MUST-READS

• Saudi Listings Grab the Spotlight in Gulf’s IPO Boom

  Initial public offerings from Saudi Arabia have been the star performers in a string of recent share sales in the Middle East, where some high profile regional listings have had tepid debuts in the last few months. Initial public offerings from Saudi Arabia have been the star performers in a string of recent share sales in the Middle East, where some high profile regional listings have had tepid debuts in the last few months. “The bullish euphoria surrounding the primary listings in Saudi Arabia shows no signs of stopping,” said Vijay Valecha, chief investment officer at UAE-based broker Century Financial, pointing to a “glaring contrast” between newly-listed stocks in Saudi and elsewhere in the region.

• AP photographer explains how he covered the famous Dakar Rally in Saudi Arabia’s desert

  The famous Dakar Rally being raced in the deserts of Saudi Arabia is to come to a conclusion on Friday. Associated Press photographer Christophe Ena explains who he has been capturing the off-road motorsport event frame-by-frame.

• Saudi Arabia’s flyadeal to order ten A330neo – reports

  Saudi low-cost carrier flyadeal (F3, Jeddah International) will soon place an order for ten A330-900N aircraft, according to Reuters. As previously reported in ch-aviation, the airline had decided to place a widebody order but was undecided about the type. Aside from a single wet-leased A330-200, flyadeal has exclusively relied on Airbus narrowbodies to date. flyadeal is expected to place the order within weeks, which will also include options for another ten A330s. If placed, the order represents another blow for Boeing, whose B787-9 type was under consideration but reportedly ultimately dropped.

• Saudi development fund might invest $100m in Pakistan mining

  Minister of industry and mineral resources Bandar Alkhorayef also confirmed that mining company Manara Minerals, a joint venture between Saudi sovereign wealth fund the Public Investment Fund and miner Ma’aden, is interested in investing in Pakistan’s Reko Diq mine.  “Part of what we are looking at is how we can help Pakistan also in some infrastructure,” Alkhorayef said in an interview with Reuters at the Future Minerals Forum in Riyadh. “Without that infrastructure, the economics of the deal are not attractive, so through the Saudi Development Fund we are thinking about how we can finance it.”

• China’s economy beats forecasts in 2024, braces for trade war
  China's economy ended 2024 on better footing than expected helped by a flurry of stimulus measures, although the threat of a new trade war with the United States and weak domestic demand could hurt confidence in a broader recovery this year. Exports, one of the few bright spots, could lose steam as United States President-elect Donald Trump, who has proposed hefty tariffs on Chinese goods, is set to return to the White House next week. For the full-year 2024, the world's second-largest economy grew 5.0%, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data showed on Friday, meeting the government's annual growth target of around 5%. Analysts had forecast 4.9% growth.

• The Largest Risks Faced by the World

  Over the next 10 years, climate change and its consequences will pose the greatest risk to the world. That’s according to more than 900 global experts from academia, business and politics, who were asked to evaluate 33 global risks over a two-year and a 10-year horizon for the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Risks Report. With inflation having eased in most parts of the world, the experts no longer consider the cost-of-living crisis one of the most pressing issue in the short-term. Instead, for the second year in a row, misinformation and disinformation is considered the most severe risk over the next two years. Following the "super election year" 2024, misinformation is still considered a major risk, as AI tools have facilitated the creation of false information, be it in the form of text, image or even video. It has the potential to further sow division, resulting in even more polarized societies, which are prone to radicalization and political unrest.

• Global diesel prices spike as US hits Russia with new sanctions
  Global diesel prices and refining margins spiked following the latest round of U.S. sanctions on Russia's oil trade on expectations the measures would tighten supplies, according to analysts and LSEG data. The United States imposed its toughest sanctions on Russian producers and tankers yet on Jan. 10 to curb the world's No. 2 oil exporter's revenue for its war in Ukraine. Many of the newly-targeted vessels, part of what is called a shadow fleet that seeks to circumvent Western restrictions, have been used to ship oil to India and China. Refiners in those countries have benefited from cheap Russian imports that were banned in Europe following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

• Saudi Arabia’s path to carbon neutrality: Analysis of the role of Hajj pilgrimage, energy consumption, and economic growth

  Saudi Arabia's religious sites stimulate economic growth and create green jobs through sustainable tourism. Tourism expansion may raise carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions due to energy use. Thus, this article examines 1970–2019 time series data to assess how Hajj pilgrims, energy consumption, and economic growth affect Saudi Arabia's CO₂ emissions. The transport segment is the leading generator of CO₂ pollution due to the heightened energy consumption related to travel and tourism (Irfan et al., 2023). The tourism business has been a foremost contributor to GDP expansion in developed as well as emerging nations over the past forty years, playing a pointed function in the globe's economic evolution (Wijesekara et al., 2022).

• How Trump Can Remake the Middle East

  But were Clausewitz alive today, he would ask how these remarkable military gains will translate to political outcomes. Israel remains in Gaza. But having rejected Gen. David H. Petraeus’s strategy of “clear, hold and build,” the Israel Defense Forces must go back into Gazan neighborhoods such as Beit Hanoun and Jabalya for the fourth or fifth time. Without an alternative to Hamas—which Israel cannot create—Gaza might remain a drag on Israel, not a victory. Such a strategy should be guided by two concrete objectives in 2025: Israel must end the war in Gaza and, provided the hostages are released, withdraw militarily. And it needs Iran’s nuclear infrastructure reduced to the point that a weapon is no longer an option. On its own, Israel cannot produce either of these outcomes. With an active American role, both might be achieved, in turn transforming the Middle East.

• How the Gaza war has remade the Middle East

  Hamas and Hezbollah have had their leaderships wiped out, and they signed separate ceasefires with Israel from a position of weakness. Syria's longtime dictator, Bashar al-Assad, fled into Russian exile last month. Iran, meanwhile, is trying to make sense of this rapidly changing Middle East, with a supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is 85 and ailing. Israel can claim major military successes, yet the devastation it has inflicted on Gaza has caused immense damage to Israel's reputation. More than 46,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza health officials.

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