Saudi weekly digest. XVII

Last week concluded Ramadan for this year with the Eid al-Fitr holiday. Similarly to last week’s news digest, there is not much to report on this time, but still some things to pay attention to.

Let’s start by noting that…

Saudi Arabia is back in the top 5 of the world’s biggest military spenders. According to Sipri, in 2022, Riyadh’s military expenditure was approximately $75 billion, which is higher than the $55.6 billion spent in 2021. This amount represented over 7% of the country’s gross domestic product.

Saudi Aramco has surpassed Microsoft and is now ranked the second-largest company in the world behind Apple. The company has been valued at $2.11 trillion.

Four Seasons announced that they would be developing a luxury resort in the new city of Neom that is being built.

And lastly, on Friday, it was announced that…

The opening of Saudi Arabian and Iranian embassies in their respective countries will be a matter of days.

While there was not much to report at this time, a lot is still going on in and around Saudi Arabia.

Some of the matters to observe are…

• How will the relationship evolve between Saudi Arabia and Iran? Will it completely de-escalate the conflict in Yemen?
  
• What are the prospects of normalisation and developments between Saudi Arabia and Israel? While there wasn’t any news last week about Saudi Israeli normalisation, speculative and analytical pieces were circulating considering what we already know about the matter. The fact is that it is a hot topic and many vested parties would like to see this normalisation happen. There are also those who would not see this happening, namely Iran.
  
• Will Cristiano Ronaldo leave Saudi Arabia? There are numerous benefits that a player with such a magnitude brings to the Kingdom, especially given its current position where the country looks to grow rapidly and modernise its economy and society.