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CAIRO — Egypt's prime minister has sought to justify politically sensitive subsidy cuts on fuel and natural gas which took effect on Saturday, saying they were a necessary part of fixing an economy hammered by three years of turmoil.

Egypt had overnight on Friday slashed its subsidies for car fuel and natural gas, increasing their prices by more than 70 per cent.

The move prompted scattered protests, with several minibus drivers for instance protesting in the cities of Suez and Ismailiya and demanding a rise in fares to compensate for increased fuel costs. Police fired tear gas to disperse them.

However the move, taken during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, when inflation is usually high due to increased food consumption, showed the government's determination to reduce the subsidies which eat up to a fifth of its annual budget.

"The decisions were taken after delicate studies," Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb told at a press conference on Saturday. "How can I achieve social justice while I am subsidising for the rich on the expense of the poor?”

"We are at war, we are fighting poverty and ignorance," Mehleb said, adding that money saved from the subsidy cuts would go into the education and health sectors.

Mehleb's Cabinet was appointed last month by newly elected President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, who also issued a 10 per cent tax on stock market gains and increased the price of electricity.

The economic austerity measures are part of Egypt's attempts to reduce its deficit to 10 per cent of the gross domestic product in the next fiscal year, from an expected shortfall of 12 per cent in 2013/14.

Such efforts, particularly those applying to basic items such as fuel, could trigger a backlash from many of Egypt's 86 million people, of whom half are poor and illiterate.

But some analysts welcomed the subsidy reductions.

"It's a very positive first step and clear statement of intent. These moves have been talked about for a decade," said Simon Williams, Middle East chief economist at HSBC.

"They won't resolve the budget imbalances on their own, but it's encouraging to see a new regime finally putting them into practice," Williams added.

Some car drivers and users of public transportation in Cairo complained about the rise in fuel prices and many gas stations were deserted. 

"This is unfair, already the prices of everything is increasing, so why does the government do that and increase fuel prices now?" said Ibrahim Ali, a public sector employee and owner of a car.

"The people won't like that, this could turn the people angry and against the state," he added.

Egypt's government drastically raised fuel prices late Friday to tackle a bloated subsidy system, in a potentially unpopular move that might blow back on newly elected President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi.

The government raised the price of 92 octane gasoline, which sold at 1.85 pounds ($0.36) a litre, to 2.6 pounds, and 80 octane gas from 0.9 pounds to 1.6 pounds a litre, the official MENA news agency reported.

The price of diesel was raised from 1.1 pounds to 1.8 per litre, the agency reported.

The state spends more than 30 per cent of its budget on fuel and food subsidies, in a country were nearly 40 per cent of the population — some 34 million people — hover around the poverty line.

Mehleb said the increase would not affect food prices, Al Ahram newspaper reported.

He called on "Egyptians to come together and understand the challenges of this period, and to stand with the government," the newspaper said.

Sisi preaches a message of austerity and self sacrifice to restore the economy and he has launched a donation drive and announced he would give away part of his salary and personal wealth, while urging Egyptians to bike and walk more to save on gas.

The economy has been propped up by billions of dollars in Gulf Arab state aid after the overthrow of the Morsi, whom regional powerhouses such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates viewed with suspicion.

Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood movement, still holds near daily protests it hopes will grow with increasing economic discontent.

An early 2011 uprising that ousted veteran dictator Hosni Mubarak sent the economy into a downward spiral.

AMMAN — Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour checked on the progress of work at the Aqaba Container Terminal during a meeting on Thursday with Kim Fejfer, chief executive officer of APM Terminals which forms a joint project the Aqaba Development Corporation (ADC).  During the meeting that was attended by Transport Minister Lina Shbeeb and Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority Chief Commissioner Kamel Mahadin, Fejfer indicated that around $300 million have been invested in Aqaba terminal expansion and development, enabling it to deal with one million containers a year from only 200,000 several years ago. The premier valued the partnership between APM and ADC, noting that he directed concerned institutions to cooperate further and streamline operational measures at the terminal, according to the Jordan News Agency, Petra. APM Terminals is an international container terminal operating company, and is one of the world’s largest port and terminal operators, and cargo support providers, according to its website.

TRIPOLI — Libya’s acting Prime Minister Abdullah Al Thinni said the government had reached a deal with a rebel leader controlling oil ports to hand over the last two terminals and end a blockade that crippled the nation’s petroleum industry.

“We have successfully reached an agreement to solve the oil crisis. We have received today Ras Lanuf and Es Sider Oil Ports thankfully without the use of force,” Thinni said at Ras Lanuf Terminal in eastern Libya. “I officially declare this is the end of the oil crisis.”

Thinni said the ports had been reclaimed after an agreement with Ibrahim Jathran, whose fighters had seized the terminals almost a year ago to demand more regional autonomy.

Jathran told reporters that he had handed over the ports as a “goodwill gesture” to the new parliament, which was elected last month.

Taking back the two major eastern oil terminals could make around 500,000 more barrels per day (bpd) of crude available for export, a major breakthrough for the North African state which is a member of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)and whose coffers have been hit hard by oil revenue losses.

The end of the blockade would also see a final chapter of a crisis that included failed negotiations, threats to bombard rebels and even an attempt by Jathran to dispatch an oil tanker that was later boarded on the high seas by US commandos.

Disputes over Libya’s vast oil resources have been among the many triggers for conflict between rival brigades of former rebels and allied political factions since civil war ended four decades of Muammar Qadhafi’s one-man rule in 2011.

The announcement by Thinni and Jathran appeared to show a more solid agreement to end the oil standoff, but shipments may still face technical delays and past negotiations have been slowed by subsequent political disagreements.

Libya produced around 1.4 million bpd before a wave of protests, strikes and blockades reduced the output to as low as 150,000 bpd. As of Tuesday, national crude output stood at 321,000 bpd.

Jathran’s rebels and their allies, who were all former state oil protection guards before their mutiny, had agreed in April to reopen the two smaller ports, Zueitina and Hariga, and then gradually free up Es Sider and Ras Lanuf.

After that deal, shipments from Zueitina were delayed because of technical damage from the blockade, while Hariga terminal loaded a tanker of crude at the end of last month.

Storage tanks at seized ports are likely full, and loading initial crude will be straightforward, but getting re-supplies from oil fields may be complicated.

Separate protests have also curtailed production at some oilfields, and other groups may still target pipelines and oil facilities to make political or financial demands on a government that struggles to control many parts of the country.

Political steps

Three years after the fall of Qadhafi in the NATO-backed war on his regime, Libya is far from stable, with brigades of former rebels allied with competing political factions still powerbrokers in the face of a weak state.

Over the last two years, heavily armed militias have seized ministries, attacked the congress, kidnapped diplomats and even briefly abducted a prime minister from his hotel room to pressure the government to meet their demands.

Many of those former rebels are on the government payroll to co-opt them. Often though, their loyalties are stronger to tribe, political faction, region or rebel commander than to the nascent Libyan state.

Jathran’s seizure of three major ports and the taking of a fourth by his allies since last summer clearly illustrated Libya’s fragile democracy and cost Libya billions of dollars in petroleum revenue.

On Wednesday, the rebel leader blamed the former parliament, which was known as the General National Congress or GNC, for delays in handing over the oil ports.

The GNC was paralysed by infighting among Islamist factions including a Muslim Brotherhood-linked Justice and Construction Party, a more liberal-leaning National Forces Alliance movement and scores of independents.

AMMAN — Jordan’s exports of agricultural and food products increased by 21 per cent during the first four months of 2014 to JD329 million from JD271.4 million in the same period of 2013. 

FRANKFURT — German drugmaker Bayer said it would keep the Dr. Scholl's and Coppertone brands it bagged as part of a $14 billion buy from US Merck, despite overtures from companies keen to grab them, widening its healthcare line to include consumer goods.

Just weeks after clinching the deal to buy Merck 's non-prescription drugs business, Bayer — best known as a life sciences company which makes cancer drugs — is being courted by rivals keen to acquire the foot care and sunscreen brands, several people with knowledge of the approaches told Reuters.

But when asked about the expressions of interest for Dr. Scholl's and Coppertone — each worth more than $1 billion — Bayer said it was not planning to untie the Merck bundle it secured in May in a competitive bidding tussle with Reckitt Benckiser, Procter & Gamble Co and Novartis .

"We intend to keep the portfolio acquired from Merck & Co. as a core business," Bayer said in a written statement.

The German company, which makes contraceptives as well as prescription drugs against cancer, heart disease and multiple sclerosis, said when it bought the Merck business that its aim was to become global leader in over-the-counter (OTC) medicines.

On Tuesday, Bayer said that the US Federal Trade Commission had approved the Merck deal, which was the largest in the German healthcare sector since Bayer bought rival Schering for 17 billion euros ($24 billion) in 2006. Antitrust clearance in some other markets remains outstanding.

But with Bayer's existing OTC medicines business listing products like aspirin and Canesten antifungal creams, some are questioning the logic of it wanting to keep everyday products like sunscreen.

"They aren't really part of the core business and don't have much to do with medicines in the strict sense," said Warburg Research analyst Ulrich Huwald.

Offloading Dr. Scholl's foot care and Coppertone, which account for 27 per cent of the Merck bundle's combined annual sales, would allow Bayer to focus on Merck's core healthcare products such as allergy remedy Claritin and MiraLAX laxative, analysts say, and give it the resources to make the most of those brands.

Repeated comments by Chief Executive Marijn Dekkers in the past that Bayer — the inventor of aspirin — is mainly about life sciences and molecular research, seem to have given hope to consumer goods companies that he might yet have wanted to part with brands that have little to do with healthcare.

Reckitt Benckiser, which owns the Scholl foot care brand outside the United States, as well as Beiersdorf and L'Oreal were seen as potential acquirers. Officials at the three companies declined to comment.

Going for shelf space?

There are however sound reasons for Bayer to retain Coppertone and Dr. Scholl's despite the products being so different to much of its other business: Big US drug store chains such as Walgreen Co and CVS Caremark  prefer dealing with suppliers that can fill large amounts of shelf space, and the two big consumer brands would add to Bayer's bargaining power.

Bayer has also said that the Merck deal, which is expected to close in the second half of the year, should allow it to make better use of its distribution network and sales force, and give it more clout when dealing with retailers.

There may however be another reason Bayer is reluctant to sell. Having bought Merck's unit for more than twice the core earnings multiple at which Johnson & Johnson, the world's largest consumer care company, is trading, any spin-off sales might reveal it to have overpaid.

One source said Coppertone and Dr. Scholl's, with $275 million and $309 million in 2013 sales, respectively, could be worth as much as $4 billion between them, reflecting the sales multiple of about 6.5 that Bayer paid for the entire Merck consumer bundle.

But another person said that Dr. Scholl's was more likely to fetch $1 billion to $1.5 billion and Coppertone about $1 billion, because personal care products change hands for lower multiples than the medicines included in last month's deal.

Selling on some consumer brands for a lower earnings multiple than what was agreed for the entire Merck portfolio would exposed the high price paid for the remaining OTC drugs — and might not go down well with Bayer investors.

"Shareholders would start to do the maths," the source said.

HAIFA, Israel — The hydraulic ramp of a Turkish freighter taps down on the eastern Mediterranean port of Haifa and, under a full moon, 37 trucks roll off onto an otherwise empty pier.

In a convoy that stretches hundreds of metres, the trucks travel east across northern Israel, bringing goods from Europe to customers in Jordan and beyond.

Until three years ago, the cargo these trucks carry — fruits, cheese, raw material for the textile industry, spare parts, and second-hand trucks — would have come through Syria. But civil war has made that journey too perilous.

"Too much problems, too much guns, too much fighting," said Ismail Hamad, a 58-year-old Romanian driver. Hamad has driven through Syria for three decades, he said; now, only Israel.

Three years after Syria plunged into violence, Israel is reaping an unlikely economic benefit. The number of trucks crossing between Israel and Jordan has jumped some 300 per cent since 2011, to 10,589 trucks a year, according to the Israel Airports Authority. 

In particular, exports from Turkey — food, steel, machinery and medicine — have begun to flow through Israel and across the Sheikh Hussein Bridge to Jordan and a few Arab neighbours. 

Turkey's Directorate General of Merchant Marine, part of that country's transport ministry, pointed out that transit containers shipped to Israel for passage on to other countries increased to 77,337 tonnes in 2013 from 17,882 tonnes in 2010.

The trade, though still small,is growing enough to encourage long-held Israeli hopes that the country can become a commercial gateway to the Arab world. Israel plans to invest at least 6 billion shekels ($1.7 billion) in infrastructure over the next six years to improve the trade route. 

In the past, some Israeli businessmen and diplomats have lamented the way politics have hurt economic opportunities; others have kept any trade with their Arab neighbours quiet so as not to upset them. Now they see a chance to boost economic and political relations.

"Israel is returning to its historic role, as a transit country, as a bridge between continents, where historic trade routes passed through," said Yael Ravia-Zadok, head of the Middle Eastern Economic Affairs Bureau in Israel's foreign ministry. 

She leads a group of Israeli government and security officials trying to figure out how best to encourage trade.

The logic is simple: Goods from Europe and elsewhere destined for the wider Middle East are usually unloaded in Egypt before they make the several-hour drive to a Red Sea port, where they are loaded onto new vessels and shipped to their final destination. 

The routes from Haifa in Israel to Jordan, Iraq and even Saudi Arabia — used by the Ottoman and British empires up until Israel's founding — are potentially much quicker and cheaper, shaving days, if not more, off a trip between Turkey and Baghdad, for instance. Costs could be cut in half.

But opening up routes will not be easy. Politics and generations of enmity are difficult to overcome. Iraq itself is on the brink of civil war. 

Jordanian trade figures show a sharp rise in trans-shipments through Israel in 2012, but a fall in 2013. Jordanian officials say that Israel is overstating its role in the trade and point out that the vast bulk of re-directed goods still goes via Egypt.

But Israel's gain, small though it may be, is far more surprising because countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq spurn official relations with Israel.

"A lot of secrecy still surrounds the topic and it is probably premature to speak of a blossoming and fast-growing trade route," said Coline Schep, Middle East analyst with consultancy Control Risks. 

She nevertheless described the traffic through the Haifa-Jordan River Crossing trade corridor over the past two years as "almost unprecedented".

Safe passageway

David Behrisch, managing partner at Tiran Shipping, an Israeli shipping agency, says business sprang to life in 2011 when organisers of the Jordan Rally found they couldn't bring race cars in from Italy through Syria.

"Somehow we put our hands on [them]," he says. "We handled 37 trucks we had to move to Jordan and then back." Behrisch would not go into details. "Somehow, somebody connected us. You know how things happen."

As the number of motor vehicles crossing from Turkey into Syria plummeted — by close to 50 per cent, from 106,750 in 2010 to 55,701 in 2013, according to Turkey's International Transporters Association — most of the trade was diverted to Egypt. But thanks to a new Turkish route by sea to Haifa, some shipments also began crossing through Israel.

"The reason this Haifa route has opened is entirely due to the war in Syria," said an official at the Turkish company UN Ro-Ro that runs the new line.

Tiran Shipping now runs 40-50 trucks a week to Jordan and moves 2,500 containers, or roughly 37,000 tonnes.

Though the amount Tiran carries is only a tiny sliver of the $35.6 billion worth of goods Turkey exported to the region in 2013, it is up from zero a few years ago.

Israel has "not even begun to scratch at the potential", Ravia-Zadok told a recent economic conference.

Hurdles

Plenty of political and practical obstacles remain.

The port in Haifa is state-owned and has limited capacity, a history of labour unrest and cumbersome security.

Freighters in Haifa bay are typically forced to wait hours to dock. Trucks and containers have to pass through Israel's lengthy security checks and scanners. The drivers, carrying international permits, meet passport agents onboard. Only after that can they take to the roads.

An hour later, the freight reaches the Sheikh Hussein Bridge and passes into Jordan. 

Normally, Jordanian law requires containers to be unloaded in the country's Red Sea Port of Aqaba, but that doesn't apply to those passing through Jordan in transit or those that are stripped and moved onto Jordanian trucks at the border.

According to numerous international businessmen who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, goods continue from there into Iraq and Saudi Arabia.

Documentation often shows the origin of goods but not their transit route, so the receiving authorities either don't know about or ignore Israel's role, according to Shlomi Fogel, owner of the Haifa-based Israel Shipyards. 

One example: Steel from Ukraine, which is shipped to Iraq through Israel with Ukrainian documentation.

Return cargoes from the Arab world into Israel are inspected with even greater scrutiny. This is perhaps the weakest link in the trade route. Merchants say they could easily sell more from the Arab world through Israel were it not for Israel's security procedures. 

Only 90 or so trucks from Jordan can cross the Sheikh Hussein Bridge each day and they routinely wait all day while Israeli officials check their contents.

Fogel is working to ease that strain. He wants to expand a free- trade zone called the Jordan Gateway, which sits 6 kilometres south of the Sheikh Hussein Bridge and straddles the Israel-Jordan border.

One afternoon a few months ago, he stood on a hilltop above a rundown Jordanian army barracks and gazed at the 300 acre park. The sluggish Jordan River that marks the border snaked through the green valley below.

"Up here we will build a cafe, and people from around the world will come and do business," he said.

Working with the family of late international financier Bruce Rappaport in Switzerland, and with the wealthy Dajani and Kawar families in Jordan, Fogel wants to create a customs-free zone, where cargo can be dropped off or picked up from either side 24-hours a day, companies can build factories, and everything, including security, is managed privately. 

Already it is one of five such zones in the country from which goods manufactured in collaboration with Israel can be sold to the United States without tariff or quota restrictions.

Seven factories are up and running on the Jordanian side of the zone, an increase from just four factories at the start of this year, the park's Jordanian General Manager Qasem Al Tbaishi said. The planned industrial park will bring a boost to Jordanians nearby who depend on farming and are much poorer than the Israelis across the river.

Israel has given approval and budgeted 60 million shekels ($17 million) to build a bridge directly into the trade zone. The gateway group hopes Jordan will approve the plan within months.

Israel's Zoko Enterprises moved its car filter plant to the Jordanian side of the zone three years ago to save on labour costs and gain access to Arab markets. 

Gilad Hadassi, general manager at Zoko's Israeli subsidiary Gur Filter, says companies from countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which don't have diplomatic relationships with Israel, are willing to buy from a Jordanian company.

"Customers from all over the world, a lot of customers from Iraq and other Middle East countries at exhibitions come to our booths to talk business. They don't care about politics," he indicated.

Future

Israel plans to build two $1 billion ports to be run by foreign operators — one in Haifa, the other 80 kilometres south in Ashdod. The new Haifa port will have a capacity for 1.5 million containers a year, roughly doubling current levels.

A railway from Haifa to Beit Shean, not far from the Jordan border, will be completed this year, and a final leg is being planned, so that by 2017 a steady flow of containers could travel by train all the way to the border.

"We can be an alternative for an individual producer, but for the big picture we won't replace the Suez Canal, which is something huge," said the chief executive officer of the Jordan Gateway, Yuval Yacobi.

The most ambitious plan is a $400 million, 400-megawatt power station run on Israeli natural gas to generate electricity for both countries. 

Spearheading that proposal is Shimon Shapira, a former military secretary to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who together with Fogel has been meeting Jordanian officials. 

"Jordan today suffers from blackouts and has a big shortage of electricity," Shapira claimed. "They are paying about 12 cents per kilowatt, and we will be able to provide it to them for a lot less."

The developers hope for approval from Amman this year. The project would take up to five years to build. 

Some analysts remain sceptical that Jordan will agree to use Israeli gas. But in February the partners in Israel's huge Tamar field signed a 15-year deal with two Amman-based companies to supply $500 million worth of gas.

NEW YORK — Devon Energy Monday said it would sell assets in Texas and other sites to the smaller Linn Energy for $2.3 billion as US independents reshuffle properties amid the shale boom. 

Devon will sell Linn “non-core” oil- and gas-producing properties in the Rockies, onshore Gulf Coast and mid-continent regions. About 80 per cent of the production associated with the assets produces natural gas. 

Devon said the plan was consistent with efforts to tilt its portfolio towards a heavier share of oil, which some analysts believe has a better long-term price outlook than natural gas.

Devon previously sold other non-core properties in Canada and spent $6 billion to purchase assets in the Eagle Ford oil play in Texas. Both Devon and Linn are considered oil and gas “independents”, which means they produce oil and natural gas, but do not refine crude into gasoline.

“Devon is now concentrated in some of the most attractive North America resource plays, with liquids expected to approach 60 per cent of our production by year-end and multiyear oil production growth projected to be in excess of 20 per cent,” said Devon Chief Executive John Richels. 

Linn, meanwhile, said it identified more than 1,000 future drilling opportunities spread out over 900,000 acres from the Devon assets it will acquire. 

The deal is consistent with Linn’s efforts to build its presence in the Rockies and mid-continent, the company said. Linn plans to divest “non-core” properties in the Texas Panhandle and western Oklahoma. 

GENEVA — Countries must dramatically rethink strategies for avoiding and dealing with financial crises, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) said this week, urging far more focus on fighting debt.

The Swiss-based BIS — dubbed the central bankers’ central bank — warned in its annual report that while the global economy was showing some encouraging signs of recovery from the crushing 2008 financial crisis, the factors that sparked it were still very much in play.

If governments fail to make the necessary policy adjustments to ward off similar crises and crashes, “the global economy may be set on an unsustainable path”, the report said, warning that “at some point, the current open global trade and financial order could be seriously threatened”.

BIS voiced deep concern over the stark contrast between the euphoria currently seen in many financial markets and the continued weak investments being made in the real economy, especially at a time when the geopolitical outlook remains “highly uncertain”.

“A new compass is badly needed,” Claudio Borio, who heads BIS’s monetary and economic unit, insisted to reporters ahead of the report launch.

Central banks’ bid to help spark growth by among other things slashing interest rates has helped create more appetite for short-term, high-risk investments on stock markets, and froth in property and corporate bond markets, the report found.

But at the same time, economies that had been hard-hit by the crisis had not done enough to sanitise balance sheets and root out the debt-dependency that got them in trouble, while countries spared last time were showing growing signs of financial vulnerability, the report indicated.

Ditch debt as key growth engine 

This was especially true in emerging markets that have seen their economies boom amid an abundance of cheap credit in recent years, it said, stressing that clear policy shifts were needed “in all major economies, whether or not they were hit by the crisis”.

As a clear sign of the troubled road, Borio warned that both private and public sector debt was rising steadily “even as the capacity to pay for it is diminishing”.

“It is essential to move away from debt as the main engine of growth,” he insisted.

To overcome the legacy of the global financial crisis, policymakers need to go beyond their traditional narrow focus on business cycles, and take on financial cycles, which are far longer but also cause far more damage when they contract, according to BIS.

“Focusing our attention on the shorter-term output fluctuations is akin to staring at the ripples on the ocean and losing sight of the more threatening underlying waves,” Borio warned.

The BIS report called for policies aimed at aggressively warding off financial booms, but also at dishing out fewer growth incentives during busts to avoid inspiring more debt taking.

“The road ahead is long,” Borio acknowledged, saying it was all the more important to “start the journey sooner rather than later”.

“The current upturn in the global economy is a precious window of opportunity that should not be wasted,” he said.

CAIRO — Egypt’s Cabinet has submitted a revised budget for the new fiscal year which starts on Tuesday, proposing a narrower deficit after President Abdul Fattah Al Sisi rejected a previous draft because spending was too high, finance ministry spokesman Ayman Alkaffas told Reuters on Sunday.

The new budget envisages a deficit of 240 billion Egyptian pounds ($33.6 billion) in the fiscal year ending June 2015, less than the 292 billion pounds in the initial draft, he said.

Last month, the finance ministry predicted a fiscal gap of around 290 billion pounds, or 12 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) for the coming year and forecast growth of around 3.2 per cent, too low to create enough jobs for the young Egyptians that enter the workforce each year.

Boosted by aid worth billions of dollars from Gulf Arab countries after Sisi deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi last July, Egypt’s 2013/14 budget deficit was set to shrink to around 11 per cent of GDP from some 14 per cent the year before.

It was not immediately clear what percentage of GDP the deficit would account for in the new budget.

“All non-productive expenses have been trimmed down,” Alkaffas said, but declined to go into details pointing to a statement due to be issued later.

When asked about a time frame or details of cuts in Egypt’s energy and food subsidies programme, which traditionally eats up around a quarter of state spending, he replied: “We don’t have a time frame or a named product. This is going to be coordinated with other ministries.”

Austerity

Sisi, who was inaugurated as president this month, has pledged to give up half his salary and property and called on the Egyptian people to make similar sacrifices, as he prepares the public for a period of painful economic austerity.

In the same speech, Sisi rejected the initial budget plan, saying the deficit was too large and continued borrowing would not leave “anything good” for future generations.

The turmoil of the past three years, in which two presidents have been overthrown and hundreds of people killed in the streets, has battered the tourist industry and investment, worsening a huge unemployment problem and pushing up the deficit.

A simple spreadsheet model of Egypt’s public debt, created by Reuters in March, suggests it will be several years before the rising ratio of debt to GDP, which was 89.2 per cent in the fiscal year to June 2013, levels off and starts to fall.

Separately, one of the developers of a natural gas field off Israel’s Mediterranean coast on Sunday said it has signed a letter of intent to provide gas to a facility in Egypt.

Delek Drilling said it is negotiating a deal to provide seven billion cubic metres of natural gas from the offshore Leviathan gas field to British company BG’s plant in Idku, Egypt, through an underwater pipeline annually for 15 years.

An industry official familiar with the deal said it could be valued at about $30 billion — which would be the largest energy deal in Israel’s history. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to comment on the deal.

Until recently, Egypt provided natural gas to Israel. But following the ouster of president Hosni Mubarak in 2011, supplies were disrupted and eventually halted.

Last month, Houston-based Noble Energy Inc., one of Delek’s partners, reached a preliminary deal to sell up to 2.5 trillion cubic feet of gas annually over 15 years to Union Fenosa Gas SA for its liquefied natural gas facility in Egypt.

Despite a long history of geopolitical conflict with its Arab neighbours, the discovery of large natural gas deposits off its coast has positioned Israel to become a leading energy exporter in the region.

Earlier this year, Noble Energy and its partners signed a deal with Arab Potash Co. and Jordan Bromine Co. in Jordan, and another deal with a Palestinian power company to supply gas to a power plant to be built in the West Bank.

Israel has long relied on imports to meet most of its energy needs. The gas fields are expected to supply Israel’s domestic needs for decades and could transform the country into an energy exporter.

BAHRAIN — Bahrain Airport Company (BAC) announced Sunday in a press statement received by The Jordan Times that it will host the first ever routes MENA in Bahrain in November 2015. This inaugural event will see route development professionals from across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region gather to discuss air service development to, from and within the region in a three-day forum. “The opportunity in the MENA region is quickly growing despite a number of challenges in recent years,” the statement said. “According to industry reports; the region continues to be the world’s fastest-growing inbound travel market for the past 10 years, recording a 10 per cent in average annual growth rates,” it added. The statement indicated that the aviation industry in Jordan has seen positive growth with a contribution of 5.3 per cent to the overall gross domestic product. “The tourism sector in Jordan also acts as an economic driver and the second fastest growing sector in the Kingdom. More than 5.9 million passengers travelled to, from and within Jordan last year with inbound tourism topping the list at around 3 million tourists from the region,” it concluded.