“Saudis have accumulated a large amount of knowledge working on diverse projects in the Kingdom over the past decades and many of them are now qualified to provide advice on similar projects.”
-Yahya Alsulaiman, founding partner of Serole Technologies Saudi Arabia and YISETech, discussing the growth of Saudi consultants. The Saudi Ministry of Commerce issued 407 licenses to consultancy companies in the first half of this year, an increase of 27 percent on the same period a year earlier. [Arab News]
“Being part of something unique and new is more interesting than being in a chic city like Dubai. We’re on the ground floor.”
–David Burke, a restauranteur in Riyadh, as he opened his doors to a new front “with a launch party—replete with DJ and percussionist—followed by two days of five-course gala dinners. It gives him the ability to grow without much international competition, he said,” in a feature on Riyadh’s growing dining scene in Bloomberg. [Bloomberg]
“60% of individuals still use cash at least once a week and that one out of four individuals use cash daily despite the overall decline in the average number of cash payments… just under 20% of the population use cash every day in the central region, which includes Riyadh, and the eastern region of Saudi Arabia. This percentage rises to 48% among the residents of the southern region and reaches 37% and 35% in the northern region and the western region respectively.”
–Fintech Saudi, a Saudi Central Bank initiative, published the results of its recent Fintech Adoption Survey. [Entrepreneur]
“The Ministry of Hajj and Umrah announced the start of receiving Umrah performers of citizens and residents, in addition to gradually receiving Umrah requests from various countries of the world…with a capacity of up to 60,000 Umrah performers divided into 8 operating periods, increasing the overall capacity to two million per month with the condition that the issuance of permits will be through the ‘Etamarna and Tawakalna’ applications.”
–The Saudi Press Agency, discussing the Kingdom’s plans to increase the number of umrah performers gradually to two million vaccinated visitors per month starting August 9. [SPA]
“We are enjoying a very good time in commodity prices, and we really think that the prices will continue through 2021.”
-Abdulaziz Al Harbi, Chief Executive Officer of Maaden, in an interview on Bloomberg Television. [Bloomberg]
“An analysis of 25 countries in the MSCI Emerging Market Index put Saudi Arabia, home to the Tadawul stock exchange in Riyadh, at the top of the list with a near 27 percent rise in market value since the start of 2020, when COVID-19 began to impact the global economy.”
–Frank Kane, business journalist for Arab News, discussing how Saudi Arabia has been the best performing of all the emerging markets since the onset of the pandemic. [Arab News]
“The turbines have 73.7m-long blades and feature 250m-high steel towers, among the tallest in the industry. They can also be operated either in a power optimised mode up to 4.2MW or a load optimised mode down to 3.6MW. The turbines have a low noise level of 104.9dB(A).”
–PowerTechnology, in a report detailing the 400MW Dumat Al Jandal wind farm started turbine, which began testing this week. It is located in the Al Jouf region of north-west Saudi Arabia, 900km from capital city Riyadh. The province lies in close proximity to the entrances of Al Sarhan Valley, the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq and Syria. [Power Technology]
“Historically, energy transitions have been slow moving processes. For example, it took more than five hundred years from the first commercial coal mines to account for 25 percent of global energy consumption (reached in 1871), while it took ninety years from the drilling of the first commercial well for oil to do the same (reached in 1953).”
-Dr. Jean-François Seznec and Samer Mosis, The Energy Transition in the Arab Gulf: From Vision to Reality. [Atlantic Council]
“More than 19 million people, equivalent to 56% of the total Saudi population, have received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine. Eight million or 25% of the population have received two doses. The Kingdom plans to vaccinate at least 70% of its population with the aim of achieving herd immunity by early October of this year. The average number of doses given daily reached 365,000 doses.”
-The Saudi Gazette, reporting the latest on the Kingdom’s vaccination drive and pursuit of a return to normal life in Saudi Arabia. [Saudi Gazette]
“Recent tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have raised questions about the future stability of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). The hysteria is overblown and disregards normal, positive competition between neighboring states, much like Germany and France. What we are witnessing is standard jockeying between two emerging economies working to diversify and grow.”
–Amjad Ahmad, director and resident senior fellow of empowerME at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East, analyzes the economic relationship between Saudi Arabia and the UAE. [Atlantic Council]
