Regional News

  Reuters Container shipping firm Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) expects to have regained by the middle of next year the business lost while Iran was subject to international sanctions, its chairman said. International sanctions were lifted in January following an agreement with world powers on Tehran’s disputed nuclear programme. “Step by step the problems have been resolved ...

  Bloomberg Egypt has reached a $2.7 billion currency swap agreement with China, moving closer to mustering the outside financing needed to win final approval of a $12 billion International Monetary Fund loan. The agreement is being processed by the Chinese authorities, an Egyptian central bank official said Sunday, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official didn’t provide additional details ...

  Reuters Hyundai Engineering and Construction signed a contract to build a project for Saudi Aramco’s Uthmaniyah plant for 833.10 billion won ($727 million), the South Korean company said. Hyundai expects the contract to be completed by Nov. 26 2019, it said in a statement. Sources told Reuters on Thursday that Hyundai had won the deal after offering discounts to ...

  Bloomberg Senior officials from Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Israel agreed to advance talks on a pipeline from Israel to Europe after an EU-sponsored study showed the project would be “very feasible,” Israel’s Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said in an interview. The study showed the pipeline, which would traverse Cyprus and Greece before reaching Italy, would cost about 5 billion ...

  CAIRO / Reuters Egyptian property company Palm Hills expects to sign a revenue-sharing deal with the government this year to develop what would be the country’s second-largest real estate project, one of its co-chief executives said. The country’s property sector has boomed in recent years as the population grew to more than 91 million, with demand driven higher by ...

  ALGIERS / Reuters Algeria is preparing to speed up the diversification of its oil-reliant economy in the coming year after starting to cut state subsidies to offset a fall in energy earnings, the head of parliament’s finance committee said. In the past, the OPEC member took advantage of high prices for oil and gas, which account for 60 percent ...

  Cairo / Emirates Business The World Bank has announced, during a ceremony to celebrate the release of its 14th Doing Business Report, that Egypt moved up nine places compared to last year. The country now ranks 122, which represents a significant improvement on its previous ranking of 131. The ceremony was attended by Dr. Mohamed Khodeir, the CEO of ...

  Jeddah / Emirates Business JLL, the world’s leading real estate investment and advisory firm, released its Q3 2016 Jeddah Real Estate Market Overview report which assesses the latest trends in the office, residential, retail and hotel sectors. The latest market summary report discusses the opening of two internationally branded hotels — the Movenpick City Star Hotel (228 keys) and ...

  Cairo / AFP Facing a weeks-long shortage in a country already restless with rising prices, Egyptian authorities this week raided a Twinkies snack cake factory and confiscated its sugar stocks — all 2,000 tonnes. The raid on Sunday on Edita Food Industries, one of Egypt’s largest producers, came as discontent with increased food prices and empty shelves bubbles to ...

  Reuters Ride-hailing service Uber plans to make Cairo a regional hub with an investment of more than $50 million in the next two years, building on its breakneck growth in the infamously traffic-clogged city, its Egypt general manager said. The company has committed to investing $250 million over the next five years in the Middle East, where Cairo, a ...