In case anyone was still in doubt about Saudi Arabia’s investment pivot then the kingdom’s most senior financial executive spelt it out in the clearest terms yet last week.
“Now our new strategy is to bring the world back to Saudi,” Yasir Al-Rumayyan, governor of Saudi Arabia’s $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), told a packed auditorium at the Future Investment Initiative (FII) Priority Europe summit held in Rome last week.
While the PIF’s previous investment strategy focused on integrating Saudi Arabia more deeply into the global economy, the fund is now seeking to make the kingdom a center of global economic activity as outlined in its recently approved 2026–30 strategy.
The PIF—the main driver of Saudi’s multitrillion-dollar Vision 2030 diversification plan—is directing 80% of its capital into domestic investments, scaling back foreign allocations to 20% from a peak of 30% and deprioritizing costly or slow-yielding giga-projects.
Al-Rumayyan’s remark comes in the wake of a series of sizeble cutbacks across some of Saudi’s prized giga-projects such as Neom—an economic zone under construction in northwest Saudi Arabia.
Neom’s flagship infrastructure project , The Line—originally envisioned as a 106-mile futuristic, linear megacity for 9 million residents— is to be radically scaled back to measure just 1.5 miles in its first phase, while ski resort Trojena is also being downsized and will no longer host the 2029 Asia Winter Games, as planned.
But the kingdom is still grappling with sizeable budgets in preparing to host the Expo 2030 world trade fair and the FIFA World Cup in 2034.
The Iran war has added fresh urgency to the PIF’s need to sharpen its focus on projects and sectors that are expected to drive returns. The FT reported earlier this year that there would be a greater focus on “industrial” sectors in Neom, including data centers.
Reductions in Saudi’s oil exports, because of the blockade on the Strait of Hormuz, follows years of lower oil prices and growing budget deficits in the kingdom—since 2013, Riyadh has reported one budget surplus when oil prices passed $100 a barrel in 2022.
In helming the PIF, Al-Rumayyan is trying to maintain a difficult balancing act of funding an expensive economic transformation while coping with lower oil income, fiscal pressures and geopolitical uncertainty across the region.
While speaking at the summit, Al-Rumayyan highlighted the need for Aramco to expand its international oil storage facilities in response to oil market turbulence and called for “energy realism,” as I discuss in my online piece here.
With the ink barely dry, the interim peace deal that was signed last week between the U.S. and Iran has already been put to the test by both sides.
While the Middle East remains a geopolitical tinderbox, it is hard to envisage tourists, businesses and foreign investors rushing to fulfill Al-Rumayyan’s grand vision of bringing the world to Saudi.
Melissa Hancock
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Is the U.S. counting on the Gulf to rebuild Iran?
The proposed $300 billion fund to rebuild Iran forms a key part of the MoU signed between the U.S. and Iran last week—but it’s still anyone’s guess who will foot the bill.
While the text states that the U.S. will work with its regional partners to reconstruct and support Tehran’s economic development, it omits to mention who will actually contribute to the fund.
As a result, it is fast proving to be a flashpoint in the ongoing fragile negotiations.
In a bid to shore up support from Gulf allies, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio will visit several GCC states this week, while also holding a meeting with the Gulf Cooperation Council—the formal grouping of the six GCC states that also includes Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman.
In an interview with Fox News last week, U.S. Vice President JD Vance said that Tehran will “never get a dime” from American taxpayers under the deal. In a separate interview with CBS News, he said that Iran could access money funded by the “Gulf Coast Coalition” if it complies with the terms that will be hammered out during the 60-day period of negotiations.
Aside from mis-naming the Gulf Cooperation Council, the comment has also caused tensions with senior Gulf officials who, to date, have refused to confirm any commitment.
Asked about the fund last week, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said that rebuilding trust would need to take priority “before any concept of economic cooperation, mutual investment or anything like that can rationally be addressed.”
Meanwhile, in his weekly press briefing, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari dismissed reports that Doha has contributed to the fund.
Aside from the sensitivities of asking the Gulf states to help rebuild a country which rained down missiles on their own infrastructure, regional leaders fear that injecting massive amounts of capital into Iran could be misdirected towards rebuilding its military capacity and empowering its proxy networks.
On the other hand, a commitment to long-term investment could potentially help bring about further de-escalation and also grant Gulf countries access to lucrative opportunities in Iran’s energy, logistics, manufacturing , and transport sectors.
DP World in talks to operate U.S. container port after 20-year hiatus
Dubai-based port and logistics giant DP World is in exclusive talks to design, build, and operate a new terminal at the Port of Corpus Christi in Texas.
Today, Corpus Christi ranks as one of the most significant U.S. ports by overall tonnage. In 2025, it moved over 203 million tons of cargo, largely composed of petroleum products, chemicals, and agricultural goods.
“The Port of Corpus Christi presents a significant opportunity to expand container capacity, strengthen supply chain connectivity, and create new pathways for American businesses to access global markets,” said Brian Enright, CEO of DP World in the Americas.
If approved, the project would mark DP World’s first container terminal development on the U.S. Gulf Coast and its second attempt to operate a U.S. container port after a 20-year hiatus.
In 2006, DP World’s ill-fated purchase of British company P&O and its U.S. subsidiary—which granted it operational leases for six major U.S. seaports—caused uproar in Congress over fears that it might compromise the security of critical infrastructure. Just one month later, DP World agreed to divest and transfer all U.S. port operations to a U.S.-based entity.
It has since maintained logistics operations in Pennsylvania and North Carolina and currently uses Vancouver as its main entry point for cargo into the U.S., via rail to Chicago and elsewhere.
Dubai invites contractors for $9.2 billion Metro Gold Line
While negotiations on the U.S.-Iran deal remain on shaky ground, Dubai is not letting the uncertainty derail its growth plans.
Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has invited contractors to submit their qualification statements for the contract to build the emirate’s new Gold Line metro, which is expected to cost $9.2bn.
First announced in April and scheduled for completion in September 2032, the Gold Line Metro is Dubai’s largest transportation project and will expand the total length of its transit system by 35%.
In October last year, the RTA selected U.S.-based engineering firm Aecom to provide consultancy services for the project after it submitted the lowest-priced offer at AED628 million ($171 million).
In February this year, the RTA signed an agreement with Elon Musk’s The Boring Company to begin construction of the Dubai Loop transport tunnel project using the advanced tunneling technologies pioneered by the U.S. business. Works are expected to begin in the second half of this year.
Dubai is racing ahead with plans to build out its infrastructure in a bid to ease congestion—now a mainstay of Dubai’s roads—and improve transport efficiency across high-density urban areas.
The Gold Line will constitute the city’s first fully underground metro line and is expected to serve around 1.5 million residents through 18 stations.
The Big Number
The 3 things we enjoyed reading this week
- Jamie Dimon has sounded a note of caution amid the current stock market euphoria. The CEO and Chairman of the U.S.’ largest lender said he was concerned about the shifting “tectonic plates” shaping the U.S. economy’s trajectory over the much longer term.
- Trump has threatened to impose U.S. tolls in the Strait of Hormuz if a final deal with Iran isn’t reached in 60 days, saying the money would be for “services rendered as the Guardian Angel to the countries of the Middle East.”
- Trump may have declared the Strait of Hormuz open, but a return to normal shipping flows could take months. Underwater mines remain a threat, along with navigational risks like collision, especially if there’s a mass rush among ships to try exiting at once.
