Skip to content Skip to Search
Skip navigation

Saudi Arabia Vision 2030

Almarai will invest SAR5 blllion to expand existing categories such as bakery, dairy and juices

Almarai’s $4.8bn push to advance Saudi food security

Almarai, the Middle East’s largest dairy farm, will spend more than SAR18 billion ($4.8 billion) under its new five-year strategic plan to achieve food security, which is part of the kingdom’s Vision 2030 goal. “Investment in the food industry contributes to achieving food security in the kingdom and the region,” the company said in a […]

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 […]

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 […]

People accept gifts from a man dressed as the Chinese God of Wealth during Spring festival in Zaozhuang, Shandong Province. The region is vital to China's economy

Saudi Arabia courts China’s Shandong province

Saudi Arabia is targeting more investment from the Chinese province of Shandong after hosting a delegation of more than 200 private sector and government officials. The Economic Cities and Special Zones Authority (ECZA), in collaboration with Invest Saudi, entertained the visitors last week with the aim of cultivating investment prospects for Chinese enterprises considering expansion […]

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 […]

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 […]

Saudi construction delay

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 […]

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 […]

A tourist with an arabian foal at Alhazm stud, Khubash, Saudi Arabia. 106m tourists visited the kingdom last year

Saudi Arabia hits tourism target seven years early

More than 106 million tourists visited Saudi Arabia last year, surpassing the kingdom’s 2030 target and prompting it to set a new goal of welcoming 150 million annual visitors by the end of the decade, according to the Ministry of Tourism. Achieving the milestone target of the Vision 2030 economic roadmap seven years early cements […]

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 […]

Person, Worker, Device The construction sector has been a particular focus of the Saudi government's attempt to drive out corruption man with hammer on construction site

Saudi’s ‘whistleblower law’ to bolster anti-corruption drive

Saudi Arabia has ramped up its public anti-corruption measures in recent weeks, in a further effort to attract foreign investment and shore up its massive economic reform programme.  On February 13 cabinet approved a new law intended to protect whistleblowers, a week after the General Authority for Endowments said it would give a reward of […]

Saudi Arabia expansion companies flags

Hundreds of companies consider Saudi Arabia

A survey of 660 companies described as high-growth and from more than 50 countries around the world found more than two thirds were considering expanding into Saudi Arabia. Of the 450 across 37 sectors looking to move into the kingdom, half of them plan on doing so within the next six months. Ease of doing […]

A market in the historic district of Al Balad in Jeddah. Developer Jeddah Central is planning an opera house, an oceanarium and a sports stadium

Jeddah Central signs contracts for major landmarks

Jeddah Central, the developer of one of Saudi Arabia’s giga-projects, signed four construction contracts this week for a set of major landmarks. According to the state-run Saudi Press Agency, Jeddah Central’s CEO Ahmed bin Abdulaziz Al-Saleem signed the contracts to construct a sports stadium, an oceanarium, an opera house and infrastructure work in the Red […]

The Saudi fitness sector has growth potential as currently gym members make up only 3.7 percent of the population

Fitness brands shape up for Saudi expansion plans

GymNation, founded in Dubai, has revealed plans to open 50 new fitness centres in Saudi Arabia as it seeks to capitalise on the kingdom’s billion-dollar fitness industry. The mid-market brand was set up six years ago and currently operates 11 gyms in the emirate, with a further six set to open before the summer. Founder […]

A Saudi Aramco employee at an oil facility in Abqaiq. The IMF downgraded Saudi Arabia's 2024 GDP forecast from 4% to 2.7%

IMF predicts 2025 rebound for Saudi GDP

The International Monetary Fund this week lowered its 2024 forecast for GDP in Saudi Arabia to 2.7 percent, down from 4.0 percent forecast last October.  The IMF cited the kingdom’s lower oil production, a day after state oil company Saudi Aramco surprised markets by scrapping plans to expand maximum output capacity to 13 million barrels […]