Standard & Poor's Ratings Services lowered its long-term sovereign credit rating on the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (Libya) to 'BBB+' from 'A-'.

A meeting held by the Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr. Samiha Fawzy, and the Federation of Egyptian Industries (FEI), which represents all the industrial sectors in Egypt, agreed to a number of guarantees for  Egyptian workers in the industrial sector.

Standard & Poor's Ratings Services lowered its long- and short-term sovereign credit ratings on the Kingdom of Bahrain (Bahrain or the Kingdom) to 'A-/A-2' from 'A/A-1' and placed them on CreditWatch with negative implications.

Raysut Cement Company announced that it saw a 27.7 per cent fall in net profit at US$53.8mn for last year, due in part to a big fall in sales.

The minister of finance announced that Jordan's budget deficit fell by US$704mn which amounted to 5.3 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP).