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  • Saudi startups take lead in MENA funding space

    Saudi Arabia’s startup ecosystem has affirmed its leading position in the funding space, capturing over 53 percent of the region’s venture debt financing in 2023, according to MAGNiTT’s latest report. The venture data platform revealed that Saudi startups raised a total of $400 million in venture debt last year, a 602 percent growth compared to $57 million in 2022.

  • Saudi Arabia leads Q1 IPO activity in MENA: EY report

    Saudi Arabia emerged as a dominant force in initial public offering activity for the region in the first quarter of 2024, according to multinational professional services EY. With nine IPOs launched during this period, the Kingdom, along with the UAE, contributed to a total of 10 listings, generating combined proceeds of $1.2 billion, as detailed in the MENA IPO Eye Q1 2024 report.

  • The Islamic State’s Afghanistan-based affiliate is emerging as a global menace

    News of the recent horrific attack in Moscow by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria—Khorasan Province (also known as ISIS-K) is putting a spotlight on a group that was already notorious for its brutal methods in Afghanistan and the broader Middle East. The operation in Moscow arrived a few weeks after U.S. officials warned that credible intelligence suggested an attack was brewing in Russia. Still, it appears to be a dramatic escalation of the group’s ability to launch complex attacks well outside its home base in Afghanistan.

  • Land Routes Via UAE, Saudi Arabia Tested to Bypass Houthi-Menaced Red Sea

    An Israeli software startup and one of the world’s biggest shipping lines are among companies that for the first time are opening up commercial trade routes running through the heart of the Middle East to bypass the Houthi-menaced Red Sea.

  • Saudi Aramco Keeps Sending Oil Through Houthi-Menaced Red Sea

    “We’re moving in the Red Sea with our oil and products cargoes,” Mohammed Al Qahtani, who heads Aramco’s refining and oil trading and marketing businesses, said in an interview at the company’s headquarters in Dhahran. The associated risks are “manageable,” he said. The decision contrasts with swaths of other tanker owners who abandoned Red Sea trips after the US and UK bombed parts of Yemen in an effort to quell the Houthi attacks. The militants responded by saying both nations’ shipping would be targeted, alongside that of Israel prompting naval warnings for merchant vessels to stay away.

  • Saudi Arabia urges Chinese firms to explore its ‘phenomenal demand’, cooperate in green transition

    Saudi Arabia’s investment minister called for further facilitation on green transition collaborations with Chinese companies in Beijing on Tuesday, with bilateral trade and business exchanges in full swing amid their fraying relations with the West.

    The Gulf state is striving to catch up on the global wave of clean energy transition, which provides China, a leader in the global new energy sector, an opportunity to grow investment and involvement in the region’s renewables development and beyond, Khalid al-Falih told the China-Saudi Investment Conference.

  • Renad Mansour and Farea Al-Muslimi: The Cost of Political Settlements in the MENA Region

    It worked in stopping civil wars in Iraq, in Lebanon, in Libya, and in the countries that we were looking at. It proved sort of useful for stability, but it also entrenched tremendously corrupt systems because these elites carved out the spoils of the state. Ultimately, this created, in the medium term, destabilizing factors.

  • Front Row Takes MENA Distribution for Saudi Drama ‘Norah’

    Dubai-based distributor Front Row Filmed Entertainment has picked up Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region distribution rights to groundbreaking Saudi drama “Norah,” which world premiered in competition at the Red Sea Film Festival. Directed by pioneering Saudi director Tawfik Alzaidi, making his feature film debut, “Norah” is set in 1990s Saudi Arabia, when conservatism was at its height and all forms of art and painting were banned for religion-related reasons.

  • COP28 and the growing Europe-MENA hydrogen connection

    Since COP27 last year in Egypt, countries within the MENA region have adopted national strategies and pursued new projects in hydrogen development aimed at transitioning their economies to clean energy exports. Yet, with a few exceptions, several memoranda of understanding (MoUs) signed since the conference have not turned into actual investment decisions so far, notably in the case of COP27 host Egypt. Meanwhile, the European Union (EU) and most of its member states are slowly but surely building their hydrogen supply chains, with plans that in most cases involve interdependence with the MENA region.

  • Chart: Agriculture Puts Strain on Water Resources in MENA Region

    Agricultural water withdrawal way beyond the limit of renewable freshwater resources is most common today in countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Several other nations, for example Spain, South Africa, South Korea, Pakistan and India, stick out for using up a higher share of their freshwater resources in agriculture than their neighbors. This is according to the FAO Aquastat database, where the latest available year for the data is 2020.