Regional News

  Bloomberg Libya’s UN-backed government is under mounting pressure to devalue its currency, joining other energy producers from Nigeria to Kazakhstan that have buckled in the face of tumbling revenue and domestic turmoil. The dinar has been steadily weakening on the black market over the past year as the nation’s political rifts thwarted a recovery in oil output. It hit ...

  JUBA / AP South Sudan’s government has accepted with “no conditions” increase the peacekeeping force in the country as mandated by the U.N. Security Council in August, Minister of Cabinet Affairs Martin Lomuro told the Associated Press on Saturday. “I expect them arrive at any time. The challenge is now on the U.N. to implement and fulfill their promises,” ...

  Bloomberg Egypt may seek to raise as much as $6 billion from international bond sales through 2017, though the first issuance may be delayed due to market “volatility” after the election of Donald Trump, Finance Minister Amr El-Garhy said. The government is still weighing whether to tap markets next week, El-Garhy said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in ...

  KHOBAR / Reuters Saudi Arabia plans to more than triple the contribution of its mining industry to national wealth as measured by GDP by 2030, the energy minister said. The kingdom is finalising a mining strategy aimed at raising annual mining revenues from 64 billion riyals ($17.07 billion) to 240 billion riyals by 2030, Khalid Al Falih told reporters ...

  DUBAI / Reuters Saudi Arabian construction firm Abdullah Abdul Mohsin al-Khodari and Sons said on Tuesday that projects worth 362.2 million riyals ($97 million) had been delayed due to factors ranging from clients’ funding shortages to slow visa issuance. The pace of construction in Saudi Arabia has cooled in the past two years as lower oil prices stall project ...

  DUBAI / Reuters Aluminium Bahrain has approached banks for a $750 million loan towards the financing of its Line 6 expansion project, sources said. Alba will become the world’s largest single aluminium smelter complex, boosting its annual output by 540,000 tonnes to 1.5 million tonnes per year by adding the sixth “potline”, used in producing the metal from raw ...

  CAIRO / Reuters Pharmacies across Egypt are running short of medicines, some of them life-savers, as a plunge in the value of the Egyptian pound coupled with strict government price caps has made scores of products unprofitable to produce or import. The shortages include some cancer treatments as well as basic items like insulin, tetanus shots and contraceptive pills. ...

  Riyadh / Emirates Business The Middle East is one of the largest importers of French dairy products according to the latest research from the country’s official cheese board, the Centre National Interprofessionnel de l’Economie Laitière (CNIEL). The research puts the Middle East ahead of China (US$354m), North America (US$270m), Switzerland (US$137m) and Australia (US$30m). Edwina Salvatori, Account Director, SOPEXA ...

  DUBAI / Reuters Iran has sent some ‘surplus’ heavy water to Oman, an Iranian nuclear spokesman was quoted as saying, after a UN atomic watchdog said Tehran was over a soft limit set under its nuclear deal with major powers. “In view of the progress of talks with several foreign firms and countries to purchase heavy water, some quantities ...

  CAIRO / Emirates Business Egypt remains the star performer among its peers in the region rising 5 percent over last week and breaking the 11,000 level for the first time since 2008. The rise is backed by positive investor sentiment regarding the IMF support of much needed funding. Stocks continue to rise after the currency declined by more than ...