Memos

Expert insights to understand regional trends.

Memo

Middle East climate tech startups to be hot investment in 2023, but market still lags

Samuel Wendel

In Washington, DC, reporting on regional business and tech

The United Arab Emirates' (UAE) minister of industry and advanced technology, Sultan al-Jaber (L), looks on as John Kerry, the US president's climate envoy, tours the Global Manufacturing and Industrialisation (GMIS) Summit in Dubai on November 22, 2021. (Photo by AFP) (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)

This picture taken on November 1, 2022 shows a view of the Nile river between Egypt's capital Cairo (L) and its twin city of Giza (R). - The Pharaohs worshipped it as a god, the eternal bringer of life, but the clock is ticking on the Nile. Climate change, pollution and exploitation by man is putting existential unsustainable pressure on the world's second longest river on which millions of Africans depend. (Photo by Khaled DESOUKI / AFP) (Photo by KHALED DESOUKI/AFP via Getty Images)

Egypt’s water crisis to worsen, intensifying tensions with Ethiopia over Nile Dam

Marc Español

Visitors stand in front of works by Bybit on display during the 15th edition of Art Dubai at Madinat Jumeirah in the Gulf emirate of Dubai, on March 10, 2022. - Art Dubai, the Middle East's largest annual contemporary art fair, featured for the first time digital works, as the wealthy Gulf emirate seeks to position itself as a crypto-assets hub. - RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY MENTION OF THE ARTIST UPON PUBLICATION - TO ILLUSTRATE THE EVENT AS SPECIFIED IN THE CAPTION (Photo by Karim SAHIB / AFP)

UAE’s cryptocurrency ambitions to continue despite FTX crash

Samuel Wendel

In Washington, DC, reporting on regional business and tech

Cranes and containers are pictured on November 12, 2014, in the Tunisian port city of Rades. The World Bank said in a report published last September that Tunisia's economic model of manufacturing for exports and protecting the domestic market was valid in the 1970s but since then had hindered progress. AFP PHOTO / FETHI BELAID (Photo credit should read FETHI BELAID/AFP via Getty Images)

Tunisia’s potential IMF deal to boost manufacturing investments

Francisco Serrano

Francisco Serrano

In Lisbon, reporting on North Africa business

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund

US rate hikes make Gulf sovereign wealth funds go-to source for capital

Sebastian Castelier

Sebastian Castelier

In Dubai, reporting on regional business

World Cup stadium in Qatar

Qatar’s record-shattering $300B World Cup bet will deliver returns, despite missteps

Samuel Wendel

In Washington, DC, reporting on regional business and tech

UAE solar farm

Gulf states chart own investment course in climate finance

Sebastian Castelier

Sebastian Castelier

In Dubai, reporting on regional business

A Moroccan farmer walks past solar panels that are connected to a generator which feeds a pump extracting water from underground in Tafoughalt, a little village deep in the mountains of Morocco's eastern Berkane province, on October 31, 2016. As the Cop22 gets underway in Marrakesh, negotiators are thrashing out the details of a landmark global agreement designed to stave off disastrous climate change, but in Tafoughalt that impact is being felt already. Rising temperatures are among the factors making the

Morocco’s transition to renewable energies to accelerate amid high hydrocarbons prices

Francisco Serrano

Francisco Serrano

In Lisbon, reporting on North Africa business

Saudi passengers take the train on an internal trip in Riyadh's only railway station 19 September 2004. Only four passenger trains per day operate from the six-platform station and along the sole operating track in the vast desert kingdom. The trains carried around 900,000 passengers in 2003 between the capital -- home to some four million -- and the center of the oil-rich Eastern Province. The Saudi Railways Organization (SRO) believes that the existing service has improved immensely during the past three

Rail development to grow across GCC, with Saudi Arabia & UAE leading the charge

Afshin Molavi

A woman poses for a picture in front of a globe on November 10, 2022, inside the venue hosting the COP27 climate conference, at the Sharm el-Sheikh International Convention Centre, in Egypt's Red Sea resort city of the same name. (Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP) (Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images)

COP27 to boost Egypt’s green energy ambitions

Marc Español

An employee at "al-Gameya", a tech startup the runs an app to facilitate for strangers to create an informal money-pooling association to provide access for money in time of need, uses a computer with the official Facebook page of the application open on a web browser, at the company offices in Egypts capital Cairo on September 12, 2021. - Cash-strapped Egyptians fearful of banks have long relied on a "gameya" to access money in time of need, but now tech startups are cashing in on the practice. Such cooper

A reality check looms for Middle East's tech startups

Samuel Wendel

In Washington, DC, reporting on regional business and tech

A woman walks out of a currency exchange shop displaying a giant US dollar banknote in the Zamalek district of Egypt's capital Cairo on August 24, 2022. - Depleted foreign currency reserves are casting a shadow on Egyptian streets, with the government moving to dim lights to free up energy for export. More natural gas exports means more hard currency, a dire need as experts say a new loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and an adjacent currency liberalisation is inevitable. (Photo by Khaled DESOU

Egypt to stick to flexible foreign exchange rate regime amid economic turmoil

Marc Español

A woman walks over cracked earth at al-Massira dam in Ouled Essi Masseoud village, some 140 kilometres (85 miles) south from Morocco's economic capital Casablanca, on August 8, 2022 amidst the country's worst drought in at least four decades. - Residents of Morocco's Ouled Essi Masseoud village are suffering from a series of successive droughts, prompting them to rely solely on sporadic supplies in public fountains and from private wells. The situation is critical, given the village's position in the agricu

Water stress to remain major driver of social instability, barrier to economic growth in Maghreb

Francisco Serrano

Francisco Serrano

In Lisbon, reporting on North Africa business