Sunday, July 26, 2026

Saudi Arabia's foreign minister moved fast to shore up Gulf unity as the Red Sea crisis spreads. Prince Faisal bin Farhan held separate calls Sunday with Qatar's PM and Egypt's FM, discussing "regional developments" and coordinating efforts to de-escalate—code for containing the Houthis and their Iranian backers. Both talks underscored one theme: keeping the crucial waterways of the Arabian Gulf and Red Sea open (via Asharq Al-Awsat).

On the same day, Pakistan's deputy PM rang Riyadh with the same concern: waterway security. The call between Pakistan's Ishaq Dar and Prince Faisal showed how the Red Sea crisis is now a wider issue, with shipping nations worried that their trade routes could be choked (via Asharq Al-Awsat).

Meanwhile, the NCC MASA, a Saudi-operated vessel, was targeted in the Red Sea on Friday, taking minor hull damage but no crew injuries. The attack underscores the everyday risk now facing commercial shipping in waters the Houthis have declared off-limits (via Asharq Al-Awsat).

The Tadawul reached an ex-dividend date on July 26 with a quarterly payout of ₪0.57 per share—3.6 percent higher than the year-ago rate, offering a yield of 5.3 percent, well above the sector average of 3.2 percent. The signal: despite Red Sea chaos and oil volatility, the Kingdom's stock exchange is paying investors to hold on (via Investing.com).

Q2 earnings cement the case. Profits climbed 7.6 percent year-on-year to ₪2.65 billion, with revenue up 3 percent and margins lifting to 61 percent from 58 percent. The Street was expecting less; actual earnings beat consensus estimates by 8.5 percent, signaling that despite external shocks, the domestic economy is moving (via Argaam).

Looking ahead, analysts expect revenue to grow 8.6 percent annually over three years—a clip that mirrors the banking sector and outpaces the wider Gulf, a bet that Vision 2030 cash flow and $80-plus oil prices keep the engine running (via Trading Economics).

Saudi Arabia's AI data-center ambitions are outpacing regional peers. The International Data Center Authority confirmed that Riyadh dominates the Middle East's hyperscale race, with the Public Investment Fund's Humain leading a roster that includes Center3, Mobily and DataVolt—all chasing gigawatts of GPU compute by 2034 (via Arab News).

The market is massive: Saudi Arabia's data-center sector is projected to grow from $2.08 billion in 2025 to $6.16 billion by 2031, at a 19.84 percent compound annual rate, outpacing the global average as AI spending accelerates (via Yahoo Finance). With cheap energy, deep pockets and a long runway on economic diversification, the Kingdom has won the regional AI infrastructure race—at least for now.

The Kingdom's skill-based work permit system entered enforcement phase on July 26. Employers who haven't cleared workers with expired permits from the Qiwa platform faced auto-removal—anyone more than three months overdue gets struck from payroll records. The grace period for older cases runs to December 31, but for new violations, the system is rigid: out means out (via Saudi Gazette).

Women are reshaping the workforce in ways that will outlast any policy. Female-owned enterprises reached 774,123 entities, accounting for 43.8 percent of all businesses in the Kingdom—a seismic shift from the margins. Female labor-force participation hit 34.5 percent, up from 23 percent in 2019, while female unemployment fell to 10.5 percent, half the level of 2018 (via Arab News). The math is clear: women are no longer a side story in the Saudi economy.