A lobbying firm run by Brian Ballard, a top fundraiser for Donald Trump, is opening an office in Riyadh, its third outpost in the region where it already has a presence in Tel Aviv and Istanbul.

Ballard Partners has tapped Jasmine Zaki, a former senior legal counsel for Bechtel and the chair of the board of the Middle East Policy Council, to lead the new office and its MENA practice as Managing Partner, joined by influential Saudi businessman Sheikh Abdullah bin Zaid Al-Meleihi and former Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) Politico reports.

“After meeting with government officials during my recent trip to the region, I am confident in the success of the kingdom’s strategic framework for reform, Saudi Vision 2030,” Ballard said in a statement, adding that the firm’s footprint there “will allow us to better serve our clients’ interests in the region and beyond.”

Amid Boeing’s global travails ranging from delays in the delivery of its new generation airliners to lawsuits from the mid-flight blowout of a cabin door, the world’s No. 2 planemaker is determined not to lose Saudi Arabia.

Peter Bellew, chief operating officer of Riyadh Air, says Boeing executives have sought to assure the kingdom’s new flag carrier that the first aircraft in its fleet of purple-hued 787 Dreamliners on order will arrive in time for the airline’s projected launch in the summer of 2025.

“We have to take them on their word,” Bellew told The National in an interview on the sidelines of the U.K.’s Farnborough International Airshow that was published on Wednesday.

“They are aware we’re a startup and we don’t have older or leased aircraft to fall back on,” he said, adding “We’re in close contact with them constantly.”

Riyadh Air, which is owned by the Public Investment Fund, is a key element in Saudi Arabia’s plan to open the kingdom to visitors and attract international business.

With chic designer uniforms unveiled on a Paris runway last month, Bellew expects to hire more than 700 pilots and 3,000 cabin crew over the next two years.

Also generating pressure on Boeing is the competition for Riyadh Air’s second order which Bellew suggested is still a toss-up between the U.S. planemaker and the industry leader, Europe’s Airbus.

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund has hired from within to lead its Investment Strategy and Economic Insights division as the kingdom looks to tap foreign investors and lucrative sectors to fund its massive economic transformation plan.

Fahad Al Saif will start in the role immediately and continue as Head of the Global Capital Finance Division, overseeing government asset transfers, fundraising and investor relations, according to a statement from the PIF.

Prior to joining the nearly trillion-dollar sovereign wealth fund in 2020, Al Saif was CEO of the Saudi National Debt Management Center and an adviser to the Finance Minister.

In his new role, Al Saif will be the official informant on what should drive the PIF’s overarching investment strategy and lead research on market trends and net zero strategies, according to the PIF. 

The UAE’s steady campaign to conclude free trade agreements with partner nations around the world has reached Africa.

In a ceremony on Monday, senior leaders of the UAE and Mauritius met in Dubai to sign a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement that will eliminate more than 97% of all import tariffs between the two countries.

Dr. Thani Al Zeyoudi, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Trade, and Maneesh Gobin, the Mauritius Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade, signed the document while Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, and Mauritius Prime Minister Pravind Kumar Jugnauth looked on via video link.

In the past three years, the UAE has signed free-trade pacts with India, Israel, Indonesia, Turkey, Cambodia and Georgia.

The agreement with Mauritius was the first with an African country. The UAE is also seeking to reopen trade talks with the EU by the end of the year, Al Zeyoudi told Reuters on Monday. 

UAE Minister of Economy Abdullah bin Touq headed to India with a bevy of Emirati business leaders in tow as the world’s most populous nation looms ever larger as a magnet for sovereign investment.

Bin Touq is leading a trade delegation that will engage with top government officials and corporate chieftains in India, which is the UAE’s third largest trade partner.

The tour, which will feature a business conference on Wednesday in the framework of the UAE’s Investopia Global Talks, follows reciprocal visits to each other’s country this year by UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The UAE is far from alone in courting India. An analysis by U.S.-based Invesco found that 88% of sovereign wealth funds, including all of those in the Middle East, consider the Indian subcontinent to be the most attractive target for investment among emerging markets.

The report notes the interest Saudi Investment Minister Khalid Al-Falih expressed last year in establishing a branch of the Public Investment Fund in India’s Gujarat International Finance Tec-City and channeling capital to Indian startups.

Also steering investment decisions are the winds of war roaring through Lebanon, Israel, Gaza and the Red Sea, according to Invesco, which found that 95% of the region’s sovereign wealth fund managers see geopolitical tensions as the most serious risk to economic growth over the coming 12 months.

Saudi Arabia’s determination to develop an electric vehicle industry and expand its role in the international mining industry is taking its leaders to South America. 

Bandar Alkhorayaf, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources, will visit Brazil and Chile over the coming two weeks as the world’s leading oil exporter seeks to expand its international presence in mining.

In Brazil, talks will cover mining, food processing and aviation, while in Chile the focus is on lithium, needed for electric vehicle batteries. 

Alkhorayaf will land in Brazil today and leave for Chile, the world’s second largest producer of lithium, next Sunday. In Brazil, he will meet with executives from mining company Vale.

In Chile, Alkhorayaf will meet Mining Minister Aurora Williams, as well as mining companies Antofagasta and Codelco, a state-run company tasked with bringing the Chilean government into the lithium industry.

Back home for the minister, troves of minerals lie beneath Saudi Arabia that are critical to powering the energy transition such as gold, phosphate, bauxite, copper, zinc and nickel.

The Public Investment Fund’s Ma’aden mining company is tasked with tapping the resources, last valued at $2.5 trillion, making it one of the most significant potential contributors to the kingdom’s economic transformation ambitions.

The Dubai skyline is set to get its own Trump tower as former U.S. President Donald Trump – who accepted the Republican party’s nomination to the top of the ticket in Milwaukee, WI on Thursday night –gets in on the property boom underway in the UAE’s biggest city. 

The Trump Organization is partnering with Dar Global, the Dubai-based international arm of Saudi Arabia’s largest developer Dar Al Arkan, to build Trump Tower Dubai.

The skyscraper will house a new members-only club called The Trump Private, a hotel and residences, according to a statement from Dar Global. The cost of the project or a completion date were not revealed but design plans are expected towards the end of this year.

The deal comes as the Donald Trump-owned developer makes a push into the Arabian Peninsula, having announced two other projects in the region with Dar Global in recent weeks: a $500 million golf resort in Oman and a high-rise tower planned in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

The Trump Organization has a real estate portfolio of resorts, hotels, apartment buildings and golf courses in parts of the U.S. like New York, Chicago and Hawaii, as well as international locales in some of the world’s fastest growing economies like India, Indonesia and Turkey.

The firm already has a presence in Dubai as part of a partnership with developer Damac for two golf properties in Damac’s Akoya development.

Amid efforts by all the Gulf states to wean their economies off dependence on oil and develop alternative fuels, the UAE is pushing to get more of its power from nuclear energy.

Four months after the UAE’s Barakah nuclear plant became 100% operational, the government is exploring the possibility of building a second nuclear facility, Reuters reports.

“The government is looking at this option, Hamad Alkaabi, the UAE’s Ambassador to Austria and Permanent Representative to the UN’s nuclear agency, told the news agency.

“No final decision has been made in terms of the tender process but I can tell you that the government is actively exploring this option.”

Any contract for a new nuclear power plant would be worth tens of billions of dollars and could attract tender bids from China, Russia and the U.S., among others, Reuters said.

The government has yet to budget for a second power plant or decide on the size or the location, but Alkaabi said it was possible a tender could be issued this year.