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New MoU to Support Establishment of Saudi Petrochemical Startups

Saudi Arabia is seeking to implement programs and initiatives to support business and technology startups (Asharq Al-Awsat).
Saudi Arabia is seeking to implement programs and initiatives to support business and technology startups (Asharq Al-Awsat).
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New MoU to Support Establishment of Saudi Petrochemical Startups

Saudi Arabia is seeking to implement programs and initiatives to support business and technology startups (Asharq Al-Awsat).
Saudi Arabia is seeking to implement programs and initiatives to support business and technology startups (Asharq Al-Awsat).

Saudi Arabia is seeking to implement programs and initiatives to support business and technology startups. In this context, the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu announced on Monday the signing of a memorandum of understanding with the Saudi Aramco Entrepreneurship Center (Waed), to support the establishment of startups in the petrochemical field.

The MoU aims to support startups in the energy and petrochemical sectors, to fill important gaps in the Saudi economy, and to accelerate the pace of modernization of the Kingdom’s industrial sector. Its scope of work extends to the industrial cities of Jubail and Ras Al-Khair on the Arabian Gulf, and the cities of Yanbu and Jazan for basic and downstream industries on the Red Sea.

The MoU was signed by the Director of Investment Development in the Jubail and Yanbu Authority, Dr. Ahmed Al-Hussein, and the CEO of Waed, Eng. Wassim Basrawi.

In remarks on the occasion, Basrawi said: “Establishing a new business relationship with the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu aims to accelerate cooperation, especially as Waed can be a major enabler for startups in a sector of great importance, which is the petrochemicals.”

For his part, Al-Hussein stated: “The new cooperation with Waed will support efforts to expand the industrial cities of the Royal Commission to include innovative and modern startups that will play a fundamental role in modernizing the petrochemical sector in the Kingdom, which will definitely be the ultimate beneficiary.”

Last week, Waed signed a memorandum of understanding with Taibah Valley Company, an emerging Saudi center for Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things and Blockchain Technology.

Meanwhile, the Saudi Ministry of Communications and Information Technology launched on Monday the Technology Pioneers program, aimed at enhancing the role of entrepreneurs and business leaders in the field of technology to help them develop their business models and enable them to find innovative markets for these solutions.

This program follows a first version that achieved the entry in the market of 50 technology startups in the field of innovative solutions and applications, in cooperation with more than 50 partners in the public and private sectors.

The current program version covers the sectors of culture, sports, endowments, and financial technology, in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Sports, the General Authority for Endowments, and Fintech Saudi Arabia.

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Syria Gets New Cash Shipment from Russia 

A view of Syrian central bank, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 12, 2025. (Reuters)
A view of Syrian central bank, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 12, 2025. (Reuters)
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Syria Gets New Cash Shipment from Russia 

A view of Syrian central bank, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 12, 2025. (Reuters)
A view of Syrian central bank, after the ousting of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, January 12, 2025. (Reuters)

Syria received a new shipment of its local currency printed in Russia on Wednesday and more shipments were expected in the future, a Syrian government official said.

The cash arrived via plane at Damascus airport on Wednesday and was taken by a convoy of several trucks to the central bank, according to a separate source familiar with the matter, reported Reuters.

Syria began paying Russia to print its currency under a multi-million-dollar contract during the 13-year-old Syrian civil war, after Damascus' previous contract with a subsidiary of the Austrian central bank was terminated due to European sanctions.

It is unclear if the arrangement is now continuing under the same terms. One source familiar with the contract said it was.

Russia backed Syrian autocrat Bashar al-Assad during the war, swaying the conflict with its bombardment of opposition groups including the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham that ousted Assad in a lightning offensive last year.

But Russia quickly moved to maintain its ties with Damascus in the weeks after Assad fled to Moscow, with an eye on keeping its two key bases in the country's coastal region.

A senior Russian diplomat visited Damascus in January and Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa held a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Feb. 12.

Two days later, Syria received its first shipment of local currency from Russia.

The cash shipments are critical: Syria's war-ravaged economy has slid further in the past months amid a shortage of currency that Syrian officials have attributed in part to delays in the Russian cash shipments, as well as to hoarding of Syrian pounds.

A senior former Syrian official said Russian cash shipments in the hundreds of billions of Syrian pounds (tens of millions of US dollars) used to arrive in Damascus each month. Reuters could not determine exactly how much had arrived on Wednesday, the second such shipment since Assad was ousted on Dec. 8.

The cash crunch has left Syrian depositors struggling to use their savings and has piled pressure on local businesses who are already being squeezed by new competition from cheap imports as the protectionist economy is opened up by the new rulers.

Economists and analysts say Syria's cash shortage is largely behind the currency's strengthening on the black market in the months since Assad fell, while it has also been helped by an influx of visitors from abroad and an end to strict controls on trade in foreign currencies.

The pound on Thursday was trading at around 10,000 per Greenback on the black market, compared to the official central bank rate of 13,000.

It traded at around 15,000 per US dollar before Assad was toppled.

Syrian central bank governor Maysaa Sabreen told Reuters in January that she wanted to avoid printing Syrian pounds to guard against inflation.

The central bank only has foreign exchange reserves of around $200 million in cash, sources previously told Reuters, a huge drop from the $18.5 billion that the International Monetary Fund estimated Syria had in 2010, a year before civil war erupted.

It also holds nearly 26 tons of gold, the same amount it held before the war, the sources said.