Regional News

  DOHA / Reuters Qatar Navigation (Milaha) and Qatar Ports will start a joint venture to operate Qatar’s Hamad Port in Doha, Milaha’s Chairman Sheikh Ali bin Jassim bin Mohammad al-Thani said on Tuesday. The venture, QTerminals, will have a proposed 100 million riyals ($27.5 million) in capital, Qatar’s transport minister told reporters on the sidelines of a signing ceremony …

  AFP Jordan said on Monday it had chosen five international consortiums to build the first phase of a multi-million-dollar canal linking the Red Sea to the shrinking Dead Sea. The ambitious $1.1 billion project has been in the works for more than a decade and aims to provide much-needed water to Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories. It moved …

  Riyadh / AFP Arid Saudi Arabia could need more than $53 billion in water sector investment supported by private funds as demand grows, officials said on Sunday. The world’s largest oil exporter, whose petroleum revenues fell 51 percent last year on declining crude prices, is pushing to diversify its economy through greater private sector investment and development of new …

  Tunis / AFP Tunisia will host 2,000 business and finance executives from 40 countries this week in hopes of drumming up investment to boost its struggling economy. Six years since the revolution that swept away dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the country’s fragile democratic progress has been threatened by economic stagnation that has stirred social unrest. As it …

  AFP Kuwaitis went to the polls on Saturday for the first election contested by the opposition in nearly four years amid fresh disputes over cuts in subsidies due to falling oil revenues. Turnout was high at many of the 100 polling stations with some centres reporting 70 percent of eligible voters had cast their ballots with two hours to …

  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 …