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IFP News
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Sep 1 2010 12:00AM
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Recent statistics released by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) indicated that Middle Eastern airlines increased demand by 16.8% in July year-on-year, and by 19.4% over the first seven months of the year.
The July statistic was a little lower than the 18.0% recorded in June, reflecting the global recovery in demand that took place at around this time last year. However, the region still outperformed its global peers by some margin, reflecting the increased levels of long-haul traffic being diverted through Middle East hubs.
In a bid to cater to the increased demand, the Middle East region also added 12.8% capacity in July and 13.2% in the first seven months. IATA warned that the strong recovery witnessed by most regions around the world was now entering a slower phase. Global demand rose by 9.2%, compared to the 11.6% recorded in June. However, July passenger traffic was 3% higher than the pre-crisis levels of early 2008. Elsewhere, Latin American carriers posted 14.2% growth last month, followed by Africa (13.0%), Asia Pacific (10.9%), North America (7.9%) and a still-struggling Europe (6.2%). IATA said that the meteoric growth in freight demand throughout the world would slow in the second half, as inventories are now largely replenished.
However, the Middle East still outperformed every other region apart from Africa, with a 30.1% growth in cargo demand. This figure was significantly higher than the industry average of 22% growth, but lower than the Middle East’s 39.6% rise in June. Africa saw demand rise by 35.2%, followed by North America (27.1%), the huge Asia Pacific market (25.3%), Latin America (also 25.3%) and Europe (12.1%).
According to officials at IATA, the recovery in demand has been faster than anticipated. However, looking forward towards the end of the year, the pace of the recovery would likely slow. The jobless economic recovery is keeping consumer confidence fragile, particularly in North America and Europe. This is affecting leisure markets and cargo traffic. Following the boost of cargo demand from inventory restocking, further growth would be largely determined by consumer spending which remains weak.
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Sep 1 2010 12:00AM
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The volume of Iraqi investments at 59 projects at industrial estates in the Kingdom reached $ 70 million (JD50 million) until the end of June, 2010.
Director General of the Industrial Estates Corporation Amer Majali said during a meeting with an Iraqi delegation representing the Investment Promotion Commission in the Salahiddin Governorate that most of Iraqi investments were in the chemical, plastic, food and packing industries.
“Total investments at the industrial estates until the end of June stood at more than JD1 billion catering for 507 industrial facilities that provided 30,000 job opportunities,” he added.
The delegation hailed role of the corporation in attracting foreign investments and providing services to investors.
(PETRA)
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Aug 30 2010 12:00AM
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Jordan’s tourism revenues in the first seven months this year hit 1.414 billion Jordanian dinars (about 2 billion U.S. dollars), up 26 percent from the same period last year, official figures showed.
The number of visitors during the January-July period rose by 23 percent to reach 4.8 million, compared to 3.9 million in the same period of 2009, according to the figures from Jordan’s Tourism Ministry.
Statistics showed the Arab kingdom received about 2.7 million overnight tourists in the first seven months, compared to about 1. 8 million visitors in the same period of last year.
About 2.1 million same-day tourists visited the country in the first seven months, a 17 percent year-on-year increase.
Tourism revenue is an important part of income of Jordan, which boasts many famous tourist sites, such as the rose-red city of Petra, the dead sea, Mount Nebo, Jerash, Madaba and Wadi Rum.
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Aug 29 2010 12:00AM
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The Syrian government approved plans to issue the country’s third mobile phone license, and will also convert the two existing networks into stand alone networks.
The Cabinet announced that it will launch a bid for a third mobile license in a threephase process that includes initial rehabilitation, investment and technical rehabilitation and the financial auction. The Cabinet also granted initial approval to turn the contracts of the two incumbent operators, MTN Syria and Syriatel, from the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) system into licenses, once the two companies pay their financial obligations to the Treasury, which implies that the two incumbent operators will have to buy out their current BOT agreements. The country is estimated to have about 9.1 million mobile phone subscribers at the end of March 2010, equivalent to a 44% a penetration rate. Syria has been planning to issue a third license since at least 2008.
Source: SANA
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Aug 26 2010 12:00AM
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The Syrian Cabinet has authorized private investments in the building and operating of airports and power generation stations as part of the government’s initiative to create public-private partnerships in infrastructure projects.
The Cabinet issued a decision authorizing the Ministry of Transport to contract directly with private sector companies to build and operate new airports, as well as to develop and operate existing ones. It also issued a decision allowing local, Arab and foreign investors to build and operate new power plants on build, operate and transfer (BOT) terms. The Parliament still needs to ratify a draft law that will legalize private investments in the power sector, as well as another law that will set the framework for public-private partnerships.
Source: Syria Report - Country Risk Weekly Bulletin – Byblos Bank
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Aug 26 2010 12:00AM
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The number of Jordanians who visited Syria in the first half of the year grew “tremendously” compared to the same period of 2009, figures released indicated.
Approximately 963,703 Jordanians visited Syria by land between January and June 2010, a 59 per cent increase compared to the same period of the previous year, when 392,236 visited the neighboring country, the Syria Arab News Agency (SANA) reported.
Jordanians represented the largest nationality of foreign tourists in Syria during the period in question, compared to 216,326 non-Jordanian Arabs, 93,348 non-Arab visitors.
Tourism experts attributed the increase to the cancellation of the departure tax. In October last year, Jordan and Syria agreed to reciprocally exempt their citizens traveling by land between the two countries from departure taxes, effective January 1, 2010.
“The cancellation of the tax encouraged Jordanians to go to Syria for shopping,” Amjad Maslamani, deputy director of the Jordan Society of Tourism and Travel Agents, told The Jordan Times yesterday, noting that most Jordanians go to Syria for “shopping tourism”, not tourism to tour historical sites.
He explained that the majority of those tourists are same-day visitors.
However, the rise in Jordanian tourists to Syria has negatively impacted domestic tourism, according to Maslamani, who revealed that the private sector is developing plans to encourage local tourism by offering Jordanians lower prices to travel within the Kingdom for their holiday.
The SANA report also indicated that Jordanian visitors to Syria increased due to promotion campaigns launched by the Syrian ministry of tourism.
Meanwhile, some 162,703 Syrian visited Jordan in the first six months of 2010, according to Jordan Tourism Board figures.
Jordan Inbound Tour Operators Association President Mohammad Samih said the majority of them came for business.
Jordan Times
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Aug 26 2010 12:00AM
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Jordan’s state-owned National Electric Power Company (Nepco) will launch a tender in September 2010 for its third power plant to be developed by the private sector.
The power plant is expected to generate 600 megawatts of electricity. The plant will be developed in two phases where the first phase is expected to be completed by 2013 and the second phase in the following year.
Source: MEED
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Aug 20 2010 12:00AM
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The Saudi Council of Ministers approved its Ninth Development Plan (NDP) that carries an estimated cost of SAR1,444.6bn, or $385.3bn, over the 2010-14 period.
The NDP aims to enhance citizens’ standard of living and quality of life, upgrade labor force skills, ensure balanced regional development across the country, diversify the production base, and raise the competitiveness of the Saudi economy. The plan emphasizes the need to pursue economic, social, and institutional reforms, including transparency, accountability, and through improving the business environment. The NDP aims to realize average annual real GDP growth of 5.2% during the five-year period, compared with an annual average growth of 3.7% in 2005-09 and 3.1% in 2000-04. It also projects non-oil real GDP to grow by an annual average of 6.6% and foresees a decline in the share of the oil sector in GDP from 30% currently to 19.6% in 2014. Further, it expects gross fixed capital formation to grow by10.4% annually for the next five years, as well as a rise in net exports and a moderate growth in consumption, which would help increase average per capita GDP at constant prices by 15% to approximately SAR53,200 in 2014. The NDP budgets an average yearly spending of SAR289bn, representing a rise of 67% from a yearly average OF SAR173bn i 2005-09. It said most of the prospective funding will be concentrated in the social sectors, in line with the government’s plan to expand and improve the quality of education and health services across the country. The financing requirements of the three major development sectors, human resources, social and health development, and economic resources, are set to increase by 111%, 135%, and 221%, respectively. The three sectors represent 85% of the planned allocation.
Source: Barclays Capital – Byblos Bank
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Aug 19 2010 12:00AM
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Jordan will select banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co., HSBC Holdings Plc, Credit Suisse Group AG and Arab Bank Plc to manage the sale of a $500 million Eurobond, Finance Minister Mohammad Abu Hammour said.
The government plans to offer debt maturing in five years by the fourth quarter of this year to help finance the nation’s budget deficit, Abu Hammour said in an interview by telephone from Amman today. In June, Abu Hammour said Jordan was considering either the sale of conventional or Islamic bonds, known as sukuk.
“We are in the final stages of granting these banks the right to manage the sale,” he said. “We want to finance the budget deficit externally rather than internally, leaving the liquidity in the local market for the private sector.”
Jordan imports more than 90 percent of its oil and typically relies on foreign investment and grants to finance its budget deficit. Economic growth may reach 4 percent this year, Abu Hammour said in May, compared with an International Monetary Fund forecast of about 3.5 percent.
The projected budget deficit for this year after grants has been revised to about 1 billion dinars ($1.4 billion), or 6 percent of gross domestic product, down from about 9 percent last year, according to Ministry of Finance estimates. Overseas grants increased 65 percent in the first six months of 2010 to 157.9 million dinars from a year earlier, the ministry said in a preliminary report on its website Aug. 16.
Jordan’s long-term foreign currency debt is rated Ba2 at Moody’s Investors Service and BB at Standard & Poor’s, the second highest junk ranking. It had 3.87 billion dinars of overseas public debt outstanding as of June this year, according to a preliminary report by the Ministry of Finance.
Bloomberg
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Aug 17 2010 12:00AM
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Arabian Construction Company (ACC) has been awarded a AED342 million contract by Abu Dhabi’s Emirates Tourism Investment (ETI) company to build the Rotana Hotel Tower in Abdali, Jordan.
Upon completion in 2013, the tower will be the tallest building in Jordan, standing at 188m.
Maher Merehbi, ACC’s CEO said: “We are very pleased with this latest contract and to now have the opportunity to build a tall tower in Amman, after having built many state-of-the-art, iconic high rises across the Middle East, including the UAE, Lebanon and Qatar.”
The Rotana Hotel will be a 5-star establishment with a total built-up area of 66,800m² and will consist of seven basements with the capacity to fit 180 cars 50 floors featuring 425 rooms a gym spa pool deck and several restaurants.
ACC – who has already started work on the project – is the general contractor, and will oversee the tower’s construction, which includes: structural and façade cladding, architectural and civil works, Mechanical, Electrical and Plumbing (MEP), Back of House (BOH), interior finishes and external works.
The hotel will be located in the Abdali Disctrict in downtown Amman and forms part of the Abdali Urban Regeneration Project which aims to modernize downtown Amman through mixed-use development, state-of-the-art infrastructure, technology, security and a well structured network of roads.
Press release
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