Economy - TRENDS MENA

Organizations creating the most value from AI are not necessarily those deploying the most technology. Instead, they are redesigning workflows,...
Organizations achieving the strongest AI outcomes prioritize a handful of enterprise-wide initiatives rather than dispersing resources across numerous experiments.
Workforce adoption remains the biggest challenge, prompting successful companies to invest heavily in change management, skills development and leadership engagement.
Saudi Arabia was represented by intella, which develops Arabic-language speech recognition and analytics tools, and Nommas Technologies, which provides AI-powered...
World Economic Forum's 2026 Technology Pioneers recognizes early-stage companies developing technologies with the potential to reshape industries and societies.
The cohort underscores a shift in global innovation patterns, with emerging economies playing a larger role in frontier technologies.
According to the latest Vision 2030 annual report, the real non-oil GDP reached $892 billion against a target of $904...
The figure represents substantial growth for the sovereign wealth fund but remains below the programme's target of $1.09 trillion.
The sovereign wealth fund is the main financial engine behind Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia's plan to reduce dependence on oil revenues.
According to the General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT), all major economic sectors recorded positive annual growth during the quarter, reflecting...
Oil and non-oil activities each increased 2.9% from a year earlier, underscoring balanced contributions to economic expansion.
By regulatory sectors, the oil sector expanded 2.8% YoY in Q1 2026, while the non-oil sector grew 2.6%. The private sector posted growth of 2.8%.
The finding place Qatar among the top ten countries globally for practical AI usage. Qatar's AI market reached approximately $59...
Experts say governance, regulation and workforce skills will determine the long-term success of Qatar's AI ambitions.
Several institutions have played a leading role in advancing AI adoption, including Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development.
Dubai, UAE -- China’s foreign exchange reserves rose to $3.4422 trillion at the end of May, their highest level in...
SAFE attributed May's increase primarily to exchange-rate valuation effects and changes in prices of global financial assets.
China remains the world's largest holder of foreign exchange reserves, providing a key buffer against market volatility and external shocks.
Dubai, UAE -- Global cereal production is expected to decline by 2% in the 2026/27 season to 2.982 billion tons,...
Record 2025/26 harvests helped build global cereal inventories despite forecasts of tighter supplies in the coming season.
Lower wheat and barley trade volumes are expected to offset stronger maize and rice shipments worldwide.
Dubai, UAE -- Annual inflation across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) accelerated to 4.4% in April from...
Energy inflation reached 13.2% across the OECD, with 31 member countries reporting higher energy costs during April.
U.S. inflation rose to its highest level since May 2023, while Britain's core inflation fell to four-year lows.
A report published by the World Economic Forum (WEF) and consulting firm Oliver Wyman found that fragmentation accelerated through 2025...
Annual economic losses from fragmentation already total up to $307 billion as tariffs and investment restrictions proliferate globally.
Emerging economies outside major geopolitical blocs could suffer output losses nearly twice the global average under escalation scenarios.
Dubai, UAE -- OpenAI's ChatGPT surpassed 1 billion monthly active users in May, becoming the fastest application to reach the...
Sensor Tower estimates ChatGPT reached one billion monthly users roughly three years after launching in late 2022.
Growing enterprise adoption and multimodal capabilities have helped fuel demand amid intensifying competition across artificial intelligence markets.