RIYADH: AlJawal yesterday announced the launch of its new “AlJawal Control” service to control incoming audio, video, sms, and mms communications. This new service is available to post-paid, Sawa, and Lana customers only, providing full control of all incoming calls and allowing calls to come through or blocking them during specific timings or all the time. The customer pre-identifies these numbers using the accept/block menu, according to a press release from Saudi Telecom Co. (STC). AlJawal Control “Call Screening Service” to reinforce customer privacy, block unwanted phone calls and allow AlJawal customers to avoid wrong numbers and calls that are made at inappropriate times.

Abraj reaches $156m deal

KUWAIT: Kuwait-based investment firm Al-Abraj Holding Co. had reached an initial deal with a French company for a recycling project in Bahrain worth $156 million, it said yesterday. A company in which Abraj owns a 65 percent stake would have a 40 percent share of the $600 million, 10-year deal, the firm said in a statement on Kuwait bourse website, valuing Abraj’s share at $156 million.

Investment in Qatar soars

DUBAI: Foreign investment in Qatar soared to $1.79 billion in 2006 from $252 million in 2000, the Qatar Statistics Authority said in a report released yesterday. As a result of the increase, the ratio of foreign direct investment to GDP rose from 1.4 percent in 2000 to 3.2 percent in 2006, according to the second National Report on the Millenium Development Goals in the State of Qatar.

New bank to be set up in Oman

DUBAI: A new bank will be established in Oman before the end of the year and sell a 40 percent stake to the public, the Gulf state’s central bank governor said in remarks published yesterday. “Commercial Bank of Oman will be established by the end of this year,” Central Bank Executive President Hamood Sangour Al-Zadjali said in a newspaper interview, according to Oman News Agency.