Information Services and Library: MENA: Home

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Researching companies and industries in the Middle East and North Africa

Whilst we do not have any specialist resources for this region, many of our databases do have content on the some of the individual countries in this region.

Company research

Researching a company in this region? Take a look at our guide to company research

News and keeping up to date

ScienceDirect	Covers business and sci/tech. Large number of economics and finance journals some with regional focus.
Factiva	Our global news database with news wires, newspapers, websites and trade and professional titles. For MENA, limit your search to Asia > West Asia > Middle East, and Africa > North Africa.
FT.com	Registration required. NB: It is included when searching Factiva.
Economist	Full personalised access to The Economist. Registration required.
Project Syndicate	Provides original, high-quality commentaries to a global audience, covering economics, politics, health, technology, and culture.

Researching industries in the MENA region

Mergent Online	For Analysts' research on quoted companies and their markets go to the Investext tab.
Statista	Offers statistics on a wide range of topics for this region such as Health, Automotive, Telecomms and Start ups.
Technavio	Covers a huge range of industry sectors. Most reports are global and include 4 year forecasts. They include data on the Middle East and Africa.
Bloomberg Finance Zone only	Go to > Function <BI> and selection sectors and sub-sectors. Not all sectors are broken down by region. Or use the function <RES>.

**Web sources**
African Development Bank Group This organisation is made up of 3 constituent groups: African Development Bank, African Development Fund and Nigeria Trust Fund. The website offers reports (such as the African Economic Outlook 2024) and data on all African nations including those covered by the term MENA.	Zawya Offers news and research for the MENA region. Some news stories can be accessed without signing up. Sign up free of charge to get slightly more content or pay a subscription to access the full range of content.
Arabian Business It provides business and finance news and opinion articles. Some content is free to access, other articles require a subscription.	World Bank reports Regular reports each one with a different focus. Includes the April 2024 report: Conflict & Debt in the Middle East and North Africa
Index of Economic Freedom Ranking of 176 countries covering 10 freedoms including: property rights, freedom from corruption, fiscal freedom and labour freedom.	IMF Economic Outlook reports Annual reports available for different world regions
PwC Produce a number of Insight reports on the Middle East region.	World Economic Forum Produces regular reports and articles looking at the MENA region. Transitioning to more renewable forms of energy is a particular area of focus.

Databases for economic data and analysis

Bloomberg
A good source of Economic data for countries in this region. Data can usually be exported or downloaded using the Excel add-in.
Try ECON for Insights and Analysis on recent economic headlines. If you have registered for your own Bloomberg login, you can sign up for their Daily Economics newsletter BRIE to select which newsletters you are interested in signing up to.
Availability: On campus Finance Suite (SO.W2.01/02)
Datastream
Contains huge range of economic time series data. Use the Excel add-in for easier downloading.
Availability: On campus via Eikon terminals in Finance Suite SO.W2.02
Global Financial Data
Commodity prices for several countries, also macroeconomic data.
Availability: global
International Financial Statistics
Database from the International Monetary Fund contains approximately 61,000 time-series covering 194 countries and areas. First time users will need to register by going to My Data > Sign In or Register > Register User Name once on the site.
Availability: global
Business Source Premier
Includes country reports from a number of different providers including: CountryWatch, IHS (see also the Global Insight database for this content), Marketline and Political Risk Yearbook. To locate this content. Search for a country and then limit the results to just show Source Type - country reports.
Availability: global
ProQuest Business Premium Collection
Includes country reports for this region from Fitch, Oxford Economics and the EIU.