Saudi Arabia

RIYADH, Mar 7 (NNN-WAM) – Saudi Arabia announced today (Saturday) that, it placed new preventive and precautionary measures, in its fight against COVID-19, by temporarily restricting the entry of Emirati, Kuwaiti and Bahraini nationals into the country.

According to the Saudi Press Agency, SPA, citizens from those countries will only be permitted entry, through the King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah and King Fahd International Airport in Dammam.

RIYADH, Feb 29 (NNN-SPA) – Saudi Arabia announced, on Friday, the suspension of the entry of Gulf nationals to Mecca and Medina, as part of precautionary measures against COVID-19.

The Saudi Foreign Ministry, said, the temporary ban does not cover Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) nationals, who have been in the kingdom for 14 consecutive days, without showing signs of COVID-19 infection and wish to perform Umrah (minor Haj) or visit the Prophet’s Mosque.

Such GCC nationals can apply through the website of the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah to obtain a permit.

26 Feb 2020; MEMO: Saudi Arabia’s Capital Market Authority (CMA) has given companies listed on the country’s stock exchange, known as Tadawul, until the end of March to disclose its annual reports for 2019.

Local media recently reported that Saudi Aramco – world’s largest oil producer – was yet to announce its business and financial reports, while most of the country’s energy companies have incurred heavy losses, according to analysts.

RIYADH (Reuters) - Finance officials from the world’s 20 biggest economies (G20) meeting in Riyadh on Sunday reached agreement on the wording of a final communique that includes for the first time a reference to climate change, G20 diplomatic sources said.

Compromise language hammered out to overcome U.S. objections retained a reference to the Financial Stability Board’s work examining the implications of climate change for financial stability, although it dropped climate change from its list of downside risks to global economic growth.

RIYADH, Feb. 23 (Xinhua) -- Saudi-led coalition involved in a war in Yemen announced on Sunday the foiling of a "terrorist attack" in the Red Sea.

The spokesperson of the coalition, Turki Al-Maliki, said in a statement that the attack using a remote-controlled exploding boat by the Houthi militia was foiled in the southern Red Sea on Sunday morning .

The Houthi militia launched the rigged boat off Hodeidah Governorate and the coalition navy forces destroyed the boat, he said.

22 Feb 2020; MEMO: The world’s largest oil producer, Saudi Aramco, is set to gain unconditional EU antitrust approval for its $69 billion buy of a 70% stake in petrochemicals group Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC), people familiar with the matter said to Reuters on Friday.

RIYADH, Feb 22 (NNN-SPA) – Saudi Arabia announced the development of the Al-Jafoura gas field, with an investment of 110 billion U.S. dollars.

The plan was reviewed in a meeting, chaired by Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud.

As the largest non-conventional and non-associate gas field in Saudi Arabia, the giant Al-Jafoura field, located in the kingdom’s eastern region, is expected to measure 170 km in length and 100 km in width, and contain an estimated 200 trillion cubic feet of wet gas.

RIYADH (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Saturday it was very important to have tax certainty on a global basis and that the OECD was very close to consensus on a framework for minimum corporate tax.

“You cannot have in a global economy different national tax systems that conflict with each other,” Mnuchin told an economic conference in Saudi Arabia, which is hosting finance leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies.

RIYADH (Reuters) - World financial leaders should agree on a global minimum tax for companies now and politicians should not postpone an agreement for electoral reasons, Germany’s Finance Minister said on Saturday at an international tax conference in the Saudi capital.

“We’re now in the year where we have to take decisions. There is enough work that had been done in the past, we have proposals from the OECD in January and we will have a meeting in Berlin of the OECD on the question in July. So there is enough preparation for coming to the end,” the minister, Olaf Scholz, added.

15 Feb 2020; MEMO: Saudi Arabia welcomed a delegation of members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organisations this week, according to Haaretz.