptic Christians in Egypt and between Sunni and Shia Muslims in Saudi Arabia. They worry about the how long the brutal Assad government can hang on in Syria and at what cost. They worry about a nuclear Iran and what Israel may decide to do about it.

    "There is no appetite for risk and we are in a part of the world that has historically been thought of as risky," Majeed says. Majeed started his MENA Admiral fund in 2004 with $22 million and then built it up to $120 million by June 2008. Now he's down to $15 million. "It's been a round trip and then some," he says.

    Indeed, foreign capital has been fleeing the region since December 2010 when protests began in Tunisia. The Dow Jones MENA index ("MENA" is an acronym for Middle East-North Africa and usually means the Arab countries and sometimes Turkey) plummeted from 558 in late 2010 to a low of 460 in March. Lately it's been around 470. The S&P Pan Arab Composite Index is down about 13% on the year. The stock market of Egypt, the region's most populous country, was closed for 55 days during tumult there early this year. The EGX 30 stock index has fallen about 40% on the year from about 7000 to 4000 currently. The index had stabilized around 4500 before crowds returned to Tahrir Square late in November to protest moves by the Egyptian army to consolidate its control in advance of the first round of parliamentary elections. Roubini Global Economics estimates foreign direct investment in Egypt, only about $6 billion in the 2009-2010 fiscal year, has dropped by 68%.