Mohammed bin Zayed Names Abu Dhabi's Largest Housing Project ‘Riyadh City’

Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan unveiled on Monday "al-Riyadh City", the newest and largest housing project in Abu Dhabi.

Named after the Saudi capital, Sheikh Mohammed stated that relations between the Kingdom and UAE "are based on brotherhood, cooperation and common destiny."

The Crown Prince tweeted on his official account: "Based on Khalifa's vision, we are updating policies related to citizen housing system and introducing a package of residential products in Abu Dhabi."

The total area of the Riyadh City project is approximately 8,000 hectares, equivalent to 85 percent of the area of Abu Dhabi Island and approximately 45 percent of Abu Dhabi's total residential land area. It is located 30 kilometers from Abu Dhabi downtown and its capacity is expected to reach over 200,000 citizens by the completion of the project.

The Abu Dhabi Government launched the Modon Real Estate Company to design and create integrated residential communities that will meet the needs of citizens and requirements of Emirati families in line with the cabinet's policy to provide housing grants and government loans to local beneficiaries.

The company will oversee partnerships with specialist designers and construction companies to ensure construction is done within the determined time limit and budget.

The development of Riyadh City will include residential neighborhoods with controlled population densities, as well as a full range of public facilities, such as parks, schools, shops, mosques, and medical and community service centers, which will comply with the highest standards of sustainability.

In other news, UAE Supreme Petroleum Council (SPC) approved ADNOC’s plans for capital expenditure of over $108.8 billion, over the next five years. The plan includes several expansion and growth projects that will explore and appraise Abu Dhabi’s unconventional gas resources, as the company seeks to enable future value creation from its untapped gas resources.

Presided over by Sheikh Mohammed, who is also Vice Chairman of the Supreme Petroleum Council, the council approved ADNOC’s key strategic investments program and future opportunities, as the oil and gas company expands its 2030 strategy, aimed at unlocking, creating and maximizing value and ensuring smart growth in its upstream, and downstream businesses, while strengthening market access.

Sheikh Mohammed reaffirmed that ADNOC has the unwavering support of UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan as it continues to drive the nation’s prosperity by creating long-term, sustainable value from all of the nation’s hydrocarbon resources.

Minister of State and ADNOC Group CEO Sultan al-Jaber declared that SPC’s approval of ADNOC's expanded strategic investment and growth plans signals a further tangible acceleration in ADNOC’s transformation.

"It marks the next phase in delivering our 2030 strategy, which will contribute to further maximizing value from all our resources, introduce new and significant partnership opportunities and enhance our capabilities to diversify our portfolio of products, as we aim to expand into key growth markets," said Jaber.

ADNOC plans to secure additional captive crude processing capacity in growth markets, establish sector specific global businesses and enhance its global marketing activities.

In line with the 2030 strategy, ADNOC will grow its crude refining capacity by 60 percent and more than triple its petrochemical production to 14.4 mtpa by 2025 through a staged expansion plan aimed at initially optimizing its existing assets to grow and diversify its products portfolio.

In addition, an aromatics project will be launched to convert naphtha into gasoline and aromatics and a large project to enhance the crude processing flexibility of its 900,000 bpd refining system will be taken forward.

The SPC is the highest governing body of the oil and gas industry in Abu Dhabi. The council formulates, approves and oversees the implementation of Abu Dhabi's petroleum policy and follows up its implementation across all areas of the petroleum industry to ensure that the set goals are accomplished.

The United States added 139,000 jobs in May, more than expected but pointing to a labor market that continues to slow.

The employment data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics exceeded forecasts for about 120,000 payroll gains but marked a decline from the revised 147,000 jobs added in April. The unemployment rate held steady at 4.2%, remaining near historic lows.

Stocks surged at Friday's open, with all three major indexes gaining about 1%.

In return, US government borrowing costs climbed as investors anticipated the Federal Reserve would keep interest rates higher for longer, making it less attractive to hold US debt.

The BLS report showed job losses in the federal government continued to pile up, with that sector shedding 22,000 roles in May alone.

The federal workforce is down by 59,000 since January, largely due to sweeping cuts by the Trump administration and multibillionaire tech executive Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency project.

Even as the economy continued to add jobs at a relatively steady clip last month, the report showed other signs of a weakening labor market.

The ratio of employed workers to the total population fell to 59.7%, its lowest since the pandemic.

An alternative measure of unemployment that includes “discouraged” workers, or those who have stopped looking for work, returned to a post-pandemic high of 4.5%.

But President Donald Trump cheered the numbers, posting on his Truth Social platform Friday morning: “AMERICA IS HOT! SIX MONTHS AGO IT WAS COLD AS ICE! BORDER IS CLOSED, PRICES ARE DOWN. WAGES ARE UP!”

Trump had urged Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to slash interest rates by a full percentage point.

“Too Late' at the Fed is a disaster!” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

In reality, employers added 212,000 jobs in November, unemployment was at 4.1%, the 12-month average of hourly pay gains have softened from nearly 4.2% then to 3.9% in May, and both the labor force participation rate and the employment-to-population ratio were slightly higher.

Only consumer prices have meaningfully cooled, ticking down from an annual inflation rate of 2.7% in November to 2.3% in April, the latest month with available data.

Analysts at Capital Economics called the May jobs report “not as good as it looks.”

Still, they wrote in a note Friday, “it shows that tariffs are having little negative impact” and added that the Federal Reserve is likely to continue holding interest rates steady “while it assesses the effects of policy changes on the economy.”

Mohammed bin Zayed Names Abu Dhabi's Largest Housing Project ‘Riyadh City’