Middle East

Business is all about accepting risks but if you have the ‘do it yourself’ attitude, nothing remains out of reach, as Alan Swaby learns.

The mark of a true entrepreneurial spirit is when challenges turn into opportunities. In the 1970s, the Zamil family business in Saudi Arabia found that pioneering steel buildings to a predominantly concrete market was no easy task, as it involved educating and converting end-users to the benefits and advantages of locally manufactured steel buildings.

Profits at the Middle East airline Emirates more than quadrupled in the first half of this year, thanks to increases in both passengers and cargo.

The Dubai-based carrier said it recorded the highest number of seats with paying passengers during the six months ending September than ever in a fiscal first half.

Passenger traffic rose by 17.3 per cent from the previous year, with a passenger seat factor of 81.2 per cent. Cargo tonnage also rose, by 23.7 per cent.

Saudi Arabia has an insatiable appetite for electricity, which has turned one local business into an international giant, as Jeff Daniels learns.

Although it has to be said that not all projects have yet received their financial green light, Saudi Arabia has an impressive programme of converting its oil dollars into other forms of essential infrastructure. Billions are being spent on water desalination plants and even more on ever increasing electricity capacity.

Emirates Telecommunications Corporation, better known as Etisalat, has submitted a preliminary conditional offer to buy a 46 percent stake in Kuwaiti mobile telecommunications operator Zain, for $12 billion.

The Abu Dhabi-based Etisalat said it has offered 1.7 Kuwaiti dinars (around $6) per share for Zain, whose major shareholders include the Kuwait Investment Authority (Kuwait's sovereign wealth fund) and the conglomerate Kharafi Group.

France Télécom has bought a 40 per cent stake in Méditel, Morocco’s second-largest mobile operator, for €640 million, marking the first step in its strategy to boost its presence in African markets.

Méditel (Médi Télécom) is the second biggest global telecoms operator in Morocco, with licences for fixed, mobile and 3G telephony. It has been active in the telecoms sector since 1999.

With over 10 million mobile subscribers and a market share of 37 per cent, Méditel achieved sales of over 5.3 billion dirham (€465 million) in 2009.

GDF Suez and its partners have secured $1.3 billion in financing for the Barka 3 and Sohar 2 independent power projects in Oman.

The greenfield natural gas-fired power plants, which will each have a capacity of 744 MW when operational, carry a total investment cost of $1.7 billion.

Together the plants will add almost 1,500 MW to Oman’s existing capacity of around 3,600 MW. Their power output will be sold under two separate 15-year power purchase contracts to the Oman Power and Water Procurement Company, who will be the sole off-taker.

Trading electronically makes great strategic sense for buyers and suppliers alike; but technical complexity can be a barrier to realising the benefits of enhanced supply chain visibility, as David Grosvenor explains.