Economics
Lebanon’s transportation unions put on hold Wednesday a strike scheduled for Thursday after the prime minister promised to take action on soaring fuel prices and make adjustments on new traffic law.
Egypt's government deficit rose by more than a third in the seven months to the end of January from the same period a year earlier, state media reported on Wednesday.
Iran gave an upbeat assessment of two days of nuclear talks with world powers that ended on Wednesday, but Western officials said Tehran must start taking concrete steps to ease mounting concerns about its atomic activity.
The Lebanese Cabinet has extended the contracts with mobile operators Alfa and touch until the end of June and authorized the telecommunications minister to prepare for a new tender.
Companies
First Gulf Bank, the UAE's second-largest lender by market value, expects its loan book to grow by 10 percent this year, driven by higher demand from consumers and government bodies.
The Kuwaiti mobile operator Wataniya Telecom is expecting revenues from data to grow to 25 per cent of total sales by the end of this year.
An Iraqi Airways plane landed in Kuwait City on Wednesday for the first time since Iraq's invasion of the emirate in August 1990, after a commercial dispute was resolved.
Barcelona soccer star Lionel Messi has become a global brand ambassador for Ooredoo, the Qatari telecoms operator formerly known as Qtel.
Dubai’s Arabtec slumps to a six-week low after the contractor announced it aims to raise $1.8 billion through a rights issue and a convertible bond.
And finally…
Consumers in the GCC are spending $2m a day eating at fast food giant McDonald’s, as the company experiences record growth in the region.
