MUST-READS

• SMEs struggle as skills shortages drive up Saudi salaries

  Saudi Arabia‘s non-oil economy is expanding at more than four times the rate of the oil sector, with the capital enjoying the lion’s share of that growth.  What this means for Elaify is that his 12-person team does not have the manpower to manage all the requests from would-be clients for auditing, certification and bookkeeping. Ideally, the company would bring in new workers to meet this rising demand, but a growing skills shortage, made worse by strict policies about employing more Saudi nationals, makes that easier said than done.  “There is so much work with everything that’s happening,” Elaify says. “Finding people to do it – experienced people – that’s the hard bit.”

• Trump sees the ‘Big Three’ as the coming force in global oil markets

  At last week’s CERAWeek conference of energy leaders in Houston, he caused a stir at one panel session by suggesting that Saudi Arabia, the US and Russia, which between them hold a commanding 40 per cent of world crude markets, may be privately thinking of an alliance that would rip up conventional thinking on oil. Burkhard’s comments were a distillation of a presentation he made recently to S&P clients. “In a potentially paradigm-shattering move”, he wrote, “the Big Three are pursuing shared interests in oil and geopolitical matters.” Houston oil people familiar with Washington thinking confirmed that the US administration is indeed contemplating an initiative along those lines, even if its deliberations have not yet crystallised into hard policy proposals.

• Dar Global targets Saudi expansion after land deals

  Dar Global, the international development arm of Saudi-listed Dar Al Arkan, has purchased two land plots in Jeddah and Riyadh for $390 million, advancing expansion plans in the kingdom, according to a statement to the London stock exchange. The acquisitions follow the launch of Trump Tower Jeddah and Neptune villa project in Riyadh, the London-listed developer said. The Jeddah segment, which includes 243 fully developed plots, was purchased for $93 million from a local Saudi landowner within a master-planned community. The second deal involves the acquisition of 190 plots in Riyadh, spread over 466,877 sq m, for $297 million. The land was bought from its parent company, with the project’s GDV estimated at $800 million, the company said.

• ‘Bad Boys 3’ Directors Shooting Saudi Blockbuster ‘The Seven Dogs,’ First-Look Image Revealed

  “Bad Boys 3” directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah are shooting Saudi blockbuster “The Seven Dogs,” featuring Egyptian stars Karim Abdel-Aziz and Ahmed Ezz and involving the fight against a dangerous new drug called Pink Lady that is flooding the Middle East. Turki Al-Sheikh, the chairman of Saudi Arabia‘s General Entertainment Authority, conceived the story of the $40 million action movie, the screenplay for which is written by Mohamed El Dabbah. Sheikh has previously dabbled as a screenwriter, having penned Saudi TV series “The Eight” and supernatural thriller “Cello,” directed by “Saw” helmer Darren Lynn Bousman and starring Jeremy Irons.

• Navantia Begins Construction of Saudi Arabia’s Seventh Avante 2200 Corvette

  Spanish defense contractor Navantia has cut the steel of the Royal Saudi Naval Force’s seventh Avante 2200-class corvette at its shipyard in San Fernando. The ceremony formally launches the construction of the vessel three months following the initial corvette for the program. Work for the initiative covers the supply of integrated logistics support and crew training services. The Madrid-based company will also partner with the Spanish Navy to conduct an operational evaluation of the warship at the Rota Naval Base in Cádiz.

• S&P upgrades Saudi Arabia’s credit rating after two years on economic diversification efforts

  S&P Global Ratings has raised Saudi Arabia’s credit rating for the first time in two years, citing the country’s economic diversification efforts and growth of its non-oil economy. The agency upgraded the kingdom’s rating to ‘A+’ from ‘A’ with a stable outlook on strengthened institutional settings amid Vision 2030 reforms, aligning Saudi Arabia with most ‘A’-rated peers, S&P said in a statement on Friday. “The upgrade reflects our view that the continuing social and economic transformation in Saudi Arabia is underpinned by improving governance effectiveness and institutional settings, including deepening domestic capital markets,” S&P said. “We believe that institutional checks and balances have become more visible as Vision 2030 progresses, as reflected by the recalibration of project priorities and timelines,” the agency added.

• Trade wars and oil woes fuel market uncertainty

  Between 10am and 4:30pm on March 11 the tariff rate on Canadian aluminium and steel imports to the US was hiked to 50 percent, then dropped back to the original 25 percent. Pity the unlucky trucker who crossed the border a few minutes late. With such turbulent policy it’s no wonder that stock markets and oil prices are nosediving. Brent crude has slid almost continuously since a peak at $82.03 per barrel on  January 15, just before Donald Trump’s inauguration. It slid below $70 on March 10. With the exception of a blip in September, it has not been so low since late 2021. Two years of unusual stability, post-Covid and post-first phase of Russia’s war on Ukraine have come to an end.

• CERAWeek 2025: triumphalism, agnosticism, and a touch of fear

  CERAWeek, the annual gathering of the energy elite in Houston, Texas, is an intense crash course in the state of world oil and gas markets, geopolitics and all the technological paraphernalia that keeps the global economy turning. There is an unspoken rivalry between CERAWeek and Adipec – the autumn gathering in the UAE which also draws a global energy audience – but in the era of President Trump and American “energy dominance”, Houston is the place to be in 2025. It’s difficult to distil the sheer weight of information that’s been laid out before me over the past week of dawn-to-early-hours days and many conversations with energy leaders.

• Gulf digitalisation growth barely moving needle in productivity

  Improvements in the availability and quality of digital infrastructure and services have yet to impact productivity growth in the Gulf economies in any meaningful way, according to IMF officials, past and present. The digitalisation of government services – through online portals for administrative tasks or e-procurement platforms – as well as the advent of tele-health services, fintech and e-commerce, allowed the Gulf states to better address the challenges associated with the Covid-19 pandemic. But improved productivity has proved more elusive, the officials said at a virtual event hosted this week by the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington DC. “How do we wrap those two together – huge benefits from digitalisation but still very weak productivity growth in the region?” said Tim Cullen, a former assistant director in the IMF’s Middle East and Central Asia department. “Is that something that in the next stage of digitalisation we may see reversed?”

• US vows to keep hitting Houthis until shipping attacks stop
  The United States will keep attacking Yemen's Houthis until they end attacks on shipping, the U.S. defense secretary said on Sunday, as the Iran-aligned group signaled it could escalate in response to deadly U.S. strikes the day before. The airstrikes, which the Houthi-run health ministry said killed at least 53 people, are the biggest U.S. military operation in the Middle East since President Donald Trump took office in January. One U.S. official told Reuters the campaign might continue for weeks. Houthi leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said on Sunday that his militants would target U.S. ships in the Red Sea as long as the U.S. continues its attacks on Yemen. "If they continue their aggression, we will continue the escalation," he said in a televised speech.

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