Back office, front office

1

OPENING NOTE

AI wobbles and Iran strikes Bahrain again

Happy FRIDAY, ladies and gentlemen. We’re shipping you off into the weekend with the same two themes that seem to have taken over most of our mornings (and evenings) for what now feels like an eternity: The speed bumps in AI Land and — you guessed it — Iran.

Jensen Huang’s resignation from Nvidia briefly rattled markets yesterday, but investors quickly concluded the AI boom is bigger than one man. Nvidia shares fell 14% at the open after Huang stepped down over a series of affairs, including one with a woman US intelligence suspects of spying for China.

The stock recovered to close down 4.3%, as investors weighed AI demand and looked for companies that could benefit from the turmoil, Bloomberg reports. Rival chipmakers Broadcom and AMD were among the S&P 500’s biggest gainers on bets they’ll pick up any business Nvidia loses. CFO Colette Kress is now interim CEO while the board looks for a permanent replacement.

In around a week’s time, investors will have another major name in the market to pour into. Anthropic’s shares are expected to start trading on Nasdaq on or around next Thursday, 19 November at a price that would value the whole company at up to USD 1.4 tn — a bit less than some investors had hoped, Reuters reports. It’s only selling a small slice of itself, but that could still bring in as much as USD 64.4 bn, CNBC says. Google, Nvidia, Microsoft, and other tech giants are buying an extra USD 26 bn of its shares.

Investors will be watching how Anthropic’s shares sell to judge whether Wall Street is still bullish on AI. They’re a little jumpy right now. AI stocks have only partly bounced back from last week’s post-midterm selloff, as we noted on Tuesday. That selloff is already hitting Gulf wallets. Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala may be down about USD 17.5 bn on its AI wagers since the end of June, while Saudi Arabia’s PIF is down about USD 5.64 bn, according to estimates by consultancy GlobalSWF first reported by Semafor.

Meanwhile, in our neck of the woods, a tanker carrying LNG hit a mine while crossing through the Strait of Hormuz and “suffered an explosion,” Reuters reports, after Iranian media reported yesterday that another four tankers faced attacks while in the strait. Outside the strait, the attacks are also continuing, with Iran hitting a US early-warning radar in Bahrain, according to Reuters. –Salma

Tags:

AI Bahrain geopolitics Opening Note

2

THE LEDE

Oman and Turkey are jockeying to claim a stake in the region’s financial center business

Istanbul and Muscat are each trying to claim a piece of the region’s financial center business, but only Istanbul is going after a part of it that Dubai and Abu Dhabi haven’t already taken. Turkey’s June overhaul of its Financial Center Law targets the work that sits behind a regional front office: Group treasury, shared services, and regional management. Oman is building a common-law enclave to compete with DIFC and ADGM directly for licensed banks and funds.

The front office is spoken for: Dubai and Abu Dhabi have the licensed business, and they grew right through the war. DIFC passed 10k active firms in 1H 2026, up 30% y-o-y, 1.1k of them regulated financial firms, the center says. At ADGM, assets under management jumped 54% and the number of fund managers rose 23% to 190 over the same period, with Man Group and Capital Group among the newcomers. September’s Global Financial Centres Index kept Dubai in the top 10 and lifted Abu Dhabi eight places to 13th, as we previously reported.

Riyadh has already drawn in a share of what remains. Since January 2024, any company chasing government contracts in the Kingdom has needed a regional HQ there, and more than 750 have signed up — Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas among them this year. What is left is the work that faces away from Saudi Arabia: treasury, shared services, and regional management for groups spanning Turkey, Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. That’s what Istanbul is aiming at.

Where Riyadh compels, Istanbul pays: Turkey’s Law No. 7582, in force since 4 June, creates a qualified service center status for groups active in at least three countries whose center earns 80% of its revenue from foreign affiliates. Qualifying income gets a 95% corporate tax deduction for 20 tax periods, rising to 100% if the center also holds an Istanbul Financial Center participant certificate — plus a wage exemption of up to five times the gross minimum wage per employee, tax advisers note.

Broadening, not giving up: Hasan Dincer, a finance professor speaking in a personal capacity, tells EnterpriseAM that this isn’t tantamount to Turkey conceding the top end. “I would not describe the recent changes as Turkey giving up the front-office competition with Dubai or Abu Dhabi. I see them more as an effort to broaden Istanbul’s role,” he says. He expects regional finance operations, reporting, planning, shared services, and some treasury work to move first. And because Istanbul would serve groups running Turkey, Europe, the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia, he sees “more room for complementarity than a direct winner-takes-all competition” with Riyadh.

But the line is blurry: The front office/back office split is less tidy than it looks. “The distinction is between where work is done and where judgement is exercised,” Abdalla Elsayed, an economic researcher at City St George’s, University of London, tells EnterpriseAM. A group treasurer “may decide how bns are borrowed, invested or hedged,” he says, so Istanbul gains real clout only if its teams manage funding and risk rather than process instructions. Nor does Dubai’s head-start shut the door. Nine in 10 DIFC firms aren’t regulated financial companies, which Elsayed says is a register, not a full market. Istanbul, he says, “can compete for a multinational’s next treasury mandate.”

The harder question is the TRY: Treasurers weighing Istanbul would be holding group funds in an economy where annual inflation was still running at 29.8% in October, according to TurkStat. “Incentives are only one part of the decision,” Dincer says, and he expects companies “to move gradually rather than make very large treasury decisions immediately.” The tax case also thins out for big groups. Turkey’s 15% domestic top-up tax has applied since 2024 to groups with revenue above EUR 750 mn, clawing back much of a 100% deduction. Groups above that threshold would mostly be buying the wage exemption.

Interest isn’t quite the same as arrival: Istanbul has had no shortage of interest. Istanbul Financial Center CEO Ahmet Ihsan Erdem told Reuters in April that he had met more than 40 companies in a single month, mostly from East Asia and the Gulf, and expected to lift occupancy from under half to 75% — some 40k workers — by the end of December. Elsayed calls that “evidence of interest, not proof that firms have relocated decision-making.”

Oman is starting from scratch and faces a steeper climb: IFC Oman was set up by royal decree in January as an English common-law jurisdiction with its own regulator, courts, and tax holidays of up to 50 years. It first aimed to be fully operational this year. It now plans to register companies before year-end and license them in 2027, with the founding laws and rulebooks issued just two days ago. Even the tax pitch has limits: Oman’s own 15% top-up tax on large multinationals means the 50-year holiday matters mainly to firms below the EUR 750 mn threshold.

A law isn’t a market: “Muscat needs a reason for a firm to place a business mandate there, not merely a reason to incorporate,” Elsayed says. Copying the DIFC model is a good start, he adds, but “Dubai’s success took years of building relationships, attracting talent and creating business opportunities. That cannot be copied through legislation alone.” He would start with a few focused businesses: trade finance, infrastructure, and strategies linking Oman with South Asia and East Africa. Oman does have something to sell — all three ratings agencies now rate it investment grade.

Our take: Istanbul is going after the part of the market still open to it, and its constraint is macro credibility, rather than law. Oman is competing for business the UAE won two decades ago, and its realistic prize is a corridor niche, rather than DIFC’s client list. Elsayed sums up the test for both: “Contingency can explain why a firm arrives; useful, profitable work must explain why it stays.”

Three dates fall due shortly. The Istanbul Financial Center’s 75% occupancy target falls due at end-December. The Industry and Technology Ministry’s QSC procedures will decide when applications can actually start. And IFC Oman’s registry is due to open before year-end, with the first licenses in 2027. The question to put to every arrival, Elsayed says: “What can this team decide now that it could not decide a year ago?”

Tags:

business Oman The Lede Turkey UAE

3

Energy

Turkey draws EBRD and Acwa Power commitments to its clean-energy push at COP31

Turkey is using its COP31 presidency to pull multilateral capital and foreign developer commitments into its renewables buildout, with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) pledging USD 6 bn in project financing to the country’s clean-energy platform over five years and Saudi Arabia’s Acwa Power finalizing the framework of the next phase of its planned USD 5 bn pipeline in the country.

#1- Saudi and Turkey formalized the second phase of their 5 GW renewables framework, after the pair signed an MoU on Tuesday on electricity-project cooperation that builds on a government-to-government agreement first struck in February. Acwa Power is the Saudi-designated investor, with the 2 GW first phase — two 1 GW solar plants at Sivas and Karaman-Taşeli. The first phase development is yet to close financing, but Acwa has already secured 25-year power purchase agreements at tariffs of EUR 0.0199-0.0235 per kWh, the lowest ever awarded in Turkey.

The timeline: The first phase of the project will break ground in late 2026, with construction starting in 2027 and commercial operation in early 2028. The 3 GW second phase, formalized this week, covers wind farms, high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission, and battery storage, Acwa Chairman Mohammad Abunayyan said.

#2- The EBRD is backstopping Turkey’s new overarching clean-energy platform with a USD 6 bn financing pledge over the next five years, the bank announced on Wednesday. The money will go toward projects under Turkey’s Renewable Energy Acceleration and Clean Transition Platform (REACT), designed to mobilize USD 300 bn in investment by 2040 across power generation, grid infrastructure, storage, manufacturing, and electrification. The platform is also supported by the EU, the World Bank, and the IFC, and is pitched as the vehicle for lifting Turkey’s installed electricity capacity from roughly 128 GW today to 281 GW by 2040.

Oman is making moves too

Oman signed two new green hydrogen development agreements at the Duqm Special Economic Zone under Hydrom’s third auction round, the state’s Oman News Agency reports. A consortium of Oman’s Petrogas E&P and Italy’s Bio3Energy Srl wants to build a 625k-tonnes-per-year green ammonium nitrate plant backed by 1.2 GW of renewables, targeting the fertilizer and mining sectors. A separate consortium of PLN Indonesia Power Renewables, Oman’s Alawi Enterprises, and Singapore’s HBA Future Energy (formerly HBA Offshore International) will develop a 400k-tonnes-per-year green ammonia project backed by 1.5 GW of solar for export.

Together, the projects target 121k tonnes per year of combined green hydrogen output by 2032. Oman expects first commercial green hydrogen production in 2027 from India-headquartered Acme Group’s plant, also at Duqm.

But the new MoUs run against the grain of the IEA’s latest read of the sector. In its Renewables 2026 report published last week (which we unpack in depth below), the agency scaled back Oman’s renewable capacity forecast from last year’s projections “mainly because of weaker prospects for renewable hydrogen.” The agency specifically flagged two projects awarded in earlier Hydrom rounds that were cancelled after consortia failed to secure offtakers, and other awarded projects whose final investment decisions are dragging out longer than they should.

Tags:

Acwa Power COP31 ENERGY European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Saudi Arabia Turkey

4

ECONOMY

Hydrocarbon exports from outside Hormuz pull Oman into an OMR 90 mn surplus after a year in deficit

Hydrocarbon exports tip Oman into surplus: Oman posted a budget surplus of OMR 90 mn in 9M 2026, reversing an OMR 433 mn deficit a year earlier. Oil and gas exports helped government revenues hit OMR 9.8 bn — a 16% y-o-y rise that outpaced the 9% y-o-y increase in spending.

Natural gas did most of the work: Net natural gas revenue jumped 61% to OMR 2.1 bn, above the OMR 1.9 bn budgeted for all of 2026, while net oil revenues rose by just 7% to OMR 5 bn. That means gas revenue added about OMR 800 mn, while oil revenues added some OMR 300 mn compared to last year. By our math, both oil and gas revenues account for over 80% of the rise in revenues — and natural gas alone accounts for 60% at OMR 800 mn of added returns compared to last year.

Qatar’s loss was Oman’s gain: Oman’s Qalhat LNG plant sits outside the Strait of Hormuz and has kept exporting, mostly on spot terms at war-inflated prices, while Qatar shipped just 18 cargoes in the war’s first six months against 509 a year earlier.

What to watch for: The 2027 budget, due around 1 January, will show whether Muscat lifts the USD 60 bb / d oil assumption it has used for three straight years. The Energy and Minerals Ministry has pledged to direct any windfall to the deficit and debt repayment.

Tags:

ECONOMY macroeconomics Oman Trade WAR WATCH

5

THE SCORECARD

The UAE, Oman, and Qatar are heading for the top 10 of global per-capita solar rankings as MENA’s renewables capacity set to double

The UAE, Oman, and Qatar will sit among the world’s top 10 countries in per-capita solar power generation by 2031, with the UAE overtaking Australia to claim the global top spot at more than 4k kWh per person, the International Energy Agency said in its recently released Renewables 2026 report. Oman will rank third globally and Qatar fifth, pushing in alongside Bulgaria, Greece, Austria, and Spain as a new tier of per-capita solar leaders.

The larger picture: The region’s installed renewables capacity is on track to more than double to nearly 200 GW by 2031 — and most of that will come from solar. The IEA expects the region to add 122 GW of new capacity over 2026-2031, raising renewables’ share of total electricity generation from 5% to 15%. Solar is expected to account for 80% of this added capacity — the highest of any region globally.

The growth, however, will be tightly concentrated in one market: Saudi Arabia. The Kingdom alone is expected to account to half of the regional increase at 60 GW. The UAE will come at a distant second with 13 GW of planned new capacity, followed by Egypt at 12 GW.

Egypt records the largest upward revision in the region, reflecting an acceleration plan driven by the energy-cost shock from the Middle East conflict. The government has reported that its monthly gas import bill nearly tripled from USD 560 mn to USD 1.65 bn after the fighting began, prompting Cairo to pull forward its 45% renewable electricity target from 2035 to 2028. The reforms underpinning the shift include a new corporate PPA framework, the reintroduction of competitive wind and solar auctions after a decade-long hiatus, and a growing pipeline of bilateral wind, solar and storage projects, the IEA said.

The UAE and Morocco were also revised up. The UAE is expanding the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park from 5 GW to more than 7 GW and slightly raised its clean energy target to 35% by 2031 in January, up from 32% by 2030. And Morocco is now forecast to add 5 GW of new capacity by 2031, up from 1.5 GW — an upward revision driven by a growing corporate PPA pipeline and faster-than-expected progress at state-owned miner OCP on more than 2 GW of renewable capacity in service of a corporate 2040 net zero target.

Syria, starting from a lower base, also gets a star: The country now has more than 2 GW of renewables capacity, after adding some 1.5 GW from 2022 to 2026. The rise was driven by unreliable grid supply and high fuel costs, which led to a surge of distributed solar for residential and off-grid use as an alternative.

Two streams of logic are driving the growth forecast. Hydrocarbon producers are deploying renewables to free up oil and gas for export — Saudi’s Liquid Displacement Program targets 1 mn bbl / d of freed-up crude — which accounts for roughly two-thirds of forecast growth, led by Saudi Arabia and Oman. The remaining third comes from import-dependent power systems hedging against gas price volatility: Egypt and Tunisia on imported gas, Morocco on coal and gas, Iraq on Iranian gas, and the UAE.

Uh, Enterprise, is the UAE really an energy importer? Kinda. The UAE buys more gas than it ships out for various reasons. One of these is straightforward arbitrage: Cheap Qatari pipeline gas via Dolphin feeds the domestic grid, while Das Island exports high-value LNG to premium Asian buyers under long-term contracts. A considerable chunk of UAE’s gas production is also reinjected into oil wells to boost crude recovery. That math, however, flips in 2030 as Adnoc’s 9.6 mtpa Ruwais LNG project begins production by 2028.

Still, some markets are facing headwinds: Saudi Arabia’s own forecast was revised downwards on slow project progress — a counterintuitive note for the regional growth leader. Iran and Iraq were revised down because a large share of pipeline projects have yet to reach final investment decision, while Oman’s forecast was scaled back as its hydrogen economy plans stalled: two projects awarded in earlier hydrogen rounds were cancelled for lack of offtakers; others are stuck pre-FID; and the renewable electricity capacity that would have powered them drops out of the forecast with them.

The biggest near-term risk is the war’s wobbly supply chain. Combined Chinese solar PV module imports to Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, Jordan, Iran and Lebanon fell 61% year-on-year in the first nine months (9m) of 2026, the IEA reports, citing disruption from the Strait of Hormuz closure. One developer told the agency that several financial closes and project-agreement signings could be delayed by six to 12 months.

THE ASSUMPTIONS- The 200 GW figure is based on a reading that accounts for current policies and the current pipeline. It does not assume faster permitting, grid build-out, or financing than what’s already underway. All of that upside sits in the accelerated case.

Capacity additions between 2026 and 2031 could be almost 30% higher in the IEA’s upside case — around 158 GW instead of 122 GW, taking total installed capacity to nearly 233 GW by 2031 — if grid, regulatory and financing constraints are addressed.

Tags:

Egypt ENERGY GCC Morocco RENEWABLES Saudi Arabia Syria The Scorecard UAE

6

MARKETS + DEALS

Foreign financial houses court the Gulf, from Saudi lending to Dubai offices

Foreign financial firms are opening up in the Gulf this week. Goldman Sachs, HSBC, and Mubadala-backed Fortress are lending USD 150 mn into a Saudi manufacturer alongside two regional managers, Fortress for the first time in the Kingdom. Blackstone has opened a DIFC office and put private credit and infrastructure funds in front of more than 100 family offices. Kotak Mahindra has moved its Dubai representative office into new premises on Sheikh Zayed Road.

International private credit is moving back into Saudi Arabia: Goldman Sachs, HSBC, and Mubadala-backed Fortress Investment Group are providing USD 150 mn of financing to nonwoven fabrics manufacturer United Saudi Company, alongside regional managers Ruya Partners and Amwal Capital, Bloomberg reports, citing people familiar with the matter. It is one of the first major private credit deals involving large international lenders since the war began in February, and Fortress’ first in Saudi private credit.

More regional money is forming up behind it. Janus Henderson has raised almost USD 200 mn for a regional private credit fund, and Ruya, backed by Mubadala and PIF, is raising a USD 400 mn fund that would be among the region’s largest. The financing comes with Houthi attacks continuing, domestic finances under strain, and bank liquidity tight, which puts more weight on foreign capital.

Blackstone is courting Gulf family offices to refill its retail funds, five months after redemptions forced it to gate its flagship private credit fund, BCRED. Wealth executives including BCRED president Carlos Whitaker pitched private credit and infrastructure funds to more than 100 wealthy investors and family offices at the firm’s first Dubai gathering on Wednesday, with more than 40 Gulf distributors signed.

The pitch came as it opened its DIFC office, which Blackstone says will anchor its Gulf private wealth business alongside its Abu Dhabi base. Private wealth accounts for USD 330 bn of its USD 1.4 tn in assets, close to a quarter, and management is aiming at USD 1 tn in private wealth assets, about three times where it sits now.

India’s Kotak Mahindra Bank is widening its Dubai presence to court the UAE’s Indian diaspora. The bank has inaugurated new premises for its Dubai representative office on Sheikh Zayed Road, targeting investment and family wealth management for Indian families and businesses with interests across the UAE, India, and beyond, according to a press release. Kotak has had a Dubai representative presence since 2009, and its central bank licence does not allow the office to offer banking products or services onshore in the UAE.

NMDC Group is looking at three to five acquisition targets and hopes to announce the first in December, Group CEO Yasser Zaghloul tells Bloomberg. The Abu Dhabi marine and energy services firm, a key contractor to Adnoc, sees the slowdown in activity as a good moment to buy, and Zaghloul expects growth back at 20% or higher once the conflict ends and projects and trade resume.

The slide started before the war. Hormuz disruption took NMDC’s 9M revenue growth down to 4%, from 10% last year and nearly 60% in 2024, so most of the deceleration landed in 2025, ahead of February. The company has been buying abroad already, taking 51% of Spanish water utility Lantania Aguas and winning new awards across the UAE, Taiwan, Oman, and the Philippines.

Boursa Kuwait has listed its first fixed-income instrument, opening a bonds and sukuk platform. Kuwait Finance House’s KWD 200 mn (c. USD 650 mn) additional tier 1 sukuk now trades under the symbol KFH T1S3, the first debt of any kind to list on the exchange, Kuwait Times reports. The CMA cleared amendments to the listing requirements and the fixed-income rulebook in April and approved the launch on 5 November, putting Kuwait on the same footing as Nasdaq Dubai, the Saudi Exchange, and the Muscat exchange.

The paper is not new. KFH issued the perpetual Mudaraba instrument in May at 200 bps over the Central Bank of Kuwait discount rate, for an expected 5.50% annual profit rate paid semi-annually and callable after six years, according to KFH. It was fully subscribed domestically, mainly by private banking and wealth management clients and financial institutions, with demand exceeding the target by more than KWD 275 mn, though KFH has not given the target size. It is rated A2 by Moody’s and A by Fitch, both stable, and trades in KWD 1k units, Kuwait Times reported.

ADVISORS- KFH Capital was global coordinator and joint lead manager, with Kamco Invest as joint lead manager.

ALSO WORTH KNOWING

CE-Ventures has backed London-based Oyster Therapeutics in a USD 60 mn Series A, joining Eli Lilly and specialist investor 4BIO Capital, according to a press release (pdf). The venture arm of Sharjah’s Crescent Enterprises is funding clinical trials for Oyster’s lead candidate, an oral targeted protein degrader aimed at tau-driven neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer’s.

Saudi game developer Lambda Studios has raised USD 1.3 mn led by Merak Capital, according to Wamda. The round’s stage and the other participants were not disclosed. Founded in 2024 by Sari and Firas AlSaedi and started as a personal project in Makkah, the studio began building for Roblox and is expanding to other platforms including Steam while keeping its own IP.

UAE mobility tech startup Multipolitan has raised USD 2 mn in pre-seed funding led by Singapore venture studio EmergentX, at a USD 25 mn pre-money valuation, according to a press release. That puts the round at about 7% of the company once the money is in, by our math.

Market Snapshot

Tadawul 0.2% • ADX 1.5% • DFM 0.2% • EGX30 -0.9%

Brent USD 95.82 / bbl • Gold USD 3,895 / oz • USD / SAR 3.75 • USD / EGP 53.37

Tags:

Blackstone Goldman Sachs Markets + Deals Saudi Arabia UAE

7

Regulation Watch

Morocco raises its freelancer tax tripwire, two years after rejecting the same move

Morocco eases taxes for freelancers: Morocco’s self-employed will be able to bill a single client up to MAD 100k (USD 10.1k) a year before tax withholding applies, up from MAD 80k (USD 8.1k), under amendments to the 2027 Finance Bill that the House of Representatives’ finance committee approved 23-18 on Wednesday, according to Morocco World News. A second amendment would cut the withholding rate on income above that line from 30% to 28% in 2027, with the rate falling gradually each year until it reaches 20% by 2031.

The cap exists to catch disguised employment, amid what the government believes is fraud risk from employers swapping payroll for consultancy invoices. That means some companies hire staff as contractors, who pay 1% on turnover instead of income tax rates that reach 20-25%, Lekjaa told the committee. He put registered self-employed workers at about 430k individuals.

REMEMBER- Rabat rejected the same idea in 2024: The ruling majority tabled similar changes asking to raise the threshold to MAD 100k, but Finance Minister Fouzi Lekjaa, who pushed the same threshold this year, turned down the proposal, citing fraud risk and tax evasion.

So why now? It appears that the larger income tax overhaul forced the move. That bill lifts the tax-exempt income bracket to MAD 60k (USD 6.07k) from MAD 40k (USD 4.05k) next year, and Lekjaa said the self-employed threshold had to move in the same direction. That means that those whose net monthly salaries are under MAD 10k will pay no income tax starting January, meaning the tax gain from faking contractor status would shrink at the lower end of the pay scale.

Neighbours picked different tools: Egypt went with carrots, letting freelancers and small firms with turnover under EGP 20 mn (USD 370k) pay 0.4-1.5% of turnover under the country’s Income Tax Law. South Africa uses the stick: A one-person company earning more than 80% of its income from one client is treated as a personal service provider, and the client withholds 27%. Morocco is trying to do both with one threshold.

Tags:

Morocco Policy Watch Regulation Watch talent

8

DIPLOMACY

Trump rushes Gulf ambassadors through before Democrats take the Senate

Republicans are rushing to confirm Washington’s new ambassadors to the region after many posts have remained vacant for months. US President Donald Trump nominated new ambassadors to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kuwait, and the UAE, whose confirmations the Republican-led Senate will push through before Democrats take control of the Senate in January, Semafor says. The nominees for Riyadh, Cairo, and Kuwait City appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, and the UAE nomination, Jeffrey Colyer, reached the Senate on 9 November. Qatar, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen have no nominee, so their ambassadors will go before a Democratic Senate whose members have already threatened to investigate the deals behind the Gulf’s access to US chips.

The four posts have been run by chargés d’affaires for between 10 months in Egypt and 22 months in Saudi Arabia, a stretch in which Washington and Riyadh negotiated a defense agreement and the US cleared advanced chip sales to the Gulf.

The Riyadh nominee set out what the next ambassador will be working on. Rep. Wesley Hunt, a Texas Republican, told senators a US civil nuclear agreement with the Kingdom is needed to keep it from turning to China, and that normalization with Israel remains “part of the negotiation process,” Semafor said. His written testimony pledged to build on the Strategic Defense Agreement and expand Saudi investment in the US. The Egypt nominee — lawyer Nick Oberheiden — pledged to work with Cairo on the Gaza peace plan, Libya, and Sudan. Trump has also nominated Dino LaVerghetta for Kuwait.

Nominations still pending when this Congress ends are returned to the White House under Senate rules and would have to be resubmitted to the new chamber.

Tags:

diplomacy Egypt Kuwait Saudi Arabia UAE

9

Moves

The head of Turkey’s banking watchdog is the latest casualty of the country’s investment-fund crisis

Another one is voluntarily biting the dust in the market regulators’ shakeup in Turkey. Sahap Kavcioglu, chairman of Turkey’s Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BDDK), has asked President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for permission to step down on Wednesday so the agency “would not suffer any further damage” from allegations tying it to the country’s investment fund crisis. Kavcioglu, central bank governor from 2021 to 2023, denied holding money in the funds under investigation or taking bribes. No successor has been named as of now.

The backdrop: Kavcioglu’s de facto resignation comes after deputy chairman Muhammet Erisen and two senior BDDK officials were jailed pending trial in the probe into market manipulation. Kavcioglu also recently came into the crosshairs, after the ruling-party politician Savci Sayan publicly questioned Kavcioglu over the scandal. Regulators ordered the liquidation of 131 funds run by seven asset managers since September after warnings they could not meet redemptions.

Tags:

MOVES Regulation Watch Turkey

10

WHAT WE’RE TRACKING

India buys more Gulf oil than Russian for first time since the war began

India's Gulf oil imports have surpassed Russian crude for the first time since the Iran war began, hitting 2.1 mn bbl / d this month against Russia's 1.8 mn, Bloomberg reports, citing Kpler data. The rebound marks a dramatic reversal from April, when Strait of Hormuz flows collapsed to just 247k bbl / d— down from a 2.8 mn bbl / d February average — after US-Iran hostilities effectively shut the waterway. Tanker shuttle operations are credited with restoring the corridor.

Crude shipments are now close to pre-war levels, with combined exports from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Iraq, and Kuwait rising to 15.5 mn bbl / d in October. Russian crude is also currently priced higher than Middle Eastern grades, as Gulf producers offer competitive pricing and facilitate cargo transfers to customers.

Planting the flag

Costa Rica-based IT services picks Doha as its regional hub: SOIN, one of Costa Rica’s biggest IT firms, is planning to invest about QAR 197 mn in Qatar over the next five years to set up its regional HQ in the capital, Doha. The plan, which is still an MoU rather than a final investment decision, would see the Costa Rican firm focus on providing AI adoption and digitization services to enterprises and government agencies in Qatar and beyond.

The plan is yet another example of Invest Qatar’s HQ incentives strategy, which promises to pay back foreign players that set up regional bases in Qatar up to 40% of their capital expenditures over a period of five years. Other companies were lured in under this incentive scheme, such as the Colombia-grown payment orchestration platform Yuno, which launched its regional HQ at Web Summit Qatar back in 2025.

REMEMBER- Qatar isn’t the only GCC market with HQ incentives. Saudi Arabia runs its own regional HQ incentives program that offers 30-year breaks on corporate income tax and exemptions on Saudization quotas, but limits government contracts’ access to those worth SAR 1 mn or less.

Into the sandbox

Egypt’s market regulator experiments are piling up: The Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA) granted preliminary approvals to two fintechs to test their services within its regulatory sandbox, taking the roster to 11 since it launched over a year ago, according to an FRA statement. WeLend, working with Tamweely, EFG Finance’s microfinance arm, will pilot an AI model that scores SME creditworthiness using financial and operational data, with human reviewers checking the output. The second approval was awarded to local brokerage Roa’ya Online to pilot a gamified securities trading simulator targeting retail users aged 15 to 35.

AI credit scoring is gaining traction as the FRA has recently introduced a new rule easing the path for more machine decision-making in lending, starting from April 2027. We’ve seen growing use: Tanmeyah is rolling out its own credit-scoring model through I-Score’s Decision-as-a-Service platform, built on Synapse Analytics’ Konan engine and using bureau data to size up micro- and small-business borrowers. Raya Holdings also spun up Raya Nexus, an AI shop with EGP 250 mn in issued capital that sells credit decisioning, collections, and customer management tools to banks and fintechs.

REMEMBER- Egypt’s FRA is running a live tokenization experiment with Granite and Tarmiiz under its sandbox, focusing on tokenizing money market funds, rather than the traditional route of real estate.

Shared custody

Vodafone Egypt will own about 30% of the joint venture building the country’s largest data center and its first sovereign AI data center with Elsewedy Electric and Cassava Technologies, Vodacom Group CEO Shameel Joosub told TechCentral. The roughly USD 1 bn price tag covers the whole project, which will go up in modules as demand materializes: “The number is big, but it won’t be USD 1 bn immediately.” The partners will finance through a mix of equity and debt, and Vodacom will probably handle “the lion’s share of the sales of the data center to customers,” Joosub told Bloomberg.

REMEMBER- The partners unveiled the projects in September, targeting 20 MW of capacity within three years and 192 MW at full build-out. That pledge joins a long list: we wrote in October about how far Egypt’s pipeline of announced data centers runs ahead of the capacity actually funded.

Tags:

Egypt ENERGY oil and gas Qatar WHAT WE’RE TRACKING

CALENDAR

November 2026

9-20 Nov — COP31. Turkey

16 Nov — Cityscape Global begins (through 19 Nov). Saudi Arabia

19 Nov — Jordan-EU Investment Conference. Jordan

24-26 Nov — Libya International Energy Conference and Exhibition (LIBYES 2026). Libya

December 2026

4-6 December (Friday-Sunday): Formula 1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. UAE

5-6 December (Saturday-Sunday): Doha Forum 2026. Doha

7-10 December (Monday-Thursday): Abu Dhabi Finance Week. UAE

8-9 December (Tuesday-Wednesday): Capital Market Summit. UAE

8-9 December (Tuesday-Wednesday): Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting.

8-10 December (Tuesday-Thursday): UN Water Conference 2026. UAE

10 December (Thursday): Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey MPC meeting. Turkey

16-17 December (Wednesday-Thursday): Bahrain National Day (public holiday). Bahrain

17 Dec — Central Bank of Egypt monetary policy decision. Egypt

18 December (Friday): Qatar National Day (public holiday). Qatar

January 2027

7 January (Thursday): Coptic Christmas (public holiday, market closed). Egypt

12-14 January (Tuesday-Thursday): World Future Energy Summit, Adnec Centre. UAE

21 January (Thursday): Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey MPC meeting. Turkey

25 January (Monday): Police Day / Revolution anniversary (public holiday). Egypt

26-27 January (Tuesday-Wednesday): FOMC meeting. US

February 2027

1-3 February (Monday-Wednesday): World Governments Summit, Dubai. UAE

22 February (Monday): Founding Day (public holiday). Saudi Arabia

25-26 February (Thursday-Friday): National and Liberation Days (public holidays). Kuwait

March 2027

12-14 March (Friday-Sunday): Bahrain Grand Prix, season opener, Sakhir. Bahrain

16-17 March (Tuesday-Wednesday): FOMC meeting.

18 March (Thursday): Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey MPC meeting. Turkey

19-21 March (Friday-Sunday): Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, Jeddah Corniche Circuit. Saudi Arabia

30 March-1 April (Tuesday-Thursday): Egypt Energy Show. Egypt

April 2027

22 April (Thursday): Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey MPC meeting. Turkey

25 April (Sunday): Sinai Liberation Day (public holiday). Egypt

27-28 April (Tuesday-Wednesday): FOMC meeting. US

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