Business

AMMAN — The Arab Air Carriers Organisation (AACO) general assembly elected Royal Jordanian’s (RJ) President/CEO Suleiman Obeidat as a member of the organisation’s executive committee during AACO’s 49th annual general meeting, which convened in Casablanca, Morocco, between November 28 and 30.

The AACO executive committee consists of the chief executive officers of nine elected active AACO member airlines, who hold a three-year renewable term.

It directs and supervises AACO’s work, as well as the performance of AACO’s secretariat general and its institutions. RJ participated in the 49th annual general meeting that brought together CEOs of AACO member airlines, AACO partner airlines and industry partners, according to an RJ statement.  

RAMALLAH — At first glance, Mashvisor is just one of thousands of websites specialising in US real estate.

But it has a unique feature, undetectable to customers: its designers created it in the West Bank and it is run from the Israel-occupied Palestinian territory. 

"The great thing about a start-up is you can work on it anywhere in the world. You can be in Palestine, you can be in Cambodia, Vietnam, China. It doesn't matter," explains Peter Abu Al Zolof, who founded Mashvisor more than a year ago with a friend. 

Last week, Mashvisor became the first Palestinian company to get the support of the influential American 500 Start-ups venture capital fund.

It is one of a number of Palestinian start-ups in the occupied Palestinian territories, long overshadowed by Israel's so-called "Start-up Nation".

The online platform automates and analyses US real estate data nationwide to find investors the best property deals.

As in Silicon Valley, the staff dress casually, drink coffee from state-of-the-art machines in garish colours, and pad through the office wearing US-made headphones around their necks.

But working in the West Bank brings unique challenges.

In October 2015, a wave of violence broke out across Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Abu Al Zolof's friend and founding partner Mohamed Jebrini, who lives in Hebron, found himself stranded in the city as roads were closed, 45 kilometres from their Ramallah offices.

"He was stuck in Hebron and I was stuck in Ramallah and we were still working on our company," explains Abu Al Zolof.

The American-Palestinian says the online nature of what they do means they can avoid many of the frustrations for other companies in the West Bank, where the Israeli army checkpoints often present very physical challenges to commerce.

"There are no walls, there are no challenges, there is nothing that can stop this kind of thing," he says.

"It's a virtual market, so there are no checkpoints where they tell you: 'You can't sell this. You can't take this out of the country’."

The company benefited from the support of the Ramallah-based Leaders, an organisation that helps nurture start-ups.

Shadi Atshan, Leader's director general, told AFP that in the start-up scene there was "no unemployment — unlike almost all other industries and economic sectors in Palestine which have high unemployment".

"Those with good skills can earn a very high income."

The unemployment rate in the occupied Palestinian territories is 27 per cent, according to figures from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.

The Ibtikar investment fund has invested around $800,000 (750,000 euros) in 10 start-ups so far, according to its Chief Operating Officer Ambar Amleh. She stresses their work is not charity.

"This isn't work that should be funded by donors or grants. The expectations of making money should be there from the beginning because we are creating companies," she told AFP.

Palestinians are still a long way behind Israel, where companies in Tel Aviv's start-up scene regularly sell for tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.

In 2013, Google bought the Israeli traffic app Waze for more than $1 billion, a figure unimaginable in the Palestinian scene.

But Amleh points out the huge government support for Israeli start-ups, which do not exist in the Palestinian territories.

"I think more and more people are starting to see that they really can make something they have been dreaming about come true."

Hussein Nasir Al Din and his partner Laila Aqal have a business inextricably linked to the conflict — monitoring the security situation in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

The Red Crow website, run out of a small office in Ramallah, monitors security developments and sends real-time alerts and maps to clients.

Their customers include UN agencies, diplomats and organisations that operate in the field and adjust their security programmes according to events.

Soon they want to expand to the Egyptian and Iraqi markets.

NEW YORK — Oil prices soared more than 8 per cent on Wednesday as some of the world's largest oil producers agreed to curb oil output for the first time since 2008 in a last-ditch bid to support prices.

Crude prices, however, are unlikely to skyrocket in reaction to the deal, but will instead take measured steps higher, traders and analysts said.

The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) agreed to cut production to 32.5 million barrels per day (bpd), Kuwait's oil minister said. The cuts include Iraq reducing output by 200,000bpd to 4.351 million bpd beginning in January. The country had previously resisted cuts, providing a hurdle to an agreement.

The cut was at the low end of production of a preliminary agreement struck in Algiers in September, and reduces production from a current 33.64 million bpd.

Non-OPEC member Russia has agreed to cut output by 300,000bpd. OPEC will meet with non-OPEC producers on December 9.

US West Texas Intermediate crude futures for January delivery rose $3.93 to $49.16 a barrel, a 8.7 per cent gain at 12:09pm Eastern (17:09 GMT). The move was the largest one-day gain since February.

Brent crude futures for January delivery rose $3.73 to $50.11 a barrel, an 8 per cent gain. That contract expires Wednesday. Brent futures for February rose 8.8 per cent, or $4.16 to $51.48 a barrel.

"It's going to take time to see whose going to abide by those rules," said Oliver Sloup, director of managed futures at IITrader.com. In the past, not all producers have complied with agreements on supply cuts, Sloup said. As a result, there is scepticism about how closely the production caps will be adhered to.

Kuwait, Venezuela and Algeria have agreed to monitor compliance with the OPEC agreement.

The market will grow in a measured way because traders with short positions have already exited crude futures, according to Dominic Chirichella, senior partner at the Energy Management Institute.

"There's going to be an air of cautiousness and rightfully so," he said. "I think the market is going to move to the upside, but in a metered, cautious manner over a period of time."

The oil rally ricocheted through the market, with stocks and bond prices reaction to the move.

US-listed oil companies including Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Schlumberger saw shares rise as crude prices climbed. Some US producers saw shares spike more than 10 per cent, including Pioneer Natural Resources, Hess Corp. and Anadarko Petroleum.

Deferred spreads for US and Brent crude futures also rallied on the OPEC deal.

A weekly government report on US crude oil stockpiles had little sway in the market, which remained focused on the OPEC deal. US crude stockpiles unexpectedly fell 884,000 barrels in the week, compared with forecasts of a 636,000-barrel increase.

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia's King Salman approved the allocation of 100 billion riyals ($26.67 billion) from the kingdom's reserves to the Public Investment Fund (PIF) on Wednesday, according to a statement carried by state news agency SPA.

The funds would be used to support both foreign and local investments, particularly opportunities in the local market that would help to build the private sector, the statement said.

It did not elaborate on a timeline for the investments, but said they would be phased.

Under economic reforms announced early this year, the Saudi government said it aims to expand the PIF, founded in 1971 to finance development projects in the country, from $160 billion to about $2 trillion by transferring assets such as ownership of state oil giant Saudi Aramco.

That would make the PIF the world's biggest sovereign fund by far on paper, though not necessarily in terms of the cash it had available for investment.

The fund will increase investments abroad — in June, it bought a stake in US ride-hailing firm Uber for $3.5 billion — but it will still focus much of its attention on local projects designed to reduce Saudi Arabia's reliance on oil exports.

On Monday, the fund announced plans to buy a major stake in Adeptio, the Gulf-based investment firm which controls Kuwait Food Co. (Americana).

It is also set to take over a stalled financial district project in Riyadh and to buy a stake in the King Abdullah Economic City north of Jeddah.

ATHENS — EU Economy Commissioner Pierre Moscovici said Tuesday he is optimistic about concluding an overall deal on Greece’s latest bailout programme by the end of the year including discussions on debt relief.

Moscovici spoke just days before a key meeting of eurozone finance ministers on December 5 to discuss Greece’s massive 86-million-euro bailout, its third since 2010.

“This is doable, feasible,” Moscovici told journalists at the end of a two-day visit to Athens. 

However he said that “the precondition is to have pre-agreement this weekend involving all partners.”

“Greece has made significant progress, the second review is going forward well, I’m convinced to reach a staff agreement before the December fifth Eurogroup” meeting, he said.

During the previous review of Greece’s reform programme in May, the EU and IMF agreed to start discussions on debt relief by the end of the year if Athens keeps its reform pledges.

But influential Germany firmly opposes any new gestures to Athens, especially ahead of German elections later next year in which anti-EU populists could see a significant surge.

Greece’s leftist-led government is desperate to reach agreement with the creditors on the new fiscal measures before the end of the year in order to secure a pledge of debt relief, hoping it will kickstart the ailing economy.

Athens is also hoping that a deal will persuade the European Central Bank to include Greek sovereign debt in its asset purchase programme, known as quantitative easing or QE. 

Without debt relief, the ECB will not grant Greece access to QE, and without this, the country will not be able to return to the debt markets by early 2018, Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos said on Monday.

Greece’s debt will grow to 315 billion euros ($334 billion) or around 180 per cent of output this year, according to the Greek finance ministry.

The International Monetary Fund has said it won’t join the latest bailout until it sees a concrete plan from the Europeans to substantially cut the debt burden.

Despite strong opposition by Germany, Eurogroup Chief Jeroen Dijsselbloem said debt measures would be discussed on Monday in the hopes of persuading the IMF to sign on to the bailout.

“I think the IMF is committed because they had already agreed in May to go to the board [for approval] before the end of the year,” Dijsselbloem told MEPs in Brussels. 

In a gesture towards the IMF, Dijsselbloem admitted that the EU’s budget demands of Greece may be too strict, putting himself in opposition to powerful German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.

“The IMF has a point that running a primary surplus of 3.5 per cent of GDP for a very long time is a huge thing to ask and we need to be realistic here,” Dijsselbloem said.

DUBAI — A Saudi government investment fund is buying a big stake in a firm that controls Mideast food giant Americana, which operates nearly 1,700 outlets for regional franchises of Pizza Hut, KFC, Krispy Kreme and other Western brands.

The Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund said late Monday that it is acquiring a 50 per cent stake in Adeptio AD Holdings SPC Ltd. from Emirati businessman Mohamed Alabbar.

It didn’t provide financial terms for the transaction.

Alabbar is chairman of Dubai-based Emaar Properties, the developer of the world’s tallest building, the BurjKhalifa. His firm Adeptio bought a controlling stake in Americana, formally known as Kuwait Food Company, in June.

The PIF says Alabbar will keep ownership of half of Adeptio.

AMMAN — Solidarity-First Insurance has posted positive results over the past few months, according to the company’s Chairman Ashraf Bsiso. 

The company results have "exceeded expectations", Bsiso told reporters at a press conference on Sunday. 

During the first nine months of 2016, the company, created as a result of a merger between Yarmouk Insurance and First Insurance, a subsidiary of Solidarity Group Holding headquartered in Bahrain, recorded a 7 per cent growth in its profits, its Chief Executive Officer Ali Wazani indicated.

During the first three quarters, it has managed to increase its underwriting value to JD37 million from JD34 million in 2015, according to Wazani, who is also Jordan Insurance Federation chairman.

Solidarity-First Insurance will make use of the group’s expertise and practices in the areas of risk management and ICT systems, he added. 

The company is ranked fourth in terms of its market share in the insurance sector, which accommodates around 20 insurance companies.

Bsiso, who is also chief executive officer of the Bahrain-based Solidarity Group Holding, explained that the group is one of the founders of First Insurance, with an initial stake totalling 16 per cent in 2008.

"Solidarity group gradually raised its share in First Insurance until it acquired 70 per cent of its shares in 2014,” he said.

This reflects the group's confidence in the Jordanian market, he noted.

In 2015, the Investment Council agreed to offer incentives to insurance companies that are willing to merge, in a bid to salvage financially troubled companies and boost the sector’s performance.

The government offered them income tax exemptions for three years. It also relieved them from ownership transfer fees and other charges levied in the event of capital raise.

ALGIERS — Algerian police on Sunday broke up a protest in the capital against a reform to end early retirement that is to be debated in parliament, an AFP correspondent said

A drop in oil revenues prompted the draft law to end both early retirement and retirement after 32 years of contributions to a pension fund, regardless of age. 

Retirement age for all Algerians will be 60, under the reform due to come into force in January.

Protests have been banned in public places in Algeria since 2001.

Police arrested several demonstrators and tore up banners held up by trade unionists chanting the national anthem, the correspondent said.

"I was roughed up by police and wounded" above the eye, school director Abdelmalek Zegada said. 

Protesters said that many others had been held up at security checkpoints outside the capital and prevented from joining the gathering.

"Police beat up teachers, doctors and workers," said Um Abdelkader, a teacher. "We're all shocked."

Opposition lawmaker Nadia Chouitem said she was sad to see "so much violence". 

Fellow parliamentarian Smain Kouadria accused the state of sliding into the behaviour of a "totalitarian state" in the face of "legitimate" demands. 

Algeria's parliament is expected to approve the draft law as the legislature is largely dominated by parties who support President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

RIYADH — Arid Saudi Arabia could need more than $53 billion in water sector investment supported by private funds as demand grows, officials said on Sunday.

The world's largest oil exporter, whose petroleum revenues fell 51 per cent last year on declining crude prices, is pushing to diversify its economy through greater private sector investment and development of new industries.

Among government agencies targeted for privatisation is the Saline Water Conversion Corporation (SWCC), which desalinates water from the Gulf and Red Sea coasts.

"Future plants will be tendered to the private sector," Ali Al Hazmi, SWCC governor, told the government-organised Water Investment Forum.

"We have everything ready for privatisation."

The desert kingdom, which has no rivers, obtains most of its water from desalination and the rest from ground sources.

"This requires a lot of money and a lot of capital investment," Mansour Al Mushaiti, a deputy minister with the ministry of environment, water and agriculture, told the forum.

"We are envisaging that the capital requirements in the next five years will reach up to 200 billion Saudi riyals [$53.3 billion]."

TEHRAN — Algeria has proposed that members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) cut 1.1 million barrels of daily oil production to boost prices, 

Iran’s Shana news agency reported on Sunday.

OPEC members are due to meet on Wednesday in Vienna to discuss capping production.

At an informal meeting in Algiers in September, the 14 members agreed to work towards a cut of between 500,000 and one million barrels.

“The Algerian government has proposed a 1.1 million barrel per day cut in OPEC’s total output,” Energy Minister Noureddine Boutarfa said after meeting with his Iranian counterpart in Tehran. 

“We are hopeful that the next OPEC meeting will save the oil market of the current crisis,” he said, according to Shana, the official news service of Iran’s oil ministry.

Boutarfa also called for non-OPEC members such as Russia to cut their output by 600,000 barrels per day (bpd) — also slightly higher than earlier proposals — saying that falling oil prices were hurting the global economy and “must be stopped”.

He said the cuts could push prices up to $60 per barrel by the end of the year. 

A global supply glut has sunk oil prices below $50 — more than half their level just two years ago — threatening the economies of major producers such as Saudi Arabia. 

There have been growing doubts among analysts on whether a deal could be finalised. 

Iran has refused to cut production until it regains its pre-sanctions levels of output, although OPEC members agreed it could be exempted from any deal, along with Libya and Nigeria.

Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said he was optimistic an agreement would be reached on Wednesday. 

“The course of events and talks indicates that OPEC can reach a sustainable deal regarding its output and market management,” he said, according to Shana.