Regional News

TUNIS / Reuters Tunisia will raise VAT and other taxes and lay off about 3,000 public sector workers next year in a bid to cut the budget deficit, an economic adviser to the prime minister said. Tunisia will also seek to raise 7.4 billion Tunisian dinars ($3 billion) from foreign loans including 1.4 billion dinars from the sale of bonds, ...

Bloomberg The latest battle for Iraq’s future is unfolding around the country’s oldest oil field. Federal government troops pushed back forces from the semi-autonomous Kurdish region with a rapid thrust into Kirkuk province in northern Iraq, breaking a stand-off over the long-disputed area. Baghdad wants to reassert control of the area’s oil deposits from Kurdish fighters, who seized the territory ...

Bloomberg Egypt plans to renew a $2 billion financing deal with international banks while also developing alternative sources of funding such as issuing dollar-denominated Eurobonds, Finance Minister Amr El-Garhy said. The repurchase transaction, which international banks offered to increase to $5 billion upon its extension, will remain unchanged in size and probably in duration, El-Garhy said, adding the final details ...

Bloomberg Oil demand will grow at a “healthy pace” over the next five years as renewables show the fastest expansion of any type of energy, the head of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said. Crude demand will climb an average 1.2 million barrels a day through 2022 and slow to 300,000 barrels a day in 2035 to 2040, OPEC ...

Bloomberg Crude extended gains from the highest close in two weeks as speculation mounted over potential output disruptions in a region that’s home to Iraq’s oldest producing oil fields. Futures in London rose as much as 1.7% after adding 2.8% last week. Iraqi soldiers seized facilities including a refinery after mobilizing to take fields near the northern city of Kirkuk ...

Bloomberg Saudi Arabia may cut energy subsidies more gradually and take longer to balance its budget, Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan said, as the kingdom seeks to soften the impact of its drive to repair public finances. The prices of some subsidized domestic energy products will rise to international levels later than previously envisaged, Al-Jadaan said in an interview in Washington. ...

Bloomberg It’s been a bad year for oil explorers in Norway’s Arctic: a record campaign in the Barents Sea yielded little; the most exciting well in years proved to be a flop; and Norwegians grew increasingly skeptical about the industry that made them rich. But companies led by Norway’s state-controlled Statoil ASA and Sweden’s Lundin Petroleum AB aren’t about to ...

Bloomberg To understand the implications of Brexit, it helps to go nuclear. Of all the international regulatory challenges created by the UK’s impending departure from the European Union, the atomic-energy industry may best encapsulate the decision’s bottom-line effect: more bureaucracy and costs for a country that has long fought to curb both within the EU. Untwining the UK from decades ...

Bloomberg Saudi Arabia is considering delaying the international portion of the giant initial public offering of its state oil company until at least 2019, according to people familiar with the situation, who said a domestic share sale in Riyadh could still happen next year. A two-stage Saudi Aramco IPO is one of several options being considered, the people said, asking ...

RIYADH / Reuters The $23 billion Riyadh Metro launched an auction on Sunday for private companies to name and advertise in select metro stops when the system opens in 2019, an initiative that could generate millions of dollars to help cover operational costs. Construction on the 176-kilometre (110 miles) metro began in 2014 after contracts were awarded to consortiums headed ...