Concrete profits boost shares on Saudi's Yanbu

Saudi Arabia's stock-market was boosted by Yanbu Cement on Sunday after the Jeddah-based company reported a 54 per cent rise in fourth quarter profit.

Net income in the quarter rose to 143. 4 million Saudi riyals amid higher sales and output from its fifth production line.

Yanbu's shares rose 1.1 per cent to 67.75 riyals a piece on the Tadawul exchange.

Other cement stocks also made decent gains. Southern Province cement added 0.2 per cent to 87 riyals, while Hail Cement moved 0.2 per cent higher to 17.65 riyals.

Cement companies rose over 20 per cent last year, outperforming all other sectors represented on the stock-market. The Saudi Tadawul All-Share Index was little changed at 6482.97 points.

In the UAE, the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange General Index and the Dubai Financial Market General Index lost 0.6 per cent and 0.5 per cent to 2346.49 points and 1320.14 points respectively.

Elsewhere in the region, Kuwait's measure was unchanged at 5751.30 points. Bahrain's index added 0.1 per cent 1134.59 points. Oman's index lost 0.8 per cent to 5644.72 points. Qatar's index lost 0.5 per cent 8654.36 points.

halsayegh@thenational.ae

Company Profile

Name: Direct Debit System
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Number of employees: 8

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'Young girls thinking of big ideas'

Words come easy for aspiring writer Afra Al Muhairb. The business side of books, on the other hand, is entirely foreign to the 16-year-old Emirati. So, she followed her father’s advice and enroled in the Abu Dhabi Education Council’s summer entrepreneurship course at Abu Dhabi University hoping to pick up a few new skills.

“Most of us have this dream of opening a business,” said Afra, referring to her peers are “young girls thinking of big ideas.”

In the three-week class, pupils are challenged to come up with a business and develop an operational and marketing plan to support their idea. But, the learning goes far beyond sales and branding, said teacher Sonia Elhaj.

“It’s not only about starting up a business, it’s all the meta skills that goes with it -- building self confidence, communication,” said Ms Elhaj. “It’s a way to coach them and to harness ideas and to allow them to be creative. They are really hungry to do this and be heard. They are so happy to be actually doing something, to be engaged in creating something new, not only sitting and listening and getting new information and new knowledge. Now they are applying that knowledge.”

Afra’s team decided to focus their business idea on a restaurant modelled after the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Each level would have a different international cuisine and all the meat would be halal. The pupils thought of this after discussing a common problem they face when travelling abroad.

“Sometimes we find the struggle of finding halal food, so we just eat fish and cheese, so it’s hard for us to spend 20 days with fish and cheese,” said Afra. “So we made this tower so every person who comes – from Africa, from America – they will find the right food to eat.”

rpennington@thenational.ae