Energy $566m funding secured for Saudi-Egypt power project By Pramod Kumar October 18, 2022, 2:01 PM Reuters/Stephane Mahe Egypt turned to the IMF for assistance after Russia's war in Ukraine pushed up its bills for wheat and oil Saudi Electricity Company has secured a $566.4 million export credit agency-supported Islamic financing facility for the Saudi-Egypt electricity interconnection project. After a slow start, Gulf firms are winning at ESGPresident aims to double private sector to tackle economic woesClimate talks in Egypt are set to get heated The facility is from Standard Chartered Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation. Standard Chartered Bank said in a statement that the 14-year Islamic (Murabaha) financing will be guaranteed by the Swedish Export Credit Agency and funded by the Swedish Export Credit Corporation. The electricity interconnection project is the first large-scale, high-voltage direct current interconnection in the Middle East and North Africa to link electricity grids. The project will allow Saudi Arabia and Egypt to exchange up to 3,000mw of power. The connection is expected to be in place by 2026 and will support power flow in multiple directions between Badr in Egypt to El-Madinah El-Munawara via Tabuk in Saudi Arabia. Standard Chartered Bank was also among other financial institutions to provide $3bn as part of the five-year syndicated loan.
Tech Elm buys PIF’s technology unit for $907m Saudi Arabia’s Elm Company has agreed to buy Thiqah Business Service Company, a wholly owned unit of the Public Investment Fund (PIF), for SAR3.4 billion ($906 million). Elm says the buyout will support its growth in the digital services space, localise technology and drive innovation. The completion of the acquisition will be subject to obtaining regulatory […] 3 hours ago
Logistics Kuwait approves Chinese company for port operations The Kuwaiti cabinet has approved a contracting pact with China State Construction Engineering Corporation for the operation and management of the Mubarak Al-Kabeer port project. Noura Al-Mashaan, Kuwait’s public works minister, met with a Chinese delegation in September 2024 to speed up the work on the port, state-run Kuna news agency reported. Chinese state-owned companies […] 3 hours ago
Artificial Intelligence Gulf has a strong hand in Trump’s $500bn AI project Two of the three tech giants that will spend billions of dollars building US artificial intelligence infrastructure in a partnership announced by President Donald Trump have been the recipients of significant Gulf investment. Japan’s SoftBank and US companies OpenAI and Oracle have committed $500 billion over four years to Stargate, an entity tasked with building […] 59 mins ago
Finance Pakistan agrees to $1bn loan from Middle Eastern banks Pakistan has agreed terms for a $1 billion loan with two Middle Eastern banks at a 6-7 percent interest rate, its finance minister Muhammad Aurangzeb told Reuters on Tuesday, as the South Asian country searches for more financing. “With two institutions we have now gone forward in signing up the term sheet – one bilateral […] 17 mins ago
