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The Myanmar Investment Commission (MIC) has approved the setting up of a South Korean – Myanmar Industrial Complex (KMIC).

During a meeting on February 20, the MIC gave its go-ahead for the complex to be established as a joint venture.

The development and operations of the first phase of the complex, which will be run by the Korea – Myanmar Industrial Complex Development Co Ltd, will be on land in Hlegu Township, Yangon Region. Phase one of the project is expected to utilise 127 hectares out of 224 hectares allocated for the complex.

KMIC will run as a 60/40 partnership between South Korea’s Land and Housing Cooperation and Myanmar’s Department of Urban Housing and Development under the Ministry of Construction.

US$110 million has been allocated for the project which is expected to take five years to complete.

The Ministry of Construction had said in May 2018 that the project is projected to create between 50,000 and 100,000 jobs when it is completed.

Plans for the complex call for areas dedicated to small, medium and large enterprises, employee housing, a training school, park, and business-related services.

The complex is important as many South Korean manufacturing companies are now interested to expand in Myanmar, Kim Young-sun, Secretary General of the ASEAN-Korea Centre, said in 2018.

Besides the complex, South Korea is contributing to the building of the Korea – Myanmar Friendship Bridge project in Dala Township.

source:

https://www.mmtimes.com/news/approval-given-south-korean-industrial-complex-hlegu.html

Qatar’s sovereign rating was cut to AA- by Fitch Ratings, which cited little progress toward ending a Saudi Arabia-led embargo of the emirate.

Fitch lowered the Gulf state’s sovereign long-term debt rating by one notch, putting it on par with Belgium and South Korea. The outlook is negative, the New York-based firm said in a statement.

“International mediation efforts are still ongoing but are not showing significant progress,” Fitch analysts Krisjanis Krustins and Jan Friederich said. “In our view, the negotiating positions of Qatar and the boycotting countries remain far apart.”

Qatar, the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas, was put on a negative rating watch in June after Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt severed diplomatic ties and transport routes with the country. The four countries accuse Qatar of destabilising the region through support of Islamist movements, a charge it denies. The Gulf nation’s economy will expand this year at the slowest pace since 1995, according to economists surveyed by Bloomberg this month.

Qatar’s foreign deposits fell almost 8 percent in July, according to central bank figures, and the nation is telling its banks to go to international investors for funding instead of relying on the state, according to people familiar with the matter. Qatar is spending billions of dollars preparing to host the soccer World Cup and turn Doha, the capital, into a regional hub.

Fitch estimates the pace of fiscal consolidation will slow as the government bears some of the increased cost of imports and postpones certain non-oil revenue measures in a bid to support economic activity and sentiment.

Source:http://www.arabianbusiness.com/politics-economics/377628-qatars-sovereign-rating-cut-by-fitch-over-gulf-spat

Qatar Airways will commit to greater financial transparency and to not run any indirect flights to the US through other countries as part of an agreement with the Trump administration addressing US carriers’ accusations that their Gulf competitors get unfair government help.

US airlines are hailing the agreement as a victory, if not a complete one, in one of the biggest trade disputes in US history. They’ve estimated that Qatar gave $17 billion or more to Qatar Airways over a 10-year period.

“This would be a landmark milestone for the American airline industry that will protect our workers and ensure that our foreign competitors play by the rules and do not undermine our international agreements,” said Peter Carter, chief legal officer of Delta Air Lines.

“We all support the administration as it holds their feet to the fire to ensure they live up to their commitments.”

Senior State Department officials said that within a year, Qatar Airways will adopt internationally recognised accounting standards, and issue annual reports and audited results, to the extent they’re not already doing so.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will announce the arrangement on January 30, following weeks of negotiation among the State Department, White House and Qatar.

No ‘Fifth Freedom’
Within two years, the airline will disclose any major financial transactions with state enterprises to ensure those are being done on commercial terms, said the officials, who declined to be identified ahead of the official announcement.

Qatar Airways also informed the US that it has no intention, for now, of conducting “Fifth Freedom” flights to the US Under commercial aviation protocols, those flights are ones which start in an airline’s home country and touch down in a different nation before continuing on to a third country — in this case, the US

Tillerson will announce the voluntary agreement when he meets his Qatari counterpart during a US-Qatar Strategic Dialogue, said a senior State Department official who asked not to be identified discussing a deal that hasn’t been publicly announced.

Source :http://www.arabianbusiness.com/transport/388640-qatar-agree-to-disclosures-to-resolve-us-airline-dispute-us-officials

Kuwait-based Global Capital Management (GCM) has concluded a successful exit of its controlling stake in Al Jazeera Steel Products Company, a Omani company listed on Muscat Securities Market.

The transaction was made with Sheikh Suhail Bahwan and Sheikha Amal Suhail Bahwan, chairman and vice chairperson of Suhail Bahwan Group.

Sulaiman Mohammed Al-Rubaie, deputy CEO of Global Investment House and managing partner of GCM said: “We are extremely delighted to have completed this exit and provide our investors with liquidity in such challenging geopolitical and economic environment. We expect to distribute the proceeds from this transaction to clients investing in the fund within the second quarter of 2018”.

The fund acquired 51 percent stake of Jazeera Steel in 2007 and the management team of GCM implemented a growth program for the company. The program focused on enhancing its penetration in regional and international markets namely Saudi Arabia and North America.

During the past five years, Jazeera Steel managed to maintain its growth trajectory despite tough financial and economic times, Al-Rubaie said.

He added: “We are confident that the commitment, track record and expertise of the acquirers will provide Jazeera Steel with the required support and guidance to further grow the company.”

The Global team said it has concluded 33 exits, the highest among all private equity firms in the region, and distributed more than $360 million to its clients, raising the total distributions since inception to more than $580 million.

Source: http://www.arabianbusiness.com/banking-finance/393052-kuwaits-global-exits-controlling-stake-in-omani-steel-company

Bahrain’s national carrier Gulf Air has announced that its first Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner will serve its double daily London Heathrow service.

The new aircraft, which conducted a fly pass before the Bahrain Grand Prix race on Sunday, will join the fleet on June 15, the airline said in a statement.

A total of five Dreamliner aircraft will enter Gulf Air’s fleet by the end of 2018 with an additional two aircraft arriving during 2019 and three arriving by the end of 2020.

Gulf Air CEO Krešimir Kucko said: “We are only weeks away from officially taking delivery of Gulf Air’s first Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner – a historic moment for Gulf Air and Bahrain and yet another important step in our strategic direction towards furthering Gulf Air’s fleet modernization process and supporting our network and overall passenger experience enhancement strategies.

“Only a few weeks ago, we unveiled a new Gulf Air corporate strategy, 2018 network expansion plans to 8 new routes, details surrounding our incoming fleet, new, best in class products and services, our new overall direction and where we hope the future will take us all. It is time for change and we are embracing change today.”

This summer, Gulf Air will also expand its network with flights to Bangalore, Alexandria, Casablanca, Baku, Abha and Tabuk in Saudi Arabia, Calicut, and Sharm El Shaikh.

Gulf Air’s Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners will offer 282 seats in a two-class configuration, with 26 Falcon Gold Class seats and 256 Economy Class seats.

Marty Bentrott, vice president, Boeing Commercial Airplanes Sales for Middle East, Turkey, Russia, Central Asia and Africa, said: “The number of airlines operating this super-efficient airplane is increasing across the world and we look forward to the Dreamliner joining Gulf Air’s fleet.”

Source:http://www.arabianbusiness.com/transport/393801-bahrains-gulf-air-says-first-dreamliner-to-launch-on-london-route

Bahrain hopes that the tourism and hospitality sector will contribute “double digits” to its GDP over the next several years, according to Ali Ghunam Murtaza, the director of real estate, tourism and leisure business development at the Bahrain Economic Development Board (EDB).

According to official figures, tourism contributed 6.3 percent to Bahrain’s GDP in 2017.

Speaking to Arabian Business at the Arabian Travel Market, Murtaza said that the figure is likely to grow as ongoing tourism projects are completed.

“We foresee the contribution to go up for many reasons. Part of that is that we are actively working towards it. We want the contribution of tourism to increase along with other sectors in Bahrain,” he said. ” It’s an active strategy.”

“Through direct and indirect investment to tourism, I think it will be a big part of GDP,” he added. “Our aim is to get into double digits soon.”

In the longer term, Murtaza said he hopes that tourism’s contribution to GDP will reach as high as 20 percent, as much as other sectors such as banking.

“We aim to get it there in the long run,” he noted, adding that the county also hopes to attract 15 million tourists a year by 2020, up from approximately 12.7 million in 2017.

Additionally, Murtaza noted that investment in Bahrain’s tourism sector has reached $13 billion, a figure which encompasses 14 separate projects in the country’s tourism and leisure sector.

The tourism projects, in turn, form part of a larger infrastructure development campaign across a number of sectors, which is collectively valued at more than $32 billion.

“We have fantastic five-star resorts coming in, such as the Address, the Vida, the Jumeirah [Royal Saray], and so forth,” he said. “In addition to that, we’ve also started adding to our retail offerings, such as The Avenues, and we have a couple of others.”

To encourage more visitors to come to Bahrain, Murtaza noted that Gulf Air has invested nearly $7.2 billion to expand its fleet and “modernise the Gulf Air brand”, as well as $1.1 billion investments into expanding and improving Bahrain’s national airport, a project which Murtaza said is approximately 60 percent complete.

Looking to the future, Murtaza said that partnering with foreign investors is a key pillar of Bahrain’s strategy to increase visitor numbers and revenue from tourism.

“We work with them [companies based outside of Bahrain] very closely to identify opportunities where they can bring synergy to the table, where they bring quality investment, quality operations,” he said. “There are a lot of firms around the world with a lot of specific experiences.”

“We work to identify the top ones, and we work to get them to like Bahrain, get them to understand the opportunities, and then we enable the investment,” he added. “We are partners for the long-run.”

Source:http://www.arabianbusiness.com/travel-hospitality/394790-tourism-to-contribute-double-digits-to-bahrains-gdp-in-coming-years