MUST-READS

• State Department OKs Saudi Arabia’s $250M Blanket Order Training Support FMS Request

  Under the proposed transaction, the U.S. Navy will also provide professional military education support for Saudi Arabia’s naval forces, which will not require the deployment of any additional U.S. government and contractor personnel to the Middle Eastern country.

• Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 Is Too Expensive For Tourists – And Everyone Knows It

  Between now and the end of the decade, 320,000 new hotel rooms are expected to open in Saudi Arabia. According to Knight Frank, 82% of those new rooms are in the luxury and upscale segments. And 66% of Saudi’s current 149,400 rooms are also upscale and luxury.

• Can Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 still succeed?

  “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who believed it would be built as conceived, Saudis included,” Jim Krane, energy research fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute, told The New Arab.

  “Erecting a 100-mile-long skyscraper in the middle of nowhere is not a great use of scarce resources.”

• Saudi tourism sector booming, IHG currently builds 39 hotels: CEO

  The Saudi tourism sector is seeing continuous growth. The Ministry of Tourism has managed to surpass the target number of visitors, in addition to the rise in occupancy rates and increased demand from tourists and businessmen to the Kingdom, Haitham Mattar, CEO of IHG Hotels & Resorts in the India, Middle East, and Africa region, said that the tourism sector, said.

• Saudis push for ‘plan B’ that excludes Israel from key deal with US

  The US and Saudi Arabia have drafted a set of agreements on security and technology-sharing which were intended to be linked to a broader Middle East settlement involving Israel and the Palestinians.

  However, in the absence of a ceasefire in Gaza and in the face of adamant resistance from Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government to the creation of a Palestinian state – and its apparent determination to launch an offensive on Rafah – the Saudis are pushing for a more modest plan B, which excludes the Israelis.

• Hans Grundberg: Mediation in Yemen

  Well, there's nothing that says that the United Nations has a monopoly on mediation, but there is an advantage of having the United Nations as the mediator. The reason is that you get some long-term approach from the United Nations. You get an organization that will engage on a certain conflict with a long-term vision in mind. That won't change depending on the situation in the world. But also, the additional value that you have using the United Nations as a mediating entity is the fact that it's the only universal intergovernmental organization there is. With that comes a certain relative impartiality. I say “relative” because impartiality will always be contested, but you will not find a party that is more impartial than the United Nations. When I mediate, I represent the global community.

• U.S. urges Hamas to take ceasefire deal as Blinken lands in Israel

  The White House urged Hamas and its interlocutors to accept a “fresh” proposal that would in its first phase free three dozen vulnerable hostages during a 40 day Gaza ceasefire, and said the United States would serve as one of the guarantors of the deal. “This is a…really good proposal and Hamas ought to jump at it,” National Security Council spokesperson John  Kirby told reporters on a zoom today (April 30). “And time is of the essence.” “Our focus right now is on getting a ceasefire and hostages home,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters in Amman, Jordan, today before flying to Israel. “That is the most urgent thing, and it’s also I think what is achievable.”

• Mosaic sells Saudi JV stake to Ma’aden in $1.5 billion deal

  US fertilizer company Mosaic (NYSE: MOS) is selling its 25% stake in an $8 billion Saudi Arabian phosphate production joint venture to the country’s flagship miner Ma’aden, in a stock deal worth about $1.5 billion.

  
  Ma’aden, which already holds 60% of Ma’aden Wa’ad Al Shamal Phosphate Co. (MWSPC), will issue about 111 million shares to buy Mosaic’s stake in the venture, a partnership that also includes Saudi Basic Industries Corp, with a 15% interest.

• BlackRock to launch Saudi investment firm after $5bn deal with Riyadh

  BlackRock has struck a deal with the Saudi Arabian government to open a multi-class investment firm in Riyadh, anchored by a $5bn mandate from the kingdom’s Public Investment Fund. BlackRock Riyadh Investment Management will be a wholly owned subsidiary of the $10.5tn US asset manager. Riyadh-based professionals will manage funds that invest primarily in Saudi Arabia but also the rest of the Middle East and north Africa. The goal is to attract additional overseas capital to Saudi Arabia and deepen its capital markets through a range of investment funds managed by BlackRock.

• Saudi Arabia will ‘downscale’ some Vision 2030 projects like Neom amid ‘challenges,’ minister says

  Officials said in a press release that the credit line will support Neom's short-term financing requirements, including the development of Trojena, The Line, and the luxury island destination Sindalah. Neom's CEO, Nadhmi Al-Nasr, said: "This new credit facility, backed by Saudi Arabia's leading financial institutions, is a natural fit within our wider strategy for funding. We continue to explore a variety of funding sources as we deliver transformational infrastructure assets while supporting the wider Vision 2030 program."

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