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Ed Webb

Saudi Arabia Suffers Shock Collapse In Inward Investment - 0 views

  • Inward investment into Saudi Arabia collapsed last year
  • According to the latest UNCTAD World Investment Report, published on June 7, foreign direct investment (FDI) into Saudi Arabia last year amounted to just $1.4 billion, down from $7.5bn the year before and as much as $12.2bn in 2012
  • the likes of Oman and Jordan overtaking it in 2017, with inward FDI of $1.9bn and $1.7bn respectively
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  • While the Saudi economy has been losing out, others have been gaining a bigger piece of the pie. The UAE has seen its share of regional FDI more than double over the past six years, from 19% in 2012 to 41% in 2017
  • even Qatar – which has been the subject of an economic boycott by Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE since June last year – managed to increase its FDI take in 2017, attracting $986m compared to $774m a year earlier
  • significant divestments and negative intra-company loans by foreign multinationals
  • FDI to Saudi Arabia has been contracting since the global financial crisis in 2008/09. And although there has been a similar pattern across the region – inflows to West Asia have fallen in most years since hitting a peak of $85bn in 2008 – the performance of Saudi Arabia last year is still appreciably worse than any other economy in the immediate neighbourhood. It is also far worse than the global picture – worldwide FDI inflows were down 23% last year to $1.43 trillion
  • the authoritarian tendencies of the Saudi regime have at times undermined the confidence of potential and actual investors alike
Ed Webb

Debt is No Way For Non-Oil Arab States to Grow - Bloomberg - 0 views

  • many of the non-oil exporting nations in the Middle East and North Africa are undergoing a process of redefinition of how they are linked with the global economy. It is not going well.
  • Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Jordan are becoming more dependent on external borrowing than on foreign direct investments compared to the pre-2008 period. This is visible with declining ratios of FDIs to GDP, in contrast with increasing ratios of foreign debt to GDP and total exports
  • The relative political stabilization in all four countries as of 2014/2015 did not allow them much room for full-fledged recovery due to the global economic slowdown. This made it harder for all of them to achieve export-led growth and attract FDI, leaving them with foreign borrowing as the only viable option. Foreign debt accounts for much of the apparent recovery, as expressed in growth rates.
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  • The ratio of external debt to total exports of goods, services and primary incomes was even more dramatic for all four countries. This is a proxy of the capacity of these economies to service their growing external obligations. Between 2010 and 2017, the ratio increased from 75%, 99.6%, 97.6% and 125% for Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Jordan re2spectively, to 190%, 178%, 125% and 198% in 2017. All the figures exceed the 77% limit that, in the World Bank’s reckoning, foreign debt has a negative impact on growth.
  • In Egypt, the ratio of external debt to GNI more than doubled from 17% in 2010 to 36% in 2017. The change was as pronounced in Tunisia, were the ratio jumped from 54% to 83%. In Morocco and Jordan, the ratios changed as well from 65% and 29.6%, to 47% and 75%.
  • International capital markets are unstable and global trade is contracting. Governments should instead target local investment in brick-and-mortar sectors that can deliver real growth, create jobs and possibly reduce the dependency on some imports
  • better use of the net inflows of capital they have received for years in the form of remittances. Instead of channeling them into non-tradable sectors like real-estate, as has been often the case, they should be used to finance investment in more productive sectors
  • trade-oriented regional integration, opening markets in oil-rich countries. There might be room also for adding a regional dimension to plans for industrial diversification by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, by coordinating flows of investment and technology and skill transfers in sectors like petrochemicals and hi-tech services.  Such measures would generate growth and employment for poorer allies and cement regional geopolitical arrangements
Ed Webb

Why Saudi Arabia is all in on sports - The Washington Post - 0 views

  • Saudi Arabia’s history with WWE, like much of its frenetic investment in sports and entertainment over the past few years, is a study in how little diplomacy is needed when you control one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in history. Using their Public Investment Fund, valued at more than $776 billion, the Saudis have effectively bought some of the world’s most loyal fan bases, bent opponents to their will and wildly shifted the economics of international sports.
  • In the sports world, overcoming a reputation as a global pariah — condemned by human rights organizations for alleged war atrocities and its links to the 9/11 hijackers, the imprisonment of activists and the Khashoggi assassination — has been as simple for Saudi Arabia as advancing claims of innocence or autonomy.
  • The Saudi Pro League has become the default destination for aging soccer legends seeking unprecedented paydays, including Cristiano Ronaldo, who reportedly is paid roughly $220 million per year to play for Al Nassr. Lionel Messi turned down a similar bounty in favor of playing in the United States. But he still agreed to promote Saudi Arabia for a reported $25 million under a contract that mandates he is not permitted to make any remarks that “tarnish” the kingdom.
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  • The Saudis have used their financial clout to ground down enemies in ways big and small, from Iranian American wrestlers facing scripted humiliation in WWE shows to American golf executives being forced to swallow previous bitter condemnations of the kingdom. Saudi Arabia’s golf takeover this year, in which the kingdom coerced the PGA Tour into a planned alliance after effectively winning a game of high-stakes chicken over the fate of one of the world’s most popular sports, struck some analysts as the final dam to break in the sports world’s resistance to Saudi involvement.
  • Sheikh celebrated by buying a $4.8 million Bugatti before landing on a larger vanity purchase. After a stint as honorary president of an Egyptian soccer club ended with him warring with management, Sheikh poured millions into buying a rival team and moving it to Cairo. Months later, he abandoned Egyptian soccer while lamenting the “headache.”
  • Sheikh’s management style has embodied Saudi Arabia’s foray into global sports: free-spending, rancorous and hyper-political. He commandeered the lectern at an international chess tournament in Riyadh to rail against “ministate” Qatar, and he ranted that the Saudi soccer team had put in “less than 5 percent effort” during a World Cup loss to Russia. With his penchant for showmanship, it was perhaps inevitable that one of the PIF’s first massive investments would be bringing WWE to Saudi Arabia — and, with it, hired wrestlers acting out the humiliation of what was then a Saudi enemy nation.AdvertisementStory continues below advertisementAt the Greatest Royal Rumble in Riyadh in April 2018, two Iranian American wrestlers, waving the Iranian flag, confronted four young Saudi wrestlers. The scripted comeuppance was swift: The Saudis pummeled the Iranians, brothers Ariya and Shawn Daivari, threw them out of the ring and sent them limping away as the crowd jeered.
  • Many Westerners ascribe a singular motive to Saudi Arabia, if not the entire Middle East, for its interest in sports: sportswashing. And Saudi Arabia has used sports to market its supposed makeover to the outside world — and to guard its image.
  • Another key currency in sports (and adjacent Spandex-clad theater) was embedded in that brief anti-Iranian WWE storyline, a forgettable footnote for American viewers. Saudi leaders have attempted to move the country away from religious fundamentalism, or Islamism, to replace it with something more palatable to global commerce: nationalism, partly ginned up by crushing Middle Eastern rivals at a game it came late to.AdvertisementStory continues below advertisementSaudi Arabia, with its geriatric leadership until six years ago, had inadvertently given the United Arab Emirates and Qatar a decades-long head start at investing in sports — but the much larger country has been a bully ever since.
  • by dissuading potential religious extremism, “The idea is to get the country to look quote-unquote ‘normal.’ ”
  • “one of those key moments of reputation laundering and propaganda that Mohammed bin Salman needed at that time: an American organization with a billionaire as famous as Vince McMahon appearing in Saudi Arabia and things going on as normal.”
  • In the years since Khashoggi’s murder, financial leaders returned to doing business with Saudi Arabia, partly revealed when the kingdom released a list of partners in venture capital, including some of the highest-profile firms in the world. (That includes Amazon, founded by Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post. In 2022, the PIF invested roughly $430 million in Amazon.) In sports, reticent executives became increasingly easy marks for a kingdom practiced at bending opponents to its will.
  • The PIF’s effort to purchase Newcastle United was stalled by Saudi Arabia’s alleged role in one of the world’s largest piracy operations, which for years brazenly stole Qatari content, including that of Premier League games, and beamed it to set-top boxes in Saudi homes.Saudi Arabia denied having a role in the piracy. Investigations by several organizations, from the World Trade Organization to FIFA, found otherwise. The piracy halted just before the PIF was set to complete its purchase of Newcastle.
  • “The majority of fans don’t care.”
  • The Saudis — with a diversified portfolio full of other sports — were willing to blow up golf. Pro golf executives, it turns out, were not.
  • Endeavor, helmed by Ari Emanuel, announced in April a $21 billion deal to merge UFC, its mixed martial arts company, with WWE. Less than five years earlier, Emanuel had returned $400 million to the Saudis so as not to have to partner with them in the wake of Khashoggi’s murder. But Endeavor and its related companies had recently done business with the kingdom again — including Endeavor’s IMG negotiating media rights for the Saudi Pro League. Under TKO, the company created in the merger with Emanuel as CEO, WWE plans to continue its Saudi shows. And UFC recently announced it would hold its first event in Saudi Arabia next year.
Ed Webb

Sovereignty for cash? The Saudi-Maldives island deal making waves | Middle East Eye - 0 views

  • It’s one of the world’s top tourist destinations, with more than a million scantily clad foreigners enjoying its glistening white beaches and crystal clear waters each year.Later this month, the Indian Ocean state of the Maldives – particularly popular with honeymooners – is scheduled to play host to a very different kind of visitor when King Salman bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia arrives for official talks and a holiday. Top of the agenda in talks with the government in Male, the Maldives small, cramped capital, is likely to be a $10bn Saudi investment project, believed to include the Saudi purchase or long-term lease of a string of 19 of the island state’s coral atolls.
  • “international sea sports, mixed development, residential high-class development, many tourist resorts, many airports and other industries"
  • “The plans would allow a foreign power control of one of the country’s 26 atolls. It amounts to creeping colonialism.”
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  • There are also fears that the development, with its large-scale building work and dredging activities, will threaten irreparable damage to what is one of the world’s most pristine but vulnerable ecological regions.
  • with climate change and rising sea levels, there is a very real possibility that the majority of the island nation’s land area will be underwater by the end of the century
  • Abdulla Yameen, the current president – who has strongly denied allegations about government corruption made recently by the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera network - has stressed the need for economic growth and sees the giant Saudi investment as key to future prosperity.“We do not need cabinet meetings under water,” says the government. “We need development.”
  • The opposition says part of the rational behind the multi-billion dollar Saudi development could be a plan by Riyadh to establish a staging post and special economic zone, complete with port facilities, for oil and gas exports to Asia, particularly to China.
  • Islam in the Maldives has traditionally blended elements of Sufism and other religions; in recent years, a stricter form of Saudi-style "Wahhabism" has predominated. There are concerns that a number of people from the Maldives are believed to have joined the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria and Iraq.
  • The Saudis have pledged to build what they describe as 10 "world class" mosques in the archipelago and have donated $100,000 for scholarships to study in Saudi Arabia. 
  • In early 2016, the government in Male cut diplomat ties with Iran
  • The growing ties between Riyadh and Male have been causing some concern in the region, particularly in India.Last year the Binladin Group, the troubled Saudi construction conglomerate, was awarded – for an undisclosed sum – a contract to build a new international airport in the Maldives. A previous agreement with an Indian company to build the airport was terminated; it is likely the Maldives will have to pay millions of dollars in compensation. 
  • Analysts say the Asia trip is about extending Saudi influence and diversifying the Kingdom’s economy away from oil and gas and investing in the region.
Ed Webb

Neither Public nor Private: Egypt Without a Viable Engine for Growth - The Tahrir Insti... - 0 views

  • The program has the ambitious objective of reducing the role of state-owned enterprises—in which the IMF includes military-owned companies—and encouraging their replacement with “inclusive private sector led growth.” Indeed, Egypt’s Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly called for just that last year, saying he is aiming for the share of private investment in Egypt’s economy to rise from 30 percent to 65 percent in the coming three years. However, when one examines the market conditions in Egypt and globally, it becomes clear that such an expansion of private investment is clearly unrealistic.
  • a massive parallel market for hard currency emerged, with its own exchange rate. The parallel market even operated internationally, with Egyptian expatriate workers paying their Saudi rials or Kuwaiti dinars to dealers in the countries where they worked, who then had partners in Egypt who would disburse Egyptian pounds to awaiting relatives at the black-market rate. In 2015, before new reforms were introduced, the central bank governor at the time Hisham Ramez estimated that as much as 90 percent of Egypt’s remittances were being lost to the parallel market, circumventing the country’s official banking system and starving banks of much needed hard currency liquidity. For perspective on the seriousness of this issue, remittances in recent years have brought more dollars to Egypt than Suez Canal revenue, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), and tourism combined.
  • Inflation already pushed past 20 percent last month and this is only the beginning of a year or more of price corrections as markets absorb the latest dramatic devaluation of the country’s currency. While in 2016 and 2017 consumers cut back on beef and chicken, replacing them with eggs as a source of protein and fats, eggs today are too expensive for many, leading the government to encourage the consumption of chicken legs.
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  • The new IMF program requires 20 million vulnerable Egyptians to receive cash transfers by the end of January, but three years ago when things were far less precarious, there were already 30 million Egyptians in poverty and the World Bank estimated 60 million Egyptians were near or below the poverty line. Today, poverty levels are almost certainly higher and despite a modest increase in social protection coverage, domestic demand in the coming year will likely weaken even further
  • the IMF appears unrealistic about the coming pain, estimating just 14 percent inflation in the coming year. They are also likely to be unrealistic about how quickly growth can be achieved. It is not just the private sector that will not grow in the near term due to the many deterrents facing Egypt’s business community. 
  • Egypt’s GDP growth for the past several years was buoyed by enormous levels of public spending on roads, bridges, new cities (including a new capital city), massive rail projects including the world’s longest monorail line, and even a number of presidential palaces.  Now that the state is being required by the IMF to cut unnecessary large project stimulus and its ability to borrow is heavily constricted, the country’s growth model is at risk of decelerating.
  • The IMF has finally started to seriously engage with Egypt’s sizable governance issues and calls for reducing the size of the military’s economic empire which has done enormous damage to the country’s economy and private sector
Ed Webb

Saudi megaproject harnesses Egypt's Sinai, but Sisi will pay the - 0 views

  • The almost 11,000 square mile total project is to be designed and supervised by US, German, Japanese and possibly other western experts. It represents the largest single component of the Saudi Crown Prince's "Vision 2030", by which he intends his country to diversify its economy away from dependence upon oil. Egypt, in other words, is being harnessed to Prince Mohammad bin Salman's project to consolidate his personal political power, transform the Kingdom into a centre of high tech development in what heretofore has been a relatively peripheral region within the Middle East, and exert yet greater Saudi influence over both Jordan and Egypt.
  • The most immediate, tangible potential benefits are to lend support to the effort to convert the Suez Canal Zone into a globally important logistics hub, combined with opening up the Red Sea and Gulfs of Suez and Aqaba to a new surge of tourist development.
  • Suez Canal revenues and numbers of ships transiting have been essentially flat since the parallel channel was opened amidst great fanfare in February 2016 following a two-year, $8.4 billion upgrade
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  • even if Suez Canal traffic were miraculously to increase, the benefits of a major logistical hub on its flanks are less than certain. Neither Egypt nor any other Middle Eastern or North African country is a major manufacturing centre. Intra-industry trade, which is that essentially conducted within multinational corporations as they integrate production of goods in many countries, is abysmally low in the Middle East and North Africa, whereas it is booming in East Asia. So the question of what purpose a logistical hub would serve is highly pertinent.
  • the Red Sea is not exactly a hospitable political environment. The ongoing war in Yemen, increasing instability in Eritrea and Ethiopia, persisting violence in Somalia and Egypt, protracted conflict in Sudan and South Sudan, piracy, and growing competition for port access between the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, China, the US and others contain the seeds for turmoil that could negatively impact tourism in the region
  • What benefits then might Egypt anticipate from the reported $10 billion investment? The principal one seems to be contracts for military owned or associated construction companies, just as was the case with the digging of the parallel channel to the Suez Canal.
  • As military men they are interested in generating business for that sector of the economy they have come to control. From their perspective the $10 billion is not an investment in Egypt's future so much as it is a payment to the Egyptian military for being supportive of Mohammad bin Salman and his ambitions
  • costs of what appears to be a large scale, military dominated construction project are economic, environmental and political
  • Turning military owned and associated construction companies loose in the southern Sinai and along the foreshores of the Gulfs of Aqaba and Suez is a recipe for environmental disaster, as the current situations on the Mediterranean North Coast and western shore of the Gulf of Suez attest. The fragile marine environment has already sustained enormous damage to reef and other aquatic life.
  • buying Egyptian political insurance for his $10 billion, a price that Egypt may ultimately find to be very high
Ed Webb

Saudi agricultural investment abroad - land grab or benign strategy? | Middle East Eye - 0 views

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    oil exporters buying up fertile land elsewhere
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    oil exporters buying up fertile land elsewhere
Ed Webb

Under Sisi, firms owned by Egypt's military have flourished - 0 views

  • Maadi is one of dozens of military-owned companies that have flourished since Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, a former armed forces chief, became president in 2014, a year after leading the military in ousting Islamist President Mohamed Mursi.
  • In interviews conducted over the course of a year, the chairmen of nine military-owned firms described how their businesses are expanding and discussed their plans for future growth. Figures from the Ministry of Military Production - one of three main bodies that oversee military firms - show that revenues at its firms are rising sharply. The ministry’s figures and the chairmen’s accounts give rare insight into the way the military is growing in economic influence.
  • Some Egyptian businessmen and foreign investors say they are unsettled by the military’s push into civilian activities and complain about tax and other advantages granted to military-owned firms
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  • In 2016, the military and other security institutions were given exemptions in a new value-added tax (VAT) law enacted as part of IMF-inspired reforms. The law states that the military does not have to pay VAT on goods, equipment, machinery, services and raw materials needed for the purposes of armament, defense and national security.The Ministry of Defense has the right to decide which goods and services qualify. Civilian businessmen complain that this can leave the system open to abuse. Receipts for a cup of coffee at private sector hotels, for example, add 14 percent VAT. Receipts at military hotels do not. Employees at the military-owned Al-Masah Hotel in Cairo told Reuters that no VAT was charged when renting venues for weddings and conferences.
  • The Ministry of Military Production is projecting that operating revenues from its 20 firms will reach 15 billion Egyptian pounds in 2018/2019, five times higher than in 2013/2014, according to a ministry chart. The ministry does not disclose what happens to the revenues. The chairmen of two of the firms said profits go to the ministry or are reinvested in the business.
  • “I don’t want to be a local shop. I want to be a company that has the capacity to export and compete internationally.”
  • The chairmen of two military engineering companies, Abu Zaabal Engineering Industries Co and Helwan Engineering Industries Co, said in recent years it had become much easier to access financing through the Ministry of Military Production.
  • Military companies receive an exemption from import tariffs under a 1986 law and from income taxes under a 2005 law. Cargoes sent to military companies do not have to be inspected.
  • The Ministry of Military Production signed a memorandum of understanding with China’s GCL Group last week to build a solar panel factory worth up to $2 billion. The military has taken over much of the construction of intercity roads from the Ministry of Transport and now controls the toll stations along most major highways.
  • Economists and investors say reforms tied to a $12 billion three-year IMF program signed in Nov. 2016 should lay the ground for economic expansion. But foreign investors are still shying away from Egypt, apart from those focusing on the more resilient energy sector. Non-oil foreign direct investment fell to about $3 billion in 2017 from $4.7 billion in 2016, according to Reuters calculations based on central bank statistics.  
  • foreign investors were reluctant to invest in sectors where the military is expanding or in one they might enter, worried that competing against the military with its special privileges could expose their investment to risk. If an investor had a business dispute with the military, the commercial officer said, there was no point in taking it to arbitration. “You just leave the country,” he said.
  • Egypt’s military, the biggest in the Arab world, has advantages.It enjoys financial support from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, staunch supporters of Sisi since he toppled the group they see as a threat to the Middle East, the Muslim Brotherhood. Western powers see Cairo as a bulwark against Islamist militancy. Egypt receives $1.3 billion in military aid annually from the United States alone.
  • In 2015, the defense minister issued a decree exempting nearly 600 hotels, resorts and other properties owned by the military from real estate taxes
  • Among projects the Ministry of Military Production announced in 2017 was a plan to plant 20 million palm trees with an Emirati company and build a factory to make sugar from their dates. It agreed with a Saudi company to jointly manufacture elevators. The military inaugurated the Middle East’s biggest fish farm on the Nile Delta east of Alexandria.
  • At bustling Cairo squares, people line up to buy subsidized meat and other food handed out from trucks sponsored by the military. Sisi said he had instructed the military to enter the market “to supply more chicken to push down prices.”Some disagree with such measures on the grounds the military’s mission is to protect the country from external threats.“We have reached a point where they are competing even with street vendors,”
Ed Webb

Scholars, Spies and the Gulf Military Industrial Complex | MERIP - 0 views

  • Until recently, there was little practical knowledge about what it meant for an academic to analyze the military activities of the Gulf states because there wasn’t much to study, other than some symbolic joint training exercises, sociological inquiry about the composition of the region’s armed forces, and limited Emirati participation in non-combat operations in places like Kosovo. The bulk of scholarship examined the Gulf in the context of petrodollar recycling (the exchange of the Gulf’s surplus oil capital for expensive Western military equipment) or the Gulf as the object of military intervention, but never as its agent.
  • it is no coincidence that two decades of research and funding for domestic weapons development in the UAE is now manifested in armed interventions in Yemen, Libya and the horn of Africa
  • The history of the United States and European states undermining regional governments—including its only democratically-elected ones—using covert agents posing as scholars, bureaucrats and businessmen is well-documented. Its legacy is clear in the region’s contemporary politics, where authoritarians and reactionary nationalists frequently paint democratic opposition forces as foreign agents and provocateurs. It’s also visible in the political staying power of religious conservatives, who were actively supported by the US and its allies in order to undermine leftist forces that threatened to nationalize oil fields and expropriate Western corporate property.
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  • Another element of this legacy is the paranoia that makes it difficult for regional governments to distinguish between academic researchers and spies
  • Imagine if Syria had imprisoned a British PhD student and kept them in solitary confinement for seven months with one consular visit—or if Iran covered up the brutal murder of an Italian PhD student by their police forces, as happened in Egypt in 2016. The double standards pertaining to academic freedom and the rule of law in countries formally allied with the United States and Europe and those characterized as rogue actors is so obvious it barely merits pointing out. The Emirati authorities certainly recognize this, and will continue to exploit this double standard so long as it remains intact.
  • Oil money, along with a new generation of rulers eager to use military intervention to demonstrate their power to domestic and foreign audiences, has made the Gulf not just a major weapons customer but an industry partner. The story of the UAE today is no longer Dubai’s position as a global finance hub, but Abu Dhabi’s position as an emerging player in high-tech weapons development.
  • Academic research is not espionage—but many parties (notably US and European governments) are implicated in the process that has allowed them to be conflated
  • Matt’s arrest and detention, therefore, is a clear message from UAE authorities that research into the country’s growing arms industry is off-limits, in much the same way that researchers and activists working on labor rights have found themselves surveilled, intimidated and imprisoned
  • The slow erosion of public funding for universities has bled dry the resources reserved to support PhD students, meanwhile trustees and consultants urge the adoption of for-profit business practices that generate return on investment, including partnering with defense technology firms for research grants.[3] The fact that educational institutions must go begging—hat in hand—to billionaire philanthropists and weapons conglomerates reflects both the growing share of defense industry involvement in industrial and research activities as well as the failure of our political system to levy sufficient taxes on the ultra-rich to directly fund basic investments in public education.
  • what does the weakening of US and European governments vis-à-vis their Gulf counterparts mean for the protection of students and scholars conducting overseas research?
  • Before my research on the Gulf, my focus was on the role of regional militaries (primarily Egypt and Jordan) in their domestic economies. The more I studied these cases the more I realized their military economies are not some peculiarity of third world political development, but a legacy of colonial militarization, the obstacles facing newly-independent states trying to industrialize their economies, and the extraordinary organizational and financial resources that weapons producers dedicate to proliferating their products all over the globe.
  • I do not know of any studies estimating the total number of academics and non-government researchers working on security and military-related issues across the globe, but I expect it is in the tens of thousands at the very least. At my home institution alone—The George Washington University—there are maybe a dozen faculty working on everything from the psychology of drone operators to the role gender plays in government defense contracting—and I’m pretty sure none of these people are spies. This kind of security studies—which examines topics like defense technology, the global arms industry and government contracting—is a growing field, not least due to the proliferation of information about these issues coming from the booming private sector. And as multinational defense firms and their complementary industry partners continue to chase investment shifting from the core capitalist countries to emerging regional powers like the Gulf States these latter sites will become increasingly important targets for such research.
  • Matt’s case should make us question not only the safety of Western researchers and our students but, more importantly, the continued harassment, intimidation and imprisonment of academics and democratic activists across the Middle East.
Ed Webb

The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer: Saudi Arabia rolls the dice with bid for New... - 0 views

  • Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has rolled the dice with a US$ 374 million bid to acquire storied British soccer club Newcastle United. If approved by Britain’s Premier League that nominally maintains a high bar for the qualification of aspiring club owners, Prince Mohammed would have demonstrated that he has put behind him an image tarnished by Saudi conduct of a five-year long war in Yemen, the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, systematic abuse of human rights and, more recently, the kingdom’s badly-timed oil price war with Russia.
  • the kind of financial muscle that allows it to acquire trophies that enable it to project itself in a different light and garner soft power rather than financial gain at a time of a pandemic and global economic collapse.
  • Aramco, the Saudi national oil company, was reported to be talking to banks about a US$10 billion loan to help finance its acquisition of a 70% stake in Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC). The deal would pour money into the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund.
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  • Prince Mohammed is betting that the Premier League at a time of economic crisis and with Britain needing to forge new trade relationships in the wake of its departure from the European Union may not want to slam the door on a wealthy investor and/or jeopardize British relations with the kingdom.
  • a decision by the Premier League to reject the acquisition of Newcastle would be perceived as yet another of Prince Mohammed’s self-inflicted public relations fiascos that include multiple failed attempts to position the kingdom as a powerhouse in international soccer governance
  • The acquisition would mimic the 2017 purchase of celebrated soccer star Neymar by Qatar-owned Paris St. Germain for US$277 million intended to demonstrate that the Gulf state was unaffected by the then several months-old Saudi-UAE-led economic and diplomatic boycott.
  • Saudi Arabia responded in 2018 to Canadian criticism of the kingdom’s human rights record by withdrawing its ambassador and freezing all new trade and investment transactions. German criticism of a failed Saudi attempt to force the resignation of Lebanon’s prime minister led that same year to a de facto downgrading of diplomatic relations and reduced trade.
  • The League has tightened its criteria to test potential club owners on their integrity and reputation. The criteria include ensuring that a potential owner has not committed an act in a foreign jurisdiction that would be a criminal offence in Britain, even if not illegal in their own country.
  • Supporters of the acquisition argue that it bolsters Prince Mohammed’s reforms in a soccer-crazy country and reaffirms his push to break with the kingdom’s austere, inward-looking past. They reason further that it will bolster investment in Newcastle and surroundings at a time of impending economic hardship.
  • Supporters only need to look at Manchester where the United Arab Emirates’ acquisition of Manchester City more than a decade ago has benefitted not only the club but the city too.
  • supporters of Newcastle are likely to welcome the financial injection and departure of the club’s unpopular current owner, Mike Ashley, and ignore condemnation of the deal by human rights activists, including Amnesty International, as “sportswashing, plain and simple.”
Ed Webb

Ahead of COP27, Egypt is highly vulnerable to climate change - 0 views

  • Adel Abdullah cultivates a subsistence living off of six acres of peppers, eggplants, cucumbers, tomatoes, wheat, corn, and pomegranates. He is one of millions of smallholder farmers working in the Delta. He walks barefoot in his farm as a show of reverence to the land. The soil is pale and thin, almost as sandy as the beach, and choked by mounting concentrations of salt, left behind by periodic coastal flooding and pushed into underground aquifers by the rising sea.“This is the first place to be affected by climate change,” Abdullah says. “The barriers help a bit with flooding, but the salty soil is still really killing us.”
  • he takes irrigation water from the nearby Kitchener Drain, one of the largest and most polluted canals in Egypt that aggregates wastewater from the farms, businesses, and households of an estimated 11 million people in the Delta. By the time water reaches Abdullah’s farm, it may have been reused half a dozen times since entering Egypt in the Nile, each time accumulating more salts and pollutants and losing beneficial nutrients.
  • Abdullah is forced to douse the farm in fertilizers, pesticides, and salt-suppressing chemicals, all of which further degrade the soil. Those inputs, on top of the rising costs of irrigation systems and machinery, eat up any potential income Abdullah might earn
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  • The Nile Delta—where agriculture employs one-fifth of the country’s workforce and is responsible for 12% of its GDP and much of its food supply—is being hammered by rising sea levels, rising temperatures, and a growing shortage of water.
  • rapid urbanization and population growth
  • Climate adaptation solutions that could keep environmental problems from turning existential—fixing the battered and wasteful irrigation network, expanding affordable access to improved seeds and climate-smart farming technologies, and more effective and equitable regulation of urban development on agricultural land—are being rolled out by the government and research groups, but often slower than the pace of climate impacts. That’s left Egypt’s economy and food security exposed to growing risk.
  • “We’re really squeezed and marginalized here, and the government isn’t helping,” said one farmer down the road from Abdullah, who requested anonymity to speak frankly (with tens of thousands of political prisoners, Egypt’s restrictions on free speech are also gaining prominence ahead of COP27).
  • his children see no future in agriculture
  • Around 1805, an Ottoman general named Muhammad Ali took control of the country, and founded the dynasty of kings that would rule—eventually under British colonial supervision—for 150 years. One of Ali’s most enduring marks on the country was the establishment of the first modern network of dams and irrigation canals in the Delta, which allowed tens of thousands of new acres to come under cultivation.
  • water and land played a crucial role in Nasser’s legacy. 12% of the country’s arable land was owned by the aristocracy; Nasser nationalized this land and distributed it to about 340,000 impoverished rural families. He also further extended Ali’s irrigation network and oversaw construction of the Aswan High Dam, which brought an end to the Nile’s ancient seasonal flooding and fixed the river in its present position, with just two remaining branches forking through the Delta.
  • Egypt’s population has since more than quadrupled, to 104 million. Yet the flow of the Nile, which supplies more than 95% of the country’s water, has remained more or less constant. In the 1990s water availability fell below the international “water poverty” benchmark of 1,000 cubic meters per person per year.
  • Egypt has managed that scarcity by meticulously recycling agricultural water and, in recent years, curtailing the production of water-intensive crops like cotton and rice and importing 40% of its wheat and other food staples.
  • The population is still growing quickly, and could reach 160 million by 2050. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam that is nearing completion upstream could cut the flow of Nile water into Egypt by a quarter during the as-yet-unknown number of years it will take to fill its reservoir. By 2100, climate change-related heat waves upstream could reduce the Nile’s flow by 75%, Abousabaa said.
  • current annual demand for water is about 35% higher than what the country receives from the Nile, groundwater, and a very small amount of rain—a deficit of about 20 billion cubic meters. To cover it, she said, Egypt will need to use every drop multiple times, aggressively minimize wastage, and boost the supply by investing $2.8 billion in dozens of new desalination plants with the aim to produce 5 billion cubic meters annually by 2050.
  • Egypt has made clear that COP27 will focus primarily on wringing climate finance out of the rich countries that are most responsible for climate change.
  • rising temperatures and falling rainfall mean crops—which consume 86% of Egypt’s water supply—will require more irrigation to survive.
  • The unpredictability makes it difficult to identify solutions, Salah says: “Climate change is like a big black box.”
  • “For the last two years, with heat wave after heat wave, we lost more than half the crop. It’s really sad.”
  • The farm relies on groundwater brought up from wells on the property, and Nasrallah says the suburbs are draining the aquifer. In the last four years he has had to dig an extra thirty meters to find water—and deeper wells mean higher electricity bills for pumping. Some wells have dried up altogether. Recently, government officials told him he had to stop watering the grass on a soccer field he built for his workers.
  • Urbanization is also spreading in the inner Delta, as many farmers decide that constructing housing is more profitable than growing crops. Since the 1970s, about 14% of the Delta’s arable land has been converted to urban development
  • Individual farms are also becoming smaller with each generation as, in keeping with longstanding Egyptian custom, land is divided among a father’s heirs (with sons traditionally taking a larger share than daughters). Urban development degrades the Delta’s soil and drives more farming into the desert, leaving the entire food system more vulnerable to climate impacts. Land fragmentation leads to the inefficient use of water and other resources and raises the costs of distribution for farmers.
  • in some cases, the government’s own plans are responsible, most recently in August when thousands of people living on a Nile island near Cairo that was primarily used for farming were evicted to make way for a state-sanctioned development project.
  • The network started by Muhammed Ali now includes about 33,000 miles of delivery and drainage canals across the country, enough to wrap around the globe, that range in size from small rivers to something a child could hop over. Delta residents say they used to bathe in these canals, drink from them, and raise fish in them. Now many of them, especially at the ends of the network, are polluted with farming chemicals and sewage, and choked with trash.
  • Between seepage, evaporation, and water wasted by farmers who flood their fields instead of using controlled irrigation hoses, nearly one-third of the country’s water is lost in the irrigation system between the Aswan High Dam and the sea
  • The soil is dark and appears rich, but is crusted with a visible layer of salt, a problem that affects up to 40% of Egypt’s arable soil.
  • Fixing the irrigation network is a priority for the government. Eman Sayed from the Irrigation Ministry said her agency has lined about 3,700 miles of canals with concrete in the last two years and is aiming to finish another 12,400 in the next few years. The ministry is also helping farmers cover the cost of installing drip irrigation systems, which researchers at AUC found can cut farmers’ water consumption 61% per year; today such systems cover only one-sixth of arable land in Egypt.
  • Authorities have also begun to restrict production of water-intensive crops like rice and bananas, although farmers say there is little enforcement of these rules, and both crops are still widely cultivated throughout the Delta.
  • On the western fringe of the Delta, farms and suburbs are gradually overtaking the desert as the central Delta grows more crowded. Here, water is even scarcer and the impacts of climate change are more pronounced. But in this and a few other desert areas around Egypt, the government is working to link more than 1.5 million acres to groundwater irrigation, and says it is about one-third of the way there. Land reclamation could take some pressure off the Delta, and sandy soils are well-suited for the production of citrus fruits that are one of Egypt’s most lucrative exports.
  • On the horizon, an offshore natural gas platform is visible. Egypt, which seized the disruption of Russian energy supplies to Europe because of the Ukraine war as an opening to boost its own exports of natural gas, is now contributing more to the problem than ever before; an independent review of its new climate strategy ranked it “highly insufficient” for averting disastrous levels of carbon emissions.
  • By 2100, Noureldeen says, sea level rise could inundate nearly 700 square miles of the coastal Delta and displace four million people.
Ed Webb

Egypt currency has further to fall: business leader | Reuters - 0 views

  • Egypt has begun devaluing its currency to help revive the economy and meet the conditions of an expected IMF loan and the depreciation has further to go, a business leader in the ruling Muslim Brotherhood said
  • "We have started already some increase in taxation, and there is the devaluation of the pound and we raised some prices of petrol and gas," Malek said in an interview."Normal people in the street now understand that there is a price that we will have to pay for the IMF agreement."Asked whether he expected a further depreciation of the Egyptian currency to help exports and tourism, he said: "I'm not of course a technical (expert) but people expect a little bit of devaluation in the future."
  • Malek, who was imprisoned under Mubarak with top Muslim Brotherhood leader Khairat el-Shater, his friend and business partner, said he was actively trying to persuade wealthy Egyptians to return and invest in the country.Asked if he was personally involved in trying to persuade billionaires who have left Egypt and had their assets frozen or been convicted of economic crimes to come home, he said "Yes. I am inviting everyone to come to Egypt. It is very important to prioritize legislation and court cases should be solved first... before these people come back."
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  • Malek said his organization was also trying to broker a solution to Cairo's debt to foreign energy companies producing oil and gas in Egypt such as BP, Gas Natural, Petronas, Shell and Dana, that has accumulated since the 2011 uprising.He disputed the figure of $9 billion cited by consultancy Executive Analysis and European diplomats for the total energy debt, saying it was far less, but declined to give a number."Some of their contracts needed to be reviewed because they were not balanced to cover both the national interest and the company interest. So some licenses were suspended when they expired, which made a bit of a problem," Malek said."We tried to encourage them by giving them more concessions and rescheduling these payments (owed by Egypt). We opened other opportunities in the same field such as refineries and other projects they can take. Up to this moment, none of these companies has decided to leave," Malek said.He acknowledged that most foreign energy companies were still holding back on new investments in Egypt. "They want to see these problems tackled first. They want to see a clear road map, which is normal in such an environment."
Ed Webb

UAE to open second military base in east Africa | Middle East Eye - 0 views

  • The United Arab Emirates is going to set up a second military base in the Horn of Africa, sparking concern among some governments in the region.The Somaliland parliament approved the deal for the northern port of Berbera on Sunday
  • Under the 30-year deal, the Emirati government will have exclusive rights to Somaliland’s largest port and manage and oversee operational activities.
  • DP World, the UAE’s ports operator company, will supervise the port, which will gain a naval base as well as an air base. The lease of the port is contingent on the $442 million deal with DP World.
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  • Somaliland will get investment as well as international recognition: no other country has yet recognised the breakaway territory – which separated itself from the rest of Somalia in 1993 - as an "independent state"
  • The Eritrean base has been used by the UAE in the Yemen war against the Houthis. It is not known whether the facility at Berbera will have a similar purpose
  • Abu Dhabi is reaching out to countries in and around the Horn of Africa, as it looks to increase its non-oil revenue through other avenues including real estate, trade and financial services.
  • the UAE will be engaging in trade across the port, and for this, it would require a sustainable road network across Berbera. Hence, as the minister said, it will create opportunities for the local people on infrastructure development.
  • the Somaliland deal has angered Ethiopia, one of the regional powers in the Horn of Africa, which itself has economic ties with the UAE.As recently as last year, the UAE and Ethiopia signed several investment deals, under the terms of which the UAE is legally bound to protect the economic interests of Ethiopia
Ed Webb

Erdogan accuses TUSIAD chairman of treason - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East - 0 views

  • Erdogan responded the next day by accusing Yilmaz of “treason against the country.” He said: “The TUSIAD chair cannot say, ‘Global capital won’t come to such a country.’ If he said that, then that is treason against this country. After you said that, with what nerve are you going to invite the ministers of this government to TUSIAD? With what nerve you will come to this prime minister and his government to solve your problems regarding your investments?"
  • Yilmaz’s warnings should be taken seriously. He and TUSIAD are not known for being highly politicized
  • It is also not a coincidence that TUSIAD’s warnings were voiced following the Dec. 17 bribery and graft investigation that led to a dramatic escalation in the AKP-Fethullah Gulen Movement war. The government’s tendency to use its financial auditing powers to influence capital groups and opposition politicians it doesn’t like gained momentum after that date. The latest example came on Jan. 17, when the bank accounts and assets of Mustafa Sarigul, a candidate for mayor of metropolitan Istanbul and a member of the main opposition Republican Peoples Party, were impounded by the Saving Deposits Insurance Fund (TMSF) 73 days before the local elections on grounds of a $3.5 million credit debt from 16 years ago. 
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  • The way for Turkey to achieve a sustainable growth rate by financing its current deficit is to make the country attractive for direct foreign investment. That in turn requires Turkey to have a properly functioning legal system, properly and justly operating independent institutions, good governance, a stable democracy and a free market — in short, to be predictable. Authoritarian and arbitrarily governed countries first lose their predictability.
  • The same situation has emerged concerning the Koc Group, which has been subjected to one tax penalty after another. The Koc Group, the largest capital group of Turkey, attracted the ire of Erdogan during the June 2013 Gezi Park protests when the nearby Divan Hotel it owns opened its doors to those escaping the pepper gas and brutality of the police. Erdogan perceived that as a challenge and accused the Koc Group of being accomplices to the protesters. Alluding to the group June 17, he actually said, "We know those who cooperate with terrorists and accommodate them in their hotels. We will settle accounts on this. Now we have an interest lobby emerging.” We all discovered how that account was be settled when tax audit teams from the Ministry of Finance accompanied by police raided the Koc companies.
  • Mustafa Boydak, the president of the Chamber of Industry of the Anatolian industrial city of Kayseri and a well-known conservative industrialist, denounced the tax audit of the Koc Group and called on the government "not to become party to the business world and not to treat the companies that carry Turkey as an enemy.” The government clearly didn’t appreciate Boydak’s call and responded with a tax audit of the Boydak Holding group of companies.
  • Some public corporations led by Turkish Airlines and private companies with ties to the government withdrew 900 million lira ($391 million) of deposits from Bank Asya, recognized as the Gulen movement's bank, on the same day without waiting for the deposits to mature, and put the bank in a tough bind. Bank Asya was saved from going under when companies and businessmen affiliated with Gulen deposited the same amount of money.
  • The first allegations of the AKP government using tax penalties as a political weapon came out in 2008, when the Dogan Media Group was openly targeted by Erdogan and fined $1.6 billion
Ed Webb

Kuwait's PM says welfare state is unsustainable, calls for cuts | Reuters - 0 views

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    Kuwait has lagged peers like the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in competitiveness and foreign investment. It has the most open political system in the Gulf Arab region but infighting and bureaucracy have slowed an economic development plan, announced in 2010, aimed at diversifying the oil-reliant economy.
Sherry Lowrance

Tunisia's Forgotten Revolutionaries | The Middle East Channel - 0 views

  • "Nothing to invest. No businesses. No land. Nothing." His words make up the refrain to Tunisia's desperately undeveloped and long-neglected interior region, the birthplace of the Arab spring. What have the revolutionaries gotten out of their revolution?
  • During Ben Ali's 23-year rule, Tunisia focused 90 percent of its investment projects on the coastal regions, leaving the interior disproportionately underdeveloped. Unemployment in the region has increased to 18 percent, twice the rate on the coast, and while Tunisia's average national poverty rate is 18 percent, it ranges from 6 percent in Tunis to more than 30 percent in the center-west governorates.
  • Bread riots in December 1983 in the same cities launched the most serious challenge to the Tunisian regime. If things don't improve, as seems grimly likely, rebellion may return.
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  • "Are we even a part of Tunisia?"
  • "We don't have faith in politics. Not before, not now. Just show us projects and development, no fancy ideas," he demands. "We'll vote for the party of bread."
  • The October elections, originally slated for June, but delayed to give parties more time to organize, will appoint an assembly to rewrite Tunisia's constitution.
  • Tunisians across the country worry that their leaderless and non-ideological revolution will be stolen by former Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD) members in new clothes, or Islamists who've returned from exile. "The question isn't even how to stop the RCD from coming back," says Zied Mhirsi, Tunisian doctor and co-founder of the English-language news site "Tunisia Live." "It's how to limit their existence."
  • "We still don't know who's truly in charge," he says, donning a ‘No to censorship' bracelet. "We have a government that's led by an old man [85-year-old interim Prime Minister Beji Caid-Essebsi] and manipulated by hidden forces."
  • "You all think this came out of nowhere," says Tunisian General Trade Union (UGGT) activist Slim Rouissi. "That [Mohammed] Bouazizzi got mad one day and started it all. But we've been planning for a while." Locals and analysts alike say popular opposition had been growing the past two years, punctuated by strikes and protests throughout the region.
    • Sherry Lowrance
       
      Just like Egypt - google exec Wael Ghanem said nearly the same thing.
  • Rouissi claims that far from being a non-politicized symbol of frustration, the 26-year-old fruit vendor had participated in a "Day of the Land" protest in Sidi Bouzid last July in solidarity with consistent strikes across the region.
  • Over the past 10 or more years in the region, there were streams that finally came together to form one big river of a revolution," says Chris Alexander, author of "Tunisia: Stability and Reform in the Modern Maghreb."
  • Alexander says the main challenge during Tunisia's transition is to continue to pull together constituencies that transcend class and regional distinctions, that will unite unemployed young people in the interior with professionals on the privileged coast-line, namely in Tunis. But thus far such linkages have not been formed.
  • he banned movement played an almost non-existent role in the revolution, but since Ben Ali's flight and the consequent January 30 return of exiled leader Rached Ghannouchi, al-Nahda has grown with astounding speed.
  • A recent survey found support for the party at just below 30 percent, almost three times that of its closest rival
  • "El Nahda said they'd build a school here," said 45-year-old resident Nina Hadhari, buying watermelons from a vendor. "I don't really like them or politics, but that's good and there's no one else here."
  • "There is a big problem today for the liberal and secular revolutionaries to transition to political life," says Bougerra. "They know how to get people to protest in Tunis, but can't mobilize and connect with the real Tunisian streets."
Ed Webb

The New Energy geopolitics and the Gulf Arab States - The Geopolitics - 0 views

  • today’s largest volumes of global seaborne crude oil – around 30% – along with a significant volume of LNG, passes through its Straits of Hormuz, making it the most important maritime oil chokepoint which connects the Gulf states with key global markets in the East and the West
  • The International Energy Agency (IEA) sees that the world can reach net-zero emissions by 2060, wherein 75% of reduction comes from energy efficiency and renewable energy, with another 14% from carbon capture and storage, 6% from nuclear and 5% from fuel switching. In this context, the fossil fuels’ share of the global energy mix falls from 82% in 2014 to 35% in 2060 under the 2°C scenario, or to 26% in the below 2°C scenario.
  • Renewable technologies and batteries require certain minerals for their production, such as cobalt, lithium, nickel and rare earth elements. Despite the fact that renewable endowments for wind, solar, geothermal and biomass are scattered geographically, controlling the production of these new commodities will have major geopolitical consequences as they are based only in a selected number of countries such as Chile, Bolivia, Mongolia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
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  • At present, China dominates the world’s investment and innovation in renewable energy technologies.
  • the importance of the Gulf Arab states will be eroded not only because of the decline in global demand for oil but also because Gulf countries are not rich in the minerals required to build renewable energy technologies, and are highly dependent on technology imports rather than in-house technology innovation and research and development
  • all hydrocarbon producer economies will see a fall in total rent of about 40% by 2040 compared with the ‘golden years’ of 2010-14 due to rigorous policies on fuel switching and efficiency to reach net-zero emissions in the second half of this century
  • In 2013, R&D investment in Gulf countries averaged 0.3% of the gross domestic product (GDP), compared with 2%–3% in industrialized countries. The 0.3% figure is far less than the minimum percentage (1%) needed for an effective science and technology base specified by UNESCO.
  • in the new energy era, the Gulf Arab states are still advantaged by their geographical location. These countries are specially positioned for harnessing wind and solar energy
Ed Webb

Jump in Islamic tax liabilities worries Saudi banks - 0 views

  • A jump in retroactive Islamic tax liabilities faced by Saudi Arabian banks is creating concern about damage to their earnings and the government’s motives in demanding the money.
  • While Saudi banks and other firms generally do not pay corporate tax, they are subject to an annual Islamic tax called zakat, a 2.5 percent levy on each bank’s net worth. Analysts say the way in which this is assessed can be complex and opaque.
  • In some cases, the demands exceed half of a bank’s annual net profit.
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  • Analysts said it appeared the new demands stemmed from certain long-term investments, which were previously exempt from zakat, now being deemed liable for the tax
  • Some bankers said privately they worried the demands might essentially be a money grab by the government, which wants to raise new revenues to cover a big budget deficit caused by low oil prices
  • “They changed arbitrarily how they assess the tax base,”
  • “You can’t do this type of thing if you want to attract foreign investment -- these are the things that frustrate people.”
Ed Webb

Is tourism the antidote to youth unemployment in Oman? - 0 views

  • A stubbornly high youth unemployment rate is one of Oman's most pressing internal issues. Roughly half of Oman's youths are unemployed, the World Bank estimates.
  • many Omanis await structural economic reforms, as the hydrocarbon industry accounts for 74% of government revenues but employs only 16,000 citizens of the Gulf state
  • the country’s road map for social and economic reform identifies five high-priority sectors, including the employment-intensive tourism industry. Ranked as one of the fastest growing industries in the world, the tourism sector could employ a total of 535,000 people, directly and indirectly, in Oman by 2040 to cater to 11 million visitors.
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  • The government is expected to play a "crucial" role in tourism development by injecting $6 billion over 25 years to trigger $43 billion worth of investments from the private sector.
  • the promises to allocate 223,000 direct tourism jobs to Omani nationals by 2040 does not align with Oman's undersized tourism education sector, which graduates only a few hundred students per year, mainly from the Oman Tourism College
  • although the number of tourists visiting Oman has doubled since 2008, the industry employs less than 17,000 Omanis.
  • “Corruption was also an issue since local authorities requested me to pay imaginary taxes," he said. "I am an ordinary man so I had to shut up and comply.”
  • “The concept of SMEs [small and medium enterprises] does not exist in the field of tourism anyway, the whole system is designed for large corporations,” said Christopher Chellapermal, a French entrepreneur. Chellapermal ran a scuba diving business in Oman for 15 years before being forced out of business in 2017.
  • The country’s ratio of debt to gross domestic product is rated junk by all three major agencies, as it has multiplied by 12 since 2014. Moreover, the Omani economy is ranked the worst performing among Gulf countries
  • For Chellapermal, Oman "makes the crazy wager" of luxury tourism by prioritizing premium visitors when the backpacker segment would be a better fit.
  • “Chinese and Indian tourists are very much interested in culture and heritage destinations," Hollister said. "Oman could focus on this segment to make it their niche, a differentiator.”
  • wealth of cultural and natural assets. The Ministry of Tourism promotes Oman as a hidden jewel at the tip of the Arabian Peninsula. 
  • regional tensions had very little impact on tourism
  • As Sultan Haitham bin Tariq Al Said takes power, analysts worry that Oman’s foreign policy of neutrality could be at stake. Will “any of Oman’s more assertive neighbors seek to sway Haitham to align more closely with their own approach,” Kristian Coates Ulrichsen wrote for Al-Monitor.
  • The prospect of tensions between Muscat and neighboring states does not please tourism actors, as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are Oman’s key source regional markets for tourism. In 2018, Gulf citizens accounted for about half of international arrivals.
  • Saudi Arabia’s aggressive push to develop its leisure tourism industry and attract 100 million visits by 2030 collides with Oman’s ambitions
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