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Independent analysis on the UAE economy, sovereign capital, AI infrastructure, energy transition and the businesses shaping the next cycle.
FeaturedEconomy
The IMF's latest World Economic Outlook has the world economy accelerating to 3.1 percent growth in 2026, but it has cut its Middle East and Central Asia forecast into outright contraction. The gap between those two numbers is the real story.
Markets
Speaking in Singapore ahead of the IMF and World Bank's annual meetings, Kristalina Georgieva told governments plainly that growth alone will not fix their balance sheets anymore. Global public debt is closing in on 100 percent of GDP, bond yields are at multi-decade highs, and the IMF's message has shifted from warning to deadline.
Economic strategy
A regional war that sent oil above 100 dollars a barrel would once have been enough to knock the Saudi economy off course entirely. This time, reserves held near 490 billion dollars, non-oil activity kept expanding, and the IMF signed off on the result. The resilience did not happen by accident.
Real Estate
UBS ranks Dubai fourth out of 23 cities on its Global Real Estate Bubble Index this year, just below the high risk band occupied by Zurich and Tokyo. The same report also says a skilled worker needs only five years of income to buy an apartment near the centre, a third of what it takes in Hong Kong. Both numbers are describing the same market.
Partnerships
The EU's Commissioner for Sustainable Transport and Tourism flew to Dubai this week, sat down with the UAE's economy minister and both national carriers, and delivered a message that went well beyond the usual diplomatic language. With the EU already supplying a fifth of Dubai's visitors, the timing of the visit was not incidental.
Economy
Dubai pulled in roughly 7 million visitors between January and August, a period that covered seven months of a regional war. August alone came in at 63 percent of last year's pace, and the industry is now betting on winter, Emirates and a packed events calendar to close the gap.
Markets
A little known US backed company has been handed 100 year concessions to 17 Venezuelan oilfields, several of them previously run by Chinese state firms. For Beijing, which has poured more than 100 billion dollars into Venezuela since 2000, the fields changing hands are the easy part to see. The debt left behind is the part that does not show up in a press release.
Infrastructure
Dubai has already put Dh13 billion in contracts to work on Al Maktoum International Airport this year, and it plans to award another Dh55 billion before the year is out. Between the piling numbers and the automated people mover contract alone, the scale here is hard to overstate.
Energy
The pipeline deal that has supplied Turkey with Iranian gas since 2001 lapsed at the end of July, right as the US Treasury turns up pressure on every country still trading with Tehran. Turkey has spent months quietly building the alternatives it would need if this exact moment arrived.
Markets
Goldman Sachs now puts Chinese growth at around 4 percent early in the third quarter, down from 4.3 percent and short of Beijing's own target. The bank reads the miss as a reason policymakers finally move, not a reason to worry, and the gap between those two reactions is the part investors are pricing.
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