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With Jeddah’s population continuing to grow at pace, the Jeddah Development and Urban Regeneration Company (JDURC) estimates that demand for housing in the city will rise to 40,000 units by 2023, up from a current figure of 18,000-25,000 units per year.

The Kingdom’s second-largest city and its most significant seaport, Jeddah is a key engine of the Saudi economy. The “Bride of the Red Sea” is currently experiencing rapid population growth, as rural dwellers and migrant workers arrive in search of jobs and opportunities. To meet the infrastructural challenge presented by the pace of growth,...

Project insurance is nothing new in Saudi Arabia: the insurance market in its modern form emerged in the 1970s, when foreign insurers, brokers and agents opened branches in the country to provide coverage for the spike in construction projects caused by the oil boom of that era. Over successive decades these firms expanded their business to...

The recent return to the bond market by Saudi Arabia marks a significant shift in government policy, as the world’s biggest oil exporter taps capital markets to cover budgetary shortfalls and balance drawdowns of foreign reserves. The SR15bn ($4bn) issue in mid-July 2015 was the first sovereign bond offered by the Kingdom since 2007, with senior...

Given the size and breadth of the Saudi Arabian economy it is at first glance surprising that the government continues to play the leading role in supporting local start-ups and entrepreneurs. Where other countries in MENA, such as Egypt and Jordan, have seen the private sector address the segment through angel and seed investment operations,...

While the rapid development of the global Islamic banking sector has generated plenty of media headlines in recent years, the growth of the takaful industry has attracted comparatively less attention. There are several reasons that can go some way to explain the relatively unheralded expansion of the world’s sharia-compliant insurers. For...