Egypt intercontinental rail plan needs go-ahead for Saudi bridge
Egypt is aiming to link its expanding railway network with Asia and Europe, but it hasn’t yet been able to finalize plans to build a bridge to Saudi Arabia.
In the meantime, it will use ships to bring cargo across the Red Sea, Reuters reports. Saudi’s King Salman first announced the bridge project in 2016, envisioning a road that would cross the Straits of Tiran to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.
If completed, the route would compete with another notional rail project that would connect the UAE to Israel’s Haifa Port through Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
Another project on the drawing board would run north from the Gulf through Iraq.
UAE sets out to turn Jordanian beach property into luxury resort
The UAE is moving ahead with plans to transform a piece of Jordan’s Red Sea beachfront into a luxury resort.
MAG Group, a subsidiary of ADQ’s AD Ports Group that was appointed on Sunday as the project’s developer, said it will soon begin work on the Marsa Zayed property in the southern port city of Aqaba, which abuts the Saudi border.
In the first phase, MAG will begin construction on what will be called the Zayed Riviera with four residential towers, a yacht club, and restoration of the Aqaba Minaret.
The Jordanian project could potentially link to similar planned resorts in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel that form a border-traversing horseshoe around the Red Sea.
Special forces enter Jordan for defense industry conference
Jordan takes center stage this week in the largely secret realm of the world’s military special forces as it hosts a defense industry conference in the Red Sea port city of Aqaba.
The Special Operations Forces Exhibition and Conference, or SOFEX, kicked off on Tuesday with an address by King Abdullah II and more than 300 defense and security companies from 73 companies displaying equipment and services.
The three-day conference will feature a mock sea operation exercise led by Crown Prince Hussein bin Abdullah, who serves as Deputy Commander of the 101st Special Unit of the King Abdullah II Special Forces Group.
Meanwhile, the first Egyptian International Airshow took off at the Al Alamein airport on the country’s northern Mediterranean coast. Among the participants from 100 countries are 300 companies, including aerospace manufacturers from the U.S., France, the U.K., Germany, Russia, China and Turkey.
Today in The Daily Circuit, we’re looking at fresh venture capital funding for Jordanian tech startups, new scrutiny by Republicans in Congress of Microsoft’s $1.5 billion AI deal with UAE-based G42, China’s efforts to stoke trade with Saudi Arabia and the arrival of Lebron James and Team USA in Abu Dhabi on their way to the Paris Olympics. But first, Neom’s builders confront the reality of lower oil prices.
Neom, the flagship mega-project of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 economic roadmap, is facing budget cuts. The development along the Red Sea coast is expected to be allocated 20% less than its targeted budget for this year, Bloomberg reports. The revision comes as the kingdom reconciles lower-than-expected oil prices and foreign investment that has it on track for at least three more years of projected national budget deficits.
Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan has previously said the eight-year-old Vision 2030 plan may face delays because the kingdom needs to be careful about “overheating” the economy – which may cause inflation to rise.
“If you don’t allow your economy to catch up with your projects, basically what will happen is you’ll import a lot more,” Al-Jadaan said at the Qatar Economic Forum in May. As a result, Saudi Arabia could lack the factories and other capacity needed to support its plans. “So giving it more time is actually wise,” he said.
Modifying the vision is not necessarily a bad sign, analysts told Bloomberg, echoing the Finance Minister’s comments. The “rightsizing” of projects is a sign the kingdom is maturing, according to Goldman Sachs’ MENA Economist, Farouk Soussa.
“What they’re doing in terms of adjusting these projects gives us a lot of comfort,” Soussa said. “They’re basically saying they’re not going to go for broke or bet the house on any one particular thing. If it’s possible, they’ll do it. If not, they won’t. They’re being quite sensible.”
Jordan’s $98 million Innovative Startups and SMEs Fund said it will invest $5 million in the UAE-based Global Ventures Fund III to support Jordanian entrepreneurs and startup companies. The move is a small bright spot at an otherwise dismal time for startup investments globally. Global Ventures is a UAE-based venture capital firm focused on growth-stage investments across the Middle East and Africa with $300 million in assets under management and 60 businesses in its portfolio. Nearly all of the recently registered companies in Jordan are small and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups, which generate more than half of private-sector economic growth and 60% of new employment opportunities, Noor Sweid, Global Ventures’ Managing Partner, said in a statement.
CHINA ASSESSMENT
Microsoft’s $1.5 billion investment in UAE-based artificial intelligence firm G42 is facing new challenges from Republicans in Congress over concerns about China. Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan, head of the Select Committee on China, asked the Biden Administration for an intelligence assessment about the deal, Reuters reports. In a letter to White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, the lawmakers requested an evaluation of G42’s ties to China’s Communist Party, military and government before the Microsoft deal advances. They cited a recent visit by UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed to Beijing, which according to Chinese state news agency Xinhua, included discussions of cooperation in AI. “We remain deeply concerned by attempts to move quickly to advance a partnership that involves the unprecedented transfer of highly sensitive, U.S.-origin technology, without congressional consultation or clearly defined regulations in place,” the lawmakers said in the letter. Yousef Al Otaiba, the UAE’s Ambassador to Washington, said in a statement to the Financial Times that his country has “made substantial progress with the U.S. to strengthen the security and control of critical technologies between both countries.”
💲 Sovereign Circuit
Public Investment Fund: China’s Commerce Secretary said the country would like to intensify trade and investment exchanges with Saudi Arabia in a statement on Friday. Minister Wang Wentao held talks on Thursday with Yasir Al-Rumayyan, who is visiting China. Al-Rumayyan is Governor of the PIF, Chairman of Saudi Aramco and in charge of Saudi Arabia’s economic cooperation affairs with China. Wang said China is ready to deepen cooperation in infrastructure, energy resources, green development, digital economy, and welcomed Saudi companies such as its sovereign wealth funds and Aramco to continue to “take root” in China.
Mubadala: The Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund’s Managing Director Khaldoon Al Mubarak is on the guest list for the wedding this weekend of Anant Ambani, the youngest son of Reliance Industries Ltd. Chairman and Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani, the Deccan Herald reports. Mubadala is a major investor in Reliance and Al Mubarak is also the Chairman of City Football Group which owns Mumbai City FC.
Qatar Investment Authority: London’s Heathrow Airport, part-owned by the QIA, China Investment Corp. and Spain’s Ferrovial, said passenger numbers rose in June as it experienced a strong start to the summer season, which it called the busiest ever.
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📈 Rights Issue: Saudi Arabia’s Ayyan Investment Co. will launch a new share offering next week, seeking to raise $53 million in a rights issue representing 24.8% of its capital.
🕌 Islamic Bond: A $500 million sukuk, or Islamic bond, issued by the UAE’s Sharjah Islamic Bank and traded on the Nasdaq Dubai exchange, was oversubscribed threefold with orders totaling $1.5 billion.
🏗️ Construction Errors: Buildots, an Israeli startup that enables construction companies to overcome inefficiencies and prevent errors through AI technology, secured $15 million in funding led by Intel Capital.
🗣 Circuit Chatter
🚗 EV Batteries: Australia’s Critical Metals Corp. has formed a joint venture with European Lithium-Obeikan Group to build a plant in Saudi Arabia for processing lithium hydroxide, which is used to make electric vehicle batteries.
🚜 Fertile Fields: Abu Dhabi-based Fertiglobe, a joint venture between ADNOC and OCI Global, announced on Thursday that it won the bidding to supply renewable ammonia to the European Union.
💺 Flying High: Etihad Airways reports a 38% increase in traffic during the first six months of this year compared to the same period of 2023, with 8.7 million passengers flying the Abu Dhabi-based carrier.
🌍 Power Circuit
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, met with local dignitaries, business people, investors, senior officials, and heads of private sector entities at the Union House in Dubai on Thursday. The meeting was attended by Sheikh Ahmed bin Mohammed bin Rashid, Second Deputy Ruler of Dubai and Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed, President of Dubai Civil Aviation Authority and Chairman and Chief Executive of Emirates Airline.
➿ On the Circuit
Marwan bin Ghalita has been named Director-General of the Dubai Land Department in a decree by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Ruler of Dubai and UAE Vice President.
Hartwig Fischer, the former British Museum Director, has been appointed the Founding Director of Saudi Arabia’s new world culture museum in Riyadh, which is set to open in 2026.
Stephen Ross, the 84-year-old founder of New York-based Related Companies, which has extensive Gulf holdings, is launching a new Florida-based firm called Related Ross that is already the largest commercial property owner in downtown West Palm Beach, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Jonathan Gray, President and COO of Blackstone, discussed the firm’s $17 billion investment in India at the Forbes Iconoclast Summit in New York last month. “We’ve had incredible success in both real estate and private equity, playing the rise of the consumer there,” he said. “I think it’s a very interesting place. Obviously you have to know what you’re doing.”
Leah Cotterill, CEO of Cigna Insurance’s Middle East division, told Arabian Businessshe believes that her appointment as the first female executive in her post “is not just about personal achievement but rather paving the way for future female leaders.”
Lebron James, Steph Curry and other NBA stars who will be playing for Team USA at the Paris Olympics flew to Abu Dhabi late Thursday to prepare for exhibition games next week against Australia and Serbia.
🎶 Culture Circuit
🏝️ Desert Island: Al Noor Island, a popular family-friendly destination in the UAE emirate of Sharjah, has been ranked among the top 10 Middle East attractions by TripAdvisor, winning a “Best of the Best” title for 2024. Sharjah’s Mleiha Archaeological Centre and Al Montazah Parks also picked up Traveler’s Choice Awards.
🗓️ Ahead on The Circuit
July 2-Aug. 25, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: Esports World Cup. An international competition for professional gamers with a $60 million prize pot. Boulevard City.
July 9-13, Sun Valley, Idaho: Sun Valley Conference. Sponsored by Allen & Co., the annual “summer camp for billionaires” brings together some of the world’s most influential leaders in finance, tech, entertainment and politics. Sun Valley Resort.
July 15-17, Abu Dhabi, UAE: USA Basketball Showcase. The 2024 USA Basketball Men’s National Team will host the national teams of Australia and Serbia for three matches. Etihad Arena.
July 15-26, Granada, Spain: ADIA Lab International Summer School. A course of lectures and case studies to explore the critical role of trust and safety in AI, examining the ethical, technical and societal implications of AI applications. University of Granada.
July 16-19, Aspen, Colo.: Aspen Security Forum. Pentagon leaders, defense contractors and security officials from around the world meet for a four-day conference. Aspen Institute.
July 27-Aug. 4, Washington D.C. Mubadala Citi DC Open. Tennis tournament featuring nine of the world’s top 20 players. Rock Creek Park.
Aug. 12-15, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: Saudi Food Expo. One of the kingdom’s largest trade shows for the food & beverage industry. Riyadh Front Exhibitions.
Sep. 30-Oct. 2, Dubai, UAE: Future Hospitality Summit. The global conference for leaders in the hospitality industry expands this year at a new location with dedicated space for ESG planning, country pavilions and a larger exhibition area. Madinat Jumeirah.
The Weekly Circuit: GITEX comes to Africa + Saudi esports crown
👋 Hello from the Middle East!
This week we’re looking at ADQ’s $5 billion new infrastructure fund in Jordan, Saudi Arabia’s latest IPO, the expansion of indoor golf across the Gulf and the Esports World Cup this summer in Riyadh. But first, GITEX comes to Africa.
From the same people who bring more than 150,000 tech execs, founders and funders to Dubai each year for GITEX Global comes the mega-conference’s budding Africa edition in Morocco. The three-day event kicks off May 28 in Marrakesh, where startups, VCs and governments from across the continent will set up exhibitor booths and hand out swag.
Headlining the speakers list at GITEX Africa’s second annual conference are Ghitta Mezzour, Morocco’s Minister for Digital Transition; Pierre Celestin Rwabukumba, CEO of the Rwanda Stock Exchange; Microsoft Africa’s President Lilian Barnard; Babys Ogundeyi, Founder and CEO of Kuda in Nigeria; and Sarah Sabry, Executive Director of Egypt’s Deep Space Initiative.
From the Gulf, prominent GITEX Africa participants will be Dr. Mohammed Al Kusaiti, Director General of the UAE Cybersecurity Authority; Hamad Obeid Al Mansoori, Director General of Dubai Digital; and Ahmed Mohammed Alsuwaiyan, Governor of Saudi Arabia’s Digital Government Authority.
Back in the UAE, the Abu Dhabi Energy Energy Center will play host on May 27 and 28 to the Make it in the Emirates Forum. Organized by the UAE Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology and ADNOC as a showcase for the country’s manufacturers, the conference’s leading sponsors include Mubadala, PureHealth, EDGE and TAQA.
As summer approaches, Saudi Arabia is getting set to put its stamp on the global gaming marketwhen it hosts the Esports World Cup over eight weeks in July and August. Boulevard Riyadh City will be the venue for the competition’s debut from July 4 to Aug. 25. More than 2,500 players are expected to compete for a $60 million prize pool, the largest in esports history. German esports entrepreneur Ralf Reichert is CEO of the host organization, the Esports World Cup Foundation, a nonprofit established in 2023 and based in Riyadh.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, said to be a devotee of the Call of Duty zombie military game, has earmarked $38 billion from the Public Investment Fund – with the aim of attracting 250 gaming companies and studios while creating 39,000 video game-related jobs in the process. The homegrown strategy builds on the kingdom’s credentials in the e-arena with investments in the biggest players like Tencent, Nintendo, Activision Blizzard and Ubisoft. In March, Saudi Arabia’s National Development Fund and the Social Development Bank announced the establishment of two venture capital funds with a combined value of $120 million to back new esports companies in the kingdom.
One gaming executive who was attracted to the region is Will Dalio, the son of billionaire hedge funder Ray Dalio, who opened an outpost of his family office in Abu Dhabi last year. The young Dalio is using Abu Dhabi as a market to grow his educational game-making company, Endless Studios. He told The National’s Business Extra podcast that Gulf residents are some of the most active gamers in the world but have little hand in video games’ creation. “There’s no creation here. We believe that should be bridged,” Dalio said.
Welcome to The Weekly Circuit. Read on for the stories, deals and players at the top of the news across the MENA business landscape. Please send comments and story tips to [email protected].
Five Iron Golf courts partners as it plans regional expansion of indoor golf venues
A Five Iron Golf location in the U.S. (Courtesy photo)
American indoor golf company Five Iron Golf is eyeing partnerships in the Gulf as it plans to open at least a half dozen locations across the UAE over the next several years, The Circuit’s Kelsey Warner reports.
Gulf boom: Golf is on the rise at both the pro and the weekend warrior levels. Elite events from the Asian Tour are now taking place in Oman and Qatar, Bahrain has joined the DP World Tour schedule and the Ladies European Tour has sanctioned Saudi’s Aramco Team Series.
Club vibes: Five Iron’s first UAE venue will open in August at the Westin Dubai Mina Seyahi Beach Resort, a five-star hotel. The sprawling 32,038 square-foot flagship location will have 17 golf simulators that offer swing analysis as well as four bars, a nine-hole mini golf course and a members-only lounge.
Why Man City’s fourth straight Premier League win is an Abu Dhabi victory
Pep Guardiola, the manager of Manchester City, and Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Chairman of Manchester City, with the Premier League trophy at Etihad Stadium in Manchester. (Photo: Getty Images)
The Premier League Trophy is coming home… to Abu Dhabi. Manchester City, owned by UAE Vice President Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed, won a record fourth straight Premier League title on Sunday, beating West Ham 3-1 in the final game of the season. The Circuit’s Kelsey Warner reports.
Proud owner: The team to beat in the U.K. is in many ways the UAE capital’s soccer team as well – from a business perspective at least. City is part of a multi-club ownership structure under City Football Group (CFG), owned by Sheikh Mansour and chaired by Mubadala CEO Khaldoon Al Mubarak.
Kicking goals: Since coming under Sheikh Mansour’s ownership in 2008, when he bought the club for $254 million, City has become the fifth most valuable soccer team in the world, worth just shy of $5 billion — and notably had the highest revenue of any club last year, according to Forbes.
ADQ: The Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund established an infrastructure investment fund in Jordan that aims to spend $5 billion on development projects in the kingdom.
Public Investment Fund: Maxim Timchenko, CEO of Ukraine’s DTEK, said the energy company is in high-level talks with the PIF and other Saudi institutions regarding possible investments. Meanwhile, the Saudi sovereign wealth fund has signed a sponsorship agreement for an undisclosed sum with the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), the principal organizing body of professional women’s tennis. Through the deal, the PIF becomes the first-ever naming partner of the WTA Rankings. And PIF-owned Riyadh Air plans to unveil its new crew uniform next month at Paris Fashion Week. CEO Tony Douglas told Arab News that the uniforms will feature a unique color that will become “instantly recognizable” as the airline’s brand.
Mubadala: The Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund signed an agreement to pay $150 million for a 49% stake in the unit of Spain’s Tubacex that makes equipment for oil and gas exploration and said it plans also to invest in Tubacex’s UAE facility. The infrastructure arm of Mubadala has made a “cornerstone” investment in PAG’s Asia Pacific renewable energy platform, known as PAG REN I, to facilitate businesses in Japan buying solar power. And Mamoura Diversified Global Holding, a unit of the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, expects credit losses of about $315 million related to loans issued to Austria’s now-insolvent Signa real estate conglomerate, Bloomberg reports.
Qatar Investment Authority: Databricks, a San Francisco-based AI company that counts the QIA among its largest investors, launched a second VC fund, which will support startups focused on generative AI and machine learning.
↪↩ Closing Circuit
🤾♀️ Wellness Village: Emaar Properties began construction of a $15 billion residential project in Dubai devoted to health and wellness, which will be built around its Heights Country Club & Wellness center.
🇪🇬 Business Support: The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development offered a $120 million loan to the National Bank of Egypt aimed at supporting small and medium-size businesses.
💰 Buy In: U.S. investment giant Carlyle Group said on Tuesday it had raised 430 billion yen ($2.8 billion) for its fifth Japan buyout fund, its largest investment vehicle for Japan. Strong demand and backing from domestic and global investors helped it raise nearly 70% more than its previous fund, Carlyle said in a statement.
🚑 Rescue Squad: Response Plus, which owns the largest fleet of private ambulances in the UAE, completed its acquisition of U.K.’s Prometheus Medical, paving the way for its expansion in the U.K. and Nordic region.
🌎 Global Push: ADNOC plans to acquire a 10% equity stake in a major LNG development in Mozambique for an undisclosed sum, its first push into the African nation amid international expansion for the Abu Dhabi oil and gas company.
📈 Staff Recruiter:Saudi staffing company SMASCO set the final price for its upcoming IPO at 7.50 riyals per share as it seeks to raise as much as $240 million on Riyadh’s Tadawul exchange.
🔒 Identity Manager: CyberArk, one of Israel’s largest cybersecurity companies, signed an agreement to buy Venafi, which specializes in machine identity management, for more than $1.5 billion from Chicago-based private equity firm Thoma Bravo.
🗣 Circuit Chatter
Arabic Tutor: IBM will help the Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority train its “AllaM” Arabic language model, enabling it to understand multiple dialects of Arabic, CEO Arvind Krishna told Reuters.
💺 Fasten Seatbelts: Oman is planning to build six new airports as part of an effort to boost business travel and tourism in the sultanate, Civil Aviation Authority Chairman Naif Al Abri told Alsharq.
💰 Fintech Fund: Riyad Capital launched the 1957 Ventures fund, a closed-end investment fund backed by Riyad Bank, to drive growth in the Saudi fintech sector.
🚁 Taxi Flyer: Archer Aviation, which plans to start operating air taxis in Abu Dhabi next year, signed an agreement with Etihad Aviation Training to recruit and train prospective pilots.
🪴 Medical Marijuana: Morocco has an opportunity to capture a 10-15% share of the European medical cannabis market, Mohamed El Bouhmadi, president of the Moroccan Federation for the Pharmaceutical Industry and Innovation, told Le360.
⚡ Charging Network: The UAE Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure agreed to form a joint venture with Etihad Water & Electricity for a network of charging stations for electric vehicles.
🖥️ Quantum kingdom: Pasqal, a Paris-based quantum computing startup, signed a partnership agreement with Saudi Aramco to install the kingdom’s first quantum computer at the oil giant.
🌍 Power Circuit
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman wants to “reassure everyone” about the health of his father, King Salman, who is being treated for a lung infection, state television reported on Monday.
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, UAE Vice President and Ruler of Dubai, was given a tour of Abu Dhabi’s Zayed International Airport on Tuesday and reviewed the advanced facilities in its new Terminal A.
Asma al-Assad, Syria’s first lady, has been diagnosed with leukemia, her second bout of cancer after recovering from breast cancer five years ago, the Syrian presidency announced.
Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council, witnessed the signing of an agreement on Monday between UAE defense conglomerate EDGE Group and Italy’s Fincantieri, one of the largest shipbuilding companies in the world. The deal launches MAESTRAL, an Abu Dhabi-based shipbuilding joint venture between both companies.
Condolences to Iranian leadership on the passing of President Ebrahim Raisi and his delegation poured in from regional leaders. Among them were UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Jordan’s King Abdullah and Ahmed bin Salman Al Musallam, Bahrain’s Speaker of the Council of Representatives.
➿ On the Circuit
Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clintonmet in the UAE on Tuesday with Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, President of the COP28 climate summit, Minister for Industry and Advanced Technology, and CEO of the ADNOC oil company. Dr. Al Jaber “expressed his appreciation” for Clinton’s contributions to the COP’s Gender-Responsive Just Transitions and Climate Action Partnership, according to a statement. Also present at the meeting was Ambassador Majid Al Suwaidi, the Director-General of COP28.
Khaldoon Al Mubarak, Chairman of the UAE Executive Affairs Authority, member of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council and Group CEO of Mubadala, signed a collaboration agreement on Wednesday on behalf of the Abu Dhabi Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Technology Council with the French Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty to collaborate on AI development. The agreement was co-signed by Bruno Le Maire, French Minister of Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty.
Klaus Schwab, the 86-year-old founder of the World Economic Forum, is to step down as executive chair in January after more than 50 years leading one of the most talked-about and lucrative business conferences in the world. Schwab will assume a new role as chair of WEF’s board of trustees. Børge Brende, president of the WEF executive board and a former foreign minister of Norway, will take over as chair.
Dave Chappelle said he expects Abu Dhabi to be “a bit more buttoned up” than the Dubai crowd he performed in front of in 2018, his first show in the region. The American comedian was spotted sipping double espressos at a cafe on Saadiyat Island today, ahead of his sold-out performance tomorrow night at Etihad Arena for the city’s Comedy Week. “We’re excited to be here. We’re going to have fun,” Chappelle told The Circuit.
Mohammad Al Gergawi, UAE Minister of Cabinet Affairs, received an honorary doctorate from Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business over the weekend. Al Gergawi talked about the power of choices in his commencement speech, sharing a personal story about how one of his own decisions brought him into the path of the then-Crown Prince of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid.
Jamie Dimontold investors on Monday that his replacement as CEO of JPMorgan Chase was “on the way” as he will look to step down within the next five years.
Najwa Aaraj will succeed Ray O. Johnson as CEO of the Technology Innovation Institute (TII), the applied research arm of the government-backed Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC) in Abu Dhabi. Aaraj was previously Chief Researcher in the cryptography and autonomous robotics labs of TII. Johnson, a former Lockheed Martin executive, was the institute’s first CEO. He remains an Operating Partner at California venture capital fund Bessemer Venture Partners, according to LinkedIn.
🎶 Culture Circuit
📽️ New Chapter: The inclusion of “Norah,” Saudi Arabia’s first movie in the Cannes Film Festival official selection is the start of a remarkable chapter in Saudi Cinema, according to Jomana Al Rashid, CEO of Saudi integrated media group SMRG and Chairwoman of the Red Sea Film Festival. Director Tawfik Alzaidi’s debut film was picked for Un Certain Regard, a category of the festival that showcases unusual, innovative and non-traditional films.
📷 Photo of The Day
U.S. actors Will Smith and Martin Lawrence pose with directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah ahead of the global premiere of the movie “Bad Boys: Ride or Die” in Dubai on Tuesday. (Photo: Getty Images)
🗓️ Circuit Calendar
May 18-26, Abu Dhabi, UAE. Abu Dhabi Comedy Week. Standup comics Dave Chapelle, Aziz Ansari, Bassem Yousef and Chris Tucker headline the first annual festival. Etihad Arena.
May 25-26, Dubai, UAE. Summer Blessings. Dubai festival celebrates the palm tree as the UAE’s national icon with live performances, date-themed events and artisan marketplace. Shindagha Museum.
May 27-28, Abu Dhabi, UAE: Make It In The Emirates Forum. Organized by the Ministry of Industry and Advanced Technology in collaboration with the Abu Dhabi Department of Economic Development and ADNOC, the forum offers a networking and knowledge exchange platform for the industrial community, both locally and internationally. Abu Dhabi Energy Center.
May 29-31, Marrakech, Morocco: GITEX Africa. The second edition of the biggest tech and startup gathering in Africa. Place Bab Jdid.
June 5, Hong Kong: Bloomberg Wealth Event. A gathering to bring actionable intelligence to portfolio managers and other dealmakers and analysts from asset managers and owners, family offices and hedge funds. Conrad Hong Kong.
June 23-26, National Harbor, Maryland: SelectUSA Investment Summit. The highest profile event in the U.S. to facilitate business investment by connecting thousands of investors, companies, economic development organizations and industry experts to make deals. Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center.
Gulf-Israel train project chugs into political, financial obstacles
AMMAN, Jordan – Knitting together the Middle East with a network of train tracks has been a dream of transportation planners for over a century. The vision persists today as part of ongoing efforts to link the six Gulf states through an east-west rail network that would span Saudi Arabia and connect with the Red Sea.
However, tying the project to a northern route that leads through Jordan to Israel’s Mediterranean port of Haifa – a notion floated amid the exuberance of the Abraham Accords – is still a long way off. Just as the megaproject was suspended more than 100 years ago, the politics and multibillion-dollar cost involved mean it will probably remain on the shelf for years to come.
“The success of a railway link would be dependent on the willingness of Saudi Arabia to support such a project,” RAND Corp. researcher Daniel Egel told The Circuit. “I think that they would have to be incentivized to include Haifa as a primary terminus for the railway” – given the current absence of diplomatic relations with Israel.
The history of the never-completed Hejaz railroad, which was built by the Ottomans in 1908 so that Muslims from parts of Asia and Europe could make the hajj pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca, is a saga that illustrates the idea’s appeal and serial failures.
Designed at the beginning of the 20th century by German engineers, the railway ran some 820 miles (1,320 kilometers) of rocky desert trail from Damascus to Medina, Islam’s second holiest city, stopping 220 miles short of Mecca. It wasn’t until four years ago that Saudi Arabia built the high-speed Haramain rail line connecting the two sacred sites at a cost of about $16 billion. By then, the Hejaz was a tin-can artifact with no connection across the Saudi border.
Jordanian men walk past aging train at the Hejaz Railway station in Amman (Khalil Mazraawi/AFP via Getty Images)
Besides its original north-south route, the Hejaz – named for the ancient western kingdom in Saudi Arabia – included a branch line running west through Palestine to connect with Haifa. The project was built solely through Islamic financing and donations from wealthy Muslims, under the principle that Western money was inappropriate for its religious nature.
Instead of the arduous 40-day journey by camel or horse, the Hejaz’s steam engines enabled pilgrims to complete the trip in three days. By 1912, train travel between Damascus and Medina carried an annual 300,000 passengers.
The railway’s builders had to overcome rocky terrain and other obstacles in southern Jordan and Saudi Arabia, where flooding in desert ravines required construction of bridges and viaducts. Bedouin tribes, which for many centuries lived off servicing pilgrims on the long overland routes to Mecca, lost business because of the Hejaz, leading them to attack the trains and sabotage the tracks.
“The railway reignited long-standing conflict between the Bedouin tribes and the Ottoman rulers of the Hejaz and Greater Syria,” Oxford archeologist John Winterburn told The Circuit.
The Hejaz line also connected the Ottoman Empire’s main urban centers with distant provinces in the south, facilitating movement of its military troops. The railway later became a security headache for the British Mandate forces, who saw it as a potential means for Germany to invade Egypt.
The Arab Revolt of 1916 against the Ottoman Empire interrupted use of the Hejaz railway, and it fell into disrepair as its tracks started to rot.
“After the First World War, the railway was split into three separate sections – the Syrian sector, run by the French; the Transjordanian section, run by the British; and the southern section, which became part of the Kingdom of the Hejaz,” said James Nicholson, author of The Hejaz Railway. “In the north, the railway was repaired and by 1921, regular services were running between Damascus and [Jordan’s southern city of] Ma’an,” Nicholson told The Circuit. “The southern line was also patched up and occasional trains ran through to Medina.”
Until the Syrian civil war over the past decade made travel too dangerous, the Hejaz ran passenger service between Amman and Damascus, while the line south of Amman was utilized to carry phosphate from mines near Ma’an to Aqaba. But instead of stimulating regional trade, urban development and agriculture, the railway stagnated and became a neglected relic of the past.
Because of the war, the Syrian portion hasn’t been included in current plans for the railway’s restoration. Still, Nicholson said, “there has been some talk about the possibility of restoring the main line back to use.” The central argument against the revival of the railway is the availability of other forms of transport,” such as air and road travel, he added.
A renewed Hejaz would require that the decrepit railbed be completely replaced with modern infrastructure and has been under Jordanian government review for 11 years. Prime Minister Bisher Khasawneh said last year that the government is looking for private investors as partners because it doesn’t have the money to fund the whole project, which would include a link between Amman and the Red Sea port of Aqaba.
Across the border from Jordan, Israel started pitching its “Tracks for Regional Peace” initiative in 2018 to connect Israel with its Arab neighbors. It sought to promote the plan two years later when the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain agreed to normalize relations through the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords.
The idea was to use the new railway Israel built between Haifa and its eastern town of Beit She’an, extend it to the Jordanian border and connect to an overhauled Hejaz. From there it would cross into Saudi Arabia and end up in Dubai connecting the Mediterranean with the Persian Gulf. The regional railway network would transport cargo and tourists, providing a regional network that would include Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the other member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council. Annual trade flow through the land bridge, it was estimated, could reach $250 billion by 2030.
If relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia change and rail links became acceptable, the project would still face significant challenges, said RAND’s Egel.
“First, I am not convinced that it is economically viable, given the availability of cheap transport options by water,” Egel told The Circuit. “It would expand options for the eastern GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] nations to export to Saudi Arabia and Israel, and it would create a second option for transport if the security situation degrades in the Gulf of Aden” – the sea passage between Yemen and Somalia.
Egel said he would be surprised if such a railway became a key component in regional transport of goods given the alternatives. “It would undoubtedly provide a security hedge, but an expensive one,” he said.
“Building a railway link will lower the transport costs associated with trade, but it will not impact the restrictions on trade and movement of people that Jordan and the Palestinians face,” Egel said. “The primary impediment is political. If the railway link was augmented with bilateral free trade agreements or a multilateral [free trade agreement] with Jordan, the benefits to Jordan could be large. Benefits to the Palestinians would be much harder to obtain, as their external trade is controlled by Israel,” Egel said.
Steve Monroe, a political scientist at Yale-NUS College in Singapore, said the free trade agreement signed by the UAE and Israel in May could spur ambitious projects like the railroad.
“The UAE is one of the few places today with capital to invest in Israeli firms and Bahrain will also benefit from greater trade with Israel,” Monroe told The Circuit.
Meanwhile, the idea of a rail network connecting Israel and the Gulf states through Jordan remains on the drawing board. Building the transnational route would require a thorough regional political realignment at a cost of tens of billions of dollars. The saga of the last century indicates that won’t happen soon.
“It comes up from time to time,” said Ben Moore, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman. “If we sign for peace, it could be considered.”
