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Prime minister Marouf Bakhit was in Abu Dhabi on 17 April to seek financial support at a meeting with UAE deputy prime minister and presidential affairs minister Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan. Sheikh Mansour said the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) was looking at ways of giving Jordan a more central focus for economic and developmental support. The GCC is setting up a $20bn fund to assist development in the region, particularly in the poorer states of Bahrain and Oman (GSN 896/13).

Christie’s to auction one of the world’s largest pearls, Shuaa Capital on Tunisian asset freeze list, Government purchases Blue City debt, Rise in credit default swap trade

The effects of the global downturn on Dubai, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have forced traders, financiers and insurers to assess GCC credit and political risk more closely. And some firms are expanding their GCC teams to do so

After another rocky year, Oman’s budget was rescued by the global rise in crude prices towards end-2017, which helped to bail out an economy where 70% of total revenues still come from oil and gas, during a period when debt has started to mount up. Omani crude achieved an average $56.21/bbl on the Dubai Mercantile Exchange in December, compared to a 2017 budget assumption of $45/bbl oil; the H2 17 crude price hike means the annual average will have been about $50/bbl.

Developer Omagine has signed a deal with the government to design, develop, own and operate a $2.5bn tourism and real estate project on the outskirts of Muscat, according to a company statement. Omagine LLC is 60% owned by New York-based Omagine Inc, with the remainder owned by the office of Royal Court Affairs (25%) and two subsidiaries of Consolidated Contractors Company (10% CCC-Panama and 5% CCC-Oman). The project will include a “high-culture theme park containing seven pearl-shaped buildings”, exhibition buildings, a boardwalk, an open-air amphitheatre, a canal, a marina area, shops and restaurants, hotels, office buildings and around 2,000 residences.

The former chief executive of Bahrain’s state-owned aluminium producer Alba, Bruce Hall, was sentenced to 16 months in prison on 22 July for conspiracy to corrupt, in relation to contracts for the supply of goods and services to Alba. Hall had pleaded guilty to the charges in June 2012, and agreed to be a witness in the UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO)’s main case, against Victor Dahdaleh, the alleged middleman in bribery schemes aimed at securing Alba contracts. The case against Dahdaleh collapsed on 10 December, in part - so the SFO said – because Hall gave an account in court that “differed markedly from the witness statement he had provided to the SFO”.

The European Commission (EC) is to start negotiations with Qatar and the UAE on a new EU-wide aviation agreement, following approval by the bloc’s 28 transport ministers on 7 June. European transport commissioner Violeta Bulc said a new deal would bring more routes and lower fares. Passenger traffic between the EU and the six Gulf Co-operation Council states has tripled over the past decade, from 12m in 2005 to 39m in 2015. The EC has suggested a new deal could bring economic benefits worth €8.4bn ($9.4bn) over the first eight years and deliver 8,300 new jobs by 2025.

Turkish businesses have been turning away from Europe towards the markets of the Middle East and Asia. Banks have followed suit, taking advantage of growing trade, particularly with Iran, Iraq, the UAE and Saudi Arabia

A number of British citizens have been prevented from leaving the country after banks, including HSBC, obtained travel bans against them because they owe money

Global Investment House (Global) shareholders approved a plan to delist the company from the Kuwait Stock Exchange at an extraordinary meeting on 2 December. The company wants to proceed with a significant restructuring, and had asked the Capital Markets Authority (CMA) to grant it an exemption from mandatory tender offer regulations that were standing in its way

Saudi Binladin Group is fighting a rear-guard action to save its reputation and its position as one of the region’s largest contractors, in the face of what appears to be a severe cash-flow crisis. It has laid off a reported 89,000 workers and fallen at least four months behind in paying wages to local and foreign staff, according to local media reports. The company has been facing a growing crisis since one of its cranes collapsed in Mecca, killing 118 people, last September.

Emirates Airline has finalised a $56bn deal with Boeing for 150 777Xs. The announcement was made at the Dubai Airshow in November 2013, and confirmed by Boeing on 9 July. “The order – a combination of 115 777-9Xs and 35 777-8Xs – also includes purchase rights for an additional 50 airplanes that, if exercised, could increase value to approximately $75 billion at list prices,” Boeing said.

Critical to Sultan Haitham Bin Tariq Bin Taimur Al-Said’s success will be his ability to switch emphasis away from oil and gas to develop a more broad-based economy which can meet high social and welfare spending needs, and sustainably employ more young Omanis. Haitham presides over an economy that in recent years has faltered in delivering on an ambitious programme to balance the books, reduce national debt – which had been rising to dangerous levels – and encourage private enterprise.

The CMA in November 2014 filed a case against MMG board members to do with violations of the Capital Market Law during the company’s 2008 initial public offering (IPO). The CMA said it was brought “for conducting practices that formed manipulation and fraud and created a misleading and incorrect impression regarding the value of MMG security.” The three executives were not named by the CRSD but are understood to include former chairman Mohammed Bin Hamad Al-Mojil and his son Adel, the current chairman. Both men received a five-year sentence. Fines totalling some SR1.62bn ($432m) were handed down for illegally gained profits.

Saudi Arabia and the United States signed an Open Skies air transport agreement on 28 May which will, after a transition period, permit unrestricted air service by the airlines of both countries between and beyond each other’s territory.