Search Results for: Saudi Arabian

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE INTERNATIONAL Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank is to advise on improving the operation of the Maldives’ Malé airport, hoping to attract private investors willing to run the country’s national hub. In a communiqué, the IFC said it would help the government-owned "Maldives Airport Company Limited attract private investors…" It would structure an operating company that could be privatised "and develop a tariff framework and an appropriate investment plan."…

BY KASHMIR HILL

TEXAS financier R Allen Stanford built an US$8.5-billion Caribbean banking empire catering to 30,000 customers in 131 countries, but this year Stanford was indicted for swindling those investors in a massive, ongoing fraud. The US government is calling it a Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors of US$7 billion, making it the second largest of the era after Bernie Madoff’s.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

OVER the past five years steel production has struggled to keep pace with demand in the Gulf, particularly the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as hundreds of billions of dollars worth of construction projects sprung up in the desert.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL

THE INTERNATIONAL Finance Corporation (IFC), of the World Bank, is to help Saudi Arabia create a public-private partnership to build a new terminal at Prince Mohammed bin Abdulaziz International Airport, Medina. The airport is a key gateway for the annual Moslem Haj pilgrimage, and has long been the focus of Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation plans to boost transport to this major religious event.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

WITH a quarter of the world’s reserves the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the most influential member of OPEC and able to put an extra two million barrels of oil on the international markets within days. But the kingdom is notoriously opaque about its oil policy and reserves, with decisions made at the highest level by the ruling House of Saud.…

BY PAUL COCHRANE

PAINT sales in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are forecast to fall by 25-30% this year, a remarkable change in fortunes from the years of double-digit growth when the country’s US$300 million coatings sector was one of the fastest growing in the world.…

BY RAGHAVENDRA VERMA

STANDFIRST

The Indian clothing sector is emerging from its traditional image as an outsourcing-hub image and establishing its own brands that sell modern design and high quality garments in the international market. A resurgent economy still growing during the current global economic downturn and the official encouragement of entrepreneurial freedom have brought forward talented designers to challenge established names in the business.…

BY DOMINIQUE PATTON

DEMAND for halal cosmetics worldwide is on the rise, driven not only by more affluent Muslim consumers but also growing interest in high quality, safe products.

Sales of all kinds of halal-certified goods have surged in recent years alongside higher purchasing power in Muslim countries.…

By Paul Cochrane, in Muscat, Oman

While construction workers are downing tools throughout most Arab states bordering the Persian Gulf and the future of massive infrastructure projects is in jeopardy, the Sultanate of Oman is bucking the regional trend by investing billions of dollars to bolster its nascent tourism sector, aviation and industrial base.

Compared to its Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) neighbours that have spent lavishly over the past decade on infrastructure and real estate projects, the Sultanate, at the south-east of the Arabia and thus far, the relative poor man of the GCC, has lagged behind in infrastructure roll out.…

BY KARRYN MILLER

"THE STONE Age did not end for lack of stone, and the oil age will end long before the world runs out of oil," said Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani in 2003, former oil minister of Saudi Arabia. Six years on Mr Yamani’s words appear to ring true more than ever before – with alternative fuels becoming a viable petroleum substitute.…