Of employment and war risk

Good afternoon, friends. We open the week looking at employment — specifically whether the GCC can realistically recruit its next wave of workers from the Caucasus and Central Asia. The has drifted around Gulf ministries for years and has grown more concrete now that the war has made the established recruitment corridors more expensive and less predictable. Redirecting a labor pipeline built up over four decades is a slow business, and it’s not made easier by structural hurdles.

The number sitting underneath everything else today is USD 7-8. That’s what war risk cover now adds to a barrel of Gulf crude, David Osler of Lloyd's List tells AGBI. Marine insurers have paid out some USD 2 bn across more than 70 incidents since the conflict began, their second-worst stretch in more than a decade. Iraq’s August export volumes came in 36% below pre-war levels, according to tanker-tracking data — with Qatar and Saudi Arabia each down 48%, and the UAE, which can reach Fujairah without transiting the strait, effectively flat.

Meanwhile, in Benghazi: Nearly three dozen Italian companies — engineers, contractors, technology firms, healthcare providers and a university from Rome — are in the city through tomorrow, pitching proposals to redevelop the historic center. The Italians are kicking the tires on Libya at the same time as Syria is drawing in USD 1 bn in reconstruction agreements, as we note in our Investment Watch section, below.

Looking further out: Riyadh’s fall event calendar is finding a firm footing, with big Wall Street names, including Jamie Dimon, Ray Dalio, Larry Fink and Stephen Schwarzman, slated to speak at the Future Investment Initiative in October, Semafor reports. The fall calendar is stacked with everything that got pushed out of the spring, and the marquee names are showing up regardless. –Salma