Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, Public Investment Fund, plans to invest 90 billion Saudi riyals ($24bn) in the broader Middle East and North Africa region to expand its portfolio of assets and boost regional economies.
PIF is setting up five investment companies after the launch of the Saudi Egyptian Investment Company in August.
The PIF’s new investment vehicles will seek opportunities in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Oman and Sudan, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said on Wednesday.
Together, the six companies will invest in several key sectors including infrastructure, real estate development, mining, health care, financial services, food and agriculture, manufacturing, telecoms, technology and other strategic industries.
The announcement comes on the second day of the Future Investment Initiative (FII), the kingdom’s annual forum in Riyadh, which is attended by government leaders, policymakers, investors and finance and technology leaders from around the world.
The launch of the five new companies will “contribute to an increase in regional investment opportunities for PIF’s portfolio companies and Saudi Arabia’s private sector”, PIF said in a statement.
The move will bolster “attractive financial returns over the long term and create more avenues for strategic economic collaboration with the private sector in the target countries as well as enabling the Saudi private sector”, it said.
The potential investments by PIF align with the fund’s strategy, which includes seeking new investment opportunities in the Middle East and North Africa to build lasting strategic economic partnerships and achieve sustainable returns, grow PIF’s assets under management, and diversify Saudi Arabia’s sources of revenue, while underscoring the objectives of Vision 2030, the fund said.
The fund, chaired by Prince Mohammed, has stakes in global companies including ride-hailing company Uber and is a cornerstone investor in SoftBank’s vision fund that invests in global technology companies. It currently has assets of $620bn and plans to boost it to $2 trillion by 2030.
PIF’s Saudi Egyptian Investment Company has already started investing capital in the Egyptian market.
In August, it acquired minority stakes worth about $1.3bn in four companies listed on the Egyptian Stock Exchange, Egypt’s planning ministry announced at the time.
The four companies are Abu Qir Fertilisers and Chemical Industries, Alexandria Container and Cargo Handling, E-Finance for Financial and Digital Investments. and Misr Fertilisers Production Company.
Earlier this month, the investment vehicle also acquired a 34 per cent stake in Egypt’s BTech, the 25-year-old consumer electronics retailer, for an undisclosed sum from Development Partners International, an Africa-focused investment company based in the UK.
Tax authority targets shisha levy evasion
The Federal Tax Authority will track shisha imports with electronic markers to protect customers and ensure levies have been paid.
Khalid Ali Al Bustani, director of the tax authority, on Sunday said the move is to "prevent tax evasion and support the authority’s tax collection efforts".
The scheme’s first phase, which came into effect on 1st January, 2019, covers all types of imported and domestically produced and distributed cigarettes. As of May 1, importing any type of cigarettes without the digital marks will be prohibited.
He said the latest phase will see imported and locally produced shisha tobacco tracked by the final quarter of this year.
"The FTA also maintains ongoing communication with concerned companies, to help them adapt their systems to meet our requirements and coordinate between all parties involved," he said.
As with cigarettes, shisha was hit with a 100 per cent tax in October 2017, though manufacturers and cafes absorbed some of the costs to prevent prices doubling.
How Islam's view of posthumous transplant surgery changed
Transplants from the deceased have been carried out in hospitals across the globe for decades, but in some countries in the Middle East, including the UAE, the practise was banned until relatively recently.
Opinion has been divided as to whether organ donations from a deceased person is permissible in Islam.
The body is viewed as sacred, during and after death, thus prohibiting cremation and tattoos.
One school of thought viewed the removal of organs after death as equally impermissible.
That view has largely changed, and among scholars and indeed many in society, to be seen as permissible to save another life.
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Cyclists must wear a helmet, arm and knee pads
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Man United: Dunk (66' og)
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Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
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