Regional News

Reuters Egypt’s Suez Canal Authority expects revenue to increase to $5.7 billion this year after the waterway was widened, company executive Tamer Hammad said at a maritime conference in Dubai. The figure would be an improvement on the $5.175 billion achieved in 2015 and would continue an increase in revenues seen this year despite slowing global trade and initially sluggish …

  AFP The Saudi energy minister said on Tuesday that a multi-billion-dollar technology investment fund the kingdom is developing in partnership with Japan’s SoftBank showed its determination to diversify its economy. Khaled al-Falih told an international forum that the proposed new fund “is simply one indication of this determination and the bold steps being taken” to reorient the economy of …

  Bloomberg Egypt’s new wheat inspection program was met by relief from traders, who said the system will likely be easier to navigate and may lead to lower prices. The General Organization for Export and Import Control, or GOEIC, will be the sole state body responsible for wheat inspections at shipping and arrival ports, replacing government inspectors. The new system …

  Reuters Saudi Arabia’s capital markets regulator approved rules for exchange-listed real estate funds on Sunday, as part of efforts to ramp up investment in the kingdom’s housing market. The kingdom requires private money to help finance construction of around 1.5 million homes planned over the next seven or eight years. In a bid to ease a shortage of affordable …

  TEL AVIV / Reuters Egypt cancelled its three and nine month treasury bill auction on Sunday, data from the central bank showed, confounding market expectations of a steep hike in benchmark interest rates. Neither the bank nor the Finance Ministry gave any reason for the cancellation but bankers said banks had asked for yields the government found too high. …

  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 …