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Saudi Arabia's switch of weekend days to Friday and Saturday from Thursday and Friday will improve the Kingdom's letter of credit and other trade finance operations according financial analysts. Along with the business community in general, they welcome a weekend that aligns Saudi Arabia better with most of the global business and financial world.

The new weekend will increase the Kingdom's working overlap with international markets, which should boost efficiency and productivity in the region's biggest economy. Many companies in the Kingdom have already decided to shift their weekends to Friday and Saturday after the official decree at the end of June. According to a chief investment strategist at Masic in Saudi Arabia, financial institutions better aligned with the rest of the world will be able to react to events in a timelier manner. He also points out that banks and their clients will be able to transact globally more quickly.

Observers reckon the extra day in the commonly used Monday to Friday week will make several differences. They believe it should have favourable impacts in terms of pricing, transacting on payments, opening L/Cs and other trade finance operations that were only available for three days per week under the old system.

Meanwhile, in Iraq the government has agreed to provide both Egypt and Sudan with crude oil to be purchased on L/C terms. The news follows reports that the National Bank of Egypt has agreed to provide L/Cs to Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation US$1 billion for purchases of Libyan crude oil. Iraq has so far only agreed in principle to provide both Egypt and Sudan with crude oil on L/C terms. Oil shipments will begin once Egypt and Sudan obtain L/Cs from international banks and Iraq's cabinet issues its final approval of the deal. According to an Iraqi petroleum ministry official, the agreement has recently been signed with Egyptian counterparts.