Happy hump day, friends. Let’s talk about tourism, which today is earning its place in the headlines as the numbers coming out of Dubai tell a story that’s equal parts patience and pressure. What happens to the Gulf’s biggest hospitality engine tends to ripple outward to the rest of the region, so it’s one to keep an eye on.
Dubai’s hospitality market could start to recover from 4Q onward as international connectivity improves and the winter season lifts demand, Cavendish Maxwell says in its latest hospitality report. The catch is that the rebound is arriving at the exact moment a heavy wave of luxury supply hits the market — a cruel bit of timing for the very segment that took the hardest hit during this year’s slowdown.
The full-year scoreboard will be one to file under “let’s not dwell”: Occupancy is forecast at 60.4-66.2%, with average daily rates at AED 600-675, and Dubai International Airport (DXB) passenger traffic at 67.6-79.3 mn — all below 2025 levels. Analysts previously told us that a full recovery in tourism flows would not come before 2029, so consider this the long, patient middle of the story rather than the turn.
That all makes the next data point a happy counterpoint: The UAE continues to be one of the world’s most attractive destinations for expats, ranking fourth globally behind Panama, Mexico, and Thailand, according to InterNations’ 2026 Expat survey. The Emirates was the highest-ranked country in the Middle East, ahead of established expat hubs including Spain, Singapore, and Portugal. The country also topped the global leaderboard for career prospects, state of the economy, and ease of arriving and getting on with life without speaking the local language.
And in the AI world: Anthropic’s pre-IPO revolving credit facility is set to rise above its roughly USD 10 bn target, as Wall Street banks line up to lend massive sums to signal confidence and clinch a slice of one of the largest tech IPOs in history. The terms are still under negotiation, and the company could choose to cap or reduce the credit line. We’ll have more as the week unfolds. –Salma
Kuwait finalized its long-anticipated USD 16 bn pipelines lease-and-leaseback agreementlast monthis diversifying the country’s financing toolkit while leaving its oil-dependent economy largely untouched. Whether this will be enough to catapult the country’s stalled reform push hinges on whether Project Peregrine can become a repeatable template, or a one-off spike on Kuwait’s historically thin FDI ledger.
REFRESHER- Kuwait signed a USD 16 bn agreement with Blackstone, Brookfield, and KKR that lets it monetize the future cashflows of its crude-oil pipelines rather than build new infrastructure under its long-stalled public-private partnership (PPP) framework. Under the 20.5-year lease-and-leaseback structure, Kuwait Oil Company (KOC) will hold 51% of a newly formed Kuwaiti JV, Project Peregrine, that leases usage rights to its 13-pipeline, 320-km domestic and export network and grants operations and maintenance rights back to KOC for a volume-based tariff. The consortium holds the remaining 49% and KOC retains ownership and control of the pipes.
Kuwait is embracing an emerging regional financing model — Saudi Arabia’s Aramco and Abu Dhabi's Adnoc have already used it to raise USD bns against strategic oil and gas infrastructure while retaining state control. Aramco’s two pipeline monetizations totaled close to USD 28 bn combined at 20-25 year tenors. Adnoc has run similar structures on its own oil and gas midstream.
What that model diversifies is Kuwait’s financing toolkit, not the underlying economy. “At a minimum, the transactions show that Gulf energy companies are willing to use minority infrastructure interests as a financing tool while retaining state ownership or control,” Roy Conners, an analyst covering Gulf sovereign wealth structures speaking in a personal capacity, tells EnterpriseAM. “That suggests a broader regional financing option is developing, but the transactions differ in their terms and circumstances,” he adds.
Why a financing tool still matters
Diversifying the financing toolkit is itself a positive signal for Kuwait’s larger diversification efforts, which has struggled for a decade to attract private capital. The PPP framework, introduced in 20124, advanced only two projects in more than a decade: The USD 1.8 bn Umm Al Hayman wastewater plant and Az-Zour North 1 water and power project.
Political dysfunction is largely behind the lost decade: Between 2000 and 2024, Kuwait cycled through 22 cabinets, averaging just over one year each, and 12 parliamentary elections. Between 2020 and 2024 alone, Kuwait had four elections and three parliamentary suspensions. That instability eroded the predictability PPP investors need: Bankable projects require predictable laws, transparent processes, and balanced risk allocation, the Kuwait-based legal advisory firm Asar Partners said last November.
The legal architecture hasn’t helped either, as it has “not been substantially reconfigured to reflect the evolving structure of the industry since the 1990s,” the Baker Institute says. That’s compounded by eight oil ministers in eight years to June 2023, governance fragmented across more than 80 state agencies, and no independent electricity regulator. Residential tariffs have sat at 2 fils per kWh since 1966, covering only 5% of the government’s cost of provision
Peregrine’s timing isn’t incidental — it follows a policy sequence made possible by a suspended parliament. In March 2025, the cabinet — no longer facing parliamentary veto — enacted the Financing and Liquidity Law that ended Kuwait’s eight-year absence from international debt markets. That October, Kuwait issued USD 11.3 bn in oversubscribed international bonds across three tranches. In November, S&P upgraded Kuwait to AA-/A-1+ from A+/A-1 on reform progress, describing the parliamentary dissolution as something that “could speed up reforms.”
Project Peregrine can’t simply be copied onto that PPP pipeline — it diversifies financing precisely because it avoids the risks real diversification requires. “Transactions like Peregrine primarily appeal to large infrastructure funds, pension capital, sovereign wealth funds, and other yield-oriented investors looking for long-duration, predictable cash flows,” Uday Turaga, CEO of Houston-based energy and chemicals consultancy ADI Analytics, tells EnterpriseAM. Investors treat it as “closer to sovereign or quasi-sovereign credit exposure than pure commodity exposure, given the quality of Kuwait’s oil production and KPC as the primary counterparty,” he adds, making the structure closer to securitization than a genuine asset sale.
That distinction matters for what Kuwait can and cannot replicate. With Peregrine, the pipelines already exist, KOC remains in control, and investors are buying a long-term economic interest in infrastructure with an established operating history rather than the uncertainty of building a new asset. Projects that offer real diversification premium will require investors that are ready to take on bigger risks. “PPP investors are often more comfortable taking construction risk, operating risk, demand risk, or regulatory risk in exchange for higher returns,” Turaga says.
Peregrine isn’t exactly zero-risk, but rather differently exposed. The volume-based tariff improves revenue visibility, but the economics remain linked to how much oil flows through the network. “A pipeline monetization deal still maintains exposure to throughput volumes and, indirectly, to long-term oil sector fundamentals,” Turaga says, unlike a classic PPP backed by fixed availability payments, where demand risk can shift more heavily toward the government.
Kuwait does not, on the face of it, need the cash. The Kuwait Investment Authority (KIA) manages assets the IMF estimates at 640% of GDP — around USD 1 tn. Peregrine buys two things KIA’s cash can’t: Budget financing and proof of concept. An increasing share of Kuwait's public investment is occurring off-budget, the IMF flagged in February, which “potentially exposes the government to greater contingent liabilities” but keeps the fiscal accounts cleaner as the deficit widens towards. The IMF projects the deficit reaching 8.7% of GDP in FY 2025-26 and 9.4% in FY 2026-27. Peregrine adds capex-supporting cash without adding to gross government debt. The transaction also demonstrates KOC can operate a structure that a global infrastructure investor is prepared to underwrite for two decades — exactly what the PPP framework has spent over a decade failing to prove.
IN CONTEXT- The state owns most productive assets in Kuwait, employs nearly all Kuwaitis, and leads all megaprojects. The public sector wage bill, including allowances, reached over 31% of GDP in FY2024/25 — the highest in the GCC and among the highest globally. Energy subsidies cost around 7% of GDP. Vision 2035’s original ambition was to reduce the government’s role in project delivery from around 90% to 30-40%. Peregrine works now because it touches none of that — no labor-market reform, no subsidy cuts, and no shrinking the state.
Template or one-off?
Peregrine can likely be repeated, but selectively. “Pipelines are particularly well suited because they generate predictable, long-term cash flows. Replicating the model for ports, utilities, power transmission, water infrastructure, or logistics assets seems plausible, but replicating it for assets with less predictable revenues would be more challenging,” Turaga tells us. Where cashflow isn’t naturally stable, they will demand minimum-volume commitments, take-or-pay clauses, or regulated tariffs — plus certainty that concessions are protected under Kuwaiti law and insulated from political reversal.
The scale of the Peregrine headline still stands out against Kuwait’s historically weak FDI numbers. Kuwait received just USD 615 mn in inward FDI in 2024, so Peregrine’s USD 7.9 bn upfront proceeds alone is more than 12x that. But whether that becomes a sustainable trajectory or a one-off depends on whether the model becomes a template and PPP awards accelerate.
Whether that translates into a sustainable FDI trajectory or ends up being a one-off spike depends on whether Peregrine becomes a template and if PPP awards pick up. “I would be cautious about calling one transaction a strategic shift,” Conners tells EnterpriseAM. “The deal shows that KPC is willing to use an asset-recycling structure that has appeared elsewhere in the Gulf, but it may be better described for now as an additional financing option. A broader shift would become clearer only if Kuwait repeats the model or adopts an explicit framework for it.”
The clock is running: The 2024 suspension of parliament gives Kuwait a four-year window to deliver reforms before the National Assembly is reinstated. Anything that requires legislative sign-off after May 2028 becomes a different problem.
The Saudi Central Bank (Sama) reportedly placed financial transfers to the UAE under additional scrutiny, Reuters reports, citing unnamed sources. The UAE is reportedly among more than half a dozen countries in the region deemed high-risk for financial crimes by Sama.
The central bank reportedly notified major banks earlier this year to apply the additional oversight measures to settlements with the UAE. Several executives told the newswire that Saudi banks delayed or returned transfers in various currencies without providing an official explanation. A banking source had also told EnterpriseAM last month that some payments from banks in Saudi Arabia to accounts in the UAE have been delayed, returned, or blocked outright since at least May, confirming reports first picked up by the Financial Times and Bloomberg.
Some Saudi clients have asked UAE-based firms to relocate operations elsewhere entirely. The head of a Dubai-based consultancy told Reuters that some of his Saudi clients were struggling to pay him — and had suggested he do just that. Other companies said local authorities had asked them not to do business with UAE-based firms.
The official line, on both sides, remains that there’s no story. Sama denied the presence of restrictions on specific countries, and a UAE official also told Reuters that the Economy Ministry received no reports from firms about facing such difficulties.
Background: The UAE and the Kingdom have had conflicting views over oil quotas and geopolitical influence and have competed for foreign capital and talent for the past couple of years. The rift later reached a boiling point over tensions over Yemen in December and was not helped by Abu Dhabi’s April exit from Opec.
Iraq is dusting off a plan to lop two zeros off its currency — an idea first floated in 2003 under US occupation, and revived and shelved multiple times since.
Government officials sent conflicting messages about how serious the discussions are. Ahmed Rasheed, a member of Parliament’s Finance Committee, described them as “serious” but preliminary, while Communication Minister Mustafa Sanad went further to say “the decision to delete the zeros and change the currency has been made.” Sanad floated a 2027 start and rollout timeline of three years or more, the National reports. Meanwhile, the government’s spokesperson denied that a decision has been made just yet.
The central goal is to flush out cash from the informal sector into banks. Iraq is one of the most cash-dominated economies in the region, with the Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) estimating that more than half of all IQD in circulation moves outside the formal banking system — or about IQD 70 tn out of IQD 125 tn.
So many birds, one stone: Cash outside the system means banks can’t intermediate it, limiting liquidity for lending and the CBI’s ability to conduct monetary policy. It also feeds into the parallel-market bid for USD that has repeatedly forced the CBI to draw into reserves to defend the peg. The plan, if enforced right, could also be a way for the government to reclaim corruption money — look at it as a de facto compliance event for a banking sector the CBI has been trying to modernize.
Undeclared cash in Iraq is estimated to stand around IQD 8 tn, Sanad says. “If this IQD 8 tn is not handed in, it’s as if the government is printing a new 8 tn of the new currency and taking it for itself,” he explains.
Two macro drivers explain why a 23-year-old proposal is live now. One, the Hormuz-driven fiscal squeeze — oil revenues have collapsed from USD 6.8 bn in February to USD 2.3 bn in May against a USD 6.5 bn monthly salary bill, and Baghdad already missed July payroll for parts of the public sector. Two, dollarization pressure — with oil USD scarce, closing the informal FX channel is now a monetary policy priority for Iraq.
What now? The move may require a draft law reaching parliament, but going that route also risks disclosing sensitive currency reform plans that can botch the rollout by moving the market before the policy is final. Sensitive and radical currency reforms like this usually die exactly in that gap between disclosing political intent and execution.
Earnings season in the Gulf looks very different across markets and industries: Qatar-listed companies posted their weakest 1H in at least three years, with net income down 11.4% y-o-y to QAR 23.6 bn (c. USD 6.5 bn), while UAE-listed firms went the other way, with 161 companies growing combined earnings by 16% to AED 158.3 bn (c. USD 43.1 bn), largely driven by ADX-listed players.
In Qatar, the split ran by sector. Regional lender QNB shrugged off the tensions, growing its bottom line 3.2% to QAR 8.7 bn on steady lending. Industries Qatar wasn’t as lucky, seeing its net income collapse 89% to QAR 216 mn as shipping snarls hit petrochemicals and steel. Qatar Ins. Co. sat in between, with net income down 4.8%, as conflict-linked claims ate into underwriting.
UAE players soared, largely driven by Abu Dhabi-listed firms. The emirate’s state-linked megacaps — International Holding Company (+228%), Alpha Dhabi (+92%), Adnoc L&S (+174%) — did the heavy lifting, with just 20 companies generating 73.3% of all UAE earnings. Meanwhile, Dubai didn’t fare as well, but still held largely steady. Consumer-facing players barely moved, just going up by 0.6% to AED 61.5 bn (USD 16.7 bn) — propped up by Emaar and Emirates NBD but weighed down by tourism and real estate exposure.
Capital flows back it up:July’s USD 415 mn in Gulf equity outflows hit Dubai hardest (USD 174 mn), while Abu Dhabi drew in USD 148 mn — the only Gulf bourse to gain.
Our take: The divergence is less about fundamentals and more about war exposure. Abu Dhabi’s top performers run on domestic energy infrastructure and project contracts, insulating them from shipping lane disruptions. Meanwhile, Qatar’s industrial and ins. players sit right in the conflict’s path, with petrochemicals and steel exports impacted and ins. claims going up. With no ceasefire in sight, exposed sectors, including Qatar’s industrials and Dubai’s tourism, will face continued pressure into 2H.
Sovereign money is doing the talking this morning: Four of the Gulf’s biggest state investors have made moves in the past 48 hours, with ADQ lining up to take AD Ports private, Mubadala’s Adic writing a USD 1 bn hedge fund check, the PIF mapping its return to debt markets, and QIA backing a homegrown fund manager for the first time. Add a Moroccan logistics buyout and another leg of BinDawood’s food-manufacturing land grab, and the throughline is that the region’s biggest checkbooks are open.
L’imad wants AD Ports all to itself: Abu Dhabi sovereign investor L’imad’s wholly owned subsidiary ADQ has notified AD Ports Group’s board that it plans to make a voluntary cash offer for the 24.58% of the ports and logistics giant it doesn't already own, according to ADX disclosures here (pdf) and here (pdf). The buyout offer values AD Ports at around AED 31.8 bn and would cost ADQ roughly AED 7.8 bn to buy out the remaining stake, according to our math.
The offer: L’imad is offering AED 6.25 per share — a 23% premium to AD Ports’ 14 August close. The price is also 95% above AD Ports’ AED 3.20 listing price from February 2022.
Debt, not equity, will keep funding the PIF: International debt markets are expected to remain the Public Investment Fund’s (PIF) primary source of financing going forward, according to the fund’s CFO and acting head of its Global Capital Finance Division Yasir bin Abdullah Al Salman (watch, runtime: 13:50). The fund sees no new borrowing this year and a likely return to debt markets in early 2026, leaning in the meantime on four channels: Divestments from select investments, capital markets financing, bank financing, and reinvested returns.
The PIF also intends to list more portfolio companies on equity markets, with the geopolitical conflict not expected to affect investor appetite for Tadawul, Al Salman said. “[For] any company that is ready for listing, we work with the Capital Market Authority and prepare the IPO file. […] We expect to list more companies in the coming years.”
The Qatar Investment Authority is putting money behind a domestic fund manager for the first time under its Active Asset Management Initiative, investing in Lesha Bank’s shariah-compliant Lesha Qatar Equity Fund, it said in a statement. Lesha becomes the fourth partner in the program, launched in 2024. QIA had previously seeded funds only with Franklin Templeton, Ashmore, and Fiera Capital, each around USD 200 mn.
Adic keeps feeding the hedge funds: Mubadala’s investment arm Abu Dhabi Investment Council (Adic) is pledging some USD 1 bn to Singapore-based hedge fund Dymon Asia Capital, backing its expansion across London, Hong Kong, and other markets, Bloomberg reports, citing people it says are in the know. The allocation will be made in tranches.
BinDawood is buying its way into food manufacturing, with the company closing its acquisition of a 51% stake in Wonder Bakery at USD 31.3 mn, up from the USD 26 mn agreed when the deal was signed last December, according to a Tadawul disclosure. It’s the fourth food-and-retail agreement the group has closed or advanced this year, and BinDawood’s financials indicate the acquisitions are adding sales faster than earnings.
A.P. Moller Capital is buying control of Globex Investissement, one of Morocco’s most diversified logistics operators. The firm’s Emerging Markets Infrastructure Fund II (EMIF II) and APM Capital Morocco Fund will take a majority stake, according to a statement (pdf), with founder and CEO Omar El Kadiri staying on to run the business. Globex gives APM exposure well beyond its FedEx-branded courier business
Background: APM closed its Morocco-focused transport and logistics fund earlier this year with MAD 1.6 bn of commitments, while EMIF II added another MAD 600 mn — giving the two vehicles MAD 2.2 bn to deploy. Meanwhile, Amethis acquired a minority stake in Globex in 2022 to support expansion in Morocco and sub-Saharan Africa. Globex already operates in Senegal and Cameroon and uses the FedEx Express network to serve more than 220 countries.
ALSO WORTH KNOWING TODAY-
Four in, four out: The Egyptian Exchange’s newly overhauled index methodology saw four names join the EGX30 and another four drop out of the index. Misr Fertilizer Production (Mopco), Alexandria Containers and Goods (ACLN), Cleopatra Hospital, and Sidi Kreir Petrochemicals (Sidpec) will join the benchmark index, from Tuesday, 1 September, according to the exchange’s semi-annual index review (pdf). They replace Arabian Cement, Egyptian Chemical Industries (Kima), Oriental Weavers, and Orascom Investment Holding.
ALSO- CIRA Education lost its spot in the EGX33 Shariah index — the index of the exchange’s most shariah-compliant, highly liquid names — alongside Obour Land for Food Industries, with Gourmet and Cleopatra Hospital taking their places. Palm Hills, Telecom Egypt, and Eastern Company all dropped out of the EGX35-LV — the index tracking the 35 least volatile stocks among the most liquid names.
Pinnacle Capital launched a venture capital fund targeting growth-stage companies and secondary prospects in the Kingdom, investing through both primary rounds and secondaries, according to a statement. The fund’s size and participating investors haven’t been announced yet. The focus spans fintech, housing, mobility, real estate, urban services, e-commerce, health, and lifestyle, Wamda reports.
Diriyah secured a SAR 2 bn financing agreement with Arab National Bank (ANB) to fund international branded residences across its Diriyah and Wadi Safae masterplans, according to a statement.
Egypt is weighing three bids to build its first onshore LNG regasification terminal, with Turkish energy trader BGN, Qatar’s UCC Holding, and an unnamed local player competing to develop the facility at Ain Sokhna. The planned facility would initially be able to feed 1 bcf / d of imported gas into the national grid and would pair fixed onshore regasification infrastructure with floating LNG storage at the port. The proposals include different storage configurations of up to 290k cbm. The government has not disclosed the expected investment, construction timeline, or when it plans to select the preferred bid.
Why build onshore? Egypt currently relies on four leased floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs) — down from five units after the vessel stationed at Damietta was taken out of service late last month — which can be brought in quickly and relocated once no longer needed. A permanent onshore unit costs more and takes longer to build but gives the country infrastructure it controls over the long term and cuts its exposure to a tight, expensive global market for regasification vessels. It is also a regional infrastructure play. If domestic production remains weak, the facility provides more secure import capacity. If domestic output recovers, the facility can receive LNG for neighboring markets, regasify it, and pump it through connected pipelines.
Moroccan fertilizers back to the US, for now
Moroccan phosphate fertilizers are returning to the US market after a hiatus of over five years, with a ship carrying 54k tonnes of phosphate fertilizers from Morocco’s giant OCP landing in the US’ New Orleans Port earlier this week. The shipment comes after the Trump administration removed last June anti-dumping duties that were first introduced during Trump’s first term. The return to the US market, however, is temporary for just eight months, with the possibility of extension if the fertilizer market remains constrained due to the war.
Too risky from Yanbu, too costly from Sidi Kerir
At least two Asian refiners asked Aramco to shift September crude loadings from Yanbu to Egypt’s Sidi Kerir as Houthi-linked security concerns limit tanker availability through the Red Sea, Bloomberg reports, citing traders in the know. Aramco had already assigned Japanese and South Korean customers cargoes from Sidi Kerir for September, while most Chinese, Taiwanese, and Indian refiners were told to load at Yanbu.
Why is Saudi Arabia still loading at Yanbu? It remains the shortest and cheapest route to Asia for buyers able to secure willing tankers. The Red Sea is dangerous, not closed, with some vessels — including Chinese-owned tankers — still crossing Bab Al Mandab.
The switch solves the security problem but creates a cost issue. Sidi Kerir cargoes mean sailing around Africa to reach Asia, on top of a location premium already in Aramco’s pricing. Since September’s Asia price cut — the deepest since 2020 — applies only to crude loaded at Ras Tanura in the Gulf, cargo picked up elsewhere costs more. Add the detour, and at least one refiner may simply skip its September allocation — a flexibility built into annual contracts, according to the business information service.
MEANWHILE- Saudi Arabia and the UAE want to expand oil reserves outside the conflict-prone region, with each engaging in talks to expand reserves in Japan and South Korea, the New York Times reports, citing unnamed sources. Both countries asked Tokyo to increase their crude storage in Japan tenfold from the current 8 mn barrels each. Talks continue on final volumes and cost-sharing, with joint stockpiles expected to grow markedly.
Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) needs to drum up some USD 30-40 bn in investments as it races to achieve its target of lifting its crude output to 2 mn bb / d by 2030, up from around 1.4 mn bb / d today, NOC Chairman Masoud Suleman tells the Financial Times.
To achieve that, Libya is looking into revamping the terms for prospective investors. The NOC is weighing a return to concession-style agreements, under which foreign investors would shoulder more of the upfront capex while retaining more of the profits, or a rework of existing production-sharing terms to the same effect. Under current rules, the NOC has to fund its share of development costs in joint ventures — a structure that has stranded projects whenever state funding runs late.
The pitch comes amid a US push for unity driven by business impulses and rising tensions. Washington has been pushing Libya’s two governments toward unity on business grounds — the first unified budget in 13 years passed earlier this year with visible US encouragement. That runs alongside sharpening security risks amid political assassinations in the east and drone attacks on Zawia Refining Complex in the west — risks that Suleman dismissed as the work of a “small number of outlaws” in a limited area and that investment sites sit well outside the tension zones.
REMEMBER- We previously reported that Libya’s high-quality reserves and the reconstruction opportunity around them would only draw international capital at scale if three conditions are met: A predictable fiscal and governance architecture, an improvement in the supporting infrastructure (roads, airports, and pipelines), and a reliable banking sector, which is currently too fragmented and under-capitalized to intermediate flows on the scale a USD 30-40 bn.
Going local
The Egyptian government is planning to source 89-93% of its FY 2026-27 financing needs from the domestic market, with external borrowing accounting for just 6-9%, according to the ministry’s annual borrowing strategy seen by EnterpriseAM. Other sources, including asset monetization proceeds, are expected to cover the remaining c. 0.5-0.8%.
For the external mix, cheaper money will dominate and new issuances will remain below maturities. Concessional and semi-concessional loans and budget support are expected to provide 66-72% of external borrowing, with international issuances accounting for the remaining 28-34%. The government also intends to keep international issuances below maturities to reduce net external debt. FY 2026-27 calendar includes USD 515.7 mn-equivalent in Panda bonds next October, USD 2 bn in conventional bonds in January 2027, and USD 369.1 mn-equivalent Samurai bonds in March 2027.
IN CONTEXT- Egypt cut the budget sector’s external debt by around USD 2 bn, bringing it down to 19.6% of GDP in March 2026 from 21.8% in June 2025. Total budget-sector debt stood at 83.9% of GDP in March, down from its 96% peak in FY 2022-23, while the average maturity of the budget-sector debt portfolio rose to 10.52 years.
The Saudi player eying Egypt’s gold
Saudi Gold Refinery is one of the bidders for the 42 blocks that Egypt opened for investors this summer, and it’s coming off strong. The firm is pledging to move to production by 2030 if it clinches a concession and plans to self-finance the exploration process, the Riyadh-based firm’s Chairperson Suleiman Al Othaim said yesterday. The goal is to develop a project at the scale of Egypt’s revered Al Sokari mine, Al Othaim said.
But that’s easier said than done. When a firm secures an exploration concession, there’s no guarantee that the reserves and the geology support economic feasibility for production. And even when the geology supports it, reaching economic feasibility is a complex process that requires prudent, phased capex spending. Brute-forcing your way from exploration to production feasibility almost certainly means compressing the exploration process and digging holes at a rate faster than the data allows, unnecessarily burning through capital, as we previously reported in a deep dive.
IN CONTEXT- This bidding phase is the first test of the government’s newly minted rolling exploration system, launched in June, which dismantled the old, highly bureaucratic single-deadline tender format in favor of a rolling application window in which placing an initial bid on a block triggers an automatic 30-day competitive counteroffer period before closing. The new bidding system is part of a larger effort to lure in investors in mining, with the goal of bringing the sector’s contribution to GDP rise to 5-6% by 2030 from under 1% today.
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