Gulf

1. Moving Day for ROSHN
2. A global CEO for NEOM
3. Dubai rents soar
4. Kaaba controversy
5. UAE tackles fertility

Sheikha Shamma texts us from COP29.

ROSHN’s first dwellers

Saudi real estate developer ROSHN has moved approximately 1,000 Saudi residents into its flagship development SEDRA, in northern Riyadh, where the company and others are building up communities to form what is already being dubbed the “New Riyadh”.

“It’s not a dream anymore. It’s real,” Iain McBride, ROSHN’s commercial executive director, told Semafor at the Cityscape real estate event. “That gives confidence [to foreign investors].”

Global supply chain delays and prioritizing Saudi contractors over faster or cheaper foreign options have slowed construction. ROSHN — one of the Public Investment Fund’s giga-projects tasked with the responsibility of reaching 70% Saudi home ownership by 2030 — plans to build 400,000 homes. The kingdom is estimated to need to build more than 100,000 homes every year until 2030 to meet demand.

Analysis: NEOM needs a global CEO

After abruptly replacing its CEO with an interim chief, NEOM’s next leader should have the international clout necessary to achieve its lofty ambitions, Wael Mahdi, a long-time former energy and business correspondent — and former NEOM employee — writes in a Semafor column.

“Al-Nasr’s departure presents an opportunity for NEOM to recalibrate,” Mahdi wrote. “As the kingdom continues to navigate the complexities of Vision 2030, its flagship projects will remain under the microscope. NEOM’s leaders must balance the local with the global, the visionary with the pragmatic.”

Dubai’s mid-market rent surge

The number of consecutive quarters that Dubai’s rents rose, with prices up 18% year-on-year and growth shifting from luxury waterfront areas to more affordable inland communities, according to Cushman & Wakefield Core. The market, fueled by population growth and a favorable business climate, also saw brisk activity in high-end properties. Over 400 homes priced above AED 20 million ($5.4 million) were sold in the third quarter, The National reported. Housing supply is expected to catch up with demand by 2027 which could cool the market, the consultancy said.

Saudi bans religious symbols in commerce

Saudi Arabia is drawing a hard line on the use of religious symbols for commercial purposes. The Ministry of Commerce issued a ban to prevent “abuse or misuse” of national, religious, and sectarian symbols and logos, after outrage spread over a Riyadh Fashion Week installation that critics said resembled the holy Kaaba.

The decision came nearly a month after the event took place, where models strutted around a mirrored cube that later featured overlain projections and became the backdrop for a concert. (Much of the online ire, however, incorrectly linked it to an extravagant celebration of renowned designer Elie Saab featuring performances by Celine Dion and Jennifer Lopez.)

Islamic iconography is widely regarded as sacred and not appropriate for commercial purposes. The Ministry of Commerce did not reply to requests for comment.

UAE embraces reproductive medicine

Biological clocks are ticking a little louder these days in the UAE. The country is aggressively pushing progress in fertility medicine as part of a broader, top-down effort to strengthen the domestic life sciences sector, improve quality of life to attract expats, and preserve the lineage of a country where foreigners outnumber nationals nearly nine to one.

A recent public health campaign by Abu Dhabi start-up Ovasave that offered free AMH testing, a common blood test of a woman’s likely egg reserves, aboard a roving bus brought in nearly 1,000 women across major white collar stomping grounds in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. “I thought I was going to have to drag people off the streets [to participate], but I barely had time to grab a lunch break,” Torkia Mahloul, co-founder and CEO of the reproductive telehealth platform, told Semafor.

The public interest in Ovasave’s campaign would have been unthinkable here even five years ago, when most women had to travel abroad for fertility treatments. But more recently, the UAE has legalized surrogacy, IVF, and egg freezing for unmarried women, and Abu Dhabi’s health authority now recommends premarital genetic testing for Emirati couples to prepare for cases where assisted fertility may be needed.

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Deals

• Deal volume and value of mergers and acquisitions is up in the Gulf, 9% and 7%, respectively, for the first nine months of the year — led by sovereign wealth funds ADIA, Mubadala, and the Public Investment Fund — with the US remaining the preferred target, according to EY.
• MGX, a joint venture between Mubadala and G42, wrote a check for $500 million in its debut investment: The $6.6 billion mega-round raised by OpenAI last month, a proof point of the UAE’s AI bona fides in one of tech’s most competitive fundraisers. — The Information

Diplomacy

• Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman will not be attending the G20 summit in Brazil this week due to a chronic ear condition flare-up (not the first time). His decision may have been influenced by the absence of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the sunsetting of the Biden administration, a person familiar told Bloomberg.

Checking In

• Most global airlines keep halting and resuming flights to and from Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport due to security concerns, but UAE carriers are giving Israelis a lifeline to the outside world through unabated flights. FlyDubai has maintained multiple daily flights, long after other low-cost competitors halted their trips. — The Associated Press

Sheikha Shamma bint Sultan bin Khalifa Al Nahyan is the President and CEO of UAE Independent Climate Change Accelerators, and is attending COP29.

Supporting Ukraine’s clean energy transition should be a key element of the incoming Trump administration’s geopolitical strategy against China and Russia, a top US energy diplomat told Semafor’s Tim McDonnell.