Amanat will own 85 percent of the post-merger entity.

Since the beginning of 2023 alone, three digital and physical platforms have been launched by Qatar, Oman and Kuwait to facilitate investments by foreigners and the local private sector.

The weakening of the judiciary and concentration of power will harm the high tech sector, deter foreign investment and make Israel less attractive as an economic partner.

Major cloud service providers such as Microsoft, Tencent Cloud, Oracle, Amazon Web Services, and Alibaba Cloud are establishing local cloud regions. 

Arab countries gathered in Jeddah on Friday to discuss ending Syria's long spell in the diplomatic wilderness as regional relations shift following Saudi Arabia and Iran's decision to resume ties.

Friday's nine-nation talks in Jeddah come after Syria's foreign minister arrived on a previously unannounced visit -- the first since the outbreak of the country's civil war in 2011. It was one in a flurry of events that were nearly unthinkable before Saudi Arabia and Iran announced to restore ties.

In 2017, Bahrain joined Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt in imposing a diplomatic blockade on Qatar. The countries' rivalry goes back even further, however, and Bahrain is the last to renew ties. Agreement on the reconciliation was reached in talks at the Gulf Cooperation Council headquarters in...

DUBAI, UAEI--Dubai saw remarkable growth in medical tourism in 2022 with 674,000 medical tourists spending $270 million in the year.According to a report issued by the Dubai Health Authority (DHA), 39% percent of the medical tourists who came to Dubai were from Asian countries, 22% from Europe and the Commonwealth...

Most of the participants, in the poll from as far away as Egypt and Lebanon, picked up Dubai to celebrate the festival in, with Doha coming at a distant second.

By the end of 2022, the UAE was expected to attract more than 4,000 high-net-worth individuals. Around 25 percent of GCC's millionaires are moving to the UAE.

The latest developments are generating substantial growth opportunities for both local and international service providers in the outsourcing market, a report points out.

Dubai, UAE-- The total spending by UAE-based organisations on outsourcing services from local and offshore providers was estimated at over US$4.8 billion in 2018 and is expected to reach US$6.8 billion in 2023.This was highlighted in a new report by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in collaboration with Forward MENA previously...

Tripoli's mushrooming arcades have driven rapid growth in Libya's nascent gaming community, Mattouss says. The increasingly organized community is "motivating players and pushing other young people without experience to start training". He predicts that the sector will continue developing quickly.

The current healthcare expenditure in the Gulf Cooperation Council region is expected to reach $135 billion in 2027, implying an annualized growth rate of 5.4 percent.

Gulf countries have substantial financial and other resources to achieve zero- emission goals but they need to identity and address the obstacles.

The UAE is likely to remain the top e-commerce market in the GCC in 2023 but Saudi represents the largest potential growth over the medium and long term.

The region's corporate/M&A activity is expected to grow this year on the back of an unprecedented Sovereign Wealth movements in Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia, says an expert.

The letter from the six-member GCC's foreign ministers also called on the United States "to play its role in reaching a just, comprehensive and lasting solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, speaking earlier this month, said that the Palestinians did not exist as a people,...

New Delhi, India - The first ever meeting of senior officials of India and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) was held in Riyadh on Monday, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs here announced.India has been steadily stepping up institutional engagement of the GCC in addition to regular bilateral meetings with...

New Delhi, India--India has stepped up multi-faceted consultations with GCC states ahead of the Group of Twenty (G20) Summit to be held in New Delhi in September under its presidency.A 12th round of India-Oman Strategic Consultative Group meeting in Muscat “reviewed bilateral ties in different domains and identified new areas...

Integrating smart roads and sustainable construction in GCC smart cities requires technical proficiency like data analytics, sensor technologies and software skills, says an expert.

There is chaos in the crypto market and the dust rises with an episode of failure, but failures must not be generalized, says Don Tapscott of Blockchain Research Institute.

Technology remained GCC's most active industry sector in terms of hiring, with 77 percent of organizations increasing their headcount last year, latest reports point out.

The city has won a huge following among the people who see it not just as a city for business, but as one where families can co-exist with big money.

Despite being the most educated demographic, women in the region have the lowest employment rates. it is crucial to incorporate women into non-traditional sectors to facilitate the GCC's shift towards a post-oil economy.

The GCC countries are likely to benefit from the relative stability in their financial covers due to high oil prices and strong energy exports in 2022, reports suggest.

DUBAI, UAE - UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention (MoHAP) hosted a regional expert meeting on healthy diet policies in Dubai.The event was hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean.The meeting aimed to discuss recent developments in healthy diet policies, with a special emphasis...

The Gulf countries are also able to attract highly qualified and scientific expertise and skilled workers, and they possess the primary resources for the manufacture of chips and semiconductors, especially silicon extracted from sand, plastic and petroleum materials, he adds.

During the meeting, the two discussed strengthening the process of joint GCC action and reviewed GCC issues of common concern.

The region's biggest economy, Saudi Arabia, was projected to accelerate to 8.3 percent in 2022 before moderating to 3.7 percent and 2.3 percent in 2023 and 2024.

Globally, around 14 percent of food produced is lost between harvest and retail, while an estimated 17 percent of total global food production is wasted, UN says.

New tracks have been launched in the Gulf common market to supplement the 10 current tracks. The bloc also seeks collaboration with the private players in the region.

In 2023, some Middle Eastern economies appear to be more resilient than most developed markets, Maroun Kairouz, Director for MENA at the World Economic Forum, tells TRENDS.

Abu Dhabi, UAE – Lockheed Martin has partnered with four companies operating in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries to provide instrumentation, calibration, and repair services for its aircraft ground support equipment, as part of its Product Support Provider Network (PSPn).The four companies are AL TAIF (part of EDGE Group), Mohamed...

The success of the initiative is reflected in the fact that Dubai Can has been widely adopted in the city.

It had raised $750m through the sale of its debut sukuk in Nov 2022.

The market for small startups and self-employed entrepreneurs will boom due to lower startup cost amidst policy reforms and more incubators and shared offices, says an expert.

The UAE and few other countries figure at the top of the Transparency Index in the region, but this doesn't mean that they have an excellent performance globally, says an expert.

Abu Dhabi, UAE--A joint Oman-UAE military exercise codenamed “Cooperation-3” began in Oman on Monday. The 11-day drill, which concludes on February 16, 2023, saw the participation of a force from Muscat Regiment, Infantry Bridge (23) of the Royal Army of Oman (RAO), and its support divisions, as well as aircraft...

At the moment, the market is solidly Dubai, which is recognised as the world leader in branded residential offerings with all eyes on the city’s upcoming openings. The slower approach of Abu Dhabi will be something to watch as it makes large-scale investments into the luxury sector, he adds.

The latest data from the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) shows that global tourist travel in 2022 was 37 percent lower than 2019.

Doha, Qatar-- Qatar has received more than 614,000 visitors during the month of December 2022, a monthly increase of 3.7 percent as against November 2022.The highest number of visitors were from the Gulf Cooperation Council at 40 percent. As for visitors by type of port, the visitors via air make...

More dams are being built in the region to shield the residents against floods, offer a lifeline during drought and work towards food sufficiency by enhancing agriculture output.

The gaming markets in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Egypt is expected to be worth $3.14bn by 2025, according to California-based market research and consulting firm Niko Partners.

The budget deficit will swell to five billion dinars (more than $16 billion) for the year starting in April, up from the $10.3 billion predicted for the current fiscal year, the finance ministry said. Kuwait, a major oil producer and member of the OPEC cartel, has the Gulf's only fully...

There is a rise in the interest of foreign investors in the MENA startup ecosystem as their share increased from 20 percent in 2021 to 47 percent in 2022, reports suggest.

Around 27-39 companies in the Gulf region are expected to come out with IPOs in the first few months of this year with the Kingdom and UAE leading from the front, reports suggest.

The region remains cautious as it takes a strategic approach to invest in the technology by focusing on experimentation and finding suitable business use cases, says an expert.

At G20's first Health Working Group meeting in India, UAE affirmed its commitment to play an active role in addressing global health challenges.

RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA - The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Standardization Organization (GSO) has announced its training plan for 2023 in the field of standards and metrology through the GCC Standardization Training Center affiliated with GSO.The GSO President, Saud bin Nasser Al-Khusaibi, said in a statement Sunday that the 2023 training...