RIYADH: Russian companies should not start “concreting over their oil-wells” according to Vladimir Putin as he predicted the West will rely on energy from his country for many years.

As the EU currently imports around 40 percent of its gas from Russia, the bloc has pledged to reduce its dependency on Russian oil by 90 percent by the end of 2022. 

The bloc has not made any commitments on gas.

According to the BBC, the Russian president made the statement after attending an exhibition in Moscow dedicated to the 350th anniversary of the birth of Russian monarch Peter the Great, who fought against Sweden.

The Russian President compared this fight to his invasion of Ukraine, claiming that Peter the Great was taking back territory and that “it is our responsibility also to take back and strengthen.”

Despite US reduction of Russian energy products’ supply as a punishment after the Ukraine invasion, rising global oil and gas prices mean that profits of such companies could have risen in recent months.

“The volume of oil is decreasing on the world market, prices are rising,” President Putin told a group of young entrepreneurs, adding that company profits are rising.

Putin's words came after a US official admitted that Russian profits on energy may be higher now than before the invasion of Ukraine, the BBC said.

Asked at a Senate hearing if Russia could be earning more now from fossil fuels than it was before the war, US energy security envoy Amos Hochstein replied: “I can't deny that.”

JEDDAH: Travel technology company Amadeus has signed a deal with the Saudi Tourism Authority to provide a destination management system that would enhance tourism and mobility in the Kingdom.

Speaking on the sidelines of the 116th Executive Council of the UN World Tourism Organization, Nashat Bukhari, managing director of Amadeus, Saudi Arabia & Bahrain, told Arab News that the technology would help the Kingdom attract tourists and new businesses into the region.

“We provide an application to show the traffic situation, where the travelers are, and how to attract and convert travelers. Hopefully, this will attract many travelers and tourists to Saudi Arabia,” he said.

The ecosystem starts with inspiring the traveler about the destination, showing what they should expect to see, which enables travel agencies to book airline tickets, accommodation, and transportation accordingly.

“Amadeus is the world’s largest travel technology company, with regional offices in more than 114 countries,” he said.

The company holds a 77 percent market share in the Kingdom, providing technology services in tourism, airlines and hospitality.

The company uses sophisticated software associated with Microsoft Cloud to preserve the maximum amount of data.

The Madrid-based company works with many regional companies, including Saudi Arabian Airlines, The Red Sea Development Co., and Hilton Hotels & Resorts, in addition to public entities such as the Saudi Ministry of Tourism and the Saudi Ministry of Investment.

“We have hospitality systems to provide hotels, which can be used for reservations and property management,” said Bukhari.

Amadeus’ client segment also includes travel agencies, providing them with traveling systems to manage their workflow.

“We provide the travel agencies with technology to fulfill the needs of the travelers,” he said.

Amadeus recently developed a platform for Riyadh-based travel company Seera Group to speed up customer post-booking experience.

The company’s advanced post-booking technology solutions provide numerous optimization benefits, drastically reducing the time needed to reissue tickets across all Seera’s omnichannel touch points by automating the process.

According to a press statement, requests for ticket changes, whether made via Seera’s travel verticals on booking platforms, call centers, in-branch, or WhatsApp channels, can now be processed in less than five minutes.

Seera Group is also the first to use these technologies to issue and reissue tickets for Saudi government entities, the statement said.

NEW YORK: US stock futures turned negative and European shares fell further on Friday after higher-than-expected US consumer price data for May fueled inflation concerns and likely kept the Federal Reserve on track to aggressively hike interest rates, according to Reuters.

The consumer price index increased 1.0 percent last month after gaining 0.3 percent in April, the Labor Department said. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the monthly CPI picking up 0.7 percent.

Some economists and market participants had expected the data to show inflation had peaked in May, but the report indicated otherwise.

“It was pretty hot. This report suggests that underlying inflation pressures remain quite strong,” said Aichi Amemiya, senior US economist at Nomura.

Two-year US Treasury yields rose to their highest level in three-and-a-half years and a part of the yield curve reinverted after the data showing acceleration in consumer prices.

US stock futures fell more than 1 percent and the major European bourses extended declines after the data’s release, with France’s CAC 40 down 2.0 percent, Germany’s DAX off 1.88 percent, and the FTSE 100 in Londow 1.73 percent lower.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index was down 2.04 percent and MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe fell 0.78 percent.

Investors expect the Fed to raise rates by 50 basis points next week as major central banks tighten policy to tame soaring inflation that has been sparked by surging crude oil and food prices, along with supply chain issues.

“We don’t see any possibility of a 75 basis point hike next week,” Amemiya said, but the likelihood of more 50 basis point hikes has increased.

The Band of England and Sweden’s Riksbank are expected to hike rates again next week, while the European Central Bank on Thursday said it would deliver its first rate rise since 2011 next month, followed by a potentially larger move in September.  

WASHINGTON: The costs of gas, food and other necessities jumped in May, raising inflation to a new four-decade high and giving American households no respite from rising costs.

Consumer prices surged 8.6 percent last month from 12 months earlier, faster than April’s year-over-year surge of 8.3 percent, the Labor Department said Friday.

On a month-to-month basis, prices jumped 1 percent from April to May, a steep rise from the 0.3 percent increase from March to April. Much higher gas prices were to blame for most of that increase.

The US’s rampant inflation is imposing severe pressures on families, forcing them to pay much more for food, gas and rent and reducing their ability to afford discretionary items, from haircuts to electronics.

Lower-income and Black and Hispanic Americans, in particular, are struggling because, on average, a larger proportion of their income is consumed by necessities.

Economists do expect inflation to ease this year, though not by very much. Some analysts have forecast that the inflation gauge the government reported Friday — the consumer price index — may drop below 7 percent by year’s end.

In March, the year-over-year CPI reached 8.5 percent, the highest such rate since 1982.

High inflation has also forced the Federal Reserve into what will likely be the fastest series of interest rate hikes in three decades. By raising borrowing costs aggressively, the Fed hopes to cool spending and growth enough to curb inflation without tipping the economy into a recession. For the central bank, it will be a difficult balancing act.

Surveys show that Americans see high inflation as the nation’s top problem, and most disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of the economy. Congressional Republicans are hammering Democrats on the issue in the run-up to midterm elections this fall.

Inflation has remained high even as the sources of rising prices have shifted. Initially, robust demand for goods from Americans who were stuck at home for months after COVID hit caused shortages and supply chain snarls and drove up prices for cars, furniture and appliances.

Now, as Americans resume spending on services, including travel, entertainment and dining out, the costs of airline tickets, hotel rooms and restaurant meals have soared. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has further accelerated the prices of oil and natural gas.

And with China easing strict COVID lockdowns in Shanghai and elsewhere, more of its citizens are driving, thereby sending oil prices up even further.

Goods prices are expected to fall in the coming months. Many large retailers, including Target, Walmart and Macy’s, have reported that they’re now stuck with too much of the patio furniture, electronics and other goods that they ordered when those items were in heavier demand and will have to discount them.

Even so, rising gas prices are eroding the finances of millions of Americans. Prices at the pump are averaging nearly $5 a gallon nationally and edging closer to the inflation-adjusted record of about $5.40 reached in 2008.

Research by the Bank of America Institute, which uses anonymous data from millions of their customers’ credit and debit card accounts, shows spending on gas eating up a larger share of consumers’ budgets and crowding out their ability to buy other items.

For lower-income households — defined as those with incomes below $50,000 — spending on gas reached nearly 10 percent of all spending on credit and debit cards in the last week of May, the institute said in a report this week. That’s up from about 7.5 percent in February, a steep increase in such a short period.

Spending by all the bank’s customers on long-lasting goods, like furniture, electronics and home improvement, has plunged from a year ago, the institute found. But their spending on plane tickets, hotels and entertainment has continued to rise.

Economists have pointed to that shift in spending from goods to services as a trend that should help lower inflation by year’s end. But with wages rising steadily for many workers, prices are rising in services as well.

RIYADH: Banque Saudi Fransi’s $4 billion guaranteed Medium-Term Note program has been assigned a provisional senior unsecured foreign-currency rating of (P)A2 by Moody’s Investors Service.

The MTN program is a special-purpose vehicle established by BSF and the rating is aligned with BSF's A2 long-term deposit ratings, a statement showed.

Securities issued under the programme will constitute direct, unconditional, unsubordinated and unsecured obligations of BSF, according to Moody’s, and rank equally with all other unsecured and unsubordinated from time to time outstanding obligations of BSF. 

Under the programme, BSF may issue notes, through BSF Finance, up to a maximum aggregate principal amount of $4 billion.

Based on Moody's view of a very high likelihood of Saudi government support in case of need, the BSF's A2 long-term deposit ratings capture the bank’s Baseline Credit Assessment of baa1 and a two notch uplift.

BSF's well-established corporate banking franchise, strong asset quality, sound capital adequacy and deposit-funded profile secured the sound profitability of the bank thus the baa1 BCA rating.

Both ratings come from BSF's high credit and funding concentrations and continued downside risks on asset risk while some borrowers remain impacted by the pandemic induced disruption, Moody’s said.

RIYADH: Raising Saudi Arabia’s import tariffs on more than 500 items led to an investment increase in goods production and more jobs in the Kingdom, according to the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources.

The rise on 575 commodities was issued in June 2020, and saw rates increase from zero to 25 percent on some food and beverage products.

Building materials, machinery, and vehicles saw tariffs rise to up to 15 percent on some items.

Following the rise, investments in relevant factories in the Kingdom increased by 2 percent by the end of December 2021 — reaching SR374 billion ($99.7 billion). 

The ministry added that the number of factories producing these commodities increased by 8 percent to reach 2,955 factories during the same period, Saudi Press Agency reported.

The total number of Saudi employees working in factories producing goods with adjusted fees increased by 18 percent to reach 61,000 employees, in addition to an increase in the total number of employees in factories producing the same goods by 7 percent to reach 194,000 employees, by the end of December 2021.

The tariff adjustment also affected hand wash basins made of marble and alabaster, which was reflected in a 110 percent increase of investments between June 2020 and June 2021, to SR456 million, the ministry said.

The number of factories for these goods increased by 9 percent in the same period, reaching 51 factories, and the total number of employees increased by 30 percent to nearly 2,000 employees.

The positive effects of the tariff adjustment extended to a number of commodities, including doors, windows and thresholds, in which the percentage of investments increased by 11 percent to more than SR5 billion, the ministry said.

The investment in glass goods in the form of tubes and pipes increased by about SR2.3 billion, while other commodities included in the customs tariff have witnessed different growth rates. the ministry added.

Saudi Arabia aimed, through the customs tariff increases, to improve the balance of payments, increase exports, and bring the private sector’s contribution to the gross domestic product to 65 percent.

The Kingdom also aims to raise the percentage of foreign investments to 5.7 percent, and provide job opportunities for citizens, in addition to raising the percentage of non-oil exports from 16 percent to at least 50 percent of non-oil GDP.