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Saudi PIF Strengthens Expansion Strategy With Key Appointments

Logo of the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF)
Logo of the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF)
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Saudi PIF Strengthens Expansion Strategy With Key Appointments

Logo of the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF)
Logo of the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF)

The Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) announced a string of new appointments in its executive team under the framework of an expansion strategy to achieve its goals, as one of the main engines of the Kingdom’s economy.

The appointments announced Tuesday included Yazeed al-Humied, as new Head of the Fund’s Local Holdings Investments and Rashed Sharif, as Managing Director and CEO of the merged entity of NCB Capital and Samba Capital, a key strategic PIF portfolio company.

Leading Saudi financier, Rania Nashar was appointed as Senior Advisor to PIF Governor, Yasir al-Rumayyan. In addition, Fahad Alsaif was named as the new Head of Corporate Finance, Alireza Zaimi appointed to the role of Special Advisor to Rumayyan, and Saad al-Kroud as acting PIF Chief of Staff.

The Fund said that the new appointments aim to support and bolster its ambitious strategy by enhancing the expertise of its executive team.

It described Nashar as a “prominent name in the banking world”, adding that she is the first woman to lead a banking Group in Saudi Arabia as CEO of Samba Financial Group.

She brings more than 20 years of professional experience in the banking industry and assumed various roles in different divisions within Samba, and is a member of various boards including the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul).

Fahad al-Saif was formerly the CEO of the National Debt Management Center and advisor to the Minister of Finance. He and brings more than 20 years of corporate and investment banking leadership experience to the role.

He will become a member of PIF’s Management Committee.

The Fund has an executive management team with extensive experience in various fields, and with the growth of its diversified local and international investment activities, bolstering these experiences will support efforts to achieve the ambitious goals.

“I would like to welcome Rania and Fahad to PIF. As we continue PIFs ambitious strategy they will bring extensive global capital finance and banking experiences to their positions, which will play an integral role in helping accelerate PIF’s growth trajectory,” said Rumayyan.

He also congratulated and thanked “Yazeed, Rashed, Alireza, and Saad for the significant contributions they have made to PIF, and I look forward to continuing to work closely with all of them in their new roles.”

The governor indicated that these appointments are critical to ensuring PIF continues to achieve its ambitious growth trajectory and important mandate on behalf of the people of Saudi Arabia.

The Public Investment Fund (PIF) is one of the world’s largest and most impactful sovereign wealth funds. It is the main engine helping to drive Saudi Arabia’s economic transformation as part of the country’s Vision 2030.

Last week, PIF surpassed the 1,000-employee mark, expanding from an initial 40 employees in 2016.

The Fund has also grown to over $347 billion AUM and has invested a total of $82.9 billion in the Saudi economy during the past four years while contributing to the creation of more than 190,000 new jobs in the country.

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China’s May Exports Slow, Deflation Deepens as Tariffs Bite

Shipping containers are stacked at a port in Shanghai on June 9, 2025. (AFP)
Shipping containers are stacked at a port in Shanghai on June 9, 2025. (AFP)
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China’s May Exports Slow, Deflation Deepens as Tariffs Bite

Shipping containers are stacked at a port in Shanghai on June 9, 2025. (AFP)
Shipping containers are stacked at a port in Shanghai on June 9, 2025. (AFP)

China's export growth slowed to a three-month low in May as US tariffs slammed shipments, while factory-gate deflation deepened to its worst level in two years, heaping pressure on the world's second-largest economy on both the domestic and external fronts.

US President Donald Trump's global trade war and the swings in Sino-US trade ties have in the past two months sent Chinese exporters, along with their business partners across the Pacific, on a roller coaster ride and hobbled world growth.

Underscoring the US tariff impact on shipments, customs data showed that China's exports to the US plunged 34.5% year-on-year in May in value terms, the sharpest drop since February 2020, when the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic upended global trade.

Total exports from the Asian economic giant expanded 4.8% year-on-year in value terms in May, slowing from the 8.1% jump in April and missing the 5.0% growth expected in a Reuters poll, customs data showed on Monday, despite a lowering of US tariffs on Chinese goods which had taken effect in early April.

Imports dropped 3.4% year-on-year, deepening sharply from the 0.2% decline in April and worse than the 0.9% downturn expected in the Reuters poll.

Exports had surged 12.4% year-on-year and 8.1% in March and April, respectively, as factories rushed shipments to the US and other overseas manufacturers to avoid Trump's hefty levies on China and the rest of the world.

While exporters in China found some respite in May as Beijing and Washington agreed to suspend most of their levies for 90 days, tensions between the world's two largest economies remain high and negotiations are underway over issues ranging from China's rare earths controls to Taiwan.

Trade representatives from China and the US are meeting in London on Monday to resume talks after a phone call between their top leaders on Thursday.

"Export growth was likely stalled by heavy customs inspections in May due to tightened export control efforts," said Xu Tianchen, senior economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit, noting that rare earth exports nearly halved last month, while electric machinery exports also slowed significantly.

China's imports to the US also lost further ground, dropping 18.1% from a 13.8% slide in April.

Zichun Huang, economist at Capital Economics, expects the slowdown in exports growth to "partially reverse this month, as it reflects the drop in US orders before the trade truce," but cautions that shipments will be knocked again by year-end due to elevated tariff levels.

China's May trade surplus came in at $103.22 billion, up from the $96.18 billion the previous month.

Other data, also released on Monday, showed China's import of crude oil, coal, and iron ore dropped last month, underlining the fragility of domestic demand at a time of rising external headwinds.

Beijing in May rolled out a series of monetary stimulus measures, including cuts to benchmark lending rates and a 500 billion yuan low-cost loan program for supporting elderly care and services consumption.

The measures are aimed at cushioning the trade war's blow to an economy that relied on exports in its recovery from the pandemic shocks and a protracted property market slump.

China's markets showed muted reaction to the data. The blue-chip CSI300 Index and the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index were up around 0.2%.

DEFLATIONARY PRESSURES

Producer and consumer price data, released by the National Bureau of Statistics on the same day, showed that deflationary pressures worsened last month.

The producer price index fell 3.3% in May from a year earlier, after a 2.7% decline in April and marked the deepest contraction in 22 months, while consumer prices extended declines, having dipped 0.1% last month from a year earlier.

Cooling factory activity also highlights the impact of US tariffs on the world's largest manufacturing hub, dampening faster services growth as suspense lingers over the outcome of US-China trade talks.

Sluggish domestic demand and weak prices have weighed on China's economy, which has struggled to mount a robust post-pandemic recovery and has relied on exports to underpin growth.

Retail sales growth slowed last month as spending continued to lag amid job insecurity and stagnant new home prices.

US coffee chain Starbucks said on Monday it would lower prices of some iced drinks by an average of 5 yuan in China.

The core inflation measure, excluding volatile food and fuel prices, registered a 0.6% year-on-year rise, slightly faster than a 0.5% increase in April.

However, Capital Economics Huang said the improvement in core prices looks "fragile", adding "we still think persistent overcapacity will keep China in deflation both this year and next."