List of all articles filed under “saudi-arabia-sector-analysis” category.
In the last two years, more than 84 billion Saudi riyals have been invested in the country’s tourism sector, according to the manager of a leading five star hotel in Riyadh. Around 11 million people visit the Kingdom each year, primarily for religious tourism.
With a total population of approximately 30 million people, the oil state “is a very dynamic market,” Hassan Kabbani, the CEO of Zain KSA, told Marcopolis in an exclusive interview. “There is a very high level of mobile penetration, reaching more than 180%, and very high level of Smartphone penetration.” Such figures are rare in the emerging markets, but typical for the Gulf Arab oil states with its low population density, but huge distances between the different cities and villages.
According to Citigroup (Middle East), approximately 60 percent of all real estate projects worth 3.5 trillion dollars underway or in the pipeline in the Middle East are located in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Amid ample demand from an ever young and ambitious population, property in the oil-rich kingdom is booming. But the run for climatised square meters in the desert adds fuels inflation in the biggest Gulf Arab country.
The tourism and service industry could be the providential answer to the pressing unemployment issues in the Kingdom. According to the country’s master economic and industrial development plan through the year 2025, the total Saudi labor force in 2009 consisted of 4,885,960 workers. That figure is projected to grow to 11,850,180 by the end of the planning period.
Saudi banks are not only earning money on oil trading. While one might suggest that Saudi lenders became big due to a windfall of the country’s revenues from energy exports, little is known about the Saudi role as the biggest capital market in the Arab world.
