International Business Opportunities

Antoine Tayyar, spokesman for Coca Cola Middle East, has said its UAE partner, Al Ahlia Gulf Line, is still waiting for permission from the ministry of economy to introduce a ‘price adjustment’ for its soft drinks in the UAE market, Emirates Business has reported. ‘The company can’t increase retail prices without permission from the ministry,’ he said. AGL wants to implement increases of 50 fils to Dh1.50 for small bottles and Dh1 to Dh5 for family-size bottles.


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US-based Adrian Smith & Gordon Gill Architecture has been selected by Saudi investment firm Kingdom Holding as the architect for its 1-kilometre-high tower on the outskirts of Jeddah, Meed has reported. The company has also asked contractors to submit revised prices for the contract to build the record-breaking tower. Dubai-based Emaar Properties is managing the development of the tower for Kingdom Holding. Emaar is also managing the entire 23-square-kilometre Jeddah Kingdom City, which will be built around Kingdom Tower, the magazine reported.


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Egyptian Petrochemicals Holding Co has said it has received bids for a contract to build a bn petrochemicals complex at Alexandria, on Egypt’s northern Mediterranean coast, Meed has reported. The list of bidders include Saipem, Tecnimont, Toyo Engineering & Construction, and Samsung Engineering & Construction. The plant will crack ethane, a component of natural gas, breaking it down into the chemical ethylene, which will be used to produce the basic plastic polyethylene. The complex will produce 750,000 to 1 million tonnes a year (t/y) of ethylene, the magazine reported.


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Lebanon-based Azadea Group Holding has signed a multi-year franchise agreement with US-based fashion designer, The Gymboree Corp, to launch the Gymboree retail brand in the Middle East. The first stores are scheduled to open in Dubai during the third fiscal quarter of 2010, with plans to open more stores across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Jordan and Lebanon.


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Mubadala Healthcare has awarded Besix Group, owned 50% by Egypt’s Orascom Construction Industries, a .3bn turnkey contract to build the 375-room Cleveland Clinic on Sowwah Island, Abu Dhabi, Reuters has reported. Besix is leading a joint venture with South Korea’s Samsung C&T. The project is due to be completed by the first quarter of 2013, OCI said.


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Egypt’s state-run New Urban Communities Authority has announced it plans to sell five-year, floating-rate bonds valued at EGP2.5bn (7m), Bloomberg has reported. The Egyptian government is trying to encourage companies to sell debt instruments to stimulate a secondary bond market. New Urban Communities Authority is under the supervision of Egypt’s housing ministry. It allocates land to develop residential towns in the most populous Arab country.
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Deutsche Bank has downgraded the UAE’s largest construction firm, Arabtec Holding, to ‘hold’ from ‘buy’ and reduced its share price estimate by 20% to Dhs2.4, on concerns about its plans for expansion outside Dubai and a weak orderbook, Bloomberg has reported. Arabtec ‘released a surprisingly weak backlog at Dhs13.2bn due to a contract cancellation in Dubai and a lower scope of works in Qatar and Saudi Arabia’, analysts Nabil Ahmed and Athmane Benzerroug said.
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Saudi Arabia’s state-controlled chemicals firm Sabic and Kuwait’s Petrochemical Industries Co are in talks with UK-based chemicals group Ineos over a potential investment or a full acquisition deal, the Sunday Times has reported. Hit hard by the recession, Ineos is struggling with £6.4bn borrowings which the founder, Jim Ratcliffe, built up buying assets from the likes of BP and ICI. In 12 years he has turned the Hampshire-based firm into a global chemicals giant with bn annual sales and 15,000 staff.


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Iran’s Ministry of Industries and Mines has said the volume of aluminium production in the country rose by 15% during the last 11 months of the current Iranian year (ending March 20), Fars news agency has reported. According to the figures and data released by the Iranian Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization (IMIDRO), aluminium production in Iran has reached 258,275 tonnes in the past 11 months. The country plans to build another aluminium plant in the city of Lamard through an agreement with the Chinese NFC Co. The plant will produce 276,000 tonnes of aluminium annually.
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Restaurateur and Michelin-Star celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay has opened his first Maze Gordon Ramsay restaurant in the Middle East on the Pearl-Qatar in alliance with the Alfardan Group, the Peninsula has reported. Modelled after the Michelin-starred Maze and Maze grill in London, the new restaurant, which is led by executive chef, Rob Daniels, accommodates 70 guests with a further capacity for 90 more on the terrace.


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