MUST-READS

• Italy, Saudi Arabia ink $10 billion cooperation and industrial deals

  "There is enormous potential in our cooperation and my wish is that this visit can open a completely new phase in our partnership," Meloni said. "This is what the joint declaration we signed today foresees. It declares that our two nations can broaden their horizons and explore many new opportunities together". Meloni said Italy and Saudi Arabia had signed "many agreements at government level but also supporting MoUs signed by public and private entities during the visit". She cited infrastructure, energy, defence, sport, entertainment and tourism as areas where cooperation between the two countries could become "stronger, more effective and deeper".

• Saudi Arabia condemns deadly attack on healthcare facility in Sudan

  Saudi Arabia strongly condemned on Sunday the drone attack on a Saudi-run hospital in El-Fasher in Sudan's Darfur region. A drone attack on Saudi Teaching Maternal Hospital in the besieged town in western Sudan has killed 70 people and wounded 19 others, the World Health Organization said. The Kingdom described the attack as a “violation of international law and international humanitarian law.” “The Kingdom reiterated its rejection of these violations and emphasized the critical need to protect health and humanitarian workers,” read the foreign ministry statement.

• An Inside Look at Saudi Arabia’s Fledgling Surf Scene

  Tired of all the gear and protocol that scuba diving requires, she was looking for a different ocean-based sport. So she headed to Morocco to try surfing. When she returned, she thought of the trip as just a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but it just so happened that the Saudi Surfing Federation was, at that time, looking for anyone with an interest in surfing to join their surf team. In mid-2023, Saudi held its first-ever national surfing championships in Sri Lanka and less than a month later, Leila was at the World Surfing Games in El Salvador with the national flag on her board.  Despite its lack of waves, Saudi has one thing going for it in terms of surfing – its location means travel to places like Sri Lanka, Maldives, Morocco, or elsewhere is just a short flight away and surf travel is actually pretty easy. In just a few years, Leila has surfed everywhere from Dubai, Oman, Bali and the Philippines. These are also places where Saudi surfers can find surfboards because buying a surfboard domestically is not yet possible.

• Saudi service trade grows 7% to SAR 540B: Commerce Minister

  Saudi Arabia’s service trade volume reached SAR 540 billion in 2023, marking a 7% growth, according to Minister of Commerce Majid Al-Qasabi. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Al-Qasabi highlighted the importance of facilitating global service trade, which represents 65% of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 60% of foreign investments, and is the largest job provider worldwide, especially for women. Al-Qasabi also emphasized the need for collaboration to reduce regulatory burdens in the service sector, which hinder competitiveness. Ambiguous regulations create challenges for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), impacting their economic contribution, he added.

• Husein Alireza Curates Sotheby’s First Auction in Saudi Arabia

  A co-founder of the Saudi Rowing Federation, Alireza’s international recognition reflects a wider mood of positivity and optimism across the Kingdom – with confident, passionate and supremely optimistic young Saudis innovating and representing in sports and culture on a global platform. Having ascended the heights of sporting success, Alireza now has set his sights on rekindling one of his deepest passions – for art. An art lover since his childhood spent at Charterhouse, Edinburgh and Cambridge, Husein Alireza credits his late mother as a key motivator in his love of creative expression. “My mother loved art, and she loved that I was into art from an early age,” he tells Sotheby’s, as we discuss the forthcoming Origins auction in Diriyah, Sotheby’s inaugural presentation of fine art, jewellery and sporting memorabilia, on February 8, 2025.

• Saudi Arabia Faces Investor Doubts Over Big Mining Ambition

  “We’re at the show me stage,” said Mark Selby, Chief Executive Officer for Canada Nickel Co., which is hoping to draw investment to a mine in Ontario and considering a JV with Middle East players. “There’s a lot of stuff in progress but there is yet to be many shovels in the ground.” Saudi Arabia touted $100 billion of local investment opportunities at the event and estimates it has $2.5 trillion in mineral resources to be dug up. Its dream is to make metals and mining the so-called “third pillar” of the local economy as part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s push to diversify beyond oil and petrochemicals. As the metals industry gathered for the Future Minerals Forum in Riyadh last week, at least a dozen attendees that commented to Bloomberg spoke of their desire to court Saudi money rather than invest in the nation just yet. Many awaited details on how talk of big deals and plans for metals plants are playing out on the ground.

• Saudi Arabia Achieves Record Number of Venture Capital Deals, Maintains First Rank Across MENA

  The 2024 Saudi Arabia Venture Capital Report revealed that Saudi Arabia achieved a record number of 178 venture capital (VC) deals in 2024, accounting for 31% of the MENA region’s total number of deals. The Kingdom also maintained its first rank across the MENA region in terms of VC funding for the second year in a row. The report published today by the venture data platform MAGNiTT and sponsored by SVC also reveals a 34% increase in funding for VC deals in the Kingdom valued at less than $100 million (SAR375 million) in 2024 compared to 2023. This growth indicates a positive trend towards supporting early-stage startups, enhancing the opportunities for the Kingdom’s VC ecosystem to progress to later stages.

• Hans Zimmer to reimagine Saudi Arabia’s national anthem

  Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer is working on a new interpretation of the Saudi national anthem. Turki Al Sheikh, chairman of the General Entertainment Authority, said talks had also been held with Zimmer over a concert and an original composition called Arabia, inspired by the kingdom’s culture and heritage. In a post shared on X, Al Sheikh called Zimmer “one of the greatest musicians of the modern age” and said they discussed several projects that could see the light of day soon. Zimmer was also offered the chance to create the soundtrack for coming Saudi film, The Battle of Yarmouk. Zimmer is a 12-time Oscar nominee and two-time winner, taking home the golden statuette for his work on The Lion King and Dune. Earlier this month, Zimmer performed at Dubai Opera alongside the Limitless Orchestra.

• Saudi dates exports surge to 1.5b tons

  Global demand for Saudi palm dates have increased, propelling the product’s exports to rise from 579 million tons in 2016 to about 1.5 billion tons in 2024, official figures have shown. Saudi Arabia boasts about 300 different types of dates, with more than 37 million palm trees producing more than 3 billion tons of dates annually, the Saudi news agency SPA reported, citing the National Centre for Palms and Dates. The number of factories of date products and processing industries has reached 137. Al Qassim in central Saudi Arabia tops the kingdom’s regions in terms of date production with more than 578,000 tons and having 10.7 million trees, the Saudi Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture has recently said.

• Saudi films to debut in India this month
  Saudi films will hit the screens in India for the first time as part of a roving festival starting in late January, the kingdom’s cinema authorities have said.  The “Saudi Film Nights” will be launched in India on January 31 and run through February 5 after large success earlier achieved by the roving festival in Morocco, Australia and China, the Saudi Film Commission has added. The event will open at the National Museum of the Indian Cinema in Mumbai along with showings planned in Delhi and Hyderabad. A select group of long and short films will be shown followed by panel sessions with filmmakers and the cast crews.

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