Good morning, friends — our apologies for the late arrival in your inboxes this afternoon. It’s a heavy one as we return from our August publication holiday. The Strait of Hormuz is a ghost lane today, emptier than at any point since the war began: Five ships made the crossing on Saturday — and none at all yesterday.
The mood in the region’s capitals is turning, and not toward patience. Six months into a war none of the Gulf started, our governments are watching their main export artery sit shut while Washington and Tehran trade ultimatums. The frustration is now on the record: One Gulf official put it to the Washington Post about as bluntly as it gets — “Trump started this war, and we are paying the price.” Anger with Washington, the paper reports, is at its highest since the February strikes on Iran.
When Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and Islamabad sign a fresh defense pact, and diplomats start muttering that “the US is not enough,” the story stops being only about Hormuz. Today, it’s about whether the security bargain the Gulf has banked on for two generations is still viable. While nobody has an answer yet, the question is being asked out loud now, which is in itself new.
All of it comes to a head today. An interim memorandum on safe passage expires and Qatari mediators say they’re hearing “positive messages” on talks resuming before it does. Maybe, but we’ve watched two of these deadlines slide already, and the Iran-Oman corridor plan doesn’t have buy-in at the top in Tehran.
Away from the water: Egypt is finally lining up for Syria’s reconstruction, Abu Dhabi and Doha are following BP into Venezuelan gas, and OpenAI is offering inference with data residency in the UAE. Business in our corner of the world doesn’t stop when the strait does — it just gets a bit harder. –Patrick
Egyptian companies are pursuing roles in Syria’s reconstruction, and the first test comes in a few weeks. Trade bodies and chamber sources tell EnterpriseAM they expect a strong Egyptian showing at the country’s two biggest business events of the year: the Damascus International Fair (DIF63), which opens its doors later this month, and the Syria Reconstruction Conference, taking place on 13-16 September.
There’s Egyptian interest in a wide cross-section of industries, with a focus on iron and steel and other infrastructure-related sectors, we are told. Textiles, woodworking, and other metallurgy companies also plan to attend, the Egyptian Federation of Industries tells us, while members of the Chamber of Food Industries and the Export Council are also planning to attend. Hassan Allam and Naguib Sawiris, two of the biggest names in Egypt’s private sector, were both in Damascus earlier this summer for high-level meetings, including with Syrian President Ahmed Al Sharaa.
Why it matters: Gulf investors have pushed first into the market, and Egypt has largely been late — the drive into Syria has so far been led by more risk-tolerant investors, mostly Syrian diaspora and politically backed capital from the Gulf, including the UAE and Saudi Arabia (both in the earlier stages) and an early push into banking by Qatar. A strong Egyptian turnout this September would signal a sea change after exactly one Egyptian company made it to Syria’s Reconstruction Conference last year; mostly Syrian firms attended, alongside a handful from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Turkey, Oman, and Jordan. Egypt
Behind the shift: politics
The interest of Egypt’s private sector follows a warming at the government level. Egypt and Syria signed two memorandums of understanding in January, agreeing to cooperate on gas for power generation and on meeting Syria's petroleum products’ needs. The two countries then exchanged visits by trade delegations — the first in 15 years — to discuss investment cooperation.
The diplomatic track has kept moving since. Ayman Al Ashry, a business leader and head of the Egyptian Chamber of Commerce, was part of the delegation that visited Damascus earlier this year. He tells us that the political leadership in both countries is eager to rekindle trade and economic ties and that a joint trade chamber and business council is in the works. Cairo and Damascus are also reportedly weeks from restoring direct flights for the first time since 2011, though neither government has confirmed a final operational date.
That diplomatic warming with the new Syrian regime is what has turned the tide for the Egyptian private sector — the MoUs, the delegations, and the high-level visits have given Egyptian firms the signal that doing business with Damascus is now acceptable, and the conferences are the first venue to act on it.
The opportunity and the constraints
The opening for Egyptian players is real: Syria’s reconstruction bill runs to an estimated USD 216 bn, and the two fall conferences are built to court exactly the contractors and manufacturers Egypt is fielding. DIF63 organizers expect more than 1k participants from over 60 countries, and the Reconstruction Conference expects north of 500 across construction, industrial, and energy firms.
Egyptian chamber of commerce officials think a significant obstacle to Egyptian attendance last year is now being addressed. Egyptian companies need security approvals to attend — the same requirement that held back last year’s turnout, sources at the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce tell us. Those approvals are being finalized, a source at the Federation tells us, “to ensure a distinguished Egyptian representation.” “There is a strong desire among Egyptian companies to participate in the upcoming Syrian events,” another adds. The final headcount of attendees from Egypt won’t be clear until those clearances come through.
The bigger constraint is the one facing every investor eyeing Syria: It remains really hard to get money into and out of Syria.We reported in April that an initial investment momentum had largely been stalled due to banking barriers and governance questions, which ultimately pushed most private-sector investors to the sidelines across Syria, Lebanon, Libya, and Gaza.
“No investor is questioning the market’s viability, underlying demand, or the need for solutions,” Abdul Hameed Arwani, partner at Abu Dhabi-based investment firm Shorooq, tells EnterpriseAM. “However, investors need clear regulations that stabilize the ecosystem, protect investments, and govern company formation. Concurrently, a developed financial sector is required to enable smooth capital movement and support startup growth.” Shorooq is focused on infrastructure investments across telecom, fintech, and real estate in Syria, Arwani says, though capital deployment is pending advanced evaluations. “If you visit Damascus today, reconstruction activity is visible across multiple sectors,” he adds.
The cycle of money is the single biggest obstacle for Egyptian players — in Syria and other reconstruction markets like Libya, two sources familiar with the matter tell EnterpriseAM. Investors are holding back not for lack of interest or ideas, but because “they need confidence that they can execute, operate, and if necessary, exit investment under predictable rules, which is not the case today,” says Benjamin Fève, a senior consultant at Karam Shaar Advisory.
Fève made a related case to EnterpriseAM before, when compliance was already the top concern flagged for would-be Syrian bank acquirers. The specific asks have sharpened since. “Investors still face difficulties in transferring funds, accessing reliable banking services, obtaining trade finance, securing insurance, repatriating profits, and resolving disputes through credible arbitration mechanisms, to cite a few issues,” Fève says. Clearer land ownership documentation and more predictable licensing procedures are still missing, he adds.
Closing that gap sits mainly with Syrian authorities, Fève argues. Transparent procurement, competitive tendering, independent oversight, and standardized investment rules for reconstruction projects are table stakes, but the highest priority should be “rebuilding confidence in the financial system, which means helping Syrian banks strengthen compliance, anti-money laundering and financial crimes frameworks, and governance more generally, in order to allow foreign correspondent banks to reconnect with the country,” he says.
IN CONTEXT- Sanctions on the Syrian regime have been lifted, SWIFT access has theoretically been restored, and Visa and Mastercard are back in play, though connectivity to the international banking system remains fraught. The US has moved to delist Syria as a State Sponsor of Terrorism, a potentially positive signal for business, though Syria remains on the FATF gray list and is due for another review in October. As Fève previously told us, delisting should ease correspondent banking, trade finance, and insurance compliance over time, but banks will keep asking about counterparty risk, sanctions exposure, Assad-era ownership, corruption, and judicial credibility before they remove guardrails.
What now
DIF63 and the Reconstruction Conference are the near-term test of whether Egypt’s push turns into an actual delegation or joins the list of overtures still finalizing paperwork. Syria's FATF gray-list review in October is the milestone Fève and others flag as central to unlocking the correspondent banking access institutional investors are waiting on.
The US drive to broker the unification of Libya just had its worst week since the April budget deal, with the head of Khalifa Haftar’s military intelligence apparatus killed in a Benghazi car bombing and a sustained drone campaign against Libya’s largest operating refinery in the west. The 10 August assassination of Maj. Gen. Fawzi Al Mansouri and an eight-days-and-counting run of strikes on Zawiya’s oil and power infrastructure have rattled the two premises the US-led political unification plan was built on: That Benghazi is safely under Haftar-family control and that fragmented western militias are containable enough to leave the oil complex alone.
In the east, the killing landed inside what was supposed to be Haftar’s safest district. Major General Al Mansouri, who had run military intelligence for the Haftar family’s Libyan National Army in the east since May 2024, is the most senior LNA officer assassinated in Benghazi in years, after the city was largely pacified from 2017 onward. No group has claimed responsibility, but Haftar family member Khaled Haftar said an investigation is ongoing and authorities later said they had arrested a cell in Benghazi allegedly preparing acts of sabotage.
In the west, the target has been the infrastructure that keeps domestic fuel and power flowing. On 8 August, a drone punctured a naphtha tank at the Zawiya oil complex. A strike on a desalination plant followed before 10 and 11 attacks on gasoline and diesel tanks at the 120k bb/d refinery, the largest currently operating in Libya. Power substations were attacked, too, on 12 August and again yesterday, plunging Tripoli and much of Western Libya into the dark.
It’s unclear who’s responsible, but many analysts, including Royal United Services Institute’s (RUSI) Libya expert Jalel Harchaoui, think the drone attacks in the west of the country are due to tensions between local militias and forces aligned with Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, who controls the west. Since the start of 2026, conflict tracking research center ACLED has logged more than 30 armed clashes in Zawiya and warned the escalation could ultimately lead to a state-aligned offensive to bring the city under tighter Tripoli control.
The National Oil Corporation is now openly weighing a shutdown. NOC has warned it may declare force majeure and suspend operations at the refinery if strikes continue. That would be Libya’s most consequential fuel-supply disruption in years and would land squarely on the domestic gasoline market — Zawiya is the country’s main operating refinery for local product.
Why it matters: The attacks in the east and west undermine the relative security on which the US-led push in unifying Libya’s coffers and government is predicated. The April unified-budget signing remains its only tangible achievement. In mid-July, House of Representatives Speaker Aguila Saleh reportedly said the eastern-based legislature had received nothing official regarding the initiative, and no roadmap has been published since Washington’s Arab Affairs envoy, Massad Boulos, ran shuttle diplomacy last month in Malta, Tripoli and Benghazi. Boulos condemned both attacks last week.
REMEMBER: When we dug into April's landmark unified budget, RUSI’s Harchaoui told us its most meaningful shift was a hard expenditure ceiling and, for the first time, written visibility on Benghazi’s spending — but flagged that the document was signed by individual MPs rather than voted through, leaving the central bank’s legal authority to execute it unclear. He also warned the US had pledged to return in August to audit execution, and predicted the political-unification track would prove much slower and messier than the economic one. That August moment has now arrived — under the worst possible security conditions on both sides of the country’s governments.
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Traffic through Hormuz has all but stopped. Just five commodity vessels made the crossing on Saturday and none on Sunday — against 31 the weekend before and a pre-war norm above 130 ships a day, Gulf Business reports, citing ship-tracking data. Even allowing for tankers running dark, the waterway that carried a fifth of the world’s seaborne crude and LNG before February is once again effectively shut.
Meanwhile, Iran and Oman appear to be working again on a framework for managing traffic through the strait, after agreeing on shipping routes through the waterway, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei told state-run Defa Press. The shipping map would form part of a broader agreement intended to preserve both countries’ sovereignty and provide safe passage for vessels.
The difficult bits are still unresolved: Further talks are planned, with Tehran yet to disclose how vessels would be protected or whether they would face transit fees. The proposed framework would govern how traffic moves through the strait, but would not by itself reopen the waterway, Bloomberg reports, citing Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi.
Reopening Hormuz still depends on the US meeting separate Iranian conditions, Aragchi said, noting that “we have not yet made a decision to resume negotiations with the US.”
Washington sees it differently: A US blockade of Iranian ports was a “wall of steel” that enabled Washington to effectively govern Hormuz, US President Donald Trump said (watch, runtime: 1:05:26), adding that “pretty soon I’ll be declaring the Hormuz strait a territory of the United States.”
The attacks continue
Strikes continued against shipping and oil infrastructure in both the Arab Gulf and the Red Sea. Two Adnoc vessels were struck while transiting Hormuz on Thursday, while a third was hit on Friday. No injuries were reported. And on Saudi’s western coasts on the Red Sea, the Houthis are not letting up, hitting Aramco’s 400k bbl / d Jazan refinery with two drones last Thursday, the second attack on the facility in under a week. Another Aramco facility in Najran was also allegedly targeted on Friday night.
REMEMBER- Jazan was already offline. Aramco shuttered the refinery on 27 July after a Houthi strike damaged its IGCC complex and tank farm, and repairs were expected to be complete by 15 August, with some reports putting the date at 30 August. It’s unclear what Thursday’s strikes have done to that window.
The commercial damage for Aramco is real: The company is handling September crude allocations to some Asian term customers on an ad hoc basis, abandoning the monthly OSP-then-allocation cadence that has structured the Asian crude trade for decades, Reuters reports, citing unnamed sources. And it gets worse: Ship owners are refusing both Hormuz and the Red Sea cargoes, jeopardizing both of Saudi Arabia’s main export ports.
Qatar turns the LNG taps back on
Qatar is getting Ras Laffan moving again, but it still needs Hormuz to reopen if it wants to get product to market. LNG loadings from the giant export complex climbed to their highest last week since March, with the 10-day moving average reaching roughly 80k tons, Bloomberg reports, citing ship-tracking data. This is still 60% below year-ago levels, but it’s the strongest recovery signal since Iranian strikes forced the shutdown. Qatar has moved little LNG through Hormuz since attacks on shipping resumed last month, and getting back to normal export volumes now depends more on conditions in the strait and less on how much gas the plant can produce.
The market can use these volumes: Asian spot LNG prices are running at roughly double pre-war levels, while European gas prices have surged as the region tries to rebuild inventories ahead of winter.
IN CONTEXT- LNG has much less room to reroute than oil. LNG relies on fixed liquefaction, shipping, and regasification infrastructure for exports, leaving little room to improvise when a route goes down. Gas markets also lack strategic reserves or a quick supply response, making disruption harder to absorb.
After nearly a decade, Saudi’s capital markets regulator has a new chairman: Mazen Al Sudairi (LinkedIn) has been appointed chairman of the Capital Market Authority (CMA) board, replacing Mohammed Al Quwaiz, who had led the regulator since 2017. Al Sudairi was previously head of research at Al Rajhi Capital before being appointed in 2024 as an adviser to the Cabinet General Secretariat.
Al Sudairi’s appointment comes as the Saudi stock market faces structural challenges, including declining liquidity amid the ongoing war in the Gulf. TASI closed July down 1.95% and trading value fell roughly 20% y-o-y to SAR 86.1 bn, while traded volumes nearly halved to 4.55 bn from 8.6 bn a year earlier.
DATA POINT- Saudi companies raised USD 3.7 bn through share sales in 2025, more than the rest of the Gulf combined, while nearly 100 companies are awaiting listings. No major IPOs have closed so far this year.
Tidying the house? The CMA is reportedly investigating the weak performance of recent IPOs and scrutinizing investment banks’ advice to companies selling shares, Semafor reported, citing unnamed sources. The probe has been underway for several months and covers IPOs dating back to at least early 2025, the sources said. The CMA requested detailed information from local and global investment banks on IPO pricing, investor allocations, and subsequent share trading.
Part of a wider reorganization?
Exiting in the same shuffle: Former industry and mining minister Bandar Al Khorayef is no longer chairman of the Local Content and Government Procurement Authority, with Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz appointed as the authority’s new chairman. This is the second time Prince Abdulaziz has replaced Al Khorayef in a senior position this year, with the first being last month when Abdulaziz’s Energy Ministry absorbed the industry and mining portfolios. It’s unclear whether Al Khorayef also remains governor of the General Authority for Military Industries.
GCC Oil majors are going to Venezuela: Qatar-based UCC Oil and Adnoc’s international investment arm XRG are taking an equal-interest stake in the offshore Loran gas licence alongside BP, XRG said in a statement (pdf). The field holds more than 4 tn cubic feet of proven gas.
REMEMBER- We reported in January that Adnoc was evaluating a Venezuela entry through XRG, contingent on clearer legal and financial structures and coordination with Washington. Interim Venezuelan leader Delcy Rodriguez has been rewriting the country’s hydrocarbon law to open the door to foreign capital since the US removed then-President Nicolas Maduro from office in January and pushed Rodriguez’s interim government toward an investment-friendly posture.
In context: US President Donald Trump has been lobbying American oil companies directly to invest in Venezuela’s energy sector — but several have stayed on the sidelines, wary of the cost of rebuilding a gas industry that’s gone through years of underinvestment and sanctions. That’s the gap XRG, BP, and UCC are stepping into.
BACKGROUND- This is XRG’s second Latin American gas position in under a year. XRG and Eni each took 32% stakes in three YPF-operated upstream blocks in Argentina’s Vaca Muerta shale basin in June. That sits alongside XRG’s stake in NextDecade’s Rio Grande LNG in the US, Azerbaijan’s Absheron gas field, Turkmenistan’s Offshore Block 1, and Mozambique’s Area 4 concession. The oil and gas investor is also eyeing potential investments in Canada and Australia, while also doubling down heavily on US gas.
CONTINUING with the energy-and-logistics theme: A new logistics fund focused on Saudi’s western coast is in the works. Al Rajhi Capital and LogiPoint will establish a SAR 5 bn investment fund dedicated to South Jeddah Logistics and Industrial Park, Al Rajhi said on LinkedIn. The Twp signed an MoU for the project, which will be located next to Modon’s Industrial City One in South Jeddah, and expects final agreements to be wrapped by year-end.
We now know how important SpaceX is to Saudi’s Public Investment Fund: A quarterly US Securities and Commission Exchange (SEC) filing shows PIF held 154.1 mn Class A SpaceX shares worth USD 26.3 bn as of June 30 — its largest single US equity position and roughly two-thirds of the USD 37.9 bn American stock portfolio it reported for 2Q 2026, up from just USD 12 bn three months earlier. (SpaceX shares have since fallen 40% from their 16 June peak.)
Why it matters: This confirms the scale of the anchor order PIF placed ahead of SpaceX’s June IPO — reported at USD 1-5 bn at the time — and it’s on top of the indirect stake PIF already held through Humain’s converted xAI shares.
Saudi exposure to SpaceX runs even deeper: Alwaleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding, in which PIF owns roughly 17%, separately disclosed a USD 6.8 bn stake.
Anghami co-founderEddy Marounand former Multiply Group CIOJosé María Dotare targeting USD 100 mn in Arabic entertainment rights, with New York-based Influence Media Partners backing their new UAE play. IPNation launched its platform to buy music masters, publishing rights, artist brands, and name, image, and likeness.
The bet: Arabic IP is under-monetized, while the flood of AI-generated content makes authentic work more valuable, Maroun argues. IPNation follows CineNow, which picked the UAE as its headquarters to turn Indian film rights into investable assets.
A splash of salt in Indonesia: Acwa Power has signed a USD 400 mn (SAR 1.5 bn) agreement with Indonesia’s state-owned PT Garam to develop what they describe as the country’s first seawater desalination and industrial salt production facility, according to a press release. The plant will produce 62.5k cbm of water per day and 500k tons of salt per year using seawater reverse-osmosis technology.
Who’s doing what? Acwa will handle financing, engineering, construction, and staffing, while PT Garam manages site preparation, sales channels, and regulatory coordination. The venture aims to curb Indonesia’s imports of c. 4 mn tons of industrial salt every year.
In context: Acwa Power was among several Saudi firms that inked agreements and MoUs worth roughly USD 27 bn with Indonesian counterparts to invest in clean energy, petrochemicals, and aviation fuel. The renewables giant signed two separate MoUs with a combined value of USD 10 bn to develop the Southeast Asian country’s clean energy industry.
Mubadala Investment Company upped its stake in Aldar Properties to 28%, buying an additional 78.6 mn shares through its subsidiary Mamoura Diversified Global Holding, per an ADX disclosure (pdf).
Aldar had a strong 1H: Aldar’s revenue rose 8% y-o-y to AED 16.8 bn in 1H 2026, driven by development-backlog recognition, rental growth, and recent acquisitions. In addition, construction on the developer’s AED 100 bn Marsa Al Saadiyat waterfront project is set to start in 3Q, with initial residential sales scheduled for 2H 2026.
Saudi’s BinDawood Holding just won the tender for the dairy-processing assets of bankrupt Estonian cheesemaker AS E-Piim Tootmine, paying EUR 135.2 mn (SAR 585.8 mn) through a newly formed subsidiary, Just & JobenOo, according to a Tadawul filing. The assets account for c. 15% of Estonia’s cheese market, the country’s fourth-largest producer. The deal still needs regulatory approval.
L’imad is moving to fully absorb AD Ports Group, offering to buy out the 24.58% of the ports and logistics operator that ADQ doesn’t already own. The wholly-owned ADQ subsidiary, which holds 75.42% of AD Ports Group, is offering AED 6.25 per share in cash — a 23% premium to the stock’s last ADX close of AED 5.10, and a 95% premium to the AED 3.20 IPO price AD Ports Group listed at back in February 2022, The National reports.
REMEMBER- AD Ports is gearing up for an acquisition spree: AD Ports has AED 5.89 bn in undrawn credit facilities, including an accordion option, to close its pending buys — Brazil’s CLI agri-bulk terminal operator for an enterprise value of AED 3.1 bn (expected to close by the end of 3Q 2026) and Germany’s MBS Logistics for AED 300 mn (expected in 4Q 2026).
Taking the port operator private would give AD Ports more room to maneuver without public scrutiny as Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, and other governments embark on what we think will be a decade-long drive to invest in infrastructure, defense, and AI in the wake of the ongoing US-Iran war.
Another Iraq contract, another Egyptian player
Egyptian Maintenance Company (EMC)— commercially known asSan Masr — landed a USD 18.6 mn Iraq contract, securing Italy’s Eni tender to supply electrical equipment for Iraq’s Zubair oilfields over three years, according to a company statement. The award adds to a growing pipeline of overseas work for Egyptian engineering and petroleum-services companies, especially in Iraq — which emerged as the top destination for Egyptian corporates' outward FDI in 2025.
UAE’s solar diplomacy in Africa
Abu Dhabi-based Global South Utilities (GSU) completed the largest infrastructure project in the Central African Republic’s history — a 50-MW solar plant that is set to lift the country’s power generation capacity by more than 60% and supply electricity to over 300k households, state news agency Wam reports. The Saka plant, which pairs the 50-MW solar array with a 15-MWh battery storage system, went from groundbreaking to inauguration in 10 months, and was backed by concessional financing coming from the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development.
Part of a wider GSU push in the continent: GSU delivered a 50-MW plant in Chad last September and is targeting 750 MW of operational solar-plus-storage capacity by 2027. It’s also building a 50-MW plant in Madagascar.
The UAE is now one of only three markets globally where OpenAI runs AI model inference locally, alongside the US and Europe, under a new Inference Residency offering for eligible API, ChatGPT Enterprise, and ChatGPT Edu customers, the company stated. But this isn’t full local coverage yet — only GPT-5.2 is currently supported under the UAE configuration, and several features are carved out, with image generation, ChatGPT Work, improved memory, and GPT-Live all falling outside the residency framework. ChatGPT’s flagship model is currently 5.6 Sol.
Why it matters: Data residency only governs where content is stored at rest — inference residency means the actual computation happens on GPUs inside the UAE, not just the data sitting there afterward. The offering gives organizations with local compliance and governance requirements a new way to deploy OpenAI models within the country.
Did Egypt just land new global mining interest?
We may soon hear about new mining players in Egypt (or existing ones expanding their portfolios) after bidding closed last week on 42 exploration blocks for gold and associated minerals, as well as phosphate, according to a government document seen by EnterpriseAM. This is the first test of the government’s newly minted rolling exploration system, launched in June, which dismantled the old, highly bureaucratic single-deadline tender format in favor of a rolling application window in which placing an initial bid on a block triggers an automatic 30-day competitive counteroffer period before closing.
The Egyptian government is targeting 40 companies operating across gold, silver, and other mineral resources, up from 13 currently, an MRMIA official tells us. It also targets USD 840 mn in private mining investment this year after it raised the Mineral Resources and Mining Industries Authority’s (MRMIA) budget by over a third. Cairo hopes to see mining’s contribution to GDP rise to 5-6% by 2030 from under 1% today.
Lebanon’s creative sector under strain
Lebanon’s creative sector is facing a funding and demand squeeze as demand from the GCC, a major source of demand for the country’s creative sector, slows down,Reuters reports. The slowdown comes as GCC-based clients and donors embrace prudent spending to hedge against the war uncertainty — forcing Lebanese creative houses to resort to layoffs to adapt.
A case in point: A Lebanese advertising and strategy consultancy that serves the Gulf told Reuters it laid off half of its staff and is expecting its year-end revenues to fall by more than 70% this year, whereas others in the sector are reporting some 30% to 60% drop in their income due to GCC clients cutting down on new projects.
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