Olayan

The Saudi group will participate in the tourism enterprise by way of a share capital increase to strengthen the Costa Navarino resort and its further growth in the tourism sector. The aim of the move is not just to support the group’s next investment stage but also to supply liquidity, Kathimerini notes.

Founded in 1947, The Olayan Group is a private, multinational enterprise with diverse commercial and industrial operations in the Middle East and an actively managed portfolio of international investments.

The commercial side of the Group comprises more than 40 companies and is centered in Saudi Arabia, where the Group originated. They are engaged in distribution, manufacturing, and services. Many of these companies operate in partnership with leading multinational or regional firms. Some have operations in other Gulf countries and the wider Middle East.

With offices in Saudi Arabia, Europe, and the US, the Group’s global investment team focuses on public and private equities, real estate, fixed income securities, and other specialized assets.

The 4.4 million euro deal marks the QPI’s first investment in Greece.

Qatar Petroleum (QP), a state-owned corporation established in 1974, is responsible for all phases of the oil and gas industry in Qatar.

According to Gulf Times, Qatar’s Energy and Industry Minister Mohamed bin Saleh Al-Sada also attended the agreement’s signing ceremony yesterday in Doha.

“The power sector is growing steadily worldwide,” Mohammed Saleh Al Sada said at a press conference in Doha late yesterday.

“We have already built capacity internally here in Qatar, but we are interested in extending our investment elsewhere.”

The agreement was also signed, by Nasser Al Jaidah, CEO of QPI, and George Peristeris, CEO of GEK TERNA Group.

The energy-rich Gulf emirate in January announced during a visit by Samaras that it planned to invest up to a billion euros in a joint fund with Athens to bolster recession-hit Greek industry.

The Greek investment scheme is similar to a Qatari plan to invest in Italian companies, which was announced during a visit by Italy’s Prime Minister Mario Monti to Doha last November.

Samaras had originally intended to visit Qatar in November but delayed the trip because Athens was locked in talks to obtain aid from its international lenders.

TERNA was founded in 1972 and since then it has been actively involved in the implementation of a broad spectrum of public and private projects of considerable budget and complex know-how, such as the construction of Railway and Highway networks.

Today, TERNA is the construction company of GEK TERNA Group.

By amending the agreement, substantial convergence is achieved, both with the standard Greek positions, and with the principles of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to avoid international double taxation, according to a press release by the Finance Ministry.

The protocol marks the beginning of an ambitious economic cooperation between the two countries and constitutes the first vital step for Greece for the attraction of investments coming from the United Arab Emirates, which have shown keen interest in investing in various sectors of the Greek economy.

Earlier this month, Greek Foreign Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos met with his counterpart UAE Foreign Minister H.H. Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan and discussed ways of enhancing relations and cooperation between the UAE and Greece in various sectors, especially in investment, trade and energy.

Shaikh Abdullah pointed out that the diplomatic relations between the two countries were established way back in 1975, witnessing a steady stable growth in bilateral relations, including trade and investment.

On his official visit to Greece, Shaikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Foreign Minister, called on the governments of the European Union to grant UAE citizens a 30-day visa upon their arrival in the EU.

Greece has repeatedly and strongly supported the exemption of UAE nationals from the need to obtain a Schengen Visa. In March, Avramopoulos sent a letter to the EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Mrs Cecilia Malmstrom requesting that the United Arab Emirates be included to the group of third countries that are going to be transferred to the Annex II of the relevant EC Regulation, listing third countries whose citizens do not require a visa in order to travel to the Schengen Area.

He arrived in Beijing where today he will speak at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. In the afternoon he will meet with the prime minister of the People’s Republic of China Li Keqiang.

According to AMNA, tomorrow, May 17, Samaras will talk at the Hellenic-Chinese Business Forum and the same day he will meet with the chairman of the National People’s Congress of China Zhang Dejiang and president of the People’s Republic of China Xi Jinping.

Saturday, May 18, the Greek PM will travel to Changzhou city, where he will meet the governor of the region and will speak at the World Cultural Forum, and will then go to Shanghai to meet with the mayor of the city and will speak at a business forum.

Samaras will meet with government officials and chief Chinese business groups and will be accompanied by a group of Greek businessmen who want to exploit the political climate to close business deals.

From the government side, he will be accompanied by the ministers of Foreign Affairs Dimitris Avramopoulos, of Development Kostis Hadjidakis, of Shipping Kostis Mousouroulis, Tourism Olga Kefalogiannis, deputy Development minister Notis Mitarakis and his advisors Chrisanthos Lazaridis and Stavros Papastavrou.

On Sunday, May 19, he will make a working visit to Baku, Azerbaijan, concerning the prospect of energy cooperation between the two countries.

The list of businessmen who will accompany PM Antonis Samaras in China contains 73 names. During the stay of the mission there will be two business forums, one in Shanghai and one in Beijing.

Part of the plot is located next to the site of a new road junction that will be created to serve the new municipal airport. Another part, which is privately owned, currently operates as the only 18-hole golf course on Crete, local authorities told the paper.

As argued, “the group’s representative said that the investment would only go ahead if the Greek state speeds up its licensing procedures.”

In a related development, Tourism Minister Olga Kefalogianni, visited Israel earlier this month to meet government officials and also try to boost investment in the debt-crunched country.

Kefaloyianni met with her counterpart Stas Misezhnikov where the two discussed options for attracting Israeli business interest in Greece and tourists.

The meeting took place during the IMTM 2013 international travel fair in Israel, and led to the strengthening of cooperation between the two countries’ tourism authorities, it was reported.

Some 400,000 Israelis visited Greece last year, and a further growth in the number of tourists is expected this year, Greek Tourism Minister Olga Kefalogianni told Yedioth Ahronoth.

According to the minister, 2012 was a record year in tourism from Israel to Greece for several reasons.

Since 2010, when relations between Israel and Turkey deteriorated, Greece has been enjoying a boom in Israeli tourists.

According to data from the Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry, the number of Israeli tourists visiting Turkey plunged by 90 percent in 2010, while the Greek Culture Ministry said the number of Israeli tourists visiting Greece in 2010 had risen to 250,000, from 100,000 in 2009.

The huge drop in Israeli tourism followed followed the May 31 encounter aboard the Turkish-owned Mavi Marmara in which nine pro-Palestinian activists when Israeli Navy commandos boarded the ship. The flagship led a six-vessel flotilla meant to breech Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Qatari government has signed a contract that gives the right to participate anew in the competition process, one month after Diar Real Estate Investment Co., a unit of Qatar Investment Authority, didn’t proceed to the second phase of a tender for the Hellenikon project in January.

Qatar “has signed the confidentiality agreement and is returning to the Hellinikon tender,” government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou said according to Vima.

One of the most attractive pieces of property in the country, it was scheduled to become Europe’s biggest park but is being turned over for development as part of the country’s accelerated privatization plans to bring in cash to the indebted country.

The three other bidders are Elbin Cochin Ltd. from Israel, London & Regional Properties from the U.K. and Lamda Development SA (LAMDA.AT) of Greece.

The final submission of offers is expected to take place in July 2013, according to the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund (HRADF).

The full development of the Hellinikon site is expected to enhance Greek GDP by 0.3% per year and to create over 10,000 new jobs on a yearly basis for the next decade.

The Prime Minister’s recent trip to the Arab country was a catalyst; coordination by government officials Mitarakis and Michalos played a role as well, according to parapolitika.gr.

Meanwhile, Qatar Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani said last month that his country is ready to invest 1 billion euros in Greece.

Hellinikon S.A. intends to develop Hellinikon SA (6.20 million sq.m. or approximately 620 hectares) through the business plan that selected investor will submit. The plant includes the old Athens Airport, unexploited land plots, a 3.5 kilometer open stretchalong the Athenian coastline and includes a currently operational 337-berth marina.The site is situated in the wider Athens area, close to the city centre, with immediate access to Greek islands and in proximity by air to other European and Middle Eastern destinations.

It is noted that Greek State will receive 30% of the profits derived from the development of the area during the course of the contract for development to be signed, according to HRADF.

“There can be no freedom from hunger – there can be no food security – without the active participation of all sectors of society, including the private sector,” said FAO’s Director-General, José Graziano da Silva.

Speaking at a high-level conference in Istanbul focused on promoting private agricultural investment and trade from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, Graziano da Silva said that apart from important investments, financial and in-kind contributions, the private sector can make another important valuable contribution, namely political support to food security. There can be no freedom from hunger – there can be no food security – without the active participation of all sectors of society, including the private sector.

“We need to build consensus and mobilize all stakeholders towards this goal. With the private sector on board, national and international efforts to fight hunger have added legitimacy,” he told the gathering of leaders in agribusiness and top level policy-makers.

The Director-General and his counterpart, EBRD President Sir Suma Chakrabarti, stressed that the fight against hunger can only be won in partnership between governments, civil society and farmer organizations and the private sector. They also called on governments to create an enabling policy environment that fosters private sector investment.

Sir Suma said he was impressed by the positive response by all the companies that were invited to the conference. “It shows that the private sector is concerned about food security. This meeting is another step forward to helping the private sector to enhance production and employment, using the expertise of the EBRD and FAO in the food and agricultural sectors,” he told the conference.

The conference explored ways to improve the trade conditions between transition countries and the southern and eastern rim of the Mediterranean, according to a news release issued by FAO. It also discussed different models to develop farming and maximize the efficiency of food chains.

Since the start of their partnership in 1994, FAO and the EBRD have implemented over 90 technical assistance projects, totalling about $12 million, which have helped to address institutional and regulatory bottlenecks, as well as improve transparency and efficiency along the whole food value-chain in the countries in which EBRD operates.