Ahmed Al Omran

Saudi Arabia and UAE welcome president-elect but worry he could upend rapprochement with Tehran and inflame Middle East war

Nadhmi al-Nasr leaves after six years in charge of $500bn desert development

Public Investment Fund will focus more of its financial firepower on domestic projects

A surge in female labour force participation has emerged as a bright spot for the kingdom

Saudi broadcaster MBC under fire over ‘terrorist’ label for slain Hamas chief

Flurry of diplomacy with regional rivals aims to contain impact of Israeli retaliation against Iran

Long-stalled project among a flurry of glitzy real estate deals designed to attract investors and tourists

At the push of a button, a huge sliding door glides shut and an eerie silence falls over a cavernous hall inside a newly constructed complex in Saudi Arabia’s desert. The 25,000 sq ft space is one of two soundproofed stages in a brand new movie studio complex near the city of AlUla in the kingdom’s Medina region. “This is better than the international standard,” a worker at the site said. “If you spend $160mn on a film, you can’t risk that the studio doesn’t work.” The development is part of…

Media group MBC is competing hard with Netflix to become the Middle East’s biggest streaming service, pushing a wide range of Arabic TV shows and films and its offer of free programmes supported by advertising. The Riyadh-listed entertainment company, which is majority owned by the Saudi government and is the region’s largest broadcaster, now commands 22 per cent of the Middle East and north Africa $1bn streaming market through its Shahid division. This puts it 4 per cent ahead of regional riva…

The Line development cut back as Riyadh reconsiders priorities and how best to fund its myriad investments