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  • Energy Subsidies in the Gulf a Staggering $160 billion Annually, World Bank Says
     

    Gulf states are spending an average of 10% of GDP on energy subsidies each year, a total of $160 billion, an IMF official said according to Arab News. “The GCC and other MENA states must start cutting energy subsidies now otherwise problems associated with them will get worse,” said Shantayanan Devarajan, chief economist for the World Bank in Middle […]

     
  • First Global Entrepreneurship Forum Kicks off in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia as Kingdom Eyes SME Growth
     

    The first Global Business Entrepreneurship Forum (GEF) was held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia today to bring together top business and startup leaders to the Ritz Carlton Hotel near the Diplomatic Quarter in the Saudi capital.  Organized by the Centennial Fund, the GEF’s first event in Riyadh was a chance for entrepreneurs and others in the […]

     
  • Investing in Middle East Healthcare for both Financial and Social Returns
     

    It is no secret that Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) governments are spending billions of dinars, riyals and dirhams on upgrading their healthcare infrastructure. Local and regional newspapers are filled with stories on newer, bigger and flashier hospital projects. Saudi Arabia’s 2013-2014 budget includes funds for 19 new hospitals in addition to the 102 hospitals currently […]

     
  • At Policymakers Event, Prince Turki al-Faisal Takes Aim at Allegations of Saudi Support of Terror
     

    Saudi Arabia’s Prince Turki al-Faisal, Chairman, King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and former Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United Kingdom and to the United States of America, delivered sharp criticism of those who put forth unsupported allegations of Saudi financing of extremism abroad, urging them to come forward with […]

     
  • Cracking the Online Payments Puzzle in MENA
     

    Online payments have been at the center of electronic commerce challenges in the Middle East and North Africa since the first regional e-commerce sites came online. In many cases, they’ve kept both investors and founders worried about venturing into e-commerce businesses, and prevented many consumers from enjoying the benefits. Research shows that 47% of people […]

     
  • SUSRIS: The Emergence of the GCC+4 Against ISIS
     

    SUSRIS.com shares an assessment of the surge in recent diplomatic activity from Gulf expert Theodore Karasik, Director of Research and Development at the Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis (INEGMA) in Dubai.  “A day before the meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia agreed to an American request to provide a base to train moderate […]

     
  • Nitaqat Three Years On: A Summer 2014 Report Card
     

    Four years into the Arab Spring, Saudi Arabia has been an oasis of relative calm and stability in an otherwise tumultuous Middle East region. This is partially because the perceived social, economic and political dysfunction resulting from Arab Spring reform movements has had a sobering effect on Saudi perceptions.  In fact, many Saudis consider the […]

     
  • Social Media’s Arab Future
     

    One could argue that of all the repercussions from the Arab Spring in 2011 none will be more consequential than the kickstart of a period of phenomenal growth of social media in the Arab World.  The pace is astonishing. Apart from the numbers, what does it actually mean if Saudi Arabia has the highest per-capita […]

     
  • C3 US-Arab Business Summit Set for October 6, 2014 in New York City
     

    Since 2012, C3 Summit, in collaboration with the US State Department, US Chamber of Commerce and the US Department of Commerce, has been producing US-Arab Summits focusing on healthcare, commerce and economic development between the Arab region and North America.   Given the continuing growth and importance of the business sector to both regions, C3 has developed the US-Arab […]

     
  • Uptick in US-Saudi Diplomacy including Secretary Kerry’s Praise for Saudi ‘Compassion’ for its $500m Humanitarian Pledge to Iraq
     

    U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry lauded Saudi Arabia’s “compassion” and “generosity” after the Kingdom announced it would donate $500 million in humanitarian aid to all people of Iraq, regardless of ethnicity or religion, according to a release made public by the State Department.  “Saudi Arabia has made an enormous and very significant commitment to help […]

     

MUST-READS

  • Saudi Arabia dominates slow MENA IPO market in Q1

    Saudi Arabian companies accounted for two of the three initial public offerings in the Middle East and North Africa region during the first quarter of 2021, representing 96 percent of the amount raised, according to consultancy EY.

  • Saudi Arabia was top MENA destination for foreign investment last year

    Saudi Arabia attracted 18 percent of all foreign investment into the Middle East and North Africa last year, the most of any country in the region. The number of projects fell by 49 percent in 2020 to 73 for a value of $10.4 billion, Al Arabiya reported, citing data from Financial Times’ FDI Intelligence.

  • MENA Covid Report: Saudi Arabia reopens borders for travel

    The number of Covid-19 cases in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region crossed 8,467,276 on 17 May, according to Worldometers data collated by MEED. Countries in the GCC account for 22.4 per cent (1,892,591) of all regional cases, and Iran’s 2,751,166 cases comprise 32.5 per cent of the Mena tally.

  • Mena energy investments to exceed $805bn by 2025

    Energy investments across Middle East and North Africa could exceed $805 billion over the next five years amid rising demand in the region and the revival of crude output in places such as Libya. Renewables, which are increasing as a share of the power mix, particularly in the oil-exporting countries of the region, will rise to 40 per cent of the overall share. Cleaner energy will account for $250bn worth of investments in the utilities sector over the next five years.

  • MENA oil investments to slow in next 5 years as gas ‘seems to be plateauing’: APICORP

    Oil investments will total $226 billion in 2021-2025, down from $235 billion projected in last year's five-year outlook, while the gas total will drop to $208 billion, from $211 billion, APICORP said in its latest annual outlook.

  • Saudi Arabia could be best MENA start-up ecosystem within two years, investment expert says

    Saudi Arabia could emerge as the number one start-up ecosystem in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in the next two years, once the country establishes its proposed free zones for promotion of various sectors, a leading investment expert said. A friendlier regulatory framework for company registration in the country can further bolster the Kingdom’s attractiveness to foreign investors and start-up founders.

  • Hungry to grow: MENA’s top 3 F&B funding rounds from Q1 2021

    Based on data from MAGNiTT's Q1 2021 MENA Food & Beverage Venture Investment Report, the regional industry accounted for the largest share of funding across all industries in MENA during Q1 2021, with deployed capital in this quarter alone equalling 49% of all capital deployed in the sector during all of 2020.

  • Climate change and the dust environmental impact in MENA

    The Middle East experiences an enhanced level of warming in comparison with the average warming trend over the Northern Hemisphere. One of the reasons is extreme dryness of the region that prevents the land surface energy balance adjustment by increasing evaporation. Therefore, the desert temperature sensitivity to radiative forcing, solar and longwave, is higher than that averaged over the global landmasses.

  • Vaccine diplomacy in the MENA region

    Amid the vaccine rollout in the MENA region three trends can be observed: (a) international vaccine diplomacy by Russia, China, and the EU, (b) regional vaccine diplomacy by the UAE, Morocco, Turkey, Egypt, and Israel, and (c) the relationship between vaccine rollouts and domestic politics.

  • Post-Oil Cities in the MENA Region: Lessons from Doha

    Following several centuries of urban decline, cities of the MENA region began experiencing demographic growth and urbanization in the nineteenth century. By the twentieth century, this accelerated into rapid urbanization, with the urban share of the regional population rising from an estimated one-sixth in 1900 to two-thirds today, a ratio that exceeds the global average and continues to grow.