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REGION NOTES
Oil revenues up
The state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corporation had profits of $4.15 billion in the first quarter of Kuwait’s 2008-09 fiscal year, which started at the beginning of April. This is a 74-percent jump in profits compared to the same period of the previous fiscal year.
Kuwait is a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the Kuwaiti Petroleum Corporation is charged with managing the country’s oil sector.
Water project begins
Work began early last month in water-scarce Jordan on a $990 million project to pump water to Amman from an aquifer located 325 kilometers south of the capital. When complete, the pipeline will carry 100 million cubic meters of water a year to Amman from the Desi aquifer, which is 300,000 years old and located near Jordan’s border with Saudi Arabia. Work on the project is expected to be finished in 2012.
Jordan is over 90 percent desert and consumes over 900 million cubic meters of water each year, a demand that is expected to rise to 1.6 billion cubic meters annually by 2015.
Fixed-line bidding opened
Oman’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) opened bidding for a second fixed-line telephone operator license early last month, seeking to bring in an operator to break the monopoly of the sole Omani fixed line operator, Omantel, which is controlled by the state. The deadline for bid submission was August 25, and the TRA is expected to announce the winner in October or November. The contract to construct and operate the second fixed-line includes the right to operate broadband services.
The sultanate has a population of approximately 2.75 million people, 10 percent fixed-line penetration, and 3 percent Internet and broadband penetration.
FDI almost doubles in Tunisia
Foreign direct investment (FDI) in Tunisia reached 1.1 billion Tunisian dinars in the first half of 2008, a 42.71-percent climb over the comparable period in 2007, when FDI stood at 770.8 million dinars. FDI in real estate and tourism reached 166.4 million dinars during the first half of this year, compared to only 7.7 million dinars in the first half of 2007, while FDI in manufacturing also grew significantly, reaching 211.8 million dinars. While FDI currently makes up 22.7 percent of Tunisia’s GDP, the North African country’s government expects this figure to reach 26.1 percent by 2016.
Qatari GDP soars
Qatar’s nominal GDP grew to reach 84.31 billion Qatari riyals at the end of the first quarter of 2008, up 15.35 percent from the GDP figure of 73.09 billion riyals at the end of the same quarter of 2007, according to the Qatar Statistics Authority. This growth was driven partially by the mining and quarrying sector’s 13.88-percent increase in the first quarter of 2008 to 51.1 billion riyals, from 44.88 billion riyals for the same period in 2007. The mining and quarrying sector includes oil and gas operations.
Qatar is a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
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