Recent stories from sustg

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  • Startup of the Week: Azom – The New Smartphone Player in the Saudi Market

    The first Android smartphone provided by a Saudi startup is available today not only in the kingdom but in Oman too! It comes in three modern colors: the Wara Black, the Gray Concrete, and Cream Dahna.

  • How Saudi Arabia’s NEOM aims to be Bollywood’s next powerhouse production partner

    Bollywood remains one of the most dynamic film industries globally. Worth an estimated $2.4 billion in 2020, Bollywood produces more films annually than Hollywood, including many produced outside India. Like any filmmaker, Indian producers are always on the lookout for new, fresh locations that provide logistical support and production incentives to give producers a competitive advantage.

  • Dubai is building an art collection — without buying any art

    Dubai won't be buying any art -- it will be borrowing it. National art collections and museums were popularized in Europe during the 18th and late 19th century, and typically, these collections are built over long periods of time by purchasing or being gifted works. But Dubai aims to fast-track the process.

  • Saudi Arabia issues highest-ever number of foreign investor licenses in a single quarter

    The Ministry of Investment of Saudi Arabia (MISA) reported today that it issued 478 new licenses in Q1 2021, the most number in a single quarter since records began in 2005. It reported a 36 per cent annual increase in new licenses issued compared to Q1 2020, and the latest figure also marks a 2.6 per cent quarterly increase.

  • War-Ridden Somalia Starts Payments System as It Rebuilds Nation

    The 13 lenders in the Horn of Africa nation can now “become inter-operable, connected to the clearing and settlement system of the central bank and able to transact with each other,” Central Bank of Somalia Governor Abdirahman M. Abdullahi said in an interview. The system will “facilitate transactions between vendors and their customers more efficiently.”

  • Golf Saudi launches Mass Participation program at Aramco Team Series tournament in Spain

    Golf Saudi hosted leading female personalities from the Kingdom at the second Aramco Team Series tournament of the year in Sotogrande, Spain. The occasion was part of Golf Saudi’s Mass Participation program that aims to grow the game of golf and boost participation in Saudi Arabia and internationally.

  • Justice Department says it intends to release some secret 9/11 files on Saudi Arabia

    Under pressure from the families of people who died in the Sept. 11 attacks, the Biden administration said on Monday that it intended to disclose some long-classified documents that the families think may describe links between Saudi Arabia’s government and the hijackers.

  • Saudi Arabia’s booming startup ecosystem

    Among Saudis surveyed for the GEM report, 90 percent agreed or strongly agreed it is easy to start a business, placing the Kingdom in top position among GEM economies. Saudi Arabia also reported the highest rate of market confidence, with 80 percent seeing opportunities to start a business as a result of the changes brought about by the pandemic.

  • Startup Soprano: Saudi reaches new heights in H1 2021

    The 54 deals closed in H1 2021 was the second-highest number of deals closed by Saudi startups in half a year, that’s after H1 2020’s record of 58 transactions. Even more remarkably, Saudi Arabia was able to close the deal gap with the UAE from 44 transactions in 2020 to just an 11-deal difference in H1 2021.

  • Iraq Reclaims 17,000 Looted Artifacts, Its Biggest-Ever Repatriation

    The repatriation of so many objects rounds out a remarkable chapter in the story of a country so ravaged by decades of conflict and war that its very history was pulled out of the ground by antiquities thieves and sold abroad, ending up on display in other countries’ museums. And it is a victory in a global effort by countries to press Western institutions to return culturally vital artifacts, like the push to repatriate the famed Benin Bronzes to Nigeria.