Dubai’s five-year property boom is showing signs of slowing down.

A surge of new homes coming onto the market this year is likely to cool the pace of rising prices, according to a report by Moody’s.

The ratings firm said that major Emirati developers and banks are in a strong enough financial position to cope with a softer market. 

Population growth and continued demand from wealthy overseas buyers should prevent a sharp downturn, according to a report by Moody’s Vice President and Senior Analyst Lisa Jaeger.

Since 2021, developers have been capitalizing on high prices to sell an increasing number of homes off-plan for completion several years later.

This will drive a surge in new deliveries between 2026 and 2028 in Dubai in particular, before tapering off, Jaeger writes.

“The slowdown will prompt developers to scale back the launch of new projects and lead to lower new sales values over the next 12 to 18 months, a trend we expect will persist for several years,” the report says.

Abu Dhabi-backed investment firm MGX may be close to putting hundreds of millions of dollars into AI startup Anthropic as part of a massive fundraising round expected to top $20 billion.

The round, which would value Anthropic at about $350 billion, has attracted major support from Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC and other large institutional backers, Bloomberg reports.

MGX was set up last year with support from Abu Dhabi funds including Mubadala and technology group G42, with a mandate to invest heavily in artificial intelligence and related infrastructure.

The firm has already taken stakes in OpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI.

Saudi team owners and soccer fans are waiting breathlessly to discover whether reports are correct that Cristiano Ronaldo will end his two-match boycott this coming weekend amid disputes with his Al-Nassr football club and league officials.

The Riyadh team’s star Portuguese captain, who is paid $235 million a year, plans to return for Al-Nassr’s Feb. 14 match against Al-Fateh, ESPN reports. 

Ronaldo’s grievances revolve around the role of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund in team affairs and comparisons with rival clubs’ transfer activity, according to the sports broadcaster.

In a statement last week, the Saudi Pro League said that any problems Ronaldo and other players have must be resolved with their individual teams.

“Decisions on recruitment, spending and strategy sit with those clubs, within a financial framework designed to ensure sustainability and competitive balance,” the league said.

Ronaldo has played 22 games this season, scoring 18 goals and providing three assists as Al-Nassr sits in second in the Saudi Pro League, one point behind leader Al-Hilal. 

Foie gras and French goat cheese fueled Gourmet Egypt’s stunning debut on the Cairo stock exchange today, in which the upscale grocer’s shares rose as much as 38%.

With sales split between institutional and retail investors at 6.90 Egyptian pounds per share, the store’s IPO raised almost $28 million, Bloomberg reports.

Gourmet Egypt, which opened its business 20 years ago and specializes in imported foods such as Angus beef and Roquefort cheese, recently introduced ready-to-heat meals under its own “Handcrafted by Gourmet” label.

The Egyptian Exchange’s benchmark index has soared 68% over the past 12 months and officials are expecting as many as eight new listings this year.

Saudi Arabia is getting ready to unveil an updated blueprint for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Vision 2030 overhaul of the kingdom’s finances.

Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan said on Sunday that discussions on the government’s new five-year plan are underway at this week’s economic conference in AlUla that takes into account Saudi Arabia’s declining oil revenues and resulting budget shortfalls.

“We continue really to reprioritize, rework our policies, making sure that we enhance as we go to ensure that we enable the private sector to lead the economy,” Al-Jadaan told Bloomberg.

The government is recalibrating some of its most ambitious projects, including suspending construction of the giant cube-shaped Mukaab in Riyadh’s $50 billion New Murabba development and scaling back the $1 trillion Neom development’s futuristic city called The Line.

Saudi officials have also postponed the 2029 Asian Winter Games at Neom’s Trojena resort and reduced the original scope of Neom’s sprawling development to focus on what are projected to be the most promising sectors, such as tourism, logistics and technology.

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, meanwhile, will be testing the appetite of foreign investors to put their money in the kingdom, including in the sovereign wealth fund’s 120 portfolio companies, at this week’s PIF Private Sector Forum, Arabian Gulf Business Insight reports.

Egypt has rolled out a National Startup Charter, unveiling a $1 billion plan to turn young companies into engines of jobs and growth.

The five-year program is designed to back about 5,000 startups and create half a million jobs as officials try to make entrepreneurship a mainstream career path, Arab News reports.

Egyptian startups have been gaining traction, pulling in $238 million in venture capital over the past year.

The charter promises simpler regulations, faster government approvals and better access to financing, addressing long-standing complaints about Egypt’s labyrinthine bureaucracy and red tape.

Kazakhstan will host the 2029 Asian Winter Games, an event originally planned for Saudi Arabia until the kingdom acknowledged last month that its $38 billion Trojena ski resort would not be ready in time.

The Olympic Council of Asia named Almaty, Kazakhstan, as the replacement host city after deliberations on the sidelines of the 2026 Winter Olympics, which begin today in Milan.

Riyadh and the Council agreed in late January to postpone Saudi Arabia’s staging of the Games, which had been awarded to Trojena as part of the NEOM megaproject in 2022. Kazakhstan last hosted the Asian Winter Games in 2011. 

Saudi Arabia’s 80-year-old flagship carrier is preparing to make its largest jet order yet, as it refocuses on religious pilgrimages in the kingdom’s renewed push to become a travel and tourism hub.

Executives from Saudia are studying models from Airbus and Boeing for an order of at least 150 narrowbody and widebody jets, which are expected to replace some of its 200-strong fleet, while also boosting its total stock, Bloomberg reports.

It comes as startup Riyadh Air is preparing to launch full commercial services in coming weeks, with the goal of becoming an upmarket tourist and business carrier. Saudia will reposition itself to take advantage of the growth in religious tourists flocking to Mecca and Medina.

Meanwhile, Dubai’s Emirates airline has lost more than $10 billion in freight and passenger revenues because of ongoing delays in deliveries from Boeing and Airbus, Sir Tim Clark, its President, told Arabian Gulf Business Insights.

Emirates’ order backlog has now reached 315 planes from Boeing and 57 from Airbus, with 18 A350s due before the end of this year. Clark said about 120 of the Boeing planes should have been delivered by now.