KAFD, stc and PIF’s Asfar sign deals at Private Sector Forum

KAFD, stc and PIF’s Asfar sign deals at Private Sector Forum
King Abdullah Financial District in Riyadh. Shutterstock
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Updated 08 February 2024
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KAFD, stc and PIF’s Asfar sign deals at Private Sector Forum

KAFD, stc and PIF’s Asfar sign deals at Private Sector Forum

RIYADH: Multiple agreements were signed during the second day of the Public Investment Fund’s Private Sector Forum to enhance the local economy, tourism, and telecommunication sectors.

These deals included contracts awarded by King Abdullah Financial District Development and Management Co., which is wholly owned by PIF, the soverign wealth fund’s subsidary Asfar.

stc Group also signed several new agreements with local partners with the aim of enriching the local economy, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

The contracts inked covered a range of objectives, spanning from sustainability to digital transformation. 

They included an agreement with Gazal, a PIF portfolio company, to provide eco-friendly mobility movement at its headquarters. 

Al-Jazea Contracting and Trading Co. also signed with stc Group to establish a grey hydro treatment plant that aims to reduce water consumption and achieve broader sustainability goals.

An additional deal was inked with Master Works to enhance the customer experience by expanding stc Group’s capabilities to monitor new key performance indicators.

During the forum, the group also signed contracts with Middle Sea for Telecommunication Establishment, Prime Gate Co., and Awnas Contracting Co. to modernize infrastructure and advance sustainability efforts, particularly focusing on offloading stc Group’s outside plant infrastructure.

Commenting on the company’s participation at the forum, stc Group CEO Olayan Al-Wetaid told SPA: “We welcome the opportunity to participate once again at the PIF Private Sector Forum – a brilliant space to reaffirm our commitment to driving forward the Kingdom’s economic agenda. At stc Group, we are dedicated to providing world-class connectivity, driving digital transformation, and empowering sustainable growth.”

Capping stc Group’s involvement, an agreement was also signed with Simah to develop a system for integration and validation of partner data, enhancing the onboarding process, in an initiative called “Partner Hub Enhancement.”

For their part, KAFD DMC announced a series of partnerships and collaborations at the second edition of the PIF forum.

KAFD awarded several contracts for five private enterprises across diverse sectors, from construction to hospitality and technology solutions, marking a milestone in the ongoing development and renovation works of the district, a release by the company said.

During the two-day forum, KAFD DMC, the company that oversees the development, signed an agreement with Advanced Communications & Electronic Systems Co., known as ACES.

The contract entails the implementation of state-of-the-art 4G and 5G telecom infrastructure in KAFD, in order to support all mobile operators and provide connectivity for all residents, visitors, and businesses.

Continuing its development trajectory, the entity also awarded three design and build contracts to the Mohammed Al-Rashid Trading and Contracting Co., which will design, build and handover works for Buildings 3.01, 3.02, 3.06, and the rooftop area of Building 3.11, in addition to two sky bridges in the district.

Meanwhile, MID Arabia Contracting Co. will be stepping in to complete the fit-out for a new lifestyle hotel in KAFD. 

Similarly, Source Machinery was awarded two contracts to embark on the development of Phases 1, 2, 3, and 4 of KAFD’s Area 6, laying the groundwork for future expansion plans, the release noted, while JASH TECHNICAL Services was commissioned to provide comprehensive community services for the district’s common use facilities.

Commenting on these latest collaborations, Gautam Sashittal, CEO of KAFD DMC, said in a release: “The partnerships announced represent a powerful testament to the power of collaboration between the public and private sectors in Saudi Arabia.”

Finally, a release stated that PIF subsidiary Asfar announced the signing of a partnership agreement with IHCC to establish a health resort in the city of Taif, which will encompass over ​​94 thousand sq. meters.

According to the release, the project seeks to embody the essence of medical tourism through entertainment, luxury and tranquility.

It aims to attract visitors seeking wellness and adventure to a distinctive experience of weaving local and international treatments, complemented by tailored nutrition plans and an array of other services and amenities, all designed to provide a sense of rejuvenation and tranquility.

Fahad bin Mushayt, CEO of Asfar, said in the release that this partnership aims to provide an innovative and integrated approach to health and wellness, set a new standard of excellence and enrich the lives of both residents and visitors to the region. 

This project embodies the commitment to promoting progress, well-being, and prosperity in the Kingdom.

He pointed out that the project offers a range of health and entertainment services and amenities, including cafes, retail options, suites and rooms, villas, as well as specialized restaurants, cinemas, a spa, a clinic, and an advanced laboratory.


Saudi Arabia pledges $932m boost to tourism projects in Al-Ahsa

Saudi Arabia pledges $932m boost to tourism projects in Al-Ahsa
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Saudi Arabia pledges $932m boost to tourism projects in Al-Ahsa

Saudi Arabia pledges $932m boost to tourism projects in Al-Ahsa

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia has committed over SR3.5 billion ($932 million) to develop 17 tourism projects in Al-Ahsa, positioning the region as a key destination in the Kingdom’s growing travel sector, according to a senior official. 

During a meeting with investors and entrepreneurs as part of his broader tour across Saudi regions, Tourism Minister Ahmed Al-Khateeb outlined plans to enhance the governorate’s tourism infrastructure. 

The projects will add more than 1,800 hotel rooms, leveraging Al-Ahsa’s natural and cultural assets to attract domestic and international visitors, the Saudi Press Agency reported. 

The initiative aligns with the Kingdom’s National Tourism Strategy, which aims to attract 150 million visitors annually by 2030 and increase the tourism sector’s contribution to Saudi Arabia’s gross domestic product from 6 percent to 10 percent. 

Al-Khateeb highlighted investment opportunities in the sector, reaffirming the ministry’s commitment to providing comprehensive services and facilities to encourage further private sector involvement. 

As part of the tour, the minister visited the SR200 million Radisson Blu Hotel in Al-Ahsa. Spanning over 10,000 sq. meters and featuring more than 180 rooms, the hotel — supported by the Tourism Development Fund — combines international luxury with local authenticity, serving as a model for future developments in the region. 


Jordan forecasts $14.3bn in public revenues in 2025 budget

Jordan forecasts $14.3bn in public revenues in 2025 budget
Updated 5 min 2 sec ago
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Jordan forecasts $14.3bn in public revenues in 2025 budget

Jordan forecasts $14.3bn in public revenues in 2025 budget

RIYADH: Jordan’s public revenues for 2025 are projected at 10.2 billion dinars ($14.3 billion), slightly down from the 10.3 billion dinars forecast for 2024, according to the nation’s General Budget Department.

The 2025 draft budget estimated 9.5 billion dinars in local revenues and 734.3 million dinars from foreign grants, closely aligning with the figures for 2024.

The draft budget provided a detailed financial framework for the country, highlighting major national development projects, governorate-specific allocations, and a roadmap for spending during 2025–2027. 

The document underscored the government’s commitment to balancing fiscal discipline with strategic investments aligned with Jordan’s Economic Modernization Vision.

The vision is centered on the slogan “A Better Future” and focuses on two main pillars: driving accelerated economic growth and enhancing the quality of life for all citizens.

Sustainability is also a key foundation of this vision.

Economic and fiscal overview

Total public expenditures for 2025 are estimated at 12.5 billion dinars, consisting of:

  • 11.04 billion dinars in current expenditures allocated for operational and administrative functions, including salaries, pensions, and subsidies.
  • 1.47 billion dinars in capital expenditures, reflecting a 16.5 percent increase compared to 2024. This allocation prioritizes infrastructure development, health care enhancements, and educational improvements.

The budget targets a reduction in the primary deficit to 2 percent of gross domestic product, compared to 2.9 percent in 2024.

Key national investments

The draft budget emphasized transformative projects to address critical national needs, including the National Water Carrier Initiative, which addresses Jordan’s chronic water scarcity and ensures long-term water security.

There is also a focus on a railway project that connects Aqaba Port to Al-Shidiya and Ghor Al-Safi. This initiative aims to boost logistical efficiency and economic integration.

Other key projects include investments in renewable energy and infrastructure upgrades and enhancements in public transportation networks to ease connectivity and reduce environmental impact.

Economic growth targets

The budget framework projects there will be 2.5 percent real GDP growth, driven by ongoing structural reforms.

It also forecases 4.9 percent nominal growth, supported by moderate inflation rates that contribute to financial and monetary stability.

Governorate budgets and modernization efforts

The budget allocates significant funds to governorates to ensure equitable development and address local priorities. Notable regional allocations include money for the construction and maintenance of hospitals, schools, and transportation infrastructure.

There is also funding for agricultural development, water management, and job creation initiatives tailored to local needs.

Specific projects detailed in the governorate budgets include road maintenance and expansions in Irbid, Al-Mafraq, and other regions, investments in health care facilities, including expansions of hospitals and primary care centers, and the development of educational institutions, such as building new schools and upgrading existing facilities.

In line with the “Public Sector Modernization The Roadmap,” the draft budget included funding for implementing updated job guidelines, creating new vacancies, and modernizing public administration to enhance service delivery.

This framework is a comprehensive roadmap to improve public administration and enhance the institutional approach to responding efficiently to domestic and global developments. 


Oil Updates – crude steadies amid possible Middle East ceasefire

Oil Updates – crude steadies amid possible Middle East ceasefire
Updated 26 November 2024
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Oil Updates – crude steadies amid possible Middle East ceasefire

Oil Updates – crude steadies amid possible Middle East ceasefire
  • Israel, Lebanon eye ceasefire in Israel-Hezbollah conflict
  • MidEast ceasefire cuts likelihood of US sanctions on Iran oil
  • Kyiv faces sustained Russian drone attacks

SINGAPORE: Oil prices edged higher in early trade on Tuesday after falling in the previous session as investors took stock of a potential ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, weighing on oil’s risk premium.

Brent crude futures rose 15 cents, or 0.21 percent, to $73.16 a barrel as at 10:05 a.m. Saudi time, while US West Texas Intermediate crude futures were at $69.09 a barrel, up 15 cents, or 0.22 percent.

Both benchmarks settled down $2 a barrel on Monday following reports that Lebanon and Israel had agreed to the terms of a deal to end the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, which triggered a crude oil selloff.

Market reaction to the ceasefire news was “over the top,” said senior market analyst Priyanka Sachdeva at Phillip Nova.

While the news calmed fear of disruption to Middle Eastern supply, the Israel-Hamas conflict “never actually disrupted supplies significantly to induce war premiums” this year, Sachdeva said.

“The vulnerability of oil prices to geopolitical headlines lacks foundational backup and, coupled with the inability to maintain recent gains, reflects weakening global demand for oil and suggests a volatile market ahead.”

Iran, which supports Hezbollah, is an OPEC member with production of around 3.2 million barrels per day, or 3 percent of global output.

A ceasefire in Lebanon would reduce the likelihood that the incoming US administration will impose stringent sanctions on Iranian crude oil, said ANZ analysts.

If President-elect Donald Trump’s administration returned to a maximum-pressure campaign on Tehran, Iranian exports could shrink by 1 million bpd, analysts have said, tightening global crude flows.

In Europe, Ukraine’s capital Kyiv was under a sustained Russian drone attack on Tuesday, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

Hostilities between major oil producer Russia and Ukraine intensified this month after US President Joe Biden allowed Ukraine to use US-made weapons to strike deep into Russia in a significant reversal of Washington’s policy in the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

Elsewhere, OPEC+ may consider leaving its current oil output cuts in place from Jan. 1 at its next meeting on Sunday, Azerbaijan’s Energy Minister Parviz Shahbazov told Reuters, as the producer group had already postponed hikes amid demand worries.

On Monday, Trump said he would sign an executive order imposing a 25 percent tariff on all products coming into the US from Mexico and Canada. It was unclear whether this would include crude oil.

The vast majority of Canada’s 4 million bpd of crude exports go to the US Analysts have said it is unlikely Trump would impose tariffs on Canadian oil, which cannot be easily replaced since it differs from grades that the US produces.

“Contrary to today’s sell-off in risk assets, I think the tariff announcements are actually risk-positive because they are lower than consensus expectations,” said market analyst Tony Sycamore at IG.

Trump’s proposed additional 10 percent tariffs on Chinese imports are “well below” the 60 percent level he threatened pre-election, Sycamore said.

For the time being, markets are eyeing Trump’s plan to increase US oil production, which has been near record levels throughout 2022 to 2024 and absorbed supply disruption from geopolitical crises and sanctions, Phillip Nova’s Sachdeva said. 


Saudi Arabia’s NEOM giga-project a ‘generational investment,’ minister says

Saudi Arabia’s NEOM giga-project a ‘generational investment,’ minister says
Updated 26 November 2024
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Saudi Arabia’s NEOM giga-project a ‘generational investment,’ minister says

Saudi Arabia’s NEOM giga-project a ‘generational investment,’ minister says
  • Foreign investors starting to come to NEOM, minister says
  • On recent departure of NEOM’s CEO, minister says there is a time to pass baton
  • Risk-return ‘very fair’ for outside investors, Al-Falih says

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s NEOM gigaproject, a futuristic region being built in the desert, is a “generational investment” with a long timeline, the country’s investment minister told Reuters on Monday, adding that foreign investment will pick up pace.

“NEOM was not meant to be a two-year investable opportunity. If anybody expected NEOM to be foreign investment in two, three or five years, then they have gotten (it) wrong — it’s a generational investment,” Minister Khalid Al-Falih said on the sidelines of the World Investment Conference in Riyadh.

“The flywheel is starting and it will gain speed as we go forward, as some of the foundational assets come to the market,” he said.

The world’s top oil exporter has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into development projects through the Kingdom’s $925 billion sovereign fund, the Public Investment Fund, as it undergoes an economic agenda dubbed Vision 2030 to cut dependence on fossil fuels.

NEOM, a Red Sea urban and industrial development nearly the size of Belgium that is meant to eventually house 9 million people, is central to Vision 2030.

NEOM announced this month its long-time chief executive, Nadhmi Al-Nasr, had stepped down, without giving further details.

Asked what effect the departure would have on investors, the minister said the executive had done “a respectable job” but that “there is a time for everybody to pass on the baton.”

Asked if PIF will continue to do much of the spending on NEOM until more foreign funds come in, Al-Falih said it was not binary.

“I think foreign investors are starting to come to NEOM, they’re starting to channel capital. Some of the projects that the PIF will be doing will be financed through global capital pools, through some alternative and private capital. That’s taking place as we speak,” he said.

“So I urge you not to look at NEOM as being 100 percent PIF and then suddenly there will be a cliff and it will go private.”

Saudi Arabia, which is racing to attract $100 billion in annual foreign direct investment by the turn of the decade — reaching about a quarter of that in 2023 — has recently seen more co-investment deals between state entities and foreign investors.

“It’s always been the intent,” Al-Falih said of foreign inflows alongside state funds.

He noted that foreign investors were at times “still looking, still examining, still sometimes questioning,” but that now there was confidence in the profitability of investment opportunities and that “the risk-return trade-offs are very, very fair and positive to them.” 


Saudi Arabia’s fintech demand offers growth prospects for UK firms: London Lord Mayor

Saudi Arabia’s fintech demand offers growth prospects for UK firms: London Lord Mayor
Updated 26 November 2024
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Saudi Arabia’s fintech demand offers growth prospects for UK firms: London Lord Mayor

Saudi Arabia’s fintech demand offers growth prospects for UK firms: London Lord Mayor

RIYADH: UK-based fintech firms have an opportunity to address rising demand for fintech services in Saudi Arabia, according to the Lord Mayor of London. 

Speaking on the sidelines of the 28th World Investment Conference in Riyadh, Alderman Alastair King highlighted the UK capital’s extensive expertise in fintech, particularly as the city works on digitizing national debt instruments. 

He noted that such initiatives could provide opportunities for collaboration between the UK and Saudi Arabia’s growing fintech sector. 

“We have incredible expertise in London in relation to fintech and financial technologies in general. I know there’s a great demand for that sector here in Saudi, so those are some of the areas we are concentrating on,” said the Lord Mayor. 

“In the United Kingdom, we’ve just started to digitize our national gilts, what they call the debt instruments. Now, there’s a road ahead to digitize them, which is a wonderful opportunity to work on those types of things,” he said. 

A gilt is a UK government bond issued in sterling, and London’s efforts to digitize these instruments could pave the way for similar initiatives in Saudi Arabia, added.

King went to say that the payments sector could also be explored, noting that the entire sector is being transformed by fintech and that there are enormous opportunities for collaboration.

Other sectors that could be devoloped include infrastructure, insurance, and legal services, as well as asset management, and banking. 

“London is the number one global center for professional services in the world. Saudi Arabia is the fastest growing economy in the G20. There’s going to be a fantastic symbiosis between us, and we can do all sorts of things together,” the Lord Mayor said during the interview. 

King also discussed the broader opportunities arising from Saudi Arabia’s energy transition and economic diversification, particularly in industries such as asset management, banking, and insurance. He emphasized the role of both large companies and small and medium-sized enterprises in fostering innovation. 

“In London, as an extraordinary financial and professional services ecosystem, there is a symbiosis between small and medium-sized companies and the large ones. Part of my job is to go around to the British companies, whether small, medium, or large, and encourage them to take advantage of the international markets that are going to be available to us,” the Lord Mayor said. 

“So, although the early adopters are the large companies, I think you often see real innovation coming out of the small and medium-sized companies,” he added. 

The Lord Mayor added that he would consider it a success if more British firms expanded into Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council markets, particularly in professional services. 

“I’d also view success as greater investment flows into financial and professional services in the UK,” he concluded. 

Investment trends 
 
During a panel discussion at the World Investment Conference, Nan Li Collins, senior director of investment and enterprise at the UN Conference on Trade and Development, discussed global investment trends, emphasizing the importance of effective regional policies and multilateral efforts to counteract fragmentation and protectionism. 

“I think these are the efforts we need to promote globally for more multilateral reasons, for more regional integration, to lower trade and investment barriers, and then work with countries’ investment promotion agencies to look at how to strengthen investment facilitation,” she added. 

During the discussion, Collins highlighted three key trends shaping the market.

“The first is the long-term trend of trade and investment,” she said, adding that while GDP and trade have grown steadily since the 2008 financial crisis, FDI has stagnated. 

She identified global fracturing as the second trend, noting that investment is increasing in geopolitically aligned countries but declining in more distant ones. 

The third trend is digitization, Collins said, adding that over the last decade, investment in digital services has risen from 60 percent to 80 percent, now accounting for the majority of new global FDI.