Business

19 July 2023; MEMO: British Conservative MP, Tobias Ellwood, has praised the Taliban government in Afghanistan for "totally transforming" the country, calling for the United Kingdom to establish relations with and recognise the new Afghan authorities.

19 July 2023; MEMO: Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, privately threatened to journalists that he would impose sanctions on the United Arab Emirates (UAE) last year, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has revealed.

17 July 2023; MEMO: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan today embarked on a visit to Saudi Arabia to enhance relations with the Gulf kingdom.

Erdogan will be welcomed by Saudi King Salman Bin Abdulaziz with an official ceremony in Jeddah city.

They will hold one-on-one talks, followed by inter-delegation meetings.

Bilateral relations, regional and international issues will be on the agenda.

17 July 2023; MEMO: Saudi Arabia is reportedly seeking to raise $2.7 billion (10bn riyals) to proceed with the development of its ambitious smart megacity project, Neom, according to Bloomberg.

17 July 2023; MEMO: Russia, on Monday, suspended the Black Sea grain deal, the Kremlin said, Anadolu Agency reports.

17 July 2023; MEMO: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Japan on Monday signed 23 agreements and memoranda of understanding to enhance their bilateral trade and investment.

This came during Japanese Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida's visit to the Gulf nation on Monday.

Kishida met with UAE President, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan in Abu Dhabi, where both leaders underscored the strength of relations between the two countries, the UAE state news agency, WAM, reported.

17 July 2023; MEMO: Insurers are reviewing whether to freeze cover for any ships willing to sail to Ukraine after Russia, on Monday, quit a UN-backed deal that allows the export of grain through a wartime Black Sea safe corridor, industry sources said, Reuters reports.

16 July 2023; MEMO: Turkey raised tax on petrol on Sunday to help to fund a 1.12 trillion lira ($42.2 billion) increase to its 2023 budget after February's earthquakes and the May presidential election sent spending soaring.

The additional fuel tax will help with a budget deficit that jumped to 263.6 billion lira in the first five months of the year, up from 124.6 billion lira a year earlier, but it could also stoke inflation that had declined to 38.21% in June from a 24-year high of 85.51% last October.

17 July 2023; MEMO: Four groups of companies have made bids in Israel's latest tender for offshore hydrocarbon exploration, the Energy Ministry said on Sunday, reports Reuters.

The ministry said the groups include a total of nine companies, five of which were new to the Israeli market. It did not name which companies took part.

17 July 2023; MEMO: India and the UAE have signed an agreement to start using a rupee-dirham payment mechanism to settle cross-border trade, following Prime Minister Narenda Modi's visit to Abu Dhabi yesterday. An agreement was also signed to link their fast payment systems, namely the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) of India with the Instant Payment Platform (IPP) of the UAE.