Economy

With Saudi Arabia aiming to significantly increase the number of pilgrims visiting Makkah and Medina each year, the issue of providing sufficient housing for the cities’ permanent residents has been a cause for growing concern. To take pressure off both Makkah and Jeddah – cities that have seen substantial population increases over the past...

As the second-largest city in Saudi Arabia, Jeddah plays a central role in the Kingdom’s non-oil economic growth, largely due to a combination of its roots in shipping and trade, and its importance as a transit point for millions of visitors travelling to the holy cities of Makkah and Medina each year.

Due to the importance of Makkah and Medina in the Muslim world, and the millions of pilgrims they attract, the two holy cities form a major component of Saudi Arabia’s non-oil economy. The pilgrimages of Hajj and Umrah are performed each year, with worshippers’ fees, food, transport and accommodation totalling some $12bn in revenues.

With Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 placing a strong emphasis on innovation and technology, the Kingdom’s tech start-up sector is beginning to come of age. The past decade has seen the ecosystem evolve quickly, and the recent launch of a range of new funding programmes should see it gain momentum in the coming years.

Building on decades of experience, Saudi Arabia’s mutual fund segment continues to flourish, while opportunities are opening up for private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC), both of which are gaining increasingly strong government backing. Dealmaking is expected to continue accelerating in 2018 as investors seek new opportunities and exit...

Increasing Saudi Arabia’s attractiveness as an investment destination is a broad effort, involving a number of government entities and alterations to the regulatory frameworks. Almost all of the ministry-level strategies found in the National Transformation Programme (NTP) 2020 have a bearing on the issue of investment, and their success will...