First Independent Mena Newspaper
The IMF Deputy Managing Director, Naoyuki Shinohara, pointed out last year that “the most striking trend in Asia’s rise as the world’s leading source of exports has been the growth in intraregional trade. While global trade and Asia’s trade with economies outside the region have doubled since 2000, intra-Asian trade has tripled, and regional trade […]
Long before the advent of the Arab Spring, the region was boiling as people in most of the countries of the region were denied basic social and economic rights: Unhealthy housing, below standards education, inaccessible health care, ramping unemployment etc. However hard the situation was, people seemed accommodating with their daily hardships, thanking God for […]
In 1991, shortly after the Berlin Wall came down and the Cold War had ended, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers released their 8th album called “Into the Great Wide Open”. The album included a song by that very title and in it, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne had penned the following line: “Out in the […]
Chaos is threatening the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA) as the head of the sovereign wealth fund, Mohsen Derregia, refuses to step down from his position despite the government’s decision to replace him because of poor performance. Prime Minister Ali Zeidan has named deputy central bank governor, Ali Mohammed Salem Hebri, as the temporary head of […]
Britain which is seeking to reduce its dependency on Qatar for gas imports is said to be eying Algeria as its next supply market, while the North African country is looking for investments in its oil and gas sector to boost revenue, potentially dented by the In Amenas gas plant attack. The visit of the […]
In the past ten years, North African countries progressed in liberalizing their trade relations with the EU as well as Korea. As part of the Euro-Mediterranean (Barcelona Process) Partnership, North African nations and the EU entered association agreements with provisions for free trade in industrial goods. This opened doors for European manufacturers to new export and investment markets. Most recently, North African nations and the EU launched initiatives to extend their agreements to trade in agricultural products, trade in services, government procurement, and trade harmonization. Trade between North Africa and Korea also exploded in the past five years. As latecomers to North Africa, […]
Egypt’s Minister of Finance, Mursi Hijazi, revealed that the country is losing about 100 million pounds per day because of insecurity and political unrest and that workers’ repeated strikes have also contributed to the losses. According to the minister, “the losses are caused by various disruptions, such as sit-ins, protests, cutting off roads and breaking […]
Nineteen foreign tourists from Britain, France, Japan, Hong-Kong, China and Hungary were killed in a hot air balloon crash that occurred Tuesday near the Egyptian city of Luxor The balloon was at 1,000ft (300 m) when it caught fire and plunged into fields west of the ancient city. This tragedy, the world’s worst ballooning accident, […]
A study led by Nottingham Trent University’s School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment found that Libya could generate enough renewable power to meet its own demand and a “significant part of the world energy demand by exporting electricity”. The study declared that Libya has an average daily solar radiation rate of about 7.1 […]
After opening its doors to Arab tourists, Egypt has now turned onto the Public-Private Partnerships (PPP). It is inviting all foreign investors to increase their involvement in such partnerships especially those from Britain. The finance minister, Al-Morsi Hegazy, said it will help the investors “profit from promising opportunities.” The minister made these remarks shortly after […]