DUBAI: Saudi Arabia’s government will issue bonds next year backed by the kingdom’s ministry of finance to fund construction work at airports in Riyadh and Jeddah, Finance Minister Ibrahim Alassaf told Al Arabiya television yesterday.
“The rest of the bonds for King Abdulaziz Airport in Jeddah and King Khaled Airport in Riyadh will be issued this (coming) year,” Alassaf said.
The kingdom’s General Authority for Civil Aviation (GACA) said in January it planned to issue a second sukuk, or Islamic bond, at the end of 2012 to help fund its SR27bn ($7.2bn) airport in Jeddah.
A first sukuk, launched earlier this year and fully guaranteed by the Saudi Ministry of Finance, raised SR15bn to help fund the Jeddah airport development.
Last year, industrial conglomerate Saudi Bin Laden Group won the contracts to develop the first phase of the Jeddah airport, raising its annual capacity to 30 million passengers.
Sudan to double minimum wage
KHARTOUM: Sudan’s cash-starved government yesterday ordered a doubling of the minimum wage after months of rising prices left consumers struggling to make ends meet.
The order by President Omar Al Bashir reversed earlier official rejections of an increase despite inflation which reached 46 percent in November.
“President Bashir gives directive for increasing the minimum wage to 425 pounds (about $61 on the black market) as of January 1,” the official SUNA news agency said in a brief dispatch.
The new figure is roughly double the old minimum. Almost 47 percent of Sudanese lived below the poverty line in 2010, the United Nations said.
Agencies
