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• 
  Conflict bolsters case for Saudi economic diversification

  7 September 2026

  

   

  Billions of dollars’ worth of deals were announced at the Leap technology conference in the Saudi capital in late August and early September – a welcome fillip for an economy that is struggling to deal with the effects of the Iran war.

  Among the biggest deals unveiled at the Riyadh Exhibition & Convention Centre were a $1.2bn investment in data centres by the local Al-Moammar Information Systems and an $880m commitment from NHC Innovation to develop data centres in Khuzam Digital Valley, to the north of the capital. There were numerous other, smaller financing commitments around cloud services, artificial intelligence (AI), and research and development centres.

  Technology is a priority area for the Saudi government’s economic diversification efforts and, for now at least, the indicators are moving in the right direction. The Public Investment Fund’s AI subsidiary, Humain, has been particularly active in striking deals, and other bodies are also throwing their weight behind the sector. A few days before Leap got under way, the Royal Commission for Riyadh City launched the Riyadh Digital Innovation District, aimed at turning the capital into a technology and innovation hub.

  Economic strains

  The wider economic picture is, however, far more mixed. Figures issued by the General Authority for Statistics in mid-August revealed a 4.8% contraction in GDP in the second quarter of the year, compared with the same period a year earlier. The decline was driven by a 25% contraction in the oil sector.

  Hydrocarbons remain the central pillar of the Saudi economy, and the Iran war has placed it under enormous pressure, with exports through the Strait of Hormuz difficult – if not impossible – for much of the past six months. The alternative route via the Red Sea has its own difficulties, thanks to Houthi attacks on shipping around the Bab El-Mandeb strait. As a result, Saudi oil cargoes heading to Asia are being diverted via the Suez Canal and around Africa – a route that adds weeks to the journey.

  Lower oil revenues weaken the state’s fiscal position and are leading to larger budget deficits, which need to be funded through other means. On 1 September, the National Debt Management Centre (NDMC) announced it had sold $3.25bn-worth of sharia-compliant bonds (sukuk) to international investors. It said it had received orders for $16.5bn, indicating there remains strong appetite among overseas buyers.

  In May, the NDMC said it had secured around 90% of the government’s funding needs for the year, even before the euphemistically named “geopolitical events” had broken out. It added at the time that, should additional financing be needed, it would turn to “private channels and local markets” as the main funding sources, while also monitoring international markets to see if “favourable opportunities arise”.

  One positive element amid the gloom is that the non-oil private sector has proved relatively resilient and has continued to grow for most of the time since the war began in late February. The purchasing managers’ index (PMI) survey compiled by Riyad Bank shows the non-oil sector expanded each month from April to August. Reviewing the latest PMI data, Naif Al-Ghaith, chief economist at Riyad Bank, said it expected the Saudi non-oil economy to “maintain solid growth momentum through the second half of the year”.

  However, there are warning signs. Job creation is relatively weak, and business confidence is fragile: in the August PMI survey, only one in five respondents said they expected increased activity over the next 12 months.

  Other data points offer further reasons for caution. Saudi bank deposits fell slightly in July to SR3.11tn ($820bn) – the first drop since October last year – according to data from the central bank.

  Exports are also struggling due to higher transport costs. Saudi Arabia’s total exports were 10% lower in the second quarter of the year than in the first. The government is reportedly weighing a scheme to reduce insurance costs for shipping companies in an effort to bolster exports, but Oxford Economics said it expects the kingdom’s exports “to remain weak through the rest of this year”.

  Perhaps the biggest risk is uncertainty. The Iran conflict was relatively muted through much of August, but flared again in early September when Tehran and Washington exchanged fire. Saudi Arabia has not suffered as many hits from Iranian missiles as Bahrain, Kuwait or Jordan, but that could change.

  Investor test

  Against that backdrop, the push for economic diversification is as strong as ever. The Leap technology conference in August offered a sense of how things could develop. The Future Investment Initiative (FII) event in October will provide another litmus test of international investor appetite.

  Riyadh is trying to build momentum ahead of the event, releasing a list of speakers in late August that included BlackRock chief executive Laurence Fink, Goldman Sachs chief executive David Solomon and JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon.

  The past nine editions of FII have been a stage for billions of dollars in investment pledges – more than $50bn-worth of agreements were announced at last year’s event – but none has taken place against such a difficult geopolitical and macroeconomic backdrop. Riyadh’s policymakers will be hoping investors can look past the current crisis and provide further fillips for the economy.

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  Dominic Dudley
• 
  Saudi construction defies the headwinds

  7 September 2026

  

   

  Despite a geopolitical backdrop that has unsettled contractors and financiers alike, Saudi Arabia’s construction sector is on course for one of its strongest years on record.

  Contract awards in the kingdom’s construction sector hit $20bn in the first half of 2026, comfortably outpacing the $15bn recorded over the same period in 2025 and the roughly $17bn seen in the first half of 2024. These figures suggest that whatever recalibration the market has been going through, momentum is building again rather than fading.

  The rebound is notable given the conditions in which it is occurring. The conflict in the Gulf that began in February introduced a fresh layer of risk into investment decision-making, at precisely the moment the kingdom is trying to attract private capital into its construction sector.

  The major construction contracts awarded this year – including the Ministry of Defence headquarters, Rua Al-Madinah superblock 5, the Qiddiya racecourse, Qiddiya National Tennis Centre and Diriyah Waldorf Astoria superblock – suggest that awards have accelerated rather than stalled. This says as much about the underlying resilience of Saudi Arabia’s building programme as it does about the discipline with which it is now being managed.

  Procurement pivot

  The scale of the turnaround is easier to appreciate against the market’s recent trajectory. Construction contract awards fell 31% in 2025, dropping to $31bn from $45bn the year before, according to regional project tracker MEED Projects.

  That contraction followed the boom years of 2021-24, when the Public Investment Fund (PIF) and its gigaproject subsidiaries drove aggressive, broad-based growth across its five official gigaprojects and a raft of other Vision 2030 schemes.

  But 2025’s slowdown turned out to be a defining pivot. With the Finance Ministry projecting a budget deficit of SR165bn ($44bn) for 2026, Riyadh moved deliberately away from the scattergun procurement of the boom years and towards event-driven programmes with fixed deadlines: the 2034 Fifa World Cup, Expo 2030 Riyadh, and non-negotiable housing, healthcare and education commitments.

  The postponement of the 2029 Asian Winter Games at Trojena, along with the scaling back of The Line and the Mukaab, showed that even flagship gigaprojects are no longer immune to scrutiny. The H1 2026 figures suggest that this prioritisation exercise is now paying off, translating into a leaner but faster-moving pipeline of awards.

  Private delivery

  Central to the sector’s next phase is what PIF officials have termed ‘escape velocity’: the point at which real estate, tourism and social infrastructure are mature enough for private capital to take over primary funding and delivery, freeing PIF to focus on enabling rather than financing.

  That shift was formalised in April, when PIF’s board, chaired by Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, approved the fund’s 2026-30 strategy.

  While the 2021-25 phase was defined by rapid capital deployment and the launch of the gigaprojects, the new roadmap explicitly pivots towards value creation, investment efficiency and greater private sector participation, with PIF positioning itself increasingly as a platform creator and catalyst rather than the primary financier of every scheme.

  For construction, the implication is that the state is not stepping back from the transformation agenda, but expects the private sector – and public-private partnership (PPP) structures in particular – to carry a growing share of the delivery load.

  MEED’s coverage this year has tracked the expanding PPP pipeline overseen by the National Centre for Privatisation & PPP (NCP), which has around 200 projects in the pipeline worth roughly $190bn, spread across 17 sectors.

  Recent examples bear this out, including the State Properties General Authority and NCP tendering the Quality Valley Riyadh scheme, a 32-year mixed-use concession that drew expressions of interest from 59 firms.

  Elsewhere, the NCP is advancing a PPP to rehabilitate, operate and maintain 50 public parks across the Eastern Province, Jeddah and Medina. It has also selected preferred bidders to develop residential buildings at various land ports across the kingdom.

  Tendering has also started for the King Fahd suburb boulevard project in Dammam on a 43-year concession, and for the construction and operation of the Umm Al-Qura University Hospital in Mecca. Each of these projects is a marker of how far the model has extended beyond its traditional water and power roots.

  Market outlook

  For all the momentum of the past six months, the more striking number may be the one still ahead. MEED Projects data puts the value of construction projects in Saudi Arabia’s pipeline at more than $400bn, underscoring how much of the kingdom’s Vision 2030 build-out remains unawarded.

  Of that, around $65bn-worth of projects are currently at the bidding stage, a substantial near-term opportunity for contractors and PPP developers positioning themselves now.

  The longer-term picture is arguably more compelling still. As the private sector’s share of funding grows and PPP structures extend into new sectors, Saudi Arabia’s construction industry is being reshaped from a state-financed, volume-driven business into a more diversified, investment-grade market – one in which the $400bn still sitting in the pipeline represents a long runway of opportunity for contractors.

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  Yasir Iqbal
• 
  Saudi downstream projects market enters lean period

  7 September 2026

  

   

  Following a considerable level of capital expenditure (capex) on petrochemical and specialty chemical projects in the first half of this decade, Saudi Aramco and its subsidiary, Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic), are expected to reduce spending in 2026.

  Two primary factors are behind this anticipated drop in regional chemical project capex this year. With the bulk of their projects under execution – and on course to enter operation between this year and the end of the decade – Aramco and Sabic are set to achieve their short- to mid-term capacity expansion goals.

  Additionally, with global petrochemical and chemical demand remaining subdued and sales margins under pressure, Aramco – and Sabic in particular – appear keen to avoid committing to large-scale project investments.

  Steady spending in 2020-25

  An estimated $30bn of petrochemical and specialty chemical projects are in the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) stage in Saudi Arabia. Main contracts for most of these projects were awarded between 2020 and 2025, according to MEED Projects data.

  The biggest chemical project under EPC execution is the $11bn Amiral project, which represents an expansion of Saudi Aramco Total Refining & Petrochemical Company (Satorp) into petrochemicals.

  Satorp – owned 62.5% by Aramco and 37.5% by France’s TotalEnergies – operates a major crude refinery complex in Jubail with the capacity to process 465,000 barrels a day (b/d) of Aramco’s Arabian Heavy crude. The refinery produces diesel, jet fuel, gasoline, liquefied petroleum gas, benzene, paraxylene, propylene, coke and sulphur.

  Integrated with the existing Satorp refinery in Jubail, the Amiral petrochemicals complex will house one of the largest mixed-load steam crackers in the Gulf, with a capacity to produce 1.65 million tonnes a year (t/y) of ethylene and other industrial gases.

  The expansion is expected to attract more than $4bn in additional investment across a variety of industrial sectors, including carbon fibres, lubricants, drilling fluids, detergents, food additives, automotive parts and tyres.

  Recalibrating ambitions

  The largest capex programme in the chemicals sector in Saudi Arabia – and in the wider Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region – is Aramco’s liquids-to-chemicals programme. Its central aim is to achieve a direct conversion rate of 4 million b/d of crude oil into high-value chemicals.

  Aramco has divided its liquids-to-chemicals programme into four main projects. It has taken major steps forward this year by signing joint-venture investment agreements with foreign partners on the different projects, which include:

  • Sasref (Jubail): Conversion of the Saudi Aramco Jubail Refinery Company (Sasref) complex into an integrated refinery and petrochemicals complex through the addition of a mixed-feed cracker. The project also involves building an ethane cracker that will draw feedstock from the Sasref refinery. Front-end engineering and design (feed) is under way and is being performed by Samsung E&A, although progress has been slow.
     
  • Yasref (Yanbu): Conversion of the Yanbu Aramco Sinopec Refining Company (Yasref) complex into an integrated refinery and petrochemicals complex through the addition of a mixed-feed cracker. China’s Sinopec is a joint-venture partner in the project.
     
  • Samref (Yanbu): Conversion of the Saudi Aramco Mobil Refinery Company (Samref) complex into an integrated refinery and petrochemicals complex through the addition of a mixed-feed cracker. US oil and gas producer ExxonMobil, Aramco and Samref signed a venture framework agreement in December to begin preliminary feed work on the project.
     
  • Ras Al-Khair (Eastern Province): Development of a crude oil-to-chemicals (COTC) complex. Progress on this project, however, remains slow.

  Given the liquids-to-chemicals programme’s size, scope and ambitious targets, overall progress is expected to remain measured this year.

  Separately, Sabic has been negotiating with bidders for about a year on a major project to build an integrated blue ammonia and urea manufacturing complex at the existing facility of its affiliate, Sabic Agri-Nutrients Company, in Jubail.

  The estimated $2bn-$3bn project – known as the low-carbon hydrogen San 6 complex – is planned to have the capacity to produce 1.2 million metric t/y of blue ammonia and 1.1 million metric t/y of urea and specialised agri-nutrients. The project is part of Sabic’s Horizon-I low-carbon hydrogen programme, which is to be developed at Sabic Agri-Nutrients’ facility in Jubail Industrial City, in the kingdom’s Eastern Province.

  So far this year, Petrokemya, a Sabic affiliate, has awarded China National Chemical Engineering Group Corporation the main contract for an ethylene oxide catalyst project.

  The project covers the EPC of a new 4,000-t/y ethylene oxide catalyst production unit, encompassing multiple units for catalyst carrier washing and drying, as well as supporting utilities, at Petrokemya’s main facility in Jubail Industrial City.

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  Indrajit Sen
• 
  Contractor wins $161m Meraas City Walk Crestlane deal

  7 September 2026

  Local contractor Parkway International Contracting has won a AED590m ($161m) contract to build phase three of the City Walk Crestlane project in Dubai’s Al-Wasl area.

  The contract covers the construction of four residential buildings comprising 394 apartments.

  Construction is expected to commence shortly, with completion slated for 2028.

  Local real estate developer Meraas, part of Dubai Holding, awarded the contract.

  In December last year, Meraas announced the next phases of the City Walk Crestlane project as it continues to expand its City Walk residential community in Dubai.

  City Walk Crestlane 4 and 5 comprise four residential towers offering 360 one- to five-bedroom units.

  In June 2025, Meraas announced the initial phases of the City Walk Crestlane project, which comprise two residential towers offering 198 one- to five-bedroom units.

  Earlier this year, Meraas awarded two major construction contracts worth AED2.4bn ($653m) to build 557 villas as part of the second phase of its residential community, The Acres, in Dubailand.

  The contracts were awarded to local construction firms United Engineering Construction (Unec) and GCC Contracting. Unec will build 371 three- to five-bedroom villas at The Acres, while GCC Contracting will deliver 186 five- to seven-bedroom residences at The Acres Estates.

  Meraas’ latest project contract awards in Dubai reflect heightened real estate activity in the UAE’s construction market. Schemes worth more than $323bn are in execution or planning stages, according to UK-based analytics firm GlobalData.

  The company forecasts that output from the UAE’s residential construction sector will grow by 3% in real terms between 2026 and 2029, supported by developments in infrastructure, energy and utilities, as well as residential construction projects.

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  Yasir Iqbal
• 
  Six groups qualify for Saudi Arabia’s Qassim airport PPP

  7 September 2026

  Register for MEED’s 14-day trial access 

  Saudi Arabia’s Civil Aviation Holding Company (Matarat), through the National Centre for Privatisation & PPP (NCP), has qualified five groups and one standalone company to bid for a contract to develop Prince Naif Bin Abdulaziz International airport in Qassim, Saudi Arabia.

  These include:

  1. YDA Insaat / Safari Group / Lamar Holding / Egis (Turkiye/local/Bahrain/France)
  2. Ports Projects Management & Development Company / Algihaz Holding (local/local)
  3. Mada International Holding / TAV Airports Holding (local/Turkiye)
  4. Namaya International Investment Company / Oman Airports Management Company / AlBawani Capital / Tanama (local/Oman/local/UAE)
  5. Vision Invest / Asyad Holding / DAA International (local/local/Ireland)
  6. GMR Airports (India)

  The prequalification process follows 89 firms expressing interest in the contract, as MEED reported in March.

  The project scope includes the redevelopment of the passenger terminal as well as other associated facilities such as airside infrastructure, including runway, taxiways and aprons.

  The project will be developed on a design-finance-construction-operations-maintenance-transfer basis.

  The clients issued an expression of interest notice for the project on 9 February, and companies were given until 23 February to submit responses.

  Tendering is also ongoing for the new Taif International airport project in Mecca Province. 

  The new Taif International airport will be located 21 kilometres southeast of the existing Taif airport and will have a capacity of 2.5 million passengers by 2030.

  In addition to a new airport terminal, the proposed design features a runway with a full-length parallel taxiway connecting to a single commercial apron.

  The scope includes facility buildings, utility networks, car parks and access roads, as well as provisions for additional expansions to meet future subsystem requirements.

  The new airport is expected to meet the projected increase in demand by 2055 and contribute to the economic development of the city of Taif and its surrounding areas, in line with the kingdom’s National Aviation Strategy.

  It is also expected to meet the needs of Umrah pilgrims, as an alternative within the region’s multi-airport system, which includes King Abdulaziz airport in Jeddah, Prince Mohammed Bin Abdulaziz airport in Medina and Prince Abdulmohsen Bin Abdulaziz airport in Yanbu.

  Previous tenders

  The Taif, Hail and Qassim airport schemes were previously tendered and awarded as public-private partnership (PPP) projects using the build-transfer-operate (BTO) model.

  Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (Gaca) awarded the contracts to develop four airport PPP projects to two separate consortiums in 2017.

  A team of Turkiye’s TAV Airports and the local Al-Rajhi Holding Group won the 30-year concession agreement to build, transfer and operate airport passenger terminals in Yanbu, Qassim and Hail.

  A second team, comprising Lebanon’s Consolidated Contractors Company, Germany’s Munich Airport International and local firm Asyad Group, won the BTO contract to develop Taif International airport.

  However, these projects stalled following the restructuring of the kingdom’s aviation sector.

  Saudi Arabia has already privatised airports including the $1.2bn Prince Mohammed Bin Abdulaziz International airport in Medina, which was developed as a PPP and opened in 2015.

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  Yasir Iqbal