Happy Wednesday, wonderful people. We may have regressed war-wise with a return of the US’ naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz after a barrage of airstrikes earlier this week between the US, Iran, and its Gulf neighbors, but we’ll get to that elsewhere in this morning’s issue.
The numbers we’re focusing on aren’t missile counts, but rather indicators that the market is choosing to look beyond Hormuz jitters. US inflation cooled to 3.5% in June, down from May’s three-year high, and the S&P still managed to close at a record 7,537, while Brent is still hovering below USD 90.
Don’t pass Go, don’t collect USD 200: Tariffs have gotten so knotty that a Monopoly importer tried to make the board game in the US to dodge the import duty, but the plan nearly crumbled as the company struggled to manufacture all the parts of the game — particularly the dice — domestically. Somewhere, the ghost of the game’s original anti-monopolist designer is having a very good day.
Elsewhere, researchers justdebunkedone of the oldest bits of desert folk wisdom — that baby rattlesnakes are deadlier than adults because they “can't control their venom.” Turns out the juveniles meter their dose just fine; it's the grown snakes that empty the tank.
We’re heading into the final stretch of the week with our eyes on a handful of things: More inflation prints and central-bank chatter to tell us whether “higher for longer” survives an oil scare, and a closer look at how Gulf carriers are repositioning fleets around the disruption. Plus, we’ll be waiting to see whether Argentina makes it through its semi-final match against England today, with the winner of that game set to face off against Spain next Sunday. –Salma
Slowly but surely, Qatar is building a mission-driven, capital-intensive startup ecosystem that doesn’t necessarily compete with its GCC peers but attempts to lure in regional and international investors to Doha as a global tech and innovation hub. Its nascent startup ecosystem rests on an elaborate institutional framework whose protagonists are the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), QDB’s Startup Invest Program and the Qatar Financial Center’s (QFC) common-law system.
The vision is being shaped around tech and innovation as the driving force for the emerging startup scene. There is “a big push towards investing in research and development,” Muhannad Taslaq, director of investment at Alchemist Doha, tells EnterpriseAM. The Qatari government and state entities also formed a direct operational partnership with Scale AI, while the QIA has invested in in big frontier and technology companies like Anthropic, positioning Qatar as a major global investor, Taslaq says.
Qatar’s high-quality companies and the deep institutional framework are what position the country as a niche for startups that seek funding and proper exposure to regional and global markets, according to the experts we spoke to. One of our sources described the trajectory as both “international and specific.”
Nascent, but vibrant
Qatar is among the region’s highest-ranked startup ecosystems, just behind the Big Three (the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt). It’s a particularly active investor in corporate venture capital, ranking fourth regionally by number of transactions and fifth by corporate funding over the last five years.
Anchoring all of it is a USD 3 bn fund of funds backed by the QIA — a structure that echoes Morocco and Tunisia’s — with the QIA spearheading the nation’s diversification by aggressively deploying energy revenues into non-oil assets worldwide. By investing heavily in global tech, healthcare, and the green energy transition, the QIA secures alternative revenue streams. Locally, its backing of financial, telecom, and transport infrastructure builds the stable macro-environment necessary for Qatar’s broader private sector expansion.
Jack of all trades
Seeking to bridge the gap between founders and institutional capital,Invest Qatarpartnered with the QIA in late June tolauncha new VC Funding Module. Housed on the Invest Qatar Gateway, the platform consolidates the investment discovery and application process into a single, streamlined channel for startups.
The pitch is access: The module gives startups “something rare in emerging ecosystems: a clear, direct path from idea to institutional capital, with access to the networks, expertise and resources needed to scale and succeed globally,” says Invest Qatar Chief Strategy Officer Hamad Rashid Al Naimi.
Does the module speed up deployment of the USD 3 bn fund of funds? “Yes, and the engine is relationships,” Gulf sovereign wealth fund analyst Roy Conners tells us. He sees three payoffs: financial, developmental and reputational. Financially, “QIA wants these funds as conduits, for global deal flow and co-investment rights.” Developmentally, the diverse participating funds bring in the capabilities that a young ecosystem needs. Reputationally, “anchoring internationally recognized fund managers in Doha supports Qatar’s positioning as an open and stable international hub, and each fund relationship also deepens commercial ties with the market that fund comes from,” Conners tells us.
The mix is deliberate: “The fund of funds invested in different structures, in different investment firms that are complementary to each other. You would find the earlier stage, the later stage, some that are sector-focused, others that are agnostic or generalistic, others that are more pre-IPO … It comes and complements a big picture of what an ecosystem does,” Soumaya Ben Beya, partner at Rasmal, tells EnterpriseAM. As the first and only homegrown fund to receive QIA backing, Rasmal Ventures invests in tech startups across the MENA region and beyond.
The goal is to build, then scale: “As an ecosystem we can't start running; we need to crawl, walk, then run. To help that, we want to bring the best in the world to come and influence, impact, inspire, and help. The mandates of those investors are exactly that,” Ben Beya tells us. Conners agrees: “The model is built to make Doha a real base rather than an outpost of convenience, and Qatar has structured the incentives toward that outcome.”
Background: The QIA launched the fund of funds at Web Summit 2024 for USD 1 bn, then expanded to USD 3 bn at this year’s edition. It now anchors 16 VC firms in Doha, including new additions Greycroft, Speedinvest, and Shorooq, with tech and healthcare as its priority sectors for investment.
Everyone aligns on the thesis
Qatar’s VC and incubators tune their theses to the fund’s. Rasmal flagged logistics infrastructure, energy sustainability, and food security as priority sectors — a fit with the fund’s orientation and Qatar’s National Vision 2023. Alchemist Doha supports strong technical teams who are solving real problems in healthtech, agritech, and deep tech, and wants Qatar known as a hub for exactly that.
Two examples:Pan.bio, an Alchemist Doha portfolio company, makes bioinformatics more accessible through AI. Denovo Sciences, another portfolio company, just secured an agreement with Mankind Pharma to launch an AI-led drug discovery program. Denovo’s success came because “they were able to integrate within Qatar's ecosystem almost instantly with the research collaboration with Weill Cornell and Sidra Hospital. Then a few months later, they signed with Mankind Pharma, which is a global leading pharmaceutical company, for research on drug discovery,” Alchemist Doha Director of Investment Ghadir Mahgoub tells EnterpriseAM.
The dual mandate carries a built-in tension: The fund is asked to deliver financial returns and build the Qatari VC ecosystem — “two things that do not automatically align,” Conners says. A return-seeker won’t naturally find Qatar’s small market (about 3.4 mn people, mostly expats) attractive, but the fund’s incentives makes a presence in Doha “commercially worthwhile."
Qatar’s niche is being a connector
The incentive stack is real, but the deeper value is as a springboard: Qatar offers subsidized AI-compute, accommodation and co-working space, and non-dilutive grants, including QRDI’s R&D grants of up to USD 2.6 mn, weighted toward heavy and deep tech. Regional and international VCs see Doha as a launchpad for scaling regionally and globally, and a magnet for founders from the MENA region and beyond.
“That's the beauty about what's happening in Qatar: everybody is rallying around making this a great place for founders. The programs and the funds try to work with everybody so that we can give the maximum possibility for any founder to come to Doha,” Taslaq says.
Picking their battles: “Qatar is playing it differently where we pre-identified specific sectors that we are very scalable on, very attractive on, and we're coming to solve them and make sure we remain on top of the global market in excelling in them with local and international talent coming in. This is a slightly different strategy,” Ben Beya tells us.
The VCs keep their independence — with the LP’s goal in view. Rasmal and Shorooq Partners are two of the 16 VCs under the program: One homegrown, one global, and both with investment mandates spanning Silicon Valley to Asia and MENA. “There is no involvement by the QIA into which company we invest in, where we invest, where those companies go public, or any of that. But the expectation from them and all of our LPs on this fund is that the goal is to deepen and develop the exit and pathway-to-exit market for technology companies in the region,” Bilal Baloch, Partner at Shorooq tells EnterpriseAM.
Peaks and troughs
“It is uncontestable that there has been a slowdown,” Baloch tells EnterpriseAM.
Economic slowdown has hit Qatar hard during 1H2026 with the IMF projecting a sharper contraction for Qatar, Kuwait and Iraq compared to the rest of the Middle East and Central Asia region whose growth was revised down to 0.7% for the year.
But quarterly swings are normal, and Qatar has two cushions: High-quality companies and deeper institutionalization. “When I look at the quality of founders and companies emerging, that is on a much more upward trajectory, subject to fewer of these exogenous shifts. Whether in Qatar, Saudi, or the UAE, these crises and macroeconomic shocks actually clean up the ecosystem and help the better companies and founders emerge,” Baloch tells us.
Doing business is still easy: “Today, if I want to go to Qatar and get a sandbox license as a fintech company, it is much easier and quicker to do it than it would be in Europe. If I want to get access to computing, it's easier to do it in Qatar or the UAE than it would be in the US,” Baloch adds.
Collaboration, not competition
“I see that the region is more receptive to all of the countries in the GCC becoming hubs for founders. When a company comes to Qatar, they will work with a number of companies, but then they want to grow bigger, so they can go to Saudi or to the Emirates,” Taslaq tells us.
Web Summit, which Qatar acquired the right to host for five years, is a clear example of this kind of regional collaboration. “It's definitely a great place where investors — whether GPs or LPs — startups, and government officials all gather. So many startups were telling us they had amazing conversations, being able to network with high-level officials in Qatar,” Mahgoub says.
Canada has a new solution for ramping up defense investment in the West, and Turkey seems to be buying in: Turkey will join the Canada-led initiative to launch a multilateral defense-focused bank as a founding member, an official told Reuters on Monday. The move would give the forthcoming Defense, Security and Resilience Bank (DSRB) its largest defense-industrial player and gives one of the world’s fastest-growing arms exporters access to subsidized capital built to help Nato and allies ramp up armament.
What we know: The plan aims to raise up to USD 134 bn, targeting a triple-A credit rating that would let the bank lend cheaply to member states and to firms that struggle to access affordable finance. The bank will be headquartered in Canada and is meant to be operational in 2027. Nine countries have signed on so far: Canada, Albania, Belgium, Greece, Latvia, Luxembourg, Romania, Turkey, and Ukraine, a roster that holds no G7 heavyweight other than Canada, Reuters notes.
No founding member comes close to Turkey on defense-industrial weight. Ankara’s defense and aerospace exports rose almost 50% y-o-y to hit a record USD 10.6 bn in 2025 (goods and services), up from USD 7.1 bn in 2024. The sector now has more than 3.5k active companies employing some 100k people and boasting a self-proclaimed localization rate of more than 82%, according to Turkish Exporters Assembly data. Five Turkish firms — Aselsan, Baykar, Turkish Aerospace Industries, Roketsan, and MKE — are among the top 100 arms producers, with combined 2024 revenue of USD 10.1 bn.
BACKGROUND- The idea of a multilateral defense bank was first floated in 2019 as a Nato bank by policymakers and officials of the defense alliance to address chronic under-investments in European defense. The idea gained steam later after former Nato chief innovation officer Rob Murray laid out the DSRB proposal in a policy brief for US-based thinktank the Atlantic Council in late 2024, just months before the beginning of the second Trump administration.
Canada’s Mark Carney later adopted the idea as his signature alliance initiative, which comes as a response to rising pressure from Washington over lackluster defense spending among Nato and European allies. The US pressure, alongside shifting global geopolitics in Europe and abroad, ultimately culminated in Nato’s 2025 pledge to lift spending toward 5% of GDP by 2035 — a target that would cost European members roughly USD 600 bn a year in extra outlays.
Setting up the DSRB would be the clearest application yet of Carney’s “middle powers” doctrine. In his January Davos speech, the Canadian PM called the collapse of the US-led order “a rupture, not a transition,” casting Trump’s tariffs, territorial threats to allies, and the erosion of international law as the end of a system middle powers could no longer count on. The pitch was for those middle power countries to act collectively — “if we're not at the table, we're on the menu,” Carney said.
What's next: Domestic politics could be a blocker, as founding countries are now required to run the plan through their domestic treaty processes. Another open question is the ability to scale the bank without Germany, the UK, or other strong founders with strong balance sheets.
US President Donald Trump renewed his threats to attack power plants and bridges in Iran unless Tehran returns to the negotiation table for a permanent ceasefire agreement. The threats come after the US military hit “dozens” of military targets near Hormuz early this morning, while Iran reported at least three areas being attacked and 30 civilian casualties. Trump also threatened to target Pickaxe Mountain — a heavily fortified site near a damaged uranium enrichment facility. Iranian media reported explosions in Bandar Abbas and Kish Island.
The latest exchange of threats and strikes come after Adnoc oil tankers were targeted by Iranian cruise missiles in the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, resulting in one death and eight injuries, the UAE’s Defense Ministry said. The Mombasa and Al Bahiyah were attacked in Omani territorial waters and sustained material damage after fires broke out on board.
You block, I block: Washington is reinstating its naval blockade on Iranian shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said, and initially decided the US would also impose a 20% cargo fee for passage through the strait (although he later walked that back under Gulf pressure). Iran responded by threatening its own expanded blockade of vital waterways, presumably alluding to Bab El Mandeb strait to the Red Sea, which it could tap its Houthi allies in Yemen to orchestrate.
But the Houthis have their own battles to face: Houthi ballistic missiles and drones targeted Abha International Airport on Monday, the first direct attack on Saudi territory since the truce froze the Yemen war in 2022. The strikes were in retaliation for an attack on Sanaa’s airport, which the Houthis blamed on Saudi Arabia. Coalition spokesperson Turki Al Malki said air defenses dealt with ballistic missiles launched toward the southern region, and no casualties were reported. Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree declared the “de-escalation phase” over and warned the strikes “will not go unanswered or unpunished.”
The UAE-India corridor is doing a lot of work today, as Abu Dhabi Inc. follows on from Emirates NBD’s recent acquisition of a controlling stake in India’s RBL. The rest of the day rounds out the outbound theme: Adia lining up a US pharma buyout with Warburg, ePointZero planting its first flag in US gas — even as PIF turns inward, trimming football budgets and leaning on foreign co-investors at home.
IDBI, take two: Emirates NBD may be back in the frame for IDBI Bank — or may already have lost it. Reuters says the Dubai lender is again in the running for the 60.7% stake held by the government and state-run LIC, while Bloomberg reports India is close to accepting a sweetened bid from Canada's Fairfax Financial despite Emirates NBD improving its own offer. Reuters expects the process to wrap within a month.
A foothold in IDBI would hand Emirates NBD still more scale in India’s tightly guarded banking market, weeks after it closed its USD 2.8 bn purchase of a 60% controlling stake in RBL Bank — India’s largest-ever banking-sector FDI. India shelved the sale in March after both bids fell short of price expectations, then restarted it this month.
Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (Adia) grabbed a slice of India’s biggest asset manager. SBI Funds Management set aside 46.4 mn shares worth INR 26.63 bn (c.USD 279 mn) for anchor investors ahead of its USD 1 bn IPO, a filing (pdf) shows. Adia, Norway’s sovereign fund Norges, and BlackRock funds each took 1.6 mn shares — about 3.4% of the anchor book — at INR 574, the top of the price band. Singapore’s GIC was allocated 2.7 mn shares.
This is Adia’s latest and most liquid bet on India’s household-savings boom — mutual funds now hold around 10% of Indian household financial savings, double their share a decade ago, with SBI Funds running USD 131 bn at a 15% market share, according to Global SWF.
The Abu Dhabi fund is separately teaming up with US PE firm Warburg Pincus on a potential USD 7 bn-plus buyout of PANTHERx Rare, a US specialty pharmacy handling meds and patient support for rare and orphan diseases, the Wall Street Journal reports. The pair have worked together previously with a 2025 play for India’s IDFC FIRST Bank — sovereign money backing a buyout firm to get a big check signed.
ePointZero made its biggest push yet into US energy, closing a USD 2.25 bn allcash buy of Traverse Midstream Partners — its first play on American gas infrastructure, according to a press release (pdf). The transaction hands ePointZero a 35% stake in the Rover Pipeline and 25% of the Ohio River System. Both are run by Energy Transfer and are anchored in the Appalachian Basin, North America’s largest gas-producing region, feeding LNG export terminals, power plants and industrial users.
Masdar locked in USD 5.1 bn from a 13-bank consortium for what could become the world’s largest solar-plus-battery plant — a USD 6.1 bn Abu Dhabi facility built to deliver a full gigawatt around the clock, sun or no sun, according to a press release. Masdar funds the remaining USD 1 bn in equity.
PIF’s football budget cuts could be headed to court. Boards across PIF-owned Saudi Pro League clubs are assembling legal teams ahead of 2026-27, bracing for contract disputes from players whose salaries can no longer be met in full after PIF-mandated cuts, Intelligence Online reports, citing unnamed sources. London and New York firms are already prepping for what comes next.
The Big Four — Al Hilal, Al Nassr, Al Ittihad and Al Ahli — face a combined USD 200-400 mn in cuts. Marquee names like Cristiano Ronaldo are prioritized for full payment, while lower-profile and injured players are more exposed. When PIF acquired the four clubs in 2023, budgets were fat enough to lure stars from Europe's top leagues. That’s now unwinding as part of a wider PIF recalibration that already pulled LIV Golf’s funding, and PIF has been trying to exit football altogether.
ALSO WORTH KNOWING TODAY-
PIF signed an MoU with Miami-based I Squared Capital to target up to USD 2 bn in digital infrastructure and district cooling — up to USD 1 bn per sector, with room to scale, AGBI reports (Arab News). It fits PIF's 2026-30 pivot from sole financier to co-investment partner as it reins in spending amid softer oil revenue — a template neighboring funds are watching.
NourNet, a Saudi digital-services firm, has tapped Goldman Sachs and HSBC for a possible Riyadh IPO as soon as this year, Bloomberg reports — one of a slate of Gulf deals fueling hopes of a post-summer rebound. Gulf first-time share sales have pulled just over USD 1 bn in 2026, the weakest since 2021, so whether names like NourNet can reopen the window will set the tone across the GCC into 2027.
Egytrans Nosco isn’t ready to rule on Africa Global Logistics’ (AGL) buyout offer, tasking management with studying the French group’s bid for up to 100% of the EGX-listed logistics firm before a final call, according to a statement (pdf). AGL’s non-binding offer values it at an 18.4% premium, with a mandatory tender offer conditional on 75% and voluntary delisting the eventual aim. The firm was formed last September in the EGX’s first reverse merger, combining Egytrans (70.2%) and Nosco (29.8%).
Morocco’s Cap Holding, controlled by tycoon Chakib Alj, revived its acquisition of a 68% stake in flour-and-semolina miller Forafric Maroc after resolving a Crédit Agricole du Maroc debt dispute (over MAD 190 mn) that had stalled it since May.
Riyad Bank set up a SAR 10 bn AT1 sukuk program, a standing facility to issue perpetual shariah-compliant capital instruments as needed to support its capital base and liquidity, Zawya reports.
The African Development Bank approved up to USD 66 mn to finance a 500-MW first phase of the Dandara solar project — the opening stage of Scatec’s1.1-GW plan — plus a 100-MWh battery system in Naga Hammadi, it said. The package is USD 46 mn from the bank plus USD 20 mn in concessional Clean Technology Fund money; the rest of the USD 290 mn-plus cost comes from a DFI consortium.
MENA-based investors bankrolled 81% of the region’s venture funding in 1H 2026 — their biggest share in more than five years — as foreign money pulled back, according to a Magnitt report seen by EnterpriseAM. Startups raised USD 1.35 bn across 214 agreements, with funding down 22% y-o-y and dealcount down 41% — the fewest in a half since at least 2022. Active international investors dropped 48% y-o-y to 95 and the capital they deployed fell 65%, lifting the MENA-based share from 58% a year earlier.
1H numbers show a lag: Capital raised in 1H reflects agreements struck six to nine months ago, before the regional conflict started, Magnitt founder and CEO Philip Bahoshy tells EnterpriseAM. Early-stage agreements fell more than 50% y-o-y — what he calls “the truest measure of ecosystem appetite.” As we flagged in April, the war’s real hit surfaces in 3Q, once the pre-committed pipeline runs dry.
The quarterly split makes the point: Funding barely moved between quarters — USD 667 mn in 2Q vs USD 679 mn in 1Q — but agreements fell 27% q-o-q to 90, the lowest quarterly count in at least two years. Two agreements worth USD 480 mn combined (36% of all 1H capital) cushioned the decline; the 10 largest absorbed 58%.
UAE dominates, while Saudi’s drop can be chalked up to base effect: UAE startups drew USD 895 mn — two-thirds of MENA funding and up 53% y-o-y, even as dealcount fell 37%. About 60% came from three BlueFive Capital-backed agreements, including CargoX (USD 250 mn) and Mal (USD 230 mn). Saudi came second at USD 219 mn, down 74%, though “the comparison base is doing a lot of the work,” Bahoshy says, as funding peaked in the Kingdom in 1H 2025. Dealcounts were near-identical y-o-y: 79 in the UAE and 72 in Saudi Arabia.
Egypt and Morocco moved in opposite directions: Egypt slipped 29% to USD 142 mn but held third, while Morocco booked the region’s sharpest gain, up 305% to USD 32 mn. A June snapshot from Wamda points to a possible Cairo turn — the city vaulted to second for the month, with eight startups raising USD 41.4 mn on a steadier EGP and record tourism revenues.
Fintech kept the crown at USD 617 mn despite a 9% dip; transport and logistics jumped 661% to USD 273 mn (though CargoX alone was 92% of that).
A second read:Wamda’s 1H count, compiled with Digital Digest, lands on similar conclusions but reads the outlook more optimistically — an active pipeline and high-profile exits that could reignite 2H momentum. Wamda’s secondary story is a pullback in debt financing (down from 44% a year earlier); Magnitt’s is the foreign-capital retreat.
What’s next: Three signals will define 2H, Bahoshy says — return of international investors, recovery in early-stage dealflow after summer, and stabilization of exits. All three should surface in 3Q data.
The UAE is rebuilding its trade map to route around Hormuz — and the latest tell is DP World advancing talks on two new Fujairah projects: a multipurpose port along the coastline and a separate container terminal at an existing harbor. The company is discussing a term sheet with government officials, but ownership and financing aren’t final, the Financial Times reports. The new port could be built within 18 months at an initial cost in the USD hundreds of mns.
Fujairah sits on the Gulf of Oman outside Hormuz. But a bypass only works if shippers and insurers trust it under stress, former World Economic Forum head of supply chain Wolfgang Lehmacher tells EnterpriseAM. Redundancy “cuts exposure in stress-test scenarios,” but doesn’t erase the security risk — Iran targeted Fujairah and Khor Fakkan infrastructure and vessels during the war, and Khor Fakkan hit 100% congestion on some April days, according to Xeneta, with berthing waits stretching to four weeks. Jebel Ali, meanwhile, saw activity plunge 90-95% after the strait closed.
Hormuz tailwinds
Maersk is routing another service back through Suez: The Danish carrier is returning its India-Middle East-US East Coast service (MECL) to the Red Sea, shaving roughly seven days off westbound runs and up to 14 eastbound versus the Cape of Good Hope detour it has used since Houthi attacks began in late 2023. The move follows last week’s Maersk–Hapag-Lloyd switch of their AE15 service. The new eastbound call at Jeddah starts in August.
While the return to the Red Sea route is good for Egypt, Hormuz disruptions have been the real driver for the recovery of the Suez Canal revenues, which rose 25% y-o-y in the first 5M of 2026. With Hormuz effectively shut since the Iran war began on 28 February, Gulf oil and LNG is running north through the Red Sea to reach Europe, turning the canal into what EFG Hermes’ Mohamed Abu Basha called an unexpected beneficiary of the conflict.
May crossing data gives a snapshot: Tanker crossings jumped 20% y-o-y, whereas crossings from other types of vessels rose 11%.
Unlocking the Saudi dream?
First-time Saudi homebuyers in three major cities can now access mortgages starting from SAR 699 (USD 186) a month through a new program that channels capital directly to banks to support mortgage issuance. The mortgages, available in Riyadh, Jeddah, and Dammam, come with instant financing approval, according to state news agency SPA.
Why it matters: Saudi Arabia’s homeownership rate still falls short of the government’s 70% target, and affordability remains a main barrier. Knight Frank puts the ceiling Saudi nationals are willing to pay at SAR 1.5 mn per home. The move marks the REDF’s attempt to bring financing within reach for buyers priced out of conventional lending.
A drop in the ocean
Europe pledged EUR 884 mn in early recovery funds for Gaza, but it’s a trickle of what’s needed, with Gaza requiring an estimated USD 71 bn for rebuilding over the next decade. The funding will be part of the EU’s Team Gaza Initiative, which will focus on debris removal, water and sanitation, and restoring health systems. The funding will come from the European Commission and 15 partners, including a dozen European governments, the World Bank, and the European Investment Bank, but we don’t have a per-partner breakdown.
REMEMBER- US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, the US-led vehicle meant to steer Gaza’s rebuilding, has struggled to convert pledges into real investments on the ground. As of April, under USD 1 bn of USD 17 bn pledged had been deposited — and that gap is a pattern in previous Gaza reconstruction pledges dating back to at least 2014, we previously reported.
WATCH THIS SPACE #1- Egypt is widening the coverage on its optional ins. policy for citizens working abroad, adding compensation of up to EGP 100k for arbitrary termination and forced repatriation from 1 August, under a protocol signed this month between the Foreign Ministry and the Financial Regulatory Authority, the Cabinet said in a statement. The revised policy — which carries an EGP 400 annual premium — also covers accident-related total disability up to EGP 250k and keeps the repatriation-of-remains benefit that anchored the original 2022 product.
IN CONTEXT- Egypt hasmore than 10 mn citizensliving abroad, who are heavily concentrated in the Gulf, where labor localization policies are tightening the job markets for expats. The UAE has been aggressively pushing citizens' representation in the private sector, pushing for an Emiratization rate of 10% by the end of 2026 — up from 6% now. Meanwhile, Saudi plans to localize more than 340k additional private-sector jobs over three years, with profession-level quotas now overriding overall headcount ratios — and Saudi efforts through the Nitaqat quota system so far have been raising the market barriers for expats, with fewer openings and lower take-home pay, according to a 2025 study by a US-based Political Science Professor Andrew Leber.
Why it matters: A phased return of even a fraction of Egypt's Gulf workforce is a domestic labor-market and social issue, as much as a balance-of-payments problem, given how remittances are Egypt’s top source of hard currency. We will keep an eye out for similar returnee-facing policies, which can span reintegration schemes, credit and housing facilities, and job-matching for come-homers.
WATCH THIS SPACE #2- Egyptian and Omani ports see tailwinds amid Hormuz closure: Transit trade passing through Egyptian ports rose 40% y-o-y between March and May, whereas Oman’s re-exports surged by some 67% in 4M 2026. Oman’s re-exports were driven by Emirati and Saudi products being diverted out through Omani ports, and Egypt’s Finance Minister Ahmed Kouchouk cited the government’s March incentives that allowed transit goods to be parked for up to three months without pre-registration.
SOUND SMART- Re-exports and transit are sometimes used interchangeably, but they are not exactly the same. Both describe goods passing through a given country before reaching their final destination, but the caveat lies in whether they enter the official customs system and change hands. Re-exports have to be imported goods that change ownership and are recorded in the customs system before being re-exported, whereas transit goods don’t — they usually get stored in bonded warehouses while remaining under single ownership throughout their sea leg.
Sign of the times
Neom just rewrote its public pitch: The gigaproject overhauled its website to strip out the futuristic renders and sweeping promises that defined The Line's marketing, replacing them with more restrained language on delivery and commercial viability, AGBI first reported. Sindalah lost its standalone section on the website, Magna’s page no longer lists the 15 boutique hotels it once showcased, and references to housing 9 mn people, operating without roads or cars, and running entirely on renewables no longer appear on The Line’s page. In Neom’s new framing, The Line is now “a core component” of a “phased, demand-led approach.”
What survived the cull is the trade and industry infrastructure core: the Oxagon industrial port, the USD 8.4 bn green hydrogen plant, a 4 GW renewables complex, and the data centers. The logistics case is stronger than the skyline case ever was, Abdullah Almeer, assistant professor of economics at KFUPM Business School, tells EnterpriseAM. Neom’s position on the Red Sea, with routes into the Suez Canal, becomes “a huge plus if things get tense around key waterways like Hormuz,” Almeer says, adding that Iraq, Jordan and the wider GCC would gain from better trade-route access. He points to proposed rail links through Jordan as a faster overland path to Europe, and to the hydrogen plant as fuel for cleaner shipping.
But Neom says nothing has changed: “We routinely update our digital platforms to enhance user experience, and this should not be interpreted as signaling any change to our long-term vision or commitment to our developments,” a spokesperson tells EnterpriseAM, echoing the statement given to AGBI.
Middle East travel demand has clawed back to as much as 90% pre-war levels — enough to keep Airbus confident Gulf carriers can shake off the Iran war disruption and keep adding capacity, Bloomberg reported last week. The planemaker expects the region's major carriers, including Emirates and Qatar Airways, to keep expanding their fleets.
Airbus’ wider outlook is still positive, just flatter. It expects global traffic to grow 2% this year and 3.9% annually over the next two decades, with China, India, emerging Asian markets, and the Gulf driving demand. It sees 42k aircraft deliveries over the period — slightly below last year's forecast — with single-aisle jets accounting for around 80% of the total at 34k units.
Data point
DATA POINT- A total of22.5% ofLebanon’s fertile land has been damageddue to Israeli military operations. The damage bill is at some USD 1 bn, with the bulk of the damage concentrated in the South Lebanon and Nabatieh governorates.
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