(Gulf Business Capsule)

Riyadh, April 19 (IANS) A new market is emerging in the Middle East for regional jets with seating capacity of 30 to 120 that can serve destinations within three hours of flying distance. According to Brazilian aircraft manufacturer Embraer, this new market is emerging because of the boom in low cost aviation across the region.

The total regional jet fleet size in the Middle East is expected to grow to 243 by 2027 compared with 82 in 2007, the Gulf News reported.

“This may be small, but it is significant because hardly any market for regional jets existed in the Middle East a few years back,” the daily quoted Graciliano Campos, Embraer’s director of environmental strategies and technologies, as saying.

According to Campos, the region will account for about three percent of global deliveries of regional jets over the next 20 years.

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Power demand in the UAE to double by 2015

Electricity demand in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is set to double by 2015 and treble by 2020 reflecting a very energy-dependent lifestyle of the people.

“The UAE has one of the highest per capita gas consumption rates in the world,” Gundi Royle, managing director of the National Investor, wrote in the Gulf News.

“Until recently, the assumption was that demand growth would be met by creating additional generation capacity, fed by limitless gas resources. Governments in the region acted in line, seeking to locate energy intensive industries such as aluminium smelting and sponsoring the building boom.”

According to Royle, although gas, the principal fuel for power generation and desalination, is abundant in the region, the assumption that it would flow as a cheap resource to underpin the UAE’s growth no longer makes sense.

And the same logic applies to other gas-rich nations of the region as well.

“Put simply, the gas rich nations of the region have the options to sell their gas in an attractive world market which has raised the benchmark for gas prices at home, particularly in the demanding UAE,” Royle said.

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Etisalat posts Q1 2008 profit of $577 mn

The United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) leading telecom operator Etisalat has announced profits of 2.12 billion dirhams ($577 million) in the first quarter of 2008 despite a sharp rise in spending.

The company, the largest telecom operator in the Middle East with plans to foray into the Indian market, stated that its revenues rose by 26 percent to 6.06 billion dirhams ($1.65 billion).

“It has been a very good quarter for Etisalat,” reports here quoted Simon Simonian, a Shuaa Capital analyst, as saying. “They have exceeded our expectations.”

The company’s subscriber base in the UAE increased by four percent to 6.63 million.