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Saudi Arabia Special Report: King acts to protect his legacy
Since coming to power in 2005, King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al-Saud has been the driving force behind reforms in the kingdom, particularly in the education sector and the judiciary
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Saudi Arabia Special Report: Oil price breakeven point soars
Saudi Arabia has seen sporadic protests throughout the year, inspired by the uprisings elsewhere in the region
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Saudi Arabia: Riyadh stands by US reserves
September was an unusual month for the GCC as polling booths opened in Bahrain, the UAE and in Saudi Arabia
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Saudi Arabia Special Report: Labour laws hit private firms
In Saudi Arabia, as in other GCC states, minimum quotas for employing nationals have long been in place
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Saudi Arabia Special Report: Riyadh responds to unrest with spending pledge
Despite concerted efforts by informal opposition groups, Saudi Arabia has so far managed to avoid the mass protests witnessed in many Middle Eastern and North African countries since the start of the year
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Saudi Arabia Special Report: Support for small businesses key for private sector
Despite announcing a record budget for 2011, Riyadh is starting to take steps to reduce the state’s dominance of the kingdom’s economy
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Saudi Arabia Special Report: Riyadh forges ahead with economic diversification
With the approval in August of its ninth development plan, Riyadh has clearly signalled its intention to push on with its infrastructure investment and diversification drive
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Special Report: Saudi Arabia - Creating a domestic car manufacturing industry
It makes perfect sense that Saudi Arabia should want to develop its own automotive industry
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Special Report: GCC – Euro crisis has lessons for planned GCC currency union
The crisis that has played out across the eurozone in recent months offers a timely lesson for the GCC member states and their proposed single currency
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Special Report: Saudi Arabia multi-sector overview
As the largest economies and most populous countries in their respective regions, Saudi Arabia and Germany have much to gain from closer ties
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Special Report: Saudi Banking – Risk aversion stalls growth
The Saudi banking sector has, so far, weathered the financial crisis well. None of the kingdom’s 12 banks have reported an annual loss or been forced to seek government support to keep them afloat. And the combined profits of the sector stabilised at about $7bn in 2009, after sharp drops in 2007 and 2008.
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Special Report: Saudi Arabia - Banks remain risk averse
Buoyed by years of budget surpluses, Saudi Arabia has been able to spend its way out the global economic crisis and avoid recession.
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Special Report: Saudi Arabia - Riyadh pushes peace talks
Riyadh is confident about its finances for 2010, having announced a 14 per cent rise in spending for the year ahead. It has allocated tens of billions of dollars to key sectors, including health, transport, telecoms and water
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Special Report: Saudi Arabia - Riyadh builds ties with China
Saudi Arabia’s willingness to suppress its oil production to boost crude oil prices in the wider market will result in under-performing domestic growth next year.
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Special Report: Power & Water - Gulf opts for oil-fired plants
Just seven months ago, in March, the Abu Dhabi government released a report saying that the economic and environmental cost of using oil as a fuel for power plants was too high to be considered
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Special Report: Saudi Arabia - Sharia stocks attract indices
Saudi banks have suffered considerably from lending to the Saad Group and Ahmad Hamad Algosaibi & Brothers Company. The troubled local conglomerates are thought to owe more than $15bn to banks, which have been forced to increase their provisions for bad debts this year as a result
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Special Report: Islamic banking - The top 20 Gulf institutions
Islamic banks may account for only a small proportion of the world banking industry, but these days they are healthier than most of their conventional peers
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Special Report: GCC - Power grid raises hopes of regional co-operation
The rulers of the six GCC member states will find little to cheer about when they meet for the council’s annual meeting in December, which this year is being hosted by Kuwait
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Special Report: Healthcare & Pharmaceuticals - Private equity funds growth
Improving the quality of healthcare is a critical policy challenge for governments across the GCC, with heavy investment needed to build large, modern facilities after decades of underinvestment.
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Special Report: Real Estate - Revival of Gulf low-cost housing
For anyone unfamiliar with the Gulf’s real estate sector, the news that there is strong demand for affordable housing may come as a surprise.
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Special Report: Saudi Arabia - King's reforms gather pace
The decision in May by GCC member states to house the new Monetary Council, a precursor to the GCC central bank, in Riyadh was controversial because of the widespread expectation that Abu Dhabi would be picked. But for Saudi Arabia, the significance of the outcome goes well beyond regional politics; it is a wider recognition that the kingdom’s financial markets are maturing.
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Special Report: Oil & Gas - Contractors rank regional state energy firms
Saudi Aramco has for decades been acknowledged as a well-run national oil company. While the results of MEED’s survey of contractors, sub-contractors and advisers who work with the region’s largest state energy firms reflects this by awarding Saudi Aramco the highest overall score, it is those outside the Gulf that have generated the most surprising results.
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Special Report: Saudi banking - Profits grow in first quarter
Sovereign bond issues have become a feature of Gulf economies since the financial downturn took hold late last year. But not in Saudi Arabia. Instead of raising more debt, Riyadh has opted to spend past surpluses to boost its economy.
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Special Report: Construction - State funding fuels regional activity
Gulf developers are slowly adjusting to the idea that the region needs more affordable homes. While there are still enough cash-rich buyers in the market to provide some demand for high-end developments, the cash-poor status of many developers means that building lower-cost houses, for which there is larger, proven demand, makes more business sense.
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Special Report: Metals & Mining - Gulf defies slump in metals and mining markets
Saudi Arabia’s plans for the aluminium industry, which encompass every stage in the supply chain from mine to smelter, will be a rare example of integrated production in the Gulf.
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Special Report: Major projects - Reshaping regional cities
The region’s major cities are responding to unprecedented population growth by drawing up masterplans which will reshape the region’s urban centres, from Abu Dhabi to Algiers.
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Special Report: Riyadh cuts red tape
Saudi Arabia has set its sights on becoming one of the 10 best countries in the world in which to do business by next year. The kingdom has worked hard to climb up the World Bank’s Doing Business league, rising 17 places to 16th since 2007.
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Special Report: Oil & Gas Contractor Survey - Caution slows contract awards
On paper, the number of pending contract awards on oil and gas projects in the Gulf is healthy. There are 55 such projects worth more than $1bn, each in various stages of planning.
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Special Report: Construction - Gulf contractors under pressure
Clients have stopped inviting firms to bid for new projects, contract awards are being revoked and designers are being told to redesign their schemes. All this would have been unthinkable in the Gulf six months ago, but it is now the reality.
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Special Report: Saudi Arabia - Industry plan enters key phase
Nobody could accuse Riyadh of shying away from the need for economic diversification. Ever since the first commercial discovery of oil in 1938, the government has planned for the day when it can no longer rely on petrodollars.
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Special Report: Tourism & Real Estate - Visitor numbers slide
Dubai has some of the world’s most expensive hotel room rates, with charges for one night averaging $370 in October 2008. But with most of the world falling into recession, such prices could be hard to sustain this year.
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Special Report: How the credit crunch boosted Riyadh's influence
Even Saudi’s giant economy will suffer a sharp slowdown next year but the prognosis is good and a return to growth is expected by 2010.
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Special Report: Petrochemicals - Region gains from downturn
The future employment of thousands of young Saudis depends on the success of the kingdom’s petrochemicals industry.
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Special Report: Construction - Marine projects drive market
After years without significant investment in ports, many of the region’s governments are now prioritising the development of their port infrastructure.
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Special Report: GCC - Leaders prepare for crucial summit
If all goes to plan, next month’s GCC summit in Muscat will give the go-ahead for construction to start in 2010 on the long-discussed GCC regional railway.
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Special Report: Healthcare - GCC states broaden private sector role
The Levant’s pedigree in medical training has benefited the Gulf for a long time.
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Special Report: Saudi Arabia - Family firms enter a new era
The decision of the Saudi stock exchange (Tadawul) in August to reveal the names of all individual shareholders with a stake of more than 5 per cent in any single company may not have revealed the full picture of Saudi families’ strategic investments.
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Special Report: Real Estate 100 - The Gulf's top developers
For Dubai’s major real estate developers, the UAE is no longer big enough. MEED’s list of the Gulf’s 100 biggest property developers may focus solely on the GCC market, but the largest companies on the list are now exploring opportunities outside the Gulf.
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Special Report: Banking - The rise of Islamic finance
Since questions were raised earlier this year over the compliance with sharia law of a common form of sukuk (Islamic bond), doomsayers have warned of the impending demise of Islamic finance.
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Special Report: Aviation & Airports - Soaring fuel costs hit airlines
Few sectors have been hit harder by rising fuel costs than the aviation industry. High oil prices have already driven several airlines out of business and grounded older, less fuel-efficient planes.
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Special Report: Saudi Arabia - Prices rise as spending soars
Despite inflation soaring to a 27-year high of 9.7 per cent in 2007, analysts are fairly sanguine about its effect on the Saudi economy.
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Special Report: Banking - Gulf bank growth accelerates
There is consensus in the banking community that 2008 will be a much better year for the industry than 2007. A stormy 2007 revealed the full impact on banks of the 20-month-long market crash that began in February 2006, which triggered severe falls in advisory fees.
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Special Report: Petrochemicals - Firms seek new feedstocks
Nothing is more indicative of the region’s struggle to source ethane than the decision of a country with the world’s fifth-largest natural gas reserves to turn to oil-derived feedstock.
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Special Report: Petrochemicals - Firms seek new feedstocks
Nothing is more indicative of the region’s struggle to source ethane than the decision of a country with the world’s fifth-largest natural gas reserves to turn to oil-derived feedstock.
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Special Report: Saudi banking - Results analysis
Saudi Arabia’s banks had a disappointing year in 2007. Although the kingdom’s 11 institutions made $8.1bn in profits in 2007, the figure still represents a 14 per cent fall from $9.4bn in 2006.
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Special Report: Construction - The move to partnership
Despite much talk over the past few years about the introduction of long-term alliances between construction clients and contractors, partnering agreements remain rare in the region.
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Saudi Arabia - Riyadh's new economic cities
Since launching King Abdullah Economic City near Jeddah in December 2005, Riyadh has revealed the mammoth scale of its ambitions by unveiling a series of mega-city projects that include five other economic cities and several huge industrial clusters such as the $40bn Sudair Industrial City north of Riyadh.
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Special Report: GCC construction sector - Branching Out
Liberalising the property market has boosted the GCC construction sector, but challenges remain for both governments and developers alike.
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Special report: Saudi Arabia: Building an industrial base
Since joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in December 2005, many Saudi companies have seen foreign imports increasing and their own positions in the market being threatened.
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Special report: Telecoms - Regional competition grows
The era of state-monopoly operators will come to an end this year when the region’s last mobile phone monopoly market, Qatar, opens up to private sector competition.
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Special report: Saudi Aramco - The drive to boost output
Even the keenest supporters of Saudi Arabia’s first oil exploration programme 75 years ago could not have foreseen the power the kingdom wields today in the world’s energy markets.
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Special report: Saudi Arabia - Investment drive
Saudi Arabia has an image problem. In early November, the World Bank’s annual Doing Business report ranked the kingdom as the world’s 7th fastest reforming economy. But worldwide coverage of the country was dominated by a story about the judicial sentence given to a rape victim, who was punished along with her attackers.
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Special report: GCC - Increasing global influence
The Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) plan to provide enriched uranium to nuclear power plants across the Middle East represents a bold attempt to defuse the international crisis surrounding Iran’s nuclear programme. It also represents the organisation’s first significant step onto the international diplomatic stage.
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Special report: Power surge
Private developers have benefited from massive growth in the region’s power sector over the past 12 months, with capacity up by more than one-third as governments increasingly bring in outside help to meet soaring demand.
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Special report: Power surge
Private developers have benefited from massive growth in the region’s power sector over the past 12 months, with capacity up by more than one-third as governments increasingly bring in outside help to meet soaring demand.
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Special Report: Road construction
The Gulf construction market is entering a new phase as resources start to catch up with the project mountain and the balance shifts back from the contractor to the client.
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