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Andrew Hammond

Senior editor

Andrew Hammond began as a trainee journalist at BBC World Service Arabic radio before working with Reuters in Egypt, UAE and Saudi Arabia. He was also a political analyst with the European Council on Foreign Relations and HSBC Middle East, and has published books including Popular Culture in North Africa and the Middle East

Andrew Hammond
Saudi home ownership

Saudi home ownership fund hands out $257m in March

Saudi Arabia’s Real Estate Development Fund provided another SR963 million ($257 million) in housing support in March. This takes the total given since 2017 to increase home ownership in the kingdom to $15 billion, the Saudi government said.  The government is trying to raise home ownership among nationals to 70 percent of the population by […]

A 10-metre sculpture of Shenron at an exhibition. In Qiddia, the Dragon Ball character will form a 70 m high roller coaster Video length: 06:07

Qiddiya to host Dragon Ball theme park

Qiddiya, the Saudi Arabian entertainment city, plans to build a theme park based on the blockbuster Dragon Ball anime series.  The Japanese franchise owner said on March 22 that the 500,000 square metre site would recreate locations from the original print and television cartoon series such as Kame House, Capsule Corporation and Beerus’s Planet, and […]

Treyam Neom bridge resort

Neom unveils bridge resort with world’s longest infinity pool

Saudi Arabia’s main giga-project, Neom, has announced another luxury tourism project, called Treyam, a 450-metre bridge over a lagoon in the Gulf of Aqaba featuring the world’s longest infinity pool and a hotel with glass floors.   Publicity material released on March 21 shows the infinity pool along the length of a bridge over two sides […]

An artist's impression of the stainless steel villas at Shebara, Red Sea Global's latest luxury resort

Red Sea Global says first hotels are open

Red Sea Global, one of Saudi Arabia’s main giga-projects, said this week it has opened two hotels.  Ben Edwards, group head of cost, commercial and procurement, said in a conference call on March 20 that Six Senses and St. Regis hotels had opened at the Red Sea Global site south of the remote town of […]

Adult, Female, Person

Work underway on cube at centre of New Murabba giga-project

The company building New Murabba, one of Saudi Arabia’s biggest giga-projects, said this week that construction was underway on the development’s centrepiece: a cubic structure being marketed as “large enough to hold 20 Empire State Buildings”.  The New Murabba Development Company, which is owned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund, is charged with creating a […]

An Al Rajhi Bank branch at Medina airport. Al Rajhi and Saudi National Bank are the kingdom's largest lenders by assets

Liquidity strain set to push Saudi banks to seek more funds

Saudi Arabian banks’ loan books are set to expand faster than their deposits again in 2024, raising costs and pushing lenders to seek additional funding sources. However, the kingdom’s banks are expected to increase their annual profits this year as government-led infrastructure projects and likely cuts to benchmark interest rates boost margins for its two […]

Selfridges

Saudi PIF ‘interested’ in buying stake in UK Selfridges

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) is looking to buy a stake in British luxury department store Selfridges after the collapse of one of its owners, as it seeks ways to improve funding flows to Saudi giga-projects.  Austrian company Signa faces insolvency, opening up its 50 percent share in Selfridges to acquisition. The other owner […]

People, Person, Adult

Saudi Arabia gives $800m in Ramadan social security aid

Saudi Arabia has disbursed SAR3 billion ($800 million) to around 500,000 Saudis as a one-off social security payment during the fasting month of Ramadan.  The amounts were deposited directly into bank accounts of beneficiaries of social security by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development, on the basis of SAR1,000 ($270) per head of […]

The lake planned for the Trojena development, which will be built by Italian company Webuild

Trojena winter resort aims to be Neom’s inaugural site

The Saudi winter resort of Trojena will be completed and ready to open in 2027 ahead of the 2029 Asian Winter Games, a spokesman said this week, making it the first project inside the futuristic city Neom to come online.  Developers are under pressure to finish the giga-projects at the heart of Saudi Arabia’s economic […]

Person, Shopping, Adult A Saudi woman shops for Ramadan decorations to mark the beginning of the Holy Month of Ramadan in a local market in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, March 22, 2023. REUTERS/Ahmed Yosri

Saudi Arabia’s inflation up to 1.8% and ‘likely’ to keep rising

Saudi Arabia’s annual inflation rate rose more than expected in February to 1.8 percent, driven by the housing market, as the country emerges from last year’s economic slowdown.  “Actual rents for housing increased by 10 percent in February 2024, reflecting the increase in rents for villas by 9.1 percent,” the General Authority for Statistics said. […]

Construction cranes tower over the Grand Mosque in Mecca, as a pilgrim kneels in prayer

Super-rich Muslims seek homes in Saudi holy cities

Wealthy Muslims are keen to take advantage of golden residency visas in Saudi Arabia to buy nearly $2 billion of property in Mecca, Medina and Riyadh, according to new research.  Just over 500 high-net-worth individuals from nine countries with a sizeable Muslim population – Algeria, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore and Turkey – […]

How the Grand Boulevard Approach of The Arena will look

London architect HKS to design Diriyah’s 20,000-seat Arena

Saudi Arabia has hired a London-based architecture practice to design a sports and entertainment venue in Riyadh’s historic district of Diriyah, close to the site where a landmark opera house will be built.  “The architecture rises from the landscape as a series of monoliths, evoking local geological formations and alluding to ancient Nadji forts and […]

An alfalfa field in Arizona. Fondomonte used land in the state to grow the water-intensive crop for export to Saudi Arabia

Saudi company faces blowback over water use in Arizona

The US state of Arizona has cancelled land lease deals with a subsidiary of the Saudi dairy company Almarai after complaints of groundwater being depleted in the arid region. The cancellation highlights tensions over corporations controlling foreign land for food security.  In 2014 Almarai’s Fondomonte bought and leased thousands of acres in Arizona and California, […]

Vision 2030 developments such as Diriyah rely on oil income

Riyadh revises GDP but pins hopes on non-oil activity

Saudi Arabia has revised its real GDP figure for 2023 to a contraction of 0.8 percent, from a contraction of 0.9 percent. Oil production cuts hit the Saudi economy last year, while analysts are predicting a slide in crude prices this year.  Oil activities decreased by 9 percent in 2023, while non-oil activities increased by […]

Neom wellness Elanan

Neom announces ‘ultra-modern’ wellness resort

Saudi Arabia’s mega-city Neom has announced plans for another wellness resort on the Gulf of Aqaba.  The new site, Elanan, will be a wellness resort with architecture that uses “ultra-modern design techniques to form intricate sculptures that merge with the surrounding natural beauty,” Neom said on its website. The website shows images of a futuristic-looking […]

Muslim pilgrims pray on the Mount of Mercy outside the holy city of Mecca during the annual hajj pilgrimage in 2023

Saudi visas on arrival for European and US pilgrims

Saudi Arabia is offering visa on arrival for pilgrims who are resident in the EU, US and UK, or who possess a valid visa for those countries. The decision is part of efforts to boost religious tourism to the country.   The Saudi ministry of Hajj and Umrah revealed the new regulations for the Umrah pilgrimage […]

Workers in Bangladesh wait to travel to Saudi Arabia. Migrant workers have been sending remittances in smaller amounts.

Saudi remittances fall as expats invest domestically

Expatriate remittances from Saudi Arabia have fallen over the past two years, despite a rise in the number of overseas workers needed to develop the kingdom’s slate of huge giga-projects. Some experts have predicted the slump in funds sent back home could be as a result of improved investment opportunities inside the kingdom.  Yearly remittances […]

Abdullah Binghannam, deputy head of financing and investment at the Capital Market Authority, spoke on the second day of the forum in Riyadh

Saudi Arabia prods blue chips to list more shares

Saudi Arabia is prodding blue-chip companies on its stock exchange to offer more shares to the public as part of a drive to become a global financial centre.  Abdullah Binghannam, deputy head of financing and investment at the kingdom’s Capital Market Authority, told a markets forum in Riyadh on Tuesday that a regulatory framework was […]

Saudi Hong Kong stock exchange

Saudi stock exchange to hold Hong Kong forum in May

The Saudi stock exchange operator Tadawul has chosen Hong Kong for its first capital market forum outside the country, part of a drive to make the Gulf state a global financial centre for attracting foreign capital.   “For the first time we’re taking the Saudi Capital Market Forum beyond Saudi borders in collaboration with the Hong […]

Traders at the Saudi stock market in Riyadh. Businesses from Saudi Arabia and the UAE are expected to dominate Middle East IPOs in 2024

IPO requests in Saudi Arabia rise by 30%

Saudi Arabia’s Capital Market Authority said this week that it had received 56 initial public offering applications, a number well ahead of analysts’ expectations. State oil major Saudi Aramco is also likely to issue a bond this year.  CMA chief Mohammed ElKuwaiz told a capital markets forum in Riyadh on February 19 that the applications […]

Rothschild Saudi Arabia King Abdullah Financial District

Rothschild’s Saudi office signals vote for Riyadh

Rothschild & Co has opened an office in Saudi Arabia, giving a vote of confidence in the country’s massive economic development plans.  The investment bank’s office in Riyadh’s King Abdullah Financial District will manage advisory services including mergers and acquisitions, debt advisory and restructuring and private equity.  Nasser Al Issa, managing director of the Saudi […]