Search Results for: saudi arabia

BY PAUL COCHRANE

CORRUPTION, bribery and cronyism have long been a part of business in the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, with media reports of such malpractice few and far between yet alone prosecutions. But this taboo topic has started to hit headlines in the Gulf over the past year as prominent businessmen have been arrested for fraud, bribery cases investigated and governmental units set up to tackle the problem.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

CONFECTIONERY manufacturers in the Middle East are not only ideally placed geographically to sell their products to the rich European Union (EU) market, they are assisted by a series of free trade agreements either in place, or in the works.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE TOWN of Asbestos in French-speaking Québec, Canada – named after the mineral that underpins its economy – is waiting to see whether its provincial government will approve a Canadian dollar CAD58 million (US dollar USD56 million) loan enabling an underground mine to tap an immense deposit.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

DEMAND for more environmentally-friendly coatings and paints is on the rise in the six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, driven by government-backed infrastructure projects that are forcing paint manufacturers to comply with strict requirements.

Still a specialised product, ‘green’ paints account for less than 10% of sales in the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) US dollar USD$300 million paint market and the USD$1 billion Saudi Arabian market, according to Bassam Bizri, general manager of Chemipaint in the UAE (NOTE – SPELLING IS CORRECT).…

BY PAUL COCHRANE, AHMAD PATHONI, GAVIN BLAIR, RAGHAVENDRA VERMA, WANG FANGQING, HELEN FLUSFELDER, KARRYN MILLER, KEITH NUTHALL and ALAN OSBORN

THE BRITISH writer Oscar Wilde wrote: "A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

THE KINGDOM of Saudi Arabia’s USD$1 billion paint sector market is projected to return to double-digit growth this year on the back of massive government spending, following static growth in 2009 in the wake of the global financial crisis.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE INTERNATIONAL Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has been pushing for more synchronised RNAV 5 area navigation within the Middle East. A regional meeting in Cairo has agreed there is a "need to harmonise the implementation of RNAV 5 in the MID [Middle East] Region."…

BY PACIFICA GODDARD

INTRODUCTION

There are signs around the world that the textile market is beginning to recover from the global economic crisis, and developing markets will be leading that recovery. Asia is, of course, at the forefront, but many countries in Latin America have also weathered the crisis and have come out in a surprisingly decent position, with their dynamic textile and apparel industries well positioned for future expansion.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

THE ISLAND Gulf Kingdom of Bahrain has embarked on a US$4.7 billion (Euro 3.45 billion) expansion of its one and only commercial airport, the Bahrain International Airport (BIA), to handle rising passenger traffic and regain its position as an aviation hub in the region.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

PIRACY has increased exponentially off the coast of Somalia in recent years, with ships hijacked deep into international waters despite the presence of a multi-national naval task force, and pirates demanding ever higher ransoms from shipping companies. But while the spoils of piracy are evident in coastal Somali towns, tracking down where the remaining millions of dollars disappear to is hard to pin down, with allegations circulating of ransom money entering the real estate markets of Kenya, to money laundering in Yemen and Dubai.…