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  • Saudi Arabia World Cup bid report accused of ‘whitewashing’ rights abuses

    AS&H Clifford Chance was commissioned to independently assess the human rights implications of the bid, but the report “contains no substantive discussion of extensive and relevant abuses in Saudi Arabia”, according to a statement released by 11 organisations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

  • Saudi Arabia’s spending trajectory is sustainable, kingdom’s finance minister says: Video

    Mohammed al-Jadaan, Saudi Arabia’s minister of finance, says the kingdom’s non-oil revenues have grown significantly and cover about 37% of the national expenditure.

  • Saudi Arabia’s Hassana eyes investment in Brookfield Middle East fund

    Hassana, the investment arm of Saudi Arabia's main pension fund, is considering becoming an anchor investor in Brookfield's (BN.TO), opens new tab new $2 billion Middle East fund, it said on Thursday. That would bring Hassana on board with the kingdom's PIF sovereign wealth fund, which announced on Wednesday that it had entered a non-binding agreement to become an anchor investor in the Brookfield Middle East Partners fund.

  • Saudi Arabia’s start-up airline places £6bn plane order in challenge to Gulf rivals

    This is in addition to an earlier agreement for 39 Boeing wide-bodies announced last year, which includes the option for another 33. Chief executive Tony Douglas said the Airbus jets will help “support economic growth” by establishing the comprehensive route network needed to transform the city of Riyadh into a global aviation hub.

  • Saudi Arabia’s Q3 GDP grows by estimated 2.8% y/y

    Saudi Arabia's economy grew 2.8% in the third quarter year on year, preliminary government data showed on Thursday, supported by an increase in non-oil activities. Non-oil growth rose 4.2%, government activities increased 3.1% and the oil sector grew 0.3%, data released by the General Authority for Statistics showed. GDP had shrunk in the second quarter on a year-on-year decline in oil activities of almost 9%.

  • BlackRock Gets Nod From Saudi Arabia for Regional HQ in Riyadh

    With the move, BlackRock will be able to expand its operations across the Middle East, according to a statement. The company established BlackRock Saudi Arabia Company six years ago and is regulated by the kingdom’s Capital Market Authority. “BlackRock plays an important role in Saudi Arabia’s asset management landscape,” Hassan Alduhaim, senior adviser of the minister of investment of Saudi Arabia, said in the statement. “We look forward to BlackRock’s continued growth in Saudi Arabia and the Region.”

  • Saudi Arabia aims to enable direct investment by GCC residents: ElKuwaiz

    ElKuwaiz sees two prominent amendments to expand the scope of foreign investment. The first is to work on reviewing the rules of opening investment accounts, considering dealing with GCC residents as Saudi residents regarding investing in stocks, and thus allowing them to invest directly in the Saudi market.   This will be followed—after a year—with a review of the investor regulations to liberalize them in terms of the targeted categories and ratios, which have become a restricted factor for foreign investors.

  • Saudi Arabia may cut December oil prices for Asia, sources say

    Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia may cut prices for most of the crude grades it sells to Asia in December, tracking weakness in Middle East benchmark Dubai, trade sources said. Price cuts for Saudi oil would signal weak demand and provide more evidence for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, led by Saudi Arabia, and its allies including Russia, a group known as OPEC+, to potentially delay plans to increase production from December.

  • Saudi Arabia and India agree to study feasibility of establishing power grid

    The second Ministerial Meeting of the Economy and Investment Committee under the Saudi-India Strategic Partnership Council was held in Riyadh. The meeting was co-chaired by Saudi Minister of Energy Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman and India's Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal. During the meeting, Prince Abdulaziz and Goyal witnessed the signing of an agreement between the Saudi National Electricity Transmission Company and the Central Transmission Utility of India to study the feasibility of electrical interconnection between the two countries. The minutes of the Economy and Investment Committee of the Saudi-Indian Strategic Partnership Council was also signed on the occasion.

  • AI Leaders Gather in Saudi Arabia to Talk Energy

    Schwarzman of Blackstone, which is building a $25 billion data center empire, estimated that the AI boom could potentially propel electricity use to soar 40% in the next decade. He warned that could slow the development of the technologies, quite aside from its disruption to global economies. “In four years, giant economies, at the rate that expansion is going to happen, are going to stock out of electricity unless there’s either efficiencies in semiconductors and other types of things or you’re going to have to slow down the growth or have a giant expansion,” he said.