MUST-READS

• Under Secretary Bass’s Travel to Türkiye and Saudi Arabia
  Under Secretary of State John Bass traveled to Ankara, Türkiye January 9-10. In Ankara, Under Secretary Bass met with senior Turkish government officials to discuss Syria and emphasized the importance of a peaceful, inclusive, Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition in the spirit of UN Security Council Resolution 2254.  He also participated in meetings on the importance of regional stability, preventing Syria from being used as a base for terrorism, and ensuring the enduring defeat of ISIS. Under Secretary Bass will then travel to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, January 11-13, to attend a Saudi-hosted multilateral meeting of senior government officials from the region and global partners to coordinate international support for the Syrian people.  While in Riyadh, the Under Secretary will also hold bilateral meetings with key partners on advancing shared regional and global priorities.

• Energy minister: Saudi Arabia is keen on enhancing energy cooperation with Greece

  Saudi Minister of Energy Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said that the electrical interconnection project between Saudi Arabia and Greece confirms the common desire between the two countries to enhance cooperation in the field of energy. "This effort has resulted in the establishment of a special purpose company, the Saudi-Greek Interconnection Company, in addition to the continuous progress in the feasibility study of the project," he said while co-chairing with Greek Minister of Environment and Energy Theodoros Skylakakis on Wednesday the first session of the Energy Committee, an offshoot of the Saudi-Hellenic Strategic Partnership Council. It is noteworthy that feasibility studies for the Greece-Saudi Arabia electrical interconnection, known as the Saudi Greek Interconnection, are currently underway and expected to be completed by the end of 2025. This project aims to link Europe with the Arabian Peninsula for the first time.

• Lebanese president says Saudi Arabia to be 1st destination for foreign visits

  Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said on Saturday that Saudi Arabia will be his “first destination” for foreign visits after assuming office on Thursday, Anadolu Agency reports. In a statement, the Lebanese presidential palace confirmed that President Aoun had received a phone call from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. During the call, the crown prince conveyed the congratulations of King Salman bin Abdulaziz on Aoun’s election as the president of Lebanon and extended an invitation for him to visit Saudi Arabia. In response, Aoun confirmed that Saudi Arabia would be his first foreign visit, emphasizing the country’s “historical role in supporting Lebanon” and the importance of Lebanon’s Arab identity in shaping its regional relations.

• Saudi Arabia offers new benefits to importers and exporters

  The Saudi Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority (ZATCA) announced the development of the “Saudi Authorized Economic Operator Program” in coordination with 14 government agencies. The program aims to further empower the logistics sector in Saudi Arabia, facilitate trade, ease procedures for importers and exporters, enhance their competitiveness, increase the efficiency of supply chains, and simplify and accelerate procedures while ensuring the continuation of business operations smoothly and with high flexibility, in addition to facilitating access to global markets. The participating entities in the program are the Ministries of Energy, Interior, Commerce, Environment, Water and Agriculture, Industry and Mineral Resources, Investment, Human Resources and Social Development, Transport and Logistics, and Health, the Saudi Standards, Metrology and Quality Organization, the Communications, Space and Technology Commission, General Authority of Civil Aviation, Saudi ports Authority, and the Saudi Food and Drug Authority.

• Saudi Arabia plans to enrich and sell uranium: Energy minister

  “We will enrich it and we will sell it and we will do a ‘yellowcake,’” Prince Abdulaziz told a conference in Dhahran, referring to a powdered concentrate of the mineral used to prepare uranium fuel for nuclear reactors. It requires safe handling although it poses few radiation risks. Saudi Arabia has a nascent nuclear program that it wants to expand to eventually include uranium enrichment, a sensitive area given its role in nuclear weapons. Riyadh has said it wants to use nuclear power to diversify its energy mix. The Kingdom said last year it planned to scrap light-touch oversight of its nuclear facilities by the UN atomic watchdog and switch to regular safeguards by the end of 2024.

• Saudi Arabia Real Estate Boom to Extend Into 2025: CBRE (Video)

  Population growth and influx of foreigners have underpinned a surge in Saudi Arabia’s property market. CBRE expects price growth and rents to increase in 2025, Elias Bou Habib, the firm’s head of consulting for Saudi, told Joumanna Bercetche on Bloomberg TV’s Horizons Middle East & Africa.

• Saudi Arabia exceeds 2030 target for regional HQs

  The number of companies setting up their main regional base in the kingdom has reached 571, primarily in the industrial sector, Khalid Al Falih told Asharq Business, an Arabic-language financial portal. The Gulf state, he said, has moved beyond the HQ goals and is working to get global companies to contribute to Saudi Arabia’s economic development. The regional HQ programme is part of plans to make Riyadh one of the world’s 10 largest city economies by 2030 and increase its population to as many as 20 million. These companies will be exempt from corporate tax for 30 years, in addition to relaxed requirements for Saudisation – the programme to increase employment of Saudi nationals – and offering work permits for the spouses of company executives.

• Saudi Arabia Plans to Deploy 48GWh of Battery Storage by 2030

  According to foreign media reports, the Saudi Power Procurement Company (SPPC) has officially announced the list of prequalified bidders for its first battery energy storage system (BESS) procurement. The state-owned enterprise revealed on December 30 the companies selected for its upcoming Build-Own-Operate (BOO) model tender for a 2GW/8GWh energy storage system. The list of successful bidders includes prominent companies from the Middle East and abroad, such as Masdar, headquartered in Dubai, Saudi Arabia's ACWA Power, and France's EDF and TotalEnergies. Leading renewable energy and energy storage companies from China, South Korea, and Japan are also among the selected bidders. A total of 33 companies passed the qualification review for the tender, with 21 applying to provide technology and manage the BESS and the remaining 12 focusing solely on system management.

• Saudi Arabian women break into the Rally-Dakar world

  In parallel to the Rally-Dakar 2025 competition, which is being held for the sixth consecutive year in Saudi Arabia, the Arab giant has organised for the first time a training programme for promising young Saudi sportsmen and women called ‘Saudi Next Gen’, in which women such as Merryhan Albaz, an influencer, sports enthusiast and the first female mechanic in the world of motorsport, also took part.  Five pairs of drivers took part in this first edition: four male and one female. The young participants, chosen by the Saudi Automobile Federation, will enjoy a coaching session and will fight for a place in next year's Dakar Rally, which will also be held in Saudi Arabia.

• Lenovo to build $2 billion PC and server plant in Saudi Arabia

  As leading PC makers try to reduce their reliance on manufacturing in China, they sometimes expand production capacity in unexpected places. Lenovo Group said on Thursday that it would build a PC and server assembly factory in Saudi Arabia that will primarily serve markets in the Middle East and Africa. The project is backed by a $2 billion investment from Alat, a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF). The PC and server assembly plant in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) will be quite large: it will employ thousands of people and produce millions of PCs per year when it comes online in 2026, according to the company. Lenovo also plans to establish local research and development (R&D) operations "for fully end-to-end 'Saudi Made' products," which possibly implies tailoring products to local market needs. At the same time, a $2 billion computer assembly factory is a large industrial facility potentially with huge capacity. Without a doubt, this will be one of the most extensive high-tech facilities in the region and one of the major computer plants in the world.

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