MEED, abbreviated from the former name Middle East Economic Digest, is a business intelligence tool for the Middle East and North Africa, providing analysis and commentary on Middle Eastern markets, companies, people and data on the regional projects market.
Current business activities
''MEED Magazine''
MEED publishes a business-to-business magazine for subscribers every Friday featuring news, analysis and commentary, features and interviews and a weekly special report. Circulation, according to a 2009 audit by ABC, was 6,338. MEED was launched in 1957. When Rafiq Hariri drew up plans to rebuild a war-shattered Lebanon, MEED met the prime minister and asked him to explain them. When Colonel Gaddafi unveiled the first part of his Great Manmade River, MEED took a front-row seat at the ceremony and quizzed the engineers. While US tanks were still rolling towards Baghdad in March 2003, MEED obtained plans from Washington that described how the US was hoping to rebuild the country. Three months before going public, MEED revealed DP World's IPO plans. Abdalla el-Badri announced Opec's potential move from US dollar to euro pricing to MEED. MEED broke news of Saudi Arabia moving ahead with plans for a Mile-High Tower in Jeddah – which would make it the tallest tower in the world – and Nakheel's plans to create a tower over one kilometre high to trump Emaar's Burj Khalifa. MEED is used as a source of Middle East information by the US and British governments – Energy Information Administration, United States Congress and the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The dedication made by Abdullah II of Jordan in 2007 demonstrates MEED's positive contribution to the Middle East for over 50 years. "The celebration of this milestone is a testament to the distinguished insight into the region MEED has provided to its readers for five decades. Your acuity has recorded the region's diversity and potential, not just its challenges and crises."
MEED.com
As well as publishing all magazine content, MEED.com also produces daily country and industry news, tenders, contract awards, economic data and market trends, with an emphasis on projects. Its archive dates back to 1994. Content on the site is broken down by 10 sectors and 19 countries: Construction, Economy, Finance, Industry, Markets, Oil & Gas, Power, Telecoms and Information Technology, Transport and Water Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Gaza/ West Bank, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
A bespoke research, data and analysis service, MEED Insight specialises in Middle East industry or sector scoping, market surveys, evaluation and forecasting, market entry assistance, project overviews and competitor analysis. Core sectors are oil and gas, petrochemicals, banking and finance, manufacturing, transport and logistics, power and water.
MEED Events
MEED runs three summits – Arabian Hotel Investment Conference, Arabian World Construction Summit and Arabian Power & Water Summit – and has more than 25 Middle East industry- and country-focused conferences in its portfolio, as well as networking clubs focusing on UAE and Qatar construction and power and water.
History
The first issue of Middle East Economic Digest was published on 8 March 1957. MEED's founder and driving force for the next two decades was Elizabeth Collard, a champion of Arab causes who was to become an adviser to UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson on Middle East affairs and a friend of Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt and King Hussein of Jordan. She also helped to establish the Council for the Advancement of Arab British Understanding. With two part-time secretarial assistants, MEED was produced on a hand-cranked Ronco printing machine. Every Friday evening, friends and relatives would help staple and stuff envelopes with the 12-page newsletter. Lacking any editorial resources, the Middle East Economic Digest was a compilation from newspapers and other reports. Newspapers were flown in weekly from Cairo and Beirut, translated and condensed. By the time MEED was acquired by Emap in 1986, it had a staff of 20 full-time journalists and 12 researchers and newsroom assistants to cover Middle Eastern business and project news. In 2006 Emap Middle East also acquired business website AME Info. In March 2012, the owning company rebranded as Top Right Group, but retained the Emap name for its magazines operation, which at the time accounted for around 18 percent of the group's turnover. In October 2015 Top Right Group announced it was scrapping the Emap brand and would stop producing print editions and that, over the next 12–18 months, all titles would become digital only. In December 2015 Top Right Group rebranded as Ascential who, in January 2017, announced its intention to sell 13 titles including MEED; the 13 "heritage titles" were to be "hived off into a separate business while buyers are sought." On 8 December 2017, MEED was purchased from Ascential in a $17.5m cash deal by GlobalData, the London-listed company formerly known as Progressive Digital Media. Bernard Cragg, executive chairman of GlobalData, stated: "MEED gives the Group the opportunity to further expand into a key region and adds an additional industry vertical to our offering whilst maintaining our disciplined investment criteria of premium proprietary content and strong renewable subscription based revenues."
