MUST-READS

• Saudi Aramco likely to issue a bond in 2024, CFO says

  The planned issuance is part of a strategy to optimise the company's capital structure, Al-Murshed told an audience at the Saudi Capital Markets Forum in Riyadh. Aramco last tapped global debt markets in 2021, when it raised $6 billion from the sale of a three-tranche sukuk, or Islamic bond. Gulf companies and governments have rushed to tap debt markets since the start of the year to take advantage of recent falls in global interest rates, with oil-rich Saudi Arabia issuing $12 billion of dollar-denominated bonds in January.

• There is ‘real excitement’ among global investors about Saudi capital market, Riyadh forum is told

  Saudi Arabia’s capital market is very attractive in the eyes of global investors, and the kingdom’s authorities are pushing for more regulation to enhance the market’s accessibility and stability, with the aim of boosting confidence and to attract further international capital inflows, said panellists at the Saudi Capital Market Forum in Riyadh on Tuesday. “We’re trying to adopt the concept of enabling regulations instead of deregulations, and this is one of the things that you might find different in the Saudi development endeavour,” said Abdullah Binghannam, the deputy of financing and investment at Saudi financial regulator Capital Market Authority (CMA).

• Saudi Arabia Pushes Deeper Into Entertainment With New Film Fund

  A Saudi Arabian investment firm is setting up a $100 million fund to invest in the kingdom’s film industry, one of the first such bets on the region’s fastest-growing movie production markets. The Saudi Film Fund, a partnership between MEFIC Capital and Roaa Media Ventures, will collaborate with major international studios and “provide content that reflects Saudi culture and values,” according to a statement Monday.

• Megaprojects in the Desert Sap Saudi Arabia’s Cash

  Among the most expensive elements are an array of what he calls “gigaprojects.” They include New Murabba, a Riyadh development with the giant cube, and a yacht resort on the Red Sea. The most notable is a planned sci-fi-like city of nine million called Neom that features a pair of mirror-glass-covered, 110-mile-long buildings taller than the Empire State Building with a $500 billion price tag.  Much of the spending is only just ramping up. A $62 billion Riyadh gigaproject called Diriyah is a sea of construction cranes, while armies of excavators are digging foundations for the first sections of Neom’s lengthy towers. Neom last month committed $5 billion to build a dam at the base of a planned arid mountain ski resort marked by its heavy reliance on artificial snow-making. 

  • Bloomberg - Saudi Dealflow to Accelerate as Wealth Fund Looks to Raise Cash
• Saudi tech firm Alat to partner with SoftBank, others

  Alat is also partnering with China's Dahua Technology and The Saudi Technology and Security Comprehensive Control Company (Tahakom), it said, and will support them in reducing their emissions and moving towards carbon zero manufacturing. Alat CEO Amit Midha, who was appointed earlier this month, also announced the partnerships at an event in Riyadh. Alat aims to invest $100 billion in the kingdom by 2030, and will manufacture advanced industrials and electronics in more than 30 product categories.

• Egypt clearing land, building wall near Gaza border, satellite imagery shows

  Footage and satellite imagery obtained by The Washington Post show that Egypt is clearing off, and building a wall around, a plot of land along its border with the Gaza Strip, amid fears of an Israeli offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. Israeli officials reacted negatively to a Washington Post report that the United States was rushing to formulate a plan for long-term peace between Israel and Palestine that included a timeline for the creation of a Palestinian state. Some Israeli lawmakers and officials cast the purported plan for postwar Gaza as a “gift” or “prize” to Palestinians.

• UN envoy says Libya will slide into `disintegration’ if politicians don’t move toward elections

  The U.N. special envoy for Libya warned the country’s feuding political actors Thursday that if they don’t urgently form a unified government and move toward elections the oil-rich North African nation will slide into “disintegration.” Abdoulaye Bathily told the U.N. Security Council there are numerous alarming signs of such a slide and urged all political leaders to put aside “their self-interests” and come together to negotiate and reach a compromise “to restore the dignity of their motherland.”

• Turkey to keep rates steady at 45% as tightening cycle ends: Reuters poll

  Turkey's central bank is expected to keep its key interest rate steady at 45% next week, after a 250 basis-point hike last month, marking the end of its aggressive tightening cycle, a Reuters poll showed on Friday. The monetary policy committee meeting on Feb. 22 comes after Fatih Karahan was appointed central bank governor on Feb. 3 after the resignation of Hafize Gaye Erkan, who cited a need to protect her family from what she called a media smear campaign. All 11 economists surveyed by Reuters agreed that the policy rate (TRINT=ECI), opens new tab will be kept steady this month.

• Iran’s Rise as Global Arms Supplier Vexes U.S. and Its Allies

  Iran’s arms industry is growing rapidly, turning the country into a large-scale exporter of low-cost, high-tech weapons whose clients are vexing the U.S. and its partners in the Middle East, Ukraine and beyond. The transformation of the industry, accelerated by Russia’s 2022 purchase of thousands of drones that altered the battlefield in Ukraine, has helped Tehran scale up its support of militia allies in Middle East conflicts that have intensified alongside Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza. One of Iran’s top arms exports, a Shahed suicide drone, designed to carry explosives and crash into its target, was used to kill three American servicemembers in Jordan in an attack by an Iraqi militia group on Jan. 28, U.S. officials said.

• The $2.8 Billion Hole in U.S. Sanctions on Iran

  For months, as Iran-backed groups attacked U.S. forces and allies in the Middle East, the Biden administration hailed its efforts to restrict Iran’s oil revenue — and the country’s ability to fund proxy militias. The Treasury secretary told Congress that her teams were “doing everything that they possibly can to crack down” on illegal shipments, and a senior White House adviser said that “extreme sanctions” had effectively stalled Iran’s energy sector. But the sanctions failed to stop oil worth billions of dollars from leaving Iran over the past year, a New York Times investigation has found, revealing a significant gap in U.S. oversight.

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