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CEOs in the UAE have the lowest average current age, but women still only account for 5% of hires

Alstom breaks mould as Gulf lags on hiring women as CEOs

Dalya Al Muthanna is a member of an exclusive club. In January she became Gulf CEO for the transport giant Alstom, the company behind tram systems in Dubai and Qatar.  She was previously a senior executive at GE in the UAE, bucking the trend of men dominating senior C-suite jobs in the Gulf. Just 5 […]

Saudi construction delay Video length: 06:07

Big events take priority for stretched Saudi builders

There will be delays in delivering Saudi Arabia’s massive construction pipeline in time for 2030, but projects directly linked to specific international events such as the Asian Winter Games in 2029 will take priority, industry players told AGBI at the Big5 conference in Riyadh last week. About $1 trillion in giga-projects are under way across […]

Francis Ngannou (left) fighting Tyson Fury in Riyadh last year for the heavyweight title

Saudi Arabia gives boxing a chance to reinvent itself

World heavyweight champion Tyson Fury is no stranger to hyperbole. Thus only a few eyebrows were raised when he boldly claimed that boxing would be “dead” if it wasn’t for Saudi Arabia. The sport was looking decidedly punch-drunk before Saudi Arabia entered the ring almost six years ago. The first boxing card in Jeddah that […]

AlUla Old Town. The heritage site is one of Saudi Arabia's flagship tourism projects

Volatility of crude markets masks Saudi non-oil momentum

Volatility in global oil markets, which led to Saudi Arabia’s GDP shrinking last year, is masking the strength of the kingdom’s non-oil economy, analysts have said.  Its non-oil revenue is forecast to rise by more than 5 percent in each of the next two years, according to Jadwa Investment. The 2023 contraction was driven by […]

saudi space debris

Saudi Arabia warns of space debris threat

Saudi Arabia is targeting lucrative and environmentally critical opportunities in the rubbish removal sector – in outer space. More than 27,000 man-made objects larger than 10 centimetres, such as defunct satellites and spent rocket stages, orbit Earth, according to Nasa. This space debris puts at stake billions of dollars of assets such as spacecraft and […]

Attendees at the Big 5 convention in Riyadh ranked Saudi Arabia among the top three most enticing construction markets in the world alongside China and India

Foreign expertise vital for Saudi construction

Saudi Arabia’s construction industry needs more foreign involvement if achieving its Vision 2030 goals is to become a reality, according to attendees of the Big 5 conference in Riyadh. In the first half of 2023 alone $44 billion worth of new projects were awarded in the kingdom’s $140 billion construction sector, according to real estate […]

MIITE SME UAE Make It In The Emirates

Make it in the Emirates ‘needs more SMEs’

More than AED120 billion ($33 billion) has been invested by UAE-based companies to develop hundreds of new product lines under the country’s “Make it in the Emirates” (MIITE) campaign. As the Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology prepares to host its third forum on local manufacturing, latest statistics show that the number of MIITE products […]

A worker on a construction site in Riyadh. Foreign companies with offices in Saudi Arabia have adapted to supply chain disruptions

Localisation shields Saudi builders from Red Sea crisis

Houthi attacks in the Red Sea may have been disrupting the construction supply chain into Saudi Arabia but companies, in particular larger ones, are adapting to the challenge.  Since November, the Yemeni militia has launched dozens of attacks on commercial vessels on their way to or from the Suez Canal, forcing many global shippers to […]

Dubai's Mashreq is among the GCC banks looking for growth in the US and Europe

GCC banks look to US and Europe

GCC banks may be forced to look overseas to fulfil growth ambitions as home markets become increasingly saturated, experts say. While some banks have already ventured abroad – mainly into Turkey, Egypt and Pakistan, which constitute nearly a half of their presence outside the Gulf – more developed markets such as the US and Europe […]

A market worker in Cairo stands under a pro-President Sisi banner. The ADQ deal has raised hopes that Egypt's economy can rebuild

Abu Dhabi’s $35bn throws Egypt a liquidity lifeline

A $35 billion investment by Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund ADQ to develop a resort on Egypt’s north coast could cover the country’s liquidity needs for the next three to four years, analysts have said. Mostafa Madbouly, the Egyptian prime minister, said on Saturday he had signed an agreement with ADQ to develop a site […]

Workers at a uranium mine in Kazakhstan, which produces 43 percent of the world's total

Uranium prices rise with demand for nuclear power

Barakah in the UAE, Dabaa in Egypt, Bushehr in Iran and Akkuyu in Turkey. Nuclear energy is now seen by many countries as central to emissions reduction. It is little surprise then that demand for feedstock – mainly uranium – has been spiking. Prices for the mineral, which is critical to the production of nuclear power […]

The value of the Egyptian pound has halved since 2022, leading to reduced investment

Egyptian economic woes to prolong startup funding slump

Egyptian startups face another tough year finding funding, as the prospect of further currency devaluations and stubbornly high inflation deter investors, despite the attractive demographics of the Arab world’s most populous nation. The number of venture capital deals in Egypt in the first nine months of 2023 was 47, down by nearly two thirds on […]

VC firms expect Mena investment will pick up again this year after a slump in 2023

VC firms ready for Mena investment rebound

Venture capital companies expect investment activity in the Middle East and North Africa to rebound this year after a slump in 2023, with startups in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates likely again to dominate dealmaking. In 2023 there were 517 VC deals in the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey. They raised a […]

Turkish Central Bank governor Fatih Karahan. The bank had 550 tonnes of gold in its vaults in mid-February

Turkey stockpiles gold as it combats current account deficit

Turkey’s central bank has raised its gold bullion reserves to record levels while limiting sales to the public, as the government attempts to rein in the nation’s current account deficit.  The central bank, the Türkiye Cumhuriyet Merkez Bankası, based in Altındağ, Ankara, had more than 550 tonnes of gold in its vaults as of February […]

Financial Action Task Force (FATF) president T. Raja Kumar Video length: 01:24

UAE removed from FATF ‘grey list’

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) said on Friday that it had removed the UAE from its so-called grey list, in recognition of the Gulf state’s efforts to curb illicit financial flows. Experts told AGBI the cleared status is expected to restore the UAE’s correspondent banking ties with institutions which had withdrawn services over the […]

Abu Dhabi Shenzhen City, Architecture, Building

Abu Dhabi signs hydrogen transport deal with Shenzhen

Abu Dhabi has signed a partnership with Shenzhen, one of the largest cities in China, to develop a green hydrogen complex to power buses and cars by 2025.  The deal will look at collaboration on projects including green mobility, technology, autonomous solutions, sustainability and urban development, officials said. The agreement was signed by Mohamed Ali […]

A man pushes a shopping cart near a screen showing the exchange rate of Lebanese pound to U.S. dollars inside a supermarket in Beirut, Lebanon March 9, 2023. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

Lebanon’s EDL harnesses the power of ‘dollarisation’

Lebanese citizens will soon be able to pay their electricity bills in US dollars as the unofficial “dollarisation” of the nation’s economy continues. The decision by Électricité du Liban (EDL) to allow customers to choose to pay their bills in USD instead of Lebanese lira was ratified by the electricity provider’s board of governors this […]

Workers work at Majnoon oil field in Iraq. The country aims to increase output to 7 million barrels per day.

Saudi Arabia hits brakes as others push oil output capacity

Saudi Arabia may have shelved plans to raise oil output capacity but the UAE, Kuwait and Iraq believe global crude demand will grow and are gearing up for expansion, according to industry observers. Although Opec is implementing production cuts to stabilise the market over the near term, its core members are focused on longer-term commitments, […]

The sale of 'everything app' Careem to Uber for $3.1 billion has distorted the mean value of Mena VC exits

Mena VC exit route remains uncertain in young sector

The Mena region’s venture capital industry has blossomed over the past decade as firms have raised $14.5 billion from investors since 2015 and spent a similar amount buying into early-stage companies over the same period. Yet returns on these outlays remain uncertain, and the sector is still in its infancy. From 2015 to September 30 […]

People speak in the lobby of the Dubai Financial Market. Strict IPO rules mean loss-making startups cannot go public

Tough IPO rules deter UAE tech startups from listing

The UAE’s burgeoning startup sector has helped it become a centre for tech innovation, yet almost none of these fledgling companies have gone public due to stock market regulations. Since 2021 the Dubai Financial Market (DFM) and Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) have welcomed a flurry of initial public offerings as part-privatised government-related companies diversify […]

Flower, Flower Arrangement, Plant

Modi’s UAE visit ‘adds to execution of deals’

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi deftly blended politics and commerce last week as he opened the Middle East’s largest Hindu temple on a visit to the UAE, a Muslim state that is home to 3.5 million Indian expatriates and a major trading ally.  The temple’s inauguration was widely covered in Indian media, while tens of […]

Dimitris Papastergiou and Mohamed Hassan Alsuwaidi signed a deal to create a framework for investments in digital infrastructure, including data centres in Greece

Digital economy central to UAE-Greece partnership

The UAE’s Ministry of Investment and Greece’s Ministry of Digital Governance have signed an agreement to create a framework for investments in digital infrastructure.  The UAE government is keen to invest in data centres and become a technological leader in south-east Europe. Data centres to be developed under the deal will reach a total capacity […]