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March 26, 2004
MENA Business Media, sharing a memo I wrote
Thought I could share this memo I wrote for some peeps coming into the region for the first time. A favor to help them out. Lightly edited to remove references inapprop for public consumption. This is about English language or French language business and economic news sourcing for an expat staff. Threw in some Arabic lang. source refrences as well.
General Business News
Online:
First, for following daily developments I would advise following both the following:
MENAFN
http://www.menafn.com
and
MENA Report
http://www.menareport.com
Both provide economic and financial news feeds (for free) on the region
MENA Report is easier to navigate but less substantive. Hoever unlike MENAFN it does a fairly decent job of capturing the francophone press articles, which are key for Maghreb. However, this is only in French with limited translation. Let me emphasize that it is difficult to keep informed on the Maghreb through English sources, French sources are truly key.
Middle East Economic Survey
http://www.mees.com/
A weekly newsletter and competitor to MEED to an extent, it is more focused on oil and gas activities than MEED, but contains often useful financial and general economic / business coverage. Like MEED, tends to have a Gulf bias.
al-Hayat: online at daralhayat.com they have scoops on economic/business news in Arabic, inconsistently translated into English at their English site. Worth checking on a weekly basis. (http://english.daralhayat.com/) Note al-Hayat is a pan-Arab publication out of London and widely considered to be the prime quality paper in Arabic. The general news they translate is well worth reading.
Otherwise, I would note that BBC online has good business and social coverage of the Middle East and that one should consult al-Jazeera in English http://english.aljazeera.net/HomePage.
Arabic Media:
I know this may not be practical, but I want to bring to your attention al-Iqtissad wal-Aamal. This is an Arabic language business monthly, which is jam packed with information. It is a hard read, but has a huge amount of information. Very Middle East versus North Africa focused. Local staff should be tasked to tracking this.
Also local staff should be tasked to follow CNBC Arabiyah, a new offering that is surprisingly good and the only really consistent focus on business and economic news on the Arab Sats, although al-Arabiyah (not the same as CNBC) is not bad.
Country Based News
Egypt:
Cairo Times
http://www.cairotimes.com/
A scrappy little publication, this contains largely political/local news, but often has interesting business / economic coverage. Widely read in the ExPat community.
Business Today
http://www.businesstoday-eg.com/
An English language Egyptian / Arab business news magazine. When I was in Cairo I thought it was decent, however the web page is down.
Al-Ahram Weekly
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/
The Egyptian government’s staid mouthpiece, English weekly edition.
Middle East Times
http://metimes.com/2K4/issue2004-12/methaus.htm
This English weekly paper aspires to a pan-Arab scope, but is largely Egyptian in focus, with Gulf and Sham for good measure, not much Maghreb matierals. Business, political and social coverage.
Jordan:
Jordan Times
http://www.jordantimes.com
The real sole online English source for Jordan. Keep in mind this is a government controlled paper, although not as tendentious as al-Ahram.
The Jordanian Embassy in Washington maintains a surprisingly well done news archive that largely reproduces Jordan Times articles, but also some others, such as The Star, a semi-independent weekly which is not online anymore.
http://www.jordanembassyus.org/new/newsarchive.shtml
Note, of course this is a selection with a “point of view” I have used this for roughly a year and found it relatively even handed – of course there is prior censorship in the Jordanian press which makes the selection itself limited.
MENAFN and MENA Report are both based in Jordan and by default give coverage on this.
Morocco:
L’Economiste
http://www.leconomiste.com/
A very good daily covering the Moroccan economy, business community. Also covers political events and the like. A scrappy and indispensable source. Takes the most classic liberal point of view of any of the Moroccan press, rather like The Economist. Indeed I would say it is the closest thing to a real newspaper that one can find in the country, somewhat close nevertheless to the Casa business elite.
La Vie Eco
http://www.lavieeco.com/index
A weekly competitor, not as good but useful to follow.
Economie & Entreprises
Not online but a very good monthly. Informative.
I do not know of any good English language sources in Morocco itself. Will follow up on the other request when I get a moment.
Posted by The Lounsbury at March 26, 2004 09:39 PM
Filed Under:
Jan-Jul 2004
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