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1 month ago | 
agbi.com | Valentina Pasquali |Nasser Saidi
Tech Significant digitalisation growthMarked productivity declineFinancial support neededImprovements in the availability and quality of digital infrastructure and services have yet to impact productivity growth in the Gulf economies in any meaningful way, according to IMF officials, past and present.
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Jan 7, 2025 | 
agbi.com | Nasser Saidi
History was made in Syria last month, and seismic shocks are reverberating across the region. First, we are witnessing the final convulsion after almost 110 years of the Sykes-Picot treaty, the secret agreement between Great Britain and France in 1916 that divided the post-First World War Ottoman Empire into “spheres of influence”, the “peace to end all peace”, as the historian David Fromkin called it.
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Nov 20, 2024 | 
agbi.com | Nasser Saidi
US President-elect Donald Trump has become the first Republican candidate in 20 years to win the popular vote. His historic win hands him control of the Senate, Congress and the Republican party, along with a strongly conservative-leaning Supreme Court. How will this power be deployed? If we take Trump’s election rhetoric literally, his “Maganomics” agenda will be top priority.
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Oct 16, 2024 | 
mecouncil.org | Giorgio Cafiero |Nasser Saidi |Omar H. Rahman |Nadim Houry
The Saudi-Iranian renormalization agreement of March 2023 was a watershed in modern Middle Eastern diplomacy. Yet while China received much of the credit for the reconciliation, which cooled the flames of one of the region’s most tense rivalries, the previous two years of heavy lifting had largely been the work of Iraq and the Sultanate of Oman.
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Oct 9, 2024 | 
agbi.com | Nasser Saidi
Reuters//Amr Abdallah Dalsh A major humanitarian crisis is unfolding in Lebanon. Israel’s attacks have exacted a heavy toll with over 2,000 people killed and 9,000 wounded. The last two weeks have wreaked severe damage on core infrastructure, public utilities, water, sanitation, power and roads. The country’s health system has also been degraded. Much of Beirut’s Dahieh and South Lebanon stands in ruins.
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Sep 5, 2024 | 
agbi.com | Nasser Saidi
Joan Cros via Reuters Connect While GCC sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) remain heavily invested in overseas markets, they are increasingly shifting their cash closer to home to support domestic economic diversification. A case in point is Saudi Arabia, which increased its “Saudi sector development” assets from 21 percent to 33 percent in 2023.
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Aug 5, 2024 | 
agbi.com | Nasser Saidi
One hundred days ahead of elections in November, former US president Donald Trump is polling strongly despite the emergence of Kamala Harris as the Democrat candidate. What would the implications be for us in the Gulf and around the world of a Trump presidency redux? From public statements and his record in the previous 2017 to 2021 term, we can identify the basic tenets of such a presidency as nationalism, isolationism, protectionism, populism, and a clampdown on migration.
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Jul 4, 2024 | 
agbi.com | Nasser Saidi
Opinion Tech It would support the development of the space economy in its multiple dimensions The quest to “go where no man has gone before” is about to become ubiquitous. The global commercial space economy is expected to grow to more than $1.8 trillion by 2035, according to the World Economic Forum and McKinsey.
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Jun 29, 2024 | 
thenationalnews.com | Nasser Saidi
Digital economies require digital currencies. Technological developments and innovation have transformed the payment system landscape in the past decade, with an additional boost from the pandemic. Personal, government and business payments shifted away from mainly cash to online and digital payments, embraced FinTech (eg, for financial market transactions, lending, wealth management), with tech companies such as Apple and Alibaba disintermediating banks.
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Jun 4, 2024 | 
agbi.com | Nasser Saidi
Michael Brochstein/Sipa USA via Reuters A trade war between the US and China is intensifying. Last month President Joe Biden, who is facing an uphill fight for re-election, imposed more tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, advanced batteries, solar cells, steel, aluminium and medical equipment. Washington alleges that China is dumping products at less than cost while Beijing counters that the US is afraid of honest competition.
