AVIATION-

Budget air carrier flynas is adding more routes to Damascus, with two weekly flights from Jeddah set to take off starting 12 June, it said in a post on X. The addition follows the airline’s announcement last week of launching direct flights between Riyadh and Damascus starting 5 June. Flynas previously operated flights to several Syrian cities, including Damascus, Aleppo, and Latakia.

REMEMBER- Flyadeal announced earlier this month it plans to launch flights to Syria as early as July, joining several other operators — like Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines, and Royal Jordanian Airlines — that resumed flights to Syria following the fall of the Assad regime in December and the removal of US sanctions earlier this month. Rival UAE-based airline flydubai also said it plans to launch flight services to the country starting next month.

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OIL & GAS-

Tadawul-listed Ades Holding secured a SAR 128.9 mn drilling contract in Cameroon, according to a disclosure to Tadawul (pdf). The contract was awarded by Sinopec Group’s subsidiary Addax Petroleum and covers the deployment of the Admarine 510 rig for a one-year campaign starting in 4Q 2025, eligible for two additional six-month extensions.

ICYMI- Ades Holding inked a SAR 816 mn, four-year contract extension with Qatar-based North Oil Company earlier this month to continue leasing the Sapphire Driller jackup rig. A week later, it inked a SAR 1.6 bn, 10-year renewal contract with Aramco for one of its offshore jackup rigs.

M&A WATCH-

Enaya + Salama Cooperative Ins. get regulatory approval for merger: Saudi Enaya and Salama Cooperative Ins. received a no-objection certificate from the General Authority for Competition for their proposed merger, according to two separate Tadawul disclosures (here and here). An MoU was signed in February for feasibility studies and financial advisors were appointed (Wasatah Capital for Enaya and Estidamah Capital for Salama), but the move remains under review with no binding agreement.

What’s next: The merger’s completion still needs approvals from the Ins. Authority, the Capital Market Authority, Tadawul, and the shareholders of both companies.

TECH-

GO Telecom backs Syria’s digital push: Etihad Atheeb Telecom Company (Go Telecom) signed a memorandum of cooperation with Syria’s Communications and Information Technology Ministry to support digital transformation policies in the country, the company said in a post on X.

More details: The agreement includes plans to develop government digital solutions and a national data center, introduce digital technologies (like AI and IoT), and build digital infrastructure to support cloud computing and cybersecurity services, Al Arabiya reports.

TRADE-

The GCC will impose five-year anti-dumping duties on Chinese and Indian imports of ceramic sanitary ware, effective Tuesday, 8 July, according to a disclosure to Tadawul from the Saudi Industrial Development Company (SIDC).

The details: The new duties — ranging from 33.8% to 51% for Chinese products and from 21.4% to 83.4% for Indian products — will be levied on ceramic sinks, washbasins, washbasin pedestals, bathtubs, bidets, water closet pans, flushing cisterns, and urinals, among other similar items.

The decision follows an investigation by the Technical Secretariat Office for Combating Harmful Practices in International Trade, which found that both countries engaged in dumping practices and caused material harm to the regional industry.

REMEMBER-The Kingdom imposed last December five-year anti-dumping tariffs ranging from 25.6% to 51% on imports of PVC-coated textiles and fabrics from China and South Korea and imports of sulphonated naphthalene formaldehyde (a concrete additive) from Russia and China.

LOGISTICS-

The Saudi Ports Authority (Mawani) added SeaLead’s 5CX shipping service to Jeddah Islamic Port, it said in a statement. The new service, which has a capacity of 1.5k standard containers, will link the Jeddah port to 10 major ports, namely Qingdao, Shanghai, Ningbo, and Nansha in China, Damietta in Egypt, Aliağa, İzmit, Istanbul, and Mersin in Turkey, and Klang in Malaysia.

Mawani by numbers: Ports supervised by Mawani handled 625.4k TEUs in April 2025, up 13.4% y-o-y. The growth was fueled by a 22.5% y-o-y rise in imported containers, reaching 259.4k TEUs, and an 8% rise in exports, totaling 233.8k TEUs.

FINTECH-

Two local fintech platforms receive CMA approval: Emkan Alarabiya and InvestSky Holding both received the green light to begin testing their platforms under the FinTech Experimental Permit framework, according to separate statements from the Capital Market Authority. Emkan Alarabiya will test an investment and real estate fund distribution platform, while InvestSky will trial a social trading service.

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