Zawya Express

Clean water, healthy fish: UK start-up tracking ocean plastic waste recognised at Gitex Future Stars

A United-Kingdom based company that uses technology to detect plastic thrown in oceans, seas and rivers through satellites won the $10,000 best international start-up award at the GITEX Future Stars competition in Dubai.

Satellite VU, a company that uses satellite technology to track the movement of plastic waste through waterways, won the best international start-up category on Thursday, as the winners of the Gitex Future Stars contest were announced on the final day of the Gitex Technology Week exhibition and conference at Dubai World Trade Centre

Current spending: Saudi power sector needs $20bln of investment in next five years - report

Fishing for returns: Dubai firm plans $90 million salmon farm in the desert

A Dubai-based importer of salmon known as Vikings Label is planning to build a land-based salmon farm in Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the company said in a press release late last week.

“Surveys of land conditions are currently under way on a site which is located in North Ras Al Khaimah. The $90 million project is expected to be completed by 2020 and the salmon will be available in the UAE market for consumers in 2021,” the company said in its press release.

Dirhams, not dollars: New debt law facilitates local currency bond issuance

The new federal government debt law announced in the United Arab Emirates on Sunday "lays the foundations for the development of a bond market in dirham denomination" in the country, according to the governor of the UAE's Central Bank.

In a press statement published on Monday afternoon, Central Bank governor Mubarak Rashed Al Mansoori said the establishment of dirham-denominated federal government bonds was "important as it will create deeper, more resilient financial markets", as well as providing a benchmark yield curve against which locally-denominated debt can be measured on global bond markets.

View from abroad: UAE dominates M&A deals closed in Q3, especially among foreign investors

The UAE continued to dominate merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions in the GCC in the third quarter of the year, especially when it came to attracting overseas investors, according to a new report issued on Sunday, while Bahrain and Saudi Arabia saw their growth rates diverge in very different directions.

The 29 deals closed is the same compared to Q3 2017, but was down 25 percent quarter-on-quarter compared to the 39 deals closed in Q2 2018.

Monday outlook: Asian shares retreat in early trading, oil prices rise

Asian shares dropped early on Monday as trade tensions between the U.S. and China weighed on sentiment.

Stock markets in the Middle East fell tracking a drop in oil prices and equities last week.

More commentary on oil prices, currencies and precious metals.

Optimism and jobs: Consumer spending in Kuwait remains robust thanks to confidence in the market and employment growth, report says

Consumer spending in Kuwait is ‘healthy’ thanks to a pickup in employment levels and an improving economic backdrop helped by higher oil prices.

However, factors including a reduction in the number of expat dependents, due to higher living costs, soft wage growth and the easing of household borrowing growth were listed as ‘downside pressures’ by the NBK Economic Research Department in a report published on Saturday.

Tough targets: Bahrain gov't's fiscal reforms are overly ambitious - report

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE earlier this month agreed to give Bahrain $10 billion in financial support, in a bid to bail the island state out of its monetary troubles, but a report published by the Fitch Ratings agency this week said “achieving the government's fiscal targets will be tough”.

The $10 billion will be in the form of a long-term interest-free loan and aims to get Bahrain’s budget back in the black by 2022.

More UAE bank mergers likely, but not in Dubai, says EFG Hermes exec

More bank mergers are likely to occur across many parts of the United Arab Emirates but may not be that prevalent in Dubai, according to one of the co-heads of investment banking at EFG Hermes.

In a media roundtable event discussing the investment banking landscape across the region, Mohammed Fahmi, co-head of investment banking at EFG Hermes, said that a lot of consolidation has been taking place in Abu Dhabi, through the merger last year that created First Abu Dhabi Bank, the country's biggest bank in terms of total assets, and the joining together of some of the emirate’s sovereign funds.

"It is happening with the other banks, potentially," he said.

Buy and sell: Tradeable work permits could be the answer for companies facing labour market challenges

Governments in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) should introduce tradeable work permits to address labour challenges, including those relating to nationalisation targets, according to a new report.

The report, by management consultancy Oliver Wyman, says that allowing companies to sell expatriate work permits to others would have several benefits, including assigning foreign labour to the areas of greatest market need and allowing companies to recoup the costs of training national citizens through the permit sales.