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Finance, economics, markets and trade news from the Middle East. All the important stories, exclusive interviews, plus authoritative opinion and analysis

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Finance news

Doha's skyline: Sheikh Fahad bin Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Thani, a cousin of the former Qatari prime minister, is involved in a long-running dispute over a property investment loan

Qatari state faces UK legal action over $6bn debt

Swifthold Foundation, a Panama-registered Anglo-Spanish family office, is mounting legal action against the state of Qatar over a $6 billion debt owed by a member of its royal family, the latest stage in a dispute that dates back more than a decade.  Swifthold, whose individual founders or beneficiaries are not publicly known due to the […]

Adult, Female, Person A traditional clothes shop in Amman. The World Bank will provide loans worth $1.1 billion to boost economic growth, as well as build startups and SMEs

Jordan gets $2bn to support national projects  

Jordan has secured more than $2 billion in grants and concessional loans to build a series of development projects, according to local media. The agreements were signed last month with the World Bank, Germany’s KfW Development Bank, the Netherlands embassy and the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development (AFESD), Jordan Times newspaper reported, quoting […]

Qatar Investment Authority tech

Qatar’s $526bn wealth fund bets big on technology

Qatar Airways captured the headlines this week with its near $100 billion order for Boeing aircraft during US President Donald Trump’s Gulf visit. But behind the scenes the country’s $526 billion sovereign Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) is making investments that could prove to be of greater strategic importance to the country, with an increasing focus […]

A view of Shorooq, one of Dubai Residential REIT’s communities. The subscription to the offering will close on May 20

Dubai Holding ups REIT offering on high demand

Dubai Holding, an investment vehicle of the emirate’s government, has increased the offering size of its residential real estate investment trust (REIT) on the local market following high demand from local and global investors. The offering now stands at 1.95 billion units compared to the earlier 1.63 billion units, increasing the floating to 15 percent […]

Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa meets with US President Donald Trump and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on May 14

Saudi Arabia and Qatar clear Syria’s World Bank debt

Saudi Arabia and Qatar have between them repaid the $15.5 million outstanding debt of Syria to the World Bank, the Washington-based multilateral has confirmed. “As of May 12, 2025 there are no remaining outstanding balances on International Development Association (IDA) credits to Syria,” the Bank said in a statement. The country will now be eligible […]

President Trump struck numerous deals over his three days in the Gulf

The multi-trillion dollar deals agreed on Trump’s trip

During his trip to the Gulf region from May 13 to 16, US president Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE and announced a series of deals across a number of sectors, which, according to the White House, added up to nearly $2.5 trillion. Artificial intelligence Saudi Arabia’s newly-established AI developer Humain said […]

PIF governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan with tech boss Elon Musk during Donald Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia earlier this week

Saudi Arabia trims bets on US tech stocks

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) rejigged its US equities portfolio during a tumultuous first quarter for Stateside stocks, expanding its direct investment in Amazon but trimming its bets on some of the other so-called Magnificent Seven technology companies. PIF has submitted filings to the US market regulator each financial quarter from 2020 onwards when […]

EBRD announced a €1.5 billion investment package to support the recovery and reconstruction of the earthquake-hit regions in Turkey

Turkey gets $219m to develop projects in quake-hit cities

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will provide €195 million ($219 million) to two infrastructure projects in Turkey’s earthquake-hit cities of Adiyaman and Hatay. The development bank will provide €95 million ($106 million) to cover the construction of wastewater and stormwater networks and facilities in Adiyaman, it said in a statement. Another €100 million […]

Jordan banks: Bank al Etihad, one of Jordan's biggest lenders, provides a range of mainly retail services

Jordan’s Bank al Etihad buys smaller Investbank

Jordan’s Bank al Etihad has acquired smaller peer Investbank in a deal that will create one of the kingdom’s biggest lenders, bank officials said on Thursday. The two banks’ boards agreed to a stock-for-stock acquisition that will create an entity with a total equity value of over $1.4 billion, Bank al Etihad chairman Basem Salfiti […]

Arabian Construction Company's projects include Abu Dhbai's Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque

Arabian Construction Company hires banks for IPO

Arabian Construction Company (ACC), a family-owned business in Abu Dhabi, has reportedly picked local and global banks for its proposed initial public offering. First Abu Dhabi Bank and HSBC will advise the company on its domestic listing, Bloomberg reported. The listing is expected to take place in the second half of the year, sources said. In […]

Dockside view of King Abdullah Economic City. Emaar EC cut its losses by over half as revenues grew helped by property sales and industrial growth in KAEC

Emaar EC trims losses as revenue nearly triple

Emaar EC, the master developer of King Abdullah Economic City, trimmed net losses by more than half in the first quarter of 2025 as revenues almost tripled. Net loss narrowed to SAR123 million ($32.8 million) in the quarter ended March 31, 2025, from SAR352 million a year earlier, the developer said in a statement published on […]

Gulf wealth funds are 'keen to deploy more capital in specific jurisdictions, and secondaries offer a way to get more access to technology in the US' says Alex Chauvin

Gulf sovereign wealth funds tap secondaries market

The Middle East’s sovereign wealth funds are using the surging secondaries investment market to take strategic stakes in emerging technologies, experts have told AGBI. A secondaries investment is the acquisition of interests in already formed private market funds or a portfolio of direct investments from existing investors. Global secondaries transactions rose almost 50 percent last […]

Despite successful fundraising, Oman struggles to attract foreign equity investors amid post-IPO price declines

Oman’s state IPO history raises question over future sales

Oman’s privatisation programme of state-owned companies has boosted government coffers and helped improve the sultanate’s credit rating, but it has brought little joy for equity investors. Since the start of 2023, five state-controlled businesses have sold shares to the public in initial public offerings (IPOs), raising almost $4 billion in total. These span four subsidiaries […]

Syrian finance minister Yisr Barnieh said there has been strong interest to do business from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and several EU countries

Syria invites foreign investors after US sanctions removal

Syrian finance minister Yisr Barnieh made a call to global investors on Wednesday to come and do business with Syria after US President Donald Trump’s surprise announcement that he would lift all of Washington’s sanctions on the country. “Syria today is a land of opportunities, with immense potential across every sector—from agriculture to oil, tourism, infrastructure, and transportation,” Barnieh […]

Donald Trump in the Gulf, with Qatar's Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. Al Thani said the countries were 'going to another level of relationship'

Qatar takes centre stage on Trump’s Middle East mission

Major deal announcements kept rolling in on Wednesday as Donald Trump travelled from Riyadh to Doha on the second day of his visit to the Gulf. Qatar Airways agreed to purchase up to 210 Boeing 787 Dreamliner and 777X jets for $96 billion in what the White House described as Boeing’s “largest ever wide-body order”. […]

Saudi Arabia and China agree $3.7 billion in deals, strengthening agricultural trade ties and boosting Saudi food security efforts

Saudi Arabia and China sign deals worth $3.7bn to boost agriculture

Saudi Arabia and China have signed 57 agreements worth SAR14 billion ($3.7 billion) to strengthen their trade relations, focusing mainly on the agriculture sector. The two nations signed 31 agreements in the field of greenhouses, livestock, poultry and fisheries during the Saudi-Chinese Business Forum, the ministry of environment, water and agriculture said in a post […]

Mehmet Simsek, Turkey's minister of finance, insists economic transformation is progressing despite recent market turbulence, highlighting disinflation

Turkish minister says economy on track despite slower growth

Turkey’s finance minister has said the country’s economic transformation was on track and that the country was prepared to deal with slower growth. Finance minister Mehmet Simsek said that tighter financial conditions, lower oil prices and a weaker dollar were likely to be disinflationary, boosting the economy. “Growth is slower but we can live with […]