Business

AMMAN — Amman Chamber of Industry (ACI) exports grew 9 per cent in the first 11 months of 2015 reaching JD3.8 billion, compared to JD3.5 billion it registered during the same period of 2014.

Chemical industries and cosmetics topped the list of ACI exports during the January-November period with JD893 million, 14 per cent higher than the JD781 million in the same period of 2014.

An ACI report showed that Arab countries imported more than half of ACI exports amounting to JD2.3 billion, compared to JD2.2 billion in the 2014's first 11 months.

Despite the border closure, Iraq was the top country to receive ACI exports with JD546 million, dropping from JD760 million in the same period of 2014.

Saudi Arabia came second with JD517 million, followed by India with JD395 million and the US with JD361 million, ACI data showed. Exports to Syria during the first 11 months of 2015 dropped to JD55 million, 47 per cent lower than the first 11 months of 2014 when they reached JD104 million.

AMMAN — Inflation in the first 11 months of 2015 edged down by 0.8 per cent, compared to the same period of 2014, the Department of Statistics (DoS) announced Monday.

Main item groups that contributed to the drop were transportation, fuel and lighting, beverages and personal objects, a DoS report showed.

An increase in prices during the 11-month period included rents, fruit and nuts, tobacco and cigarettes, and education. DoS also noted that average consumer prices went down by 1.5 per cent in November 2015 compared to November 2014.

DoS started calculating the inflation rate considering 2010, a base year instead of 2006, starting from January 2015 to conform to international classifications and approaches. 

AMMAN — The Jordan Network for the International Covenant (JNIC), in cooperation with the Amman Chamber of Commerce (ACC), Dutch Embassy in Amman and Jordan European Business Association (JEBA), on Sunday organised a symposium on corporate social responsibility (CSR) for developing the society. 

The event aimed at finding a platform to exchange best practices in implementing CSR through combining companies’ strategies and activities with the principles of the international pact of the human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption.

ACC President Issa Murad highlighted the importance of such symposiums, expressing ACC’s keenness to support the event’s goals in spreading the international pact principles, enhancing companies’ social responsibility and improving cooperation between Jordanian companies and academic institutions.

He also stressed the importance of the private sector’s role in finding development projects that contribute to achieving social and economic stability in communities.

JEBA President Jamal Fariz referred to the importance of developing partnerships between governments and business communities in the field of social responsibility, urging companies and businesses to take into consideration the legal, ethical and social dimensions in decision making.  

JNIC President Mustafa Nassir Ildin called on Jordanian institutions and business community to intensify efforts in applying the UN International Covenant and its vision of creating a comprehensive and sustainable international economy that achieves the interests of individuals, societies and markets.

Dutch Ambassador to Jordan Paul van den Ijssel said that Jordanian companies first joined the covenant in 2006 through some big companies, expressing hope that Jordan’s membership would develop to include more companies.

KUWAIT CITY — Share prices in the energy-rich Gulf states tumbled to multi-year lows on Sunday after oil prices closed the week below $38 a barrel, the lowest in seven years.

The slide was led by markets in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, which plunged below key resistance points amid a sell-off by concerned investors.

Crude prices nosedived Friday, with Brent dropping 4.5 per cent to $37.93 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate losing 3.1 per cent to $35.62 a barrel.

Gulf states, which pump over 18 million barrels of oil per day, heavily depend on crude income for public revenues.

The Saudi Tadawul All-Shares Index (TASI) dropped 2.65 per cent to 6,764.60 points, its lowest close since November 2012. It has lost 18.8 per cent since the start of the year.

TASI, the largest Arab bourse, slid lower during the day but recovered before closing.

The Dubai Financial Market Index dipped 2.1 per cent to finish on 2,882.80 points, a two-year low. The index has dropped 23.6 per cent since the start of the year.

Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange also lost 2.1 per cent to close barely above the 4,000-point mark. It is currently trading 12 per cent lower than at last year's finish.

Qatar exchange, the second largest Arab bourse, shed 3.7 per cent to close at 9,643.65 points, the lowest level since September 2013. It has shed 21.5 per cent compared with last year.

The Kuwait Stock Exchange dropped 0.93 per cent to 5,633.28 points, a three-year low. It has lost 13.8 per cent on the year.

Muscat Securities Exchange slid 0.66 per cent to 5,414.99 points, a 12-month low, while the tiny Bahrain Stock Exchange dropped slightly.

Gulf private companies are feeling the heat from government measures to cut capital spending on which they heavily rely.

NEW YORK — Chemical titans DuPont and Dow Chemical Co. have agreed to combine in an all-stock merger valued at $130 billion in a first step towards breaking up into three separate businesses, a move that pleased activist investors and could trigger more consolidation.

The "deal of three centuries", as Wells Fargo analyst Frank Mitsch dubbed it, combines two of the biggest and oldest US chemical producers and will generate cost and tax savings.

The deal, announced on Friday, will face intense regulatory scrutiny, analysts said, especially over combining their agricultural businesses, which sell seeds and crop protection chemicals, including insecticides and pesticides.

Executives from both companies said the agrichemicals businesses have little overlap and any asset sales would likely be minor.

According to analysts, potential tax savings were one reason for the complicated merger-before-breakup deal.

"They need to merge first in order for the subsequent spinoffs to qualify as tax-free transactions in the United States," said SunTrust Robinson Humphrey analyst James Sheehan.

Dow shareholders would own 52 per cent of the new company after preferred shares are converted, the companies indicated. The agreement includes a $1.9 billion termination fee under specified circumstances, such as rejection by shareholders.

The merger, one of the biggest of the year, would allow Dow and DuPont to rejig assets based on the diverging fortunes of their businesses.

The companies have been struggling with falling demand for farm chemicals due to slumping crop prices and a strong dollar, even as their plastics businesses thrive thanks to low natural gas prices.

Activist investor Nelson Peltz of Trian Partners, who has pressed DuPont to separate its businesses, said he "fully supports" the transaction and sees the combination as "a great outcome for all shareholders".

The chemical majors felt compelled to combine due to a lack of growth opportunities, said Key Private Bank analyst Rob Plaza.

"I think the big catalyst would have been [DuPont Chief Executive Ed] Breen coming in, his track record of extracting value from companies, and the fight that DuPont had gone through with Nelson Peltz," Plaza added. "We may see more consolidation."

‘Game-changer’

DuPont, which is 213 years old, makes products used in petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, food and construction. Its brands include Kevlar and formerly Teflon, now part of Chemours Co., which it had spun off.

The 118-year-old Dow makes plastics, chemicals, hydrocarbons and agrichemicals. It manufacturers Styrofoam insulation products and chlorine products, used in paper, pulp and soap. Dow also will assume full control of silicone products maker Dow Corning, its joint venture with Corning Inc.

The three-way split into material sciences, specialty products, and seeds and agrichemicals, is likely to occur 18 to 24 months after the merger deal closes.

Credit rating agency Moody's reaffirmed its A3 rating for DuPont, but changed its outlook to negative, citing among other factors the complexities of combining the agricultural businesses. It kept Dow's ratings at Baa2 and outlook stable.

‘Very supportive’

The proposed merger puts pressure on rivals such as BASF and Bayer AG to consolidate as falling crop prices curb sales.

"The biggest impact will certainly be in the agriculture market, where the seeds and crop chemical industries are to undergo rapid consolidation," SunTrust's Sheehan indicated.

It could also prompt a renewed flurry of takeover bids for European rivals, with Syngenta AG the most likely target.

Monsanto Co. may take another shot at Syngenta, according to analysts. It abandoned a $45 billion offer for the Swiss company in August.

Monsanto said Friday it would not act rashly and likes its position in the marketplace.

Rivals such as Bayer, BASF, Solvay SA and Eastman Chemical Co. might benefit in the near term while Dow and DuPont integrate, said Nomura analyst Aleksey Yefremov. 

He indicated that the two companies' cultures differ, with DuPont more "research and growth-driven" and Dow focused on tight cost controls and reasonable innovation.

"There is a big execution risk," Yefremov added. "It's a very large transaction."

One DuPont shareholder described the deal as merely "OK".

"Our initial take is, given the commodity nature of Dow's business and the resulting low barriers to entry, the valuation is not obviously attractive," said Grayson Witcher, portfolio manager at Mawer Investment Management Ltd.

DuPont, part of the Dow Jones industrial average, closed down 5.5 per cent to $70.44 on Friday. Dow Chemical was off 2.8 per cent at $53.37. Major market indexes closed down about 2 per cent and posted their biggest weekly losses since August.

Regulatory scrutiny

US antitrust enforcers will not look at the deal as simply a combination of two conglomerates but examine their many products to determine where competition will be lost. 

According to antitrust experts, regulators will be especially concerned about the agricultural sector, which could see big divestitures.

"It's hard to know whether the fixes would work," said John Taladay of law firm Baker Botts LLP.

Diana Moss, president of the American Antitrust Institute, said there could be problems in dominance of seed sales.

"The [seed] market is already dominated by Monsanto. You're almost creating a duopoly in the market, and that's a problem," she added.

The US Senate Judiciary Committee, which has jurisdiction over antitrust policy, will listen to farmers' concerns, Chairman Chuck Grassley said in a statement.

"DuPont and Dow are two titans of American industry and the proposed merger demands serious scrutiny," he added.

NEW YORK — As iconic brands are snapped up and corporations merged and swallowed in a record-breaking whirl of deals, there has been one constant: Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

The Wall Street firm is once again top dog in the global mergers and acquisitions (M&A) rankings, having advised on transactions worth close to $1.7 trillion this year, more than the annual economic output of Australia, including Friday's $130 billion tie-up between US chemical giants DuPont and Dow Chemical Co.

Goldman's No. 1 status comes despite the bank having lost several veteran bankers this year, including Gordon Dyal, its former M&A chief and Jack Levy, one of four global co-chairmen of M&A, and reflects the enduring success of its partnership model, 15 years after the company went public.

Becoming a partner at Goldman Sachs is still one of the most coveted promotions on Wall Street, and those who make the cut represent a powerful network of well-connected dealmakers.

The partnership, along with the bank's commitment to remaining a full-service investment bank despite post-crisis rules that make it more difficult to trade, have given it an edge over rivals such as Morgan Stanley, which has a strong emphasis on wealth management.

"Goldman is still run as a partnership, and delivers the entire firm," said Brad Hintz, a former Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc chief financial officer and financial analyst who is now a business professor at the NYU Stern School of Business.

The 146-year-old investment bank has ranked No. 1 in the global M&A league tables every year since 1997, with the exception of 2009 and 2010, when it ranked No. 2 behind Morgan Stanley, according to Thomson Reuters data.

This year, the bank advised on all the mega deals in pharmaceuticals, energy, beverages and now chemicals, where it is set to split $80 million to $100 million in DuPont advisory fees with Evercore Partners Inc.

Trailing Goldman Sachs in the global M&A league tables this year are Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc.

Navigating conflicts

Goldman's ubiquitous role in finance prompted Rolling Stone magazine to famously declare in 2010 that the bank was "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity".

Its corporate clients, however, are generally happy to let it navigate potential conflicts of interest.

In the case of DuPont, for example, Goldman has also been advising rival Syngenta AG in its defense against a bid by Monsanto Co.

"Over time, companies have become more sophisticated so banks really need to differentiate themselves more," indicated Bob Hurst, a partner at private equity firm Crestview Partners who served as vice chairman of Goldman until June 2004 and head of its investment banking division from 1990 to 1999.

Goldman has done that.

"It has great coverage, is very relationship oriented on the long term and has great execution," Hurst said.

The bank's prestige and partnership culture is enough to retain many bankers even at the prospect of higher pay at rivals or Silicon Valley startups.

Among its peers, Goldman has consistently had a lower compensation to net revenue ratio than arch rival Morgan Stanley.

"When you are having beer with a Goldman partner, and you roll your eyes when he waxes lyrically about the partnership, you have to remember that this is key, you are expected to drop everything as a Goldman employee when there is a deal on deck," said Hintz.  

KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysian airport officials are seeking the “untraceable” owners of three Boeing jets abandoned on the tarmac in Kuala Lumpur for more than a year.

The large Boeing 747-200Fs, two passenger and one cargo jet, having been racking up unpaid storage fees at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), and Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd is now calling on the owner to collect them.

KLIA hit international headlines last year, when Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared after taking off from the airport in one of aviation’s biggest mysteries.

In a notice placed in a Malaysian newspaper this week, the airport authority gave the owner 14 days to claim the unmarked jets, failing which it said it would “sell or dispose” of them.

“This step is also a common process undertaken by airport operators all over the world when faced with such a situation,” the authority said in a statement.

No one has claimed ownership of the aircraft so far, said airport general manager, Zainol Mohamad Isa, on Thursday.

“We haven’t decided what to do with the planes, although we have been getting inquiries from all over the world,” added Zainol.

According to industry experts, it was not unheard of for unwanted planes to be left at airports.

“You do get examples of aircraft being abandoned around the world, because the money you would get from a sale doesn’t cover the outstanding storage charges,” a second-hand aircraft trader said, asking not to be named. 

“But it is unusual for the airport to be so public about it,” he added.

It is not the first time this has happened at the airport, Zainol remarked.

In the past decade a few other planes, mostly smaller aircraft, were abandoned.

He said an aircraft that was abandoned in the 1990s was eventually bought and turned into a restaurant in a Kuala Lumpur suburb.

Searches of the planes’ registration numbers on the website www.planespotters.net showed the aircraft had been registered to an Iceland-based air charter and leasing company, Air Atlanta Icelandic, and that two had at one time been in service with Malaysia Airlines.

Air Atlanta Icelandic was quoted by The Star newspaper as saying it operated the planes until 2010 but had “nothing to do” with the planes since then. Malaysia Airlines was also quoted as saying it no longer owned or leased the planes.

Malaysia’s aviation sector has suffered a difficult period since flight MH370 disappeared in March last year while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. It is believed to have crashed in the southern Indian Ocean.

In July, Malaysia-based carrier AirAsia complained that a new international terminal for budget airlines at KLIA was sinking, with water-logging on the tarmac.

Geneva — The International Air Transport Association’s (IATA) outlook of the airline industry for 2016 sees an average net profit margin of 5.1 per cent, with total net profit of $36.3 billion.

In both 2015 and 2016, the industry’s return on capital (8.3 per cent and 8.6 per cent, respectively) is expected to exceed the industry’s cost of capital, “an historic achievement for an industry that has been notorious for destroying capital throughout its history”, according to IATA Director General and Chief Executive Officer Tony Tyler, who described the industry’s profitability as “fragile”, rather than “sustainable”.

But if indicators point to an eventual slowdown in airline profitability, whose cyclical nature normally counts an 8-9 year period from peak to peak (conversely, from trough to trough), for now IATA has revised the industry’s outlook for 2015 upwards to a net profit of $33 billion (4.6 per cent net profit margin) from the $29.3 billion forecast in June, positive results that are still just “normal levels of profitability”, according to Tyler.

“The industry’s results are good, but they are not outstanding when compared to the profits that are generated in other parts of the global economy,” he said.

The positive industry performance is attributed to a combination of factors: lower oil prices; strong demand for passenger travel (+6.7 per cent growth in 2015 and +6.9 per cent in 2016), which is making up for the low cargo performance, due to sluggish growth in trade; stronger economic performance in some key economies; record high load factors and increased capacity.

Talking in Geneva at IATA’s Global Media Day, whose theme this year was “Flying better.Together”, Tyler passed in review the “state of the industry and global economic outlook” on the air transport association’s 70th anniversary, observed this year.

On the occasion, he stressed the issue of safety, “the top priority for the industry”, brought into sharper focus by the loss of MH370, “a shock” that made the industry “recognise that, if a large passenger plane like a Boeing 777 could disappear, we needed to improve the way that the aircraft are tracked”.

As such, IATA and the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), following a safety conference held by the latter in February, worked on the “normal aircraft tracking implementation initiative”, whose purpose was to “test drive” proposed tracking standard and recommended practices to improve or upgrade airlines’ tracking capabilities.

The issue of security, integral part of safety, was also tackled by the IATA chief, who acknowledged that “the threat of terrorism is present and active and the sad reality is that our industry — despite being an instrument of peace — continues to be a target”.

A threat that is “constantly evolving”, terrorism has been keeping the industry busy since September 11, “aware of that [terrorism] in our intense work with governments on countermeasures”.

While “travellers and crew should be reassured” because “we have processes in place to keep them out of harm’s way by screening passengers, securing the cargo chain, providing governments with information to vet passengers and guiding our flight paths around conflict zones”, said Tyler, “there is no perfect system, but aviation is well practised in its efforts to stay at least a step ahead of the terrorist threat”.

Perhaps no other region feels the effects of terrorism more acutely than the Middle East, where “regionally focused airlines are suffering from the impact of lower oil revenues and political conflict”.

That, however, did not prevent the region’s collective profits from reaching $1.4 billion in 2015, lower than the previously forecast of $1.8 billion, according to IATA, but still positive figures. 

The region is expected to “recover most of the lost ground with a $1.7 billion net profit in 2016”.

“Overall the region is still generating double-digit growth. Capacity is expected to expand by 12.1 per cent and 12.2 per cent, respectively, in 2015 and 2016, largely as a result of growth in traffic over the region’s modern hubs”.

Globally, the drop in demand, due to the recent terrorist attacks, “has an effect on forecasts”.  

Is it expected to dramatically affect the airline industry’s performance or forecast?

“We have had some experience in how passengers reacted. In developed economies we found travel, surprisingly, robust, probably because travel there is mostly business oriented. Clearly there is an impact that will be felt at the end of this year and beginning of next year, but that is going to be offset by traffic going elsewhere,” said IATA Chief Economist Brian Pearce.

Alongside terrorism, another issue of great significance for the aviation industry that is making headlines, at least this week, is the global effort to reach an agreement on climate change, at COP21 in Paris.

If COP21 “ends with an agreement in a positive political dynamic, it will set the mood for a successful outcome for the important decisions on aviation and the environment that will be taken at the triennial ICAO assembly in September-October next year”, said Tyler.

According to the IATA chief, “to help governments in their difficult work… we are united in a preference for a mandatory global carbon offset scheme as a key tool in achieving our carbon-neutral growth commitment from 2020. That combines with efforts in other areas, the result of which are seen in our continuous improvement in fuel efficiency”.

Currently, aviation contributes around 2 per cent of all human CO2 emissions, around 700 million tonnes last year, said IATA Aviation Environment Director Michael Gill.

To deal with this, IATA has “taken a very proactive approach”, aimed at seeking “this fundamental balance: aviation’s licence to grow and provide its significant economic and social benefits, on the one hand, and its responsibility for climate change, on the other”.

The goals, then, are to continue to improve fuel efficiency across the fleet by and average of 1.5 per cent per year until 2020; to stabilise net aviation CO2 emissions at 2020 levels; in 2050 to have half the 2005 levels of CO2 emissions.

Irrespective of the outcome of discussions in Paris, said Gill, “our industry has set itself ambitious goals with the necessary strategy to achieve them”. 

Projections for 2016

* Revenues, expected to rise by 0.9 per cent, to $17 billion, entirely due to the contribution of the passenger side of the business ($525 billion in 2015, rising to $533 billion in 2016). Cargo revenues expected to decline slightly, to $50.8 billion from $52.2 billion in 2015.

•Demand for passenger travel is expected to grow by 6.9 per cent, with 3.8 billion passengers expected to travel in 2016. Demand for air cargo is expected to increase to 3 per cent; the industry is expected to uplift 52.7 million tonnes of cargo.

•Yields for passengers expected to fall 5 per cent and cargo by 5.5 per cent.

Middle East region

2015 results

- Passenger traffic: 11.6 per cent increase over 2014

- Passenger capacity: 12.1 per cent increase over 2014

Profits: $1.4 billion

Forecast for 2016

- Passenger traffic: 12.5 per cent increase over 2015

- Passenger capacity: 12.2 per cent increase over 2015

- Profits: $1.7 billion

- Annual average passenger growth forecast 2014-2034

- Jordan: 4.6 per cent

- Egypt: 4 per cent 

- Qatar: 4.6 per cent

- Saudi Arabia: 4.1 per cent

- UAE: 5.6 per cent

CAIRO — Egypt plans to build 1 million homes for poorer people at a cost of almost $20 billion over the next five years, the housing minister said, to ease a crunch that has seen slums and unlicensed buildings spread since the 2011 revolt.

With a population of about 90 million, and projected to exceed 120 million by 2050, and with many Egyptians living in sprawling slums, the country is struggling to build enough houses for the poorest in society.

So many people live in a network of tombs in Cairo that the area has become known as the City of the Dead.

Housing Minister Mustafa Madbouly told Reuters Egypt needed to build 500,000-600,000 new homes a year to keep up with demand, 70 per cent of which should be aimed at the poor.

The social housing project will see 200,000 new homes built each year, meeting over half the annual demand for cheap housing. Private developers, who have built new suburbs around Cairo, are meeting the needs of middle and higher income Egyptians who can buy homes outright or obtain mortgages.

Egypt is financing its social housing scheme through land sales to developers building higher-end homes, Madbouly said.

"This is totally being implemented by the Egyptian government and the ministry of housing with a total investment that exceeds 150 billion Egyptian pounds [$19.16 billion]," he indicated on the sidelines of the Egypt Mega Projects conference.

"We are making use of the projects we are offering to the private sector to finance and cross-subsidise the social housing programme," the minister added.

Mammoth task

Madbouly elaborated that he was also working to upgrade informal settlements, which comprise 40-50 per cent of urban areas, and to bring 24-hour piped water to all homes within three years.

Three per cent of Egyptian households have no running water at all and in rural areas some homes receive water for only 12 hours a day. Madbouly also plans to bring sewage treatment to 50 per cent of rural areas, up from 15 per cent now.

"[We are] upgrading slums and unsafe areas. We are talking here about 248 areas... 150,000 families," Madbouly indicated.

But Madbouly faces a mammoth task. Egypt's population is squeezed into a narrow strip of land along the banks of the Nile, the river delta and the Mediterranean coast. The rest of the country is largely desert.

As the population grows, the government is searching for a solution to poorly lit, poorly ventilated rows of unlicensed red brick buildings that have mushroomed in the turbulent nearly five years since the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak.

Egypt had also planned to build 1 million homes for middle-income Egyptians by 2020 in a $35-billion joint venture with Dubai-based Arabtec.

Announced in March 2014, the project was a pillar of President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi's election campaign.

Madbouly said the latest proposal from Arabtec foresees the construction of just 13,000 units in the first phase.

"The company had continuous change of its board and its strategy and its policy. They limited their ambitious programme," Madbouly added. "It's not the project we were expecting."

That had not, however, dampened enthusiasm for Gulf investment in the most-populous Arab country, he remarked.

"We have offered several projects with a lot of Gulf country investors and we are in negotiations with some of them," the minister concluded.

Separately, the tourism minister said this week that Egypt's tourism revenues in 2015 will be at least 10 per cent below last year's after a Russian plane crash prompted Moscow and London to suspend flights, and authorities are now working to restore confidence.

Hit by political and economic upheaval since the 2011 uprising ended Mubarak's 30-year rule, Egypt's tourism sector had been set to grow this year.

A global advertising campaign aimed at reviving the industry was due to be launched on October 31, the day the airliner carrying holidaymakers from the Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh crashed, killing all 224 people abroad.

The disaster prompted Russia and Britain, who have both said the crash was caused by a bomb, to suspend some flights pending reassurances over airport security. The Daesh militant group said it bombed the plane.

Speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of the Egypt Mega Projects conference, Hisham Zaazou said Egypt was working to plug any gaps in security and persuade tourists to return to its ancient sites, desert treks and beaches.

The plane crash has already resulted in 2.2 billion Egyptian pounds in direct losses though indirect costs would be larger and more difficult to calculate.

"The impact is minimal now but if it extends longer the impact will be much more," Zaazou added.

"Hopefully, things will be better in the coming year but ... people are not behind doors and once things are OK they open the door and will keep rushing in. It will take some few months later after the resumption of flights," he continued.

Image problem

Zaazou declined to say when flights were expected to resume or to give revenue projections for next year, saying the entire region was suffering from an image problem.

"This time I tell you it is different. I can't give you a date. This time it is not Egypt's problem. Egypt is also caught between what is happening in Syria and Lebanon, in Libya and down south sometimes in Sudan, even Paris now," said Zaazou.

Egypt earned about $7.2 billion in tourism revenues last year, still a far cry from around $12.5 billion before 2011.

The impact of the uprising on Egypt's foreign currency reserves has been particularly dramatic as tourists and foreign investors, key generators of foreign exchange, fled.

Foreign currency reserves have more than halved from about $36 billion before 2011 to about $16.423 billion in November.

Zaazou said he was working closely with Britain and Russia to address security concerns at airports catering to tourists.

"They want to make sure there is a checklist, a manual for every airport ... what they call screening, second screening. They are reviewing all that process," he added. "It is there but they want to see if there are additional methods, additional equipment that we can get ... and we are doing that."

Egyptian tourism has survived big setbacks in the past.

In 1997 Islamic militants killed 58 tourists and four Egyptians at a temple in Luxor, on the Nile.

Last year, the bombing of a tourist bus in Sinai killed two South Koreans and an Egyptian, reviving memories of an Islamist uprising in the 1990s that often targeted tourists.

In September, Egyptian forces mistakenly bombed a convoy of Mexican tourists in the western desert while pursuing militants. Eight Mexicans and four Egyptians were killed.

Egypt had been pinning its tourism strategy on the Red Sea resorts, which until the plane crash had managed to attract visitors despite the uncertainty.

"I act as if there's a problem. I act because the world sees things from a specific angle. We say perception is reality so I deal with this perception," Zaazou said.

"We have had problems since 30 years but the arrow of tourism has always pointed upwards. This proves the industry is resilient," he stressed.

MANAMA — The 2015 Arab Aviation and Media Summit (AAMS) concluded on Tuesday after 200 participants gathered for two days to exchange views on the significance of the avia-tourism sector on regional economies.

Bahrain's Transportation and Telecommunications Minister Kamal Bin Ahmed Mohammed said his country was the first to build an international airport in the Gulf area in 1932, and the first to receive a Concord flight in 1976.

Air Arabia Group Chief Executive Officer Adel Ali told aviation leaders and media representatives that the region suffers unemployment and the industry can take millions of people.

"Countries can be divided into two categories; one which viewed aviation as an integral part of the economy and achieved great successes in many business sectors," Ali said, adding that the second achieved little growth as it viewed aviation as a sector that should be restricted for the national carrier with limited other airlines.

Hussain Dabbas, regional vice president of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), said the association celebrates its 70th anniversary this year under the motto "Flying better together".

"There are around 1,400 airlines today with some 25,000 aircrafts serving 3,800 airports across the world," Dabbas indicated, pointing out that the contribution of aviation amounts to  $2.4 trillion of the global the gross domestic product, a number which would make aviation the 19th largest economy of the world if aviation was a country.

The IATA official added that airlines in 2015 are expected to carry 3.5 billion passengers at an average of 9.6 million passengers a day, which exceeds the total number of passengers transported throughout  1945 when 57 airlines established IATA.

Arab Air Carriers Organisation Secretary General Abdul Wahab Teffaha said the potential for countries to use aviation to develop their economies to create jobs cannot be greater that it is in the Arab world.

"Arabs enjoy the culture of hospitality, treasure of the historical and cultural sites, summer leisure trips and having multilingual peoples," Teffaha indicated describing these attractions as big factors Arabs can employ to develop their economies through using aviation to stimulate tourism.

Fouad Attar, managing director of Airbus Middle East, referred to the problem of the aviation traffic being doubled without doubling airplanes to cope with the increasing numbers of travellers to the region.

AAMS takes place in a different Arab city every year drawing attention to the host city's travel and tourism experience as well as facilitating for a large audience of governments, decision makers and media to share, learn and exchange, according to organisers.