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  • Keeping Track of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund’s Expanding Footprint
     

    Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has created a handful of new companies in several sectors in the Kingdom while investing in many others, injecting capital and a new competitor in the housing, energy, waste and recycling, tourism, transportation sectors and more. As the PIF’s role in the Saudi economy increases, critics say the mega-fund will crowd out private […]

     
  • Saudi Aramco Denies Financial Times Report on Shelving Long-Awaited IPO
     

    Saudi Aramco has denied a report in the London-based Financial Times that the state-controlled company will shelve its plans to list part of the company on international indices in favor of private placements. The Financial Times reports that talks about “a private sale to foreign governments including China and other investors have gathered pace in recent […]

     
  • King Salman Consolidates Development Funds and Promotes New Transportation Minister
     

    Saudi Arabia’s King Salman has created a new organizational body to centralize and consolidate control and management of its economic development funds, called the National Development Fund (NDF), under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The NDF will “link the Saudi Fund for Development, the Saudi Industrial Development Fund, the Agricultural Development Fund, the Social Development Bank, the Human […]

     
  • Saudi Economy Contracts as Production Cuts, Reforms Begin
     

    Saudi Arabia’s economy contracted by 1.03 percent in the second quarter of this year following a 0.5-percent contraction in the first quarter, according to reports, as participation in the OPEC oil production cut and disappointing growth in non-oil industries weighed on the economy. While the contraction in the economy is to be expected as OPEC and Russia seek […]

     
  • Goldman Sachs Head Lloyd Blankfein Visits Saudi Arabia, Calls Changes in Kingdom ‘Striking’
     

    Goldman Sachs Group’s CEO visited Saudi Arabia this week and praised the Kingdom’s reform efforts on Twitter, calling the progress in Saudi Arabia “striking.” Lloyd Blankfein visited Saudi Arabia after speaking on a panel with the managing director of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, Yassir Al-Rummayan, on September 20th. In comments on that panel, Blankfein said Saudi […]

     
  • With Historic Decree on Saudi Women Driving, An Economic and Social Game-Changer
     

    Saudi women and champions of equal rights around the world embraced a decision by Saudi Arabia’s King Salman to allow women to drive for the first time, a landmark royal decree that will change the Kingdom’s economy and society in countless ways. Saudi Women will now be able to legally apply for their own driving licenses without having to secure […]

     
  • Saudi Arabia to Get New Bankruptcy Law Next Year, Al-Qassabi Says
     

    Saudi Arabia will begin implementing a new bankruptcy law early next year as part of efforts to attract foreign investment and encourage private sector activity, Reuters reports, citing Saudi-owned broadcaster Al Arabiya which aired comments from Minister of Commerce and Investment Dr. Majed Al-Qassabi. “(The) bankruptcy law has been passed to the Shura Council and […]

     
  • Saudi Arabia Will Remove its Ban on Internet Phone Calls on Thursday
     

    Saudi Arabia will remove its ban on internet phone calls on Thursday, a government spokesman said, in a bid “aimed at stimulating online business as the kingdom looks to boost non-oil revenue,” Reuters reports. The news is sure to be welcomed by the many foreign men and women who travel to Saudi Arabia for business, […]

     
  • ‘Shale Oil 2.0’: Uptick in Oil Prices Entices Shale Producers, but ‘Bumps in the Road’ Persist — Jadwa Investment
     

    The recently observed uptick in oil prices has given many US shale oil producers the opportunity to expand production, Riyadh-based Jadwa Investment said in a research note on shale production. “Latest forecasts from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) see US oil production rising by 10 percent year-on-year in 2017, and 3.3 percent in 2018. Alongside the […]

     
  • Al-Falih: Steps Taken by OPEC Have Brought Greater Stability, Further Cuts Eyed
     

    Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Energy, Industry, and Mineral Resources Khalid Al-Falih said he agreed with other OPEC nations to keep all options open in the organization’s push to re-balance world oil markets, “including the possible extension of output cuts beyond next March,” according to reports. According to three emailed statements from his ministry obtained by Bloomberg, steps taken by […]

     

MUST-READS

  • Russia’s Oil Ban Accelerates Shift in Global Energy Flows

    Saudi Arabia was the fastest-growing of any major oil supplier to the EU in the third quarter, with a 9.1% market share of imports of the commodity, compared with 5.1% on average last year, according to Eurostat. Saudi shipments to Egypt, most of which are re-exported to Europe through the Suez Canal, neared 1 million barrels a day in November, up from 600,000 barrels a day in October and 866,000 barrels a day a year earlier, Kpler says.

  • Poland ready for Russian oil ban after securing alternative supplies from Saudi Arabia

    Poland is prepared for a Russian ban on oil sales to countries implementing a price cap, the climate minister said on Thursday, with the country having cut its intake of Russian crude and secured alternative supplies from producers such as Saudi Arabia. The Group of Seven (G7) nations and allies including Poland this month agreed a $60 per barrel price cap on Russian seaborne crude. In response, President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed a decree that bans the supply of crude oil and oil products from Feb. 1 for five months to nations abiding by the cap.

  • Saudi banks to start implementing Basel III reforms in January

    The reforms were issued by the BCBS in December 2017, which complements Basel III standards issued by the BCBS in 2010, with the aim of restoring creditability in the calculation of risk-weighted assets (RWA) by improving the sensitivity of the standardized approach (SA) used in calculating them, and reducing the reliance on the internal ratings-based approach (IRB).

  • PwC Middle East identifies top trends driving the region’s banking ecosystem

    The one area that is likely to continue to be a growth constraint for financial services in the region is the regulatory structure around cloud services. Current regulations require cloud service providers to be based in the country where it plans to offer its services. Authorities in the region are aware of this issue and are moving ahead on this front. Once this constraint on cloud services is resolved,it has the potential to tremendously expand the scope of financial services in the region.

  • Iran targets last foreign social media apps to escape permanent bans

    Iranian authorities have threatened to permanently block access to Instagram and WhatsApp, which have been restricted since opposition protests erupted in September. The popular social media platforms are the last major foreign social media platforms to have escaped permanent filtering in the country. Business owners have protested the new restrictions, saying that they rely on the platforms to generate revenue.

  • Fears of widening gender inequality in Afghanistan as Saudi Arabia joins calls to Taliban to keep university doors open to women

    The announcement is only the latest in a series of ever-stricter restrictions on the freedoms of Afghan women, which now include mandatory face coverings and a ban on travel without a male escort. Public frustration with the regime and its oppressive policies appears to be growing, in echoes of the current women-led protest movement in neighboring Iran, according to Afghanistan’s former national security adviser.

  • Turkey, Saudi Arabia decry Taliban university ban for women

    Turkey and Saudi Arabia became the latest Muslim-majority countries to condemn a decision by Taliban authorities to bar women from universities, while about two dozen women staged a protest in the streets of Kabul on Thursday. In another sign of domestic opposition, several Afghan cricketers condemned the university ban. Cricket is a hugely popular sport in Afghanistan, and players have hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.

  • Female students turned away from Afghan universities after Taliban ban

    Female university students in Afghanistan were turned away from campuses on Wednesday after the Taliban-run administration said women would be suspended from tertiary education. The decision to bar women was announced on Tuesday evening in a letter to universities from the higher education ministry, drawing condemnation from foreign governments and the United Nations.

  • Husband and wife among 23-member gang guilty of sophisticated fraud in Saudi Arabia

    An expatriate man and his Saudi wife are among 23 members of a gang jailed for a total of 111 years for a sophisticated fraud involving fake investments, phoney websites and foreign shell companies. Real estate, cars and devices used by the group to commit their crimes have been seized by Saudi authorities. They were also jointly fined 28.6 million riyals (Dh27.9m) and had the profits of their crimes confiscated. Charges included financial fraud, money laundering, counterfeiting and violating the country's anti-information law, the kingdom's prosecutors said.

  • Saudi Arabia launches National Biobank

    Health Minister and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Public Health Authority (Weqaya) Fahad Al-Jalajel inaugurated the National Biobank in Saudi Arabia. Al-Jalajel said that this project is one of the important milestones in raising the efficiency and effectiveness of the infrastructure of public health systems in the Kingdom. “It will further enhance national health security, raise the efficiency of control programs and control of communicable and non-communicable diseases, and will contribute effectively to supporting the research, development and innovation agenda in the Kingdom,” he said.