KSRelief General Supervisor meets with Ambassador of Kuwait to Yemen

KSRelief General Supervisor meets with Ambassador of Kuwait to Yemen
Saudi Arabia’s royal court advisor and General Supervisor of King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (Ksrelief) met with the Ambassador of Kuwait to Yemen. (SPA)
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Updated 31 August 2022

KSRelief General Supervisor meets with Ambassador of Kuwait to Yemen

KSRelief General Supervisor meets with Ambassador of Kuwait to Yemen
  • Kuwaiti ambassador Falah Badah Al-Hajraf expressed his admiration for KSRelief’s ‘distinguished professional level’ in the field of humanitarian aid

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s royal court advisor and General Supervisor of King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (Ksrelief) met with the Ambassador of Kuwait to Yemen. 
Kuwaiti ambassador Falah Badah Al-Hajraf expressed his admiration for KSRelief’s ‘distinguished professional level’ in the field of humanitarian aid when he met with the general supervisor of the relief center, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Rabeeah.


UK deputy PM criticized for suggesting ‘safe and legal’ routes for Afghan migrants exist

UK deputy PM criticized for suggesting ‘safe and legal’ routes for Afghan migrants exist
Updated 13 min 9 sec ago

UK deputy PM criticized for suggesting ‘safe and legal’ routes for Afghan migrants exist

UK deputy PM criticized for suggesting ‘safe and legal’ routes for Afghan migrants exist
  • PM Rishi Sunak says he will ask Home Office to reassess case of pilot facing deportation
  • Migrants could be housed offshore on ships to end ‘perverse incentive’ of hotel stays 

LONDON: The UK government has been criticized after the deputy prime minister claimed it had established safe routes for refugees and asylum-seekers to enter Britain.

Speaking to the BBC, Dominic Raab claimed there were “safe and legal” ways for people fleeing Afghanistan to reach the UK.

The UK deputy leader was responding to questions about a former Afghan Air Force pilot facing deportation to Rwanda after having arrived in Britain via countries deemed safe. 

The pilot, who has not been identified out of concerns for the safety of his family in Afghanistan, claimed there were no safe routes, and that he was forced to enter the UK illegally in a small boat across the English Channel.

Raab said: “I don’t want to comment on individual cases. It’s sensitive, it’s not right.”

But asked if it was right to deport people who had fought alongside coalition forces against the Taliban, he added: “That’s why we created a safe and legal route. Getting out of the country has been difficult in Afghanistan. Thousands have; we set up the flights before the evacuation of Kabul, but others can do it via neighboring countries. So there is a safe and legal route for Afghans.”

Raab’s fellow Tory MP and the chair of the UK’s Defense Select Committee, Tobias Ellwood, disagreed, telling The Independent there was “no functioning process” for Afghans to reach the UK, and adding that Britain had a “duty” to those who had worked alongside it in the country — a sentiment echoed by the former head of the Royal Navy, Admiral Lord West.

The UK has two schemes for Afghans seeking asylum. The Afghan Relocations and Assistance Policy for those who assisted British forces in Afghanistan has brought over 11,000 people, while the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme is for general applications. 

The latter has managed to resettle just 22 people since the end of the UK’s military-led evacuation process, Operation Pitting, in 2021, while the ARAP scheme has over 4,300 eligible people still stuck in Afghanistan.

Afghans, meanwhile, make up the largest single cohort of people crossing the English Channel illegally in small boats, with over 9,000 making the journey in 2022.

Yvette Cooper, Labour’s shadow home secretary, told The Independent: “The UK government made a solemn promise to the Afghans who helped our armed forces that it would help them and give them sanctuary from the Taliban.

“The failures of this Conservative government to help those that helped us is a source of national shame.”

The pilot, who flew over 30 combat missions against the Taliban and was praised by his Western colleagues as a “patriot to his nation,” believes he has been “forgotten” by his US and UK comrades, adding that it was “impossible” to reach the UK safely and legally under either of the present schemes.

Questioned about the case by a parliamentary committee on Tuesday, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak described the pilot and others like him as “exactly the sort of people we want to help,” adding that he would “happily” ask the Home Office to reassess the case.

Raab, UK foreign secretary during the period when the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan following the withdrawal of coalition forces, also suggested on Wednesday that the UK could house asylum-seekers offshore on giant ships to end the “perverse incentive” of putting people up in hotels indefinitely.

The now deputy PM notoriously initially refused to curtail a holiday as the chaotic situation in Kabul unfolded in 2021, leading to a backlash against the UK’s handling of the withdrawal at home. The UK Foreign Affairs Committee later found that he had attempted to shift the blame for the “disaster” in its aftermath.

 

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ADNOC begins work on project that converts CO2 into rocks 

ADNOC begins work on project that converts CO2 into rocks 
Updated 14 min 31 sec ago

ADNOC begins work on project that converts CO2 into rocks 

ADNOC begins work on project that converts CO2 into rocks 

RIYADH: Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. has begun working on a pilot project in Fujairah to convert atmospheric carbon dioxide into rock formations.

ADNOC will install a direct air capture unit to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as well as install solar panels to power the operation, according to MEED.

“It will be the first carbon negative project of its kind in the region,” ADNOC said on its social media platform. 

The oil company is collaborating with Fujairah Natural Resources Corp. and Abu Dhabi Future Energy Co., or Masdar, to carry out the project. 

Powered by solar energy supplied by Masdar, the project will use British-Omani geoscience company 44.01’s carbon capture and mineralization technology to extract the compound from the atmosphere.  

ADNOC CEO Sophie Hildebrand said: “As the first energy company in the region to run a carbon-negative project of this kind, this pilot marks the latest step in our $15 billion investment into projects that will reduce our carbon footprint and help us achieve our net zero by 2050 ambition.”  

After taking carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the project will mix it with seawater, and inject it into peridotite rock formations underground in order to safely and permanently mineralize it. 

“Following a successful pilot, this technology will contribute toward our plans to increase our carbon capture and storage capacity to 5 million tons per year by 2030,” added ADNOC. 

The UAE company also revealed that Fujairah has been specifically chosen for its abundance of peridotite, a type of rock that naturally reacts with carbon dioxide to mineralize it.  

In January of this year, the state energy company announced its $15 billion investment on decarbonization projects by 2030.  


Saudi banks’ net profits surge 7.5% to $1.4bn: SAMA 

Saudi banks’ net profits surge 7.5% to $1.4bn: SAMA 
Updated 22 min 12 sec ago

Saudi banks’ net profits surge 7.5% to $1.4bn: SAMA 

Saudi banks’ net profits surge 7.5% to $1.4bn: SAMA 

RIYADH: In the backdrop of a looming global banking crisis, Saudi lenders continue to maintain strong credit growth driven by corporate loans.  

This has helped banks operating in the Kingdom record an aggregate year-on-year net profit of 7.5 percent to SR5.18 billion ($1.38 billion) in February 2023, the latest official data showed.   

In February 2022, the aggregate profit of Saudi banks was SR4.82 billion, noted the Saudi Central Bank, also known as SAMA, in its monthly report issued on Tuesday. 

On a month-on-month basis, however, the aggregate profit of banks, was down 19 percent in February, against January’s SR6.41 billion. 

A research report prepared by Al Rajhi Capital, which has analyzed the SAMA monthly data, attributed this modest growth in profits to the ongoing pressure on the cost of funding. 

“Mortgage origination came in at SR7.1 billion, lower than January, but slightly better than our expectations,” stated Al Rajhi Capital, a company that is authorized to engage in securities activities in Saudi Arabia. 

Al Rajhi said its updated estimate for monthly mortgage origination for 2023 is SR6.8 billion, which is a bit lower than the previous estimate of SR7.0 billion.  

The SAMA report noted that loans given to the private sector in February rose over 11 percent year-on-year to SR2.32 trillion. 

Based on these figures, Al Rajhi analysts expect Saudi banks’ loan growth to be around 10 percent in 2023, which they said, is on the conservative side as “we see upside risks to it.”   

This comes as the combined deposits of Saudi banks rose by 8 percent year-on-year to SR2.30 trillion in February. 

Al Rajhi analysis noted that total deposits in the month of February grew 1.2 percent month-on-month, higher than credit growth of 0.9 percent, which the analysts said: “should ease some pressure on the funding side going forward.” 

The apex bank data showed that the aggregate assets of banks in the Kingdom rose by more than 11 percent year-on-year to SR3.66 trillion in February. 

Whereas, the total assets held by SAMA increased by SR830 million month-on-month to SR1.92 trillion in February 2023. 

This is when compared with February 2022 grew by SR130.4 billion. 

SAMA’s investments in foreign securities, which account for 55 percent of its total assets, declined by around 7 percent to SR1.04 trillion in February. 

The SAMA report further revealed that the foreign direct investment inflow in Saudi Arabia was SR29.6 billion in 2022, thus bringing the cumulative FDI balance in the Kingdom to SR1.8 trillion. 

The rise of FDI in Saudi Arabia clearly indicates the Kingdom’s growing popularity as a global investment hub, a goal outlined in Vision 2030. 

The report, however, added that the Kingdom’s FDI in 2022 witnessed a 60 percent fall compared to 2021. This massive figure of net FDI in 2021 was primarily attributed to a $12.4 billion infrastructure deal between Aramco and a global investor consortium, in which the consortium acquired a 49 percent stake in Aramco Oil Pipelines Co. 

Excluding this mammoth transaction, FDI inflows in 2022 increased by 14.5 percent compared to the year earlier, the SAMA report noted. 


Saudi Ports Authority unveils plans to cut emissions by 1,046 tons 

Saudi Ports Authority unveils plans to cut emissions by 1,046 tons 
Updated 28 min 43 sec ago

Saudi Ports Authority unveils plans to cut emissions by 1,046 tons 

Saudi Ports Authority unveils plans to cut emissions by 1,046 tons 

RIYADH: Crane movements in Saudi ports will be reduced in order to cut carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 1,046 tons by the end of the year, the organization responsible for the transit hubs has announced. 

The Saudi Ports Authority, also known as Mawani, is working on reducing the average movement of yard cranes per incoming container required for manual inspection by 33 percent. In addition, it is also working on reducing the turnover rate of trucks within the Jeddah Islamic Port by 17 percent. 

These initiatives will help improve the port’s operational performance, reduce carbon emissions, and lower the logistical cost for port and maritime transport sector customers.  

They will also assist the authority to keep pace with the Kingdom’s initiatives to preserve the environment and establish a prosperous and sustainable marine sector. 

These initiatives fall within the framework of the Green Ports Initiative which aims to diminish energy consumption by 15 percent by reducing dependence on diesel in order to lower carbon footprint. 

Mawani is known to present pioneering initiatives that are directly linked in one way or another to the Saudi Green Initiative which focuses on reducing emissions, supervising work to combat climate change, and facilitating community cooperation. 

The authority also works to strengthen partnerships between the public and private sectors to expand the scope of work in this field. 

The authority is seeking to boost the level of customer and beneficiary satisfaction, decrease logistical costs, and enhance the commercial attractiveness of the port on a global level. 

In 2022, Mawani, represented by the Jeddah Islamic Port, won the “Best Port in 2022” award, and the “Digital Transformation” award at the International Green Shipping Summit Awards. 


Al Rajhi Bank to issue first US dollar-denominated sukuk

Al Rajhi Bank to issue first US dollar-denominated sukuk
Updated 45 min 40 sec ago

Al Rajhi Bank to issue first US dollar-denominated sukuk

Al Rajhi Bank to issue first US dollar-denominated sukuk

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Tadawul-listed Al Rajhi Bank has announced the commencement of its US dollar-denominated sukuk program with a minimum subscription of $200,000.

Sukuk, also called an Islamic bond, is a debt product issued in line with the principles of Islamic laws.

The offering, open to eligible local and international investors, is expected to be facilitated through a special-purpose vehicle.

The bank has mandated Al Rajhi Capital Co., Citigroup Global Markets Ltd., Emirates NBD Bank PJSC, Goldman Sachs International, HSBC Bank, J.P. Morgan Securities, KFH Capital Investment Co., and Standard Chartered Bank as joint lead managers and book-runners.

Last week, Saudi Arabia’s National Debt Management Center announced the closure of its riyal-denominated sukuk program issuance for March with a total bid amount worth SR8.34 billion ($2.2 billion).    

The total amount allocated was SR3.37 billion with the sukuk issuance divided into tranches — the first has a size of SR2.77 billion maturing in 2031 and the second at SR600 million maturing in 2037.