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Saudi Arabia Seeks Promising Local Content Opportunities

Session at the Local Content Forum in Riyadh (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Session at the Local Content Forum in Riyadh (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Saudi Arabia Seeks Promising Local Content Opportunities

Session at the Local Content Forum in Riyadh (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Session at the Local Content Forum in Riyadh (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Saudi Arabia is pushing towards activating local content in the national industry, specifically in promising sectors.

The Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources, Bandar Ibrahim AlKhorayef, met Tuesday with 20 prominent local and international companies to discuss promising local content opportunities and cooperation between the firms and Government Procurement Authority.

The meeting also addressed the role of the private sector in directing its spending toward local content and the companies' efforts in developing content in several key industries.

Procurement Tools

AlKhorayef stressed that local content has several tools in government procurement that push demand toward local manufacturers and suppliers and help the private sector seize promising investment opportunities.

He noted that industry localization and knowledge transfer pave the way for investors to localize new products.

The Kingdom has promising opportunities to maximize interest by taking advantage of the purchasing power of state-owned companies, especially after the Cabinet decided to compel these companies to prioritize local content.

Content Preference

During the meeting, Khorayef called on the private sector to be equally responsible by prioritizing local content and products in its purchases and projects, identifying localization opportunities in its supply chains, and presenting them to small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

Promising sectors

In a panel entitled "Promising Sectors and Opportunities," the Local Content Forum discussed the role of entrepreneurs in developing local content, products, and services and the importance of research and innovation in enabling local content opportunities.

The executive vice president of operations at the Local Content and Government Procurement Authority Mohammad al-Qahtani and Executive Vice President for Studies at the Industrial Development Fund Ahmed al-Baqawi attended the session.

The session also included Deputy Governor for Entrepreneurship at the General Authority for Small and Medium Enterprises (Monshaat) Saud al-Sabhan and Supervisor of the Localization, Local Content, Risk Management Department at the Ministry of Energy Fouad Moussa.

The participants emphasized that local content highlights the promising sectors and opportunities for entrepreneurs in developing and providing investment opportunities.

Qahtani explained that the Authority is working on several strategic and vital sectors full of promising opportunities to develop local content.

Purchasing power

Qahtani indicated that the Authority targets opportunities to develop local content in several sectors and directs the government's purchasing power toward local content.

The Authority developed many mechanisms and legislation to seize opportunities, including one for government procurement, which compels contractors to deal with government agencies to provide national products from local factories.

He stated that since the activation of the mechanism, the Authority has launched several lists of over eight different sectors and more than 400 other products from national factories. The list continues to be developed and updated.

Small and medium enterprises

Meanwhile, Sabhan explained that SMEs constitute 99.3 percent of the manufacturing activity that contributes to localization.

He noted that local content in the government competition and procurement system directly supports and empowers SMEs, recalling that government purchases in Saudi Arabia increased 26.6 percent until the end of the third quarter of 2021, compared to 24.9 percent in 2019.

He explained that Monshaat launched a service to transform over 3,000 small and medium enterprises and had a role in increasing the local content.

Monshaat seeks to enhance the contribution of SMEs in local content by increasing the opportunities for their participation in the commercial franchise to expand their activities.

Entrepreneurs

Executive Vice President for Studies at the Industrial Development Fund Ahmed al-Baqawi stated that the Fund supports the client and the private sector to advance the Kingdom under Vision 2030.

Baqawi explained that young men and women at the Fund provide appropriate advice to the investor, pointing out that the Fund is a forum for all entrepreneurs in various fields.

Risk management

Meanwhile, Ministry of Energy official Fouad Moussa explained that the energy sector has a significant impact on the economy in the Kingdom.

Energy represents 45 percent of capital and operational spending and provides excellent opportunities for the products used in the energy, petroleum, gas, petrochemical, and electricity production sectors.

Moussa indicated that Saudi Arabia is heading to become the largest producer of hydrogen, which will become the future fuel.

He indicated that the Ministry had set new targets to localize the main products used directly in capital and operational spending and seeks to use available resources to serve the energy sector, ensuring it becomes parallel to other industries.

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Fitch Affirms ‘AA’ Credit Rating for Qatar

As LNG production increases, Fitch projects the general government budget surplus will rise ⁠to ⁠4.1% of GDP in 2027 (Reuters)
As LNG production increases, Fitch projects the general government budget surplus will rise ⁠to ⁠4.1% of GDP in 2027 (Reuters)
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Fitch Affirms ‘AA’ Credit Rating for Qatar

As LNG production increases, Fitch projects the general government budget surplus will rise ⁠to ⁠4.1% of GDP in 2027 (Reuters)
As LNG production increases, Fitch projects the general government budget surplus will rise ⁠to ⁠4.1% of GDP in 2027 (Reuters)

Fitch Ratings affirmed Qatar's long-term foreign-currency rating at "AA" and a "stable" outlook on Friday, saying its strong balance sheet and plans to sharply increase LNG output should help cushion the impact of the escalating Middle East conflict.

The US-Israel war with Iran has disrupted shipments from the world's most important oil artery, the Strait of Hormuz, which is responsible for 20% of global oil and liquefied natural gas supply.

The impact on LNG exports is likely ⁠to widen Qatar's ⁠fiscal deficit in 2026, contingent on how long the conflict lasts, but the country should be able to more easily tap debt markets or draw on its sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), which has built up ⁠assets over decades of investing at home and globally.

Fitch said it assumes the conflict would last less than a month and the strait would remain closed during that period, with no major damage to regional hydrocarbon infrastructure. Under its baseline scenario, the agency expects Brent crude to average $70 a barrel in 2026.

As LNG production increases, Fitch projects the general government budget surplus will rise ⁠to ⁠4.1% of GDP in 2027 and exceed 7% by 2030. Excluding investment income, the budget is expected to return to surplus from 2027, with most excess revenue likely to be transferred to QIA for overseas investment.

The agency expects Qatar to meet its 2026 funding needs through a combination of central bank overdrafts, domestic and international market borrowing, and drawdowns on the finance ministry's deposits in the banking sector.

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Trump Seeks to Close $1.6 trillion Revenue Gap with Raft of New Tariffs

US President Donald Trump speaks before signing the "Genius Act", which will develop regulatory framework for stablecoin cryptocurrencies and expand oversight of the industry, at the White House in Washington, D.C., US, July 18, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard/File Photo
US President Donald Trump speaks before signing the "Genius Act", which will develop regulatory framework for stablecoin cryptocurrencies and expand oversight of the industry, at the White House in Washington, D.C., US, July 18, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard/File Photo
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Trump Seeks to Close $1.6 trillion Revenue Gap with Raft of New Tariffs

US President Donald Trump speaks before signing the "Genius Act", which will develop regulatory framework for stablecoin cryptocurrencies and expand oversight of the industry, at the White House in Washington, D.C., US, July 18, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard/File Photo
US President Donald Trump speaks before signing the "Genius Act", which will develop regulatory framework for stablecoin cryptocurrencies and expand oversight of the industry, at the White House in Washington, D.C., US, July 18, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard/File Photo

The Trump administration this week stepped up its ambitious effort to replace about $1.6 trillion in lost tariff revenue that was eliminated by the Supreme Court's decision to strike down a range of the president's import taxes.

Recovering that lost revenue, which the White House was counting on to help offset the steep, multi-trillion dollar cost of its tax cuts, is possible but will be challenging, experts say. The administration has to use different legal provisions to impose new duties, and those provisions require longer, complex processes that US companies can use to seek exemptions. It could be months or more before it is clear how much revenue the replacement tariffs will yield.

“I wouldn't bet against this administration being able to get back on paper the same effective tariff rate they had before," said Elena Patel, co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. But the new approach will “make it easier for people to contest the tariffs, which is going to put a big asterisk on the revenue until all that is settled.”

On Wednesday, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the administration will investigate 16 economies — including the European Union — over whether their governments are subsidizing excessive factory capacity in a way that disadvantages US manufacturing. The investigation will also cover China, South Korea, and Japan, Greer said.

In addition, he said there would be a second investigation of dozens of countries to see if their failure to ban goods made by forced labor amounts to an unfair trade practice that harms the United States. That investigation will also cover the EU and China, as well as Mexico, Canada, Australia, and Brazil.

Both investigations are being conducted under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act, which requires the administration to consult with the targeted countries, as well as hold public hearings and allow affected US industries to comment. A hearing as part of the factory capacity investigation will be held May 5, while a hearing on the forced labor investigation will occur April 28.

It's a far cry from the emergency law that President Donald Trump relied on in his first year in office, which allowed him to immediately impose tariffs on any country, at nearly any level, simply by issuing an executive order.

Moments after the Supreme Court's ruling, Trump imposed a 10% tariff on all imports under a separate legal authority, but that duty can only last for 150 days. The president has said he would raise it to 15%, the maximum allowed, but has yet to do so. Some two dozen states have already challenged the new tariffs. The administration is aiming to complete its Section 301 investigations before the 10% duties expire.

The effort underscores the importance that the Trump White House has placed on tariffs as a revenue-raiser at a time when the federal government is facing huge annual budget deficits for decades into the future. Previous administrations, by contrast, used tariffs more sparingly to narrowly protect specific industries.

Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation, noted that the first investigation covers roughly 70% of imports, while the second would cover nearly all of them.

“That breadth suggests the goal isn’t to address the issues at hand, but instead to recreate a sweeping tariff tool,” she said, The AP news reported.

Trump sees tariffs as a way to force foreign countries to essentially help pay the cost of US government services, even though all recent economic studies find that American companies and consumers are paying the duties, including ones from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and economists at Harvard University. In his state of the union address last month, Trump even touted his tariffs as a potential replacement for the income tax, which would return the United States’ tax regime to the late 19th century.

Trump also wants tariffs to help pay for the tax cuts he extended in key legislation last year. The tax cut legislation is expected, according to the most recent estimates by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, to add $4.7 trillion to the national debt over a decade, while all Trump's duties, including ones not struck down by the court, were projected to offset about $3 trillion — or two-thirds of that cost.

The court’s ruling Feb. 20 that he could no longer impose emergency tariffs eliminated about $1.6 trillion in expected revenue over the next decade, according to the CBO.

Some of Trump's tariffs remain place, including previous duties on China and Canada that were imposed after earlier 301 investigations. The administration has also slapped tariffs on some specific products, including steel, lumber, and cars. Those, combined with the 10% tariff for part of this year, should yield about $668 billion over the next decade, the Tax Foundation estimates.

“It’s going to take a really big patchwork of these other investigations to make up for the (lost) tariffs,” York said.

The administration's efforts are also unusual because they reflect an overreliance on tariffs to bring in more government revenue. Trump has also said the duties are intended to return manufacturing to the United States, and he has used them to leverage trade deals.

“What makes this really different,” said Kent Smetters, executive director of the Penn Wharton Budget Model, “it is really the first time tariffs have been mainly used as a revenue raiser.”

Patel, meanwhile, argues that raising revenue can be done more reliably and straightforwardly by Congress. Laws like Section 301 are traditionally intended to be used to address specific trade policy concerns in particular countries.

“It’s not supposed to be there to raise revenue,” she said. “If we want to raise revenue through tariffs, then Congress should impose a broad based tariff.”

Business

Japan, South Korea Say Ready to Act Against FX Volatility

FILE PHOTO: Japan's Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama speaks on the day Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi delivers her policy speech in the parliament, in Tokyo, Japan, February 20, 2026. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Japan's Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama speaks on the day Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi delivers her policy speech in the parliament, in Tokyo, Japan, February 20, 2026. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo
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Japan, South Korea Say Ready to Act Against FX Volatility

FILE PHOTO: Japan's Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama speaks on the day Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi delivers her policy speech in the parliament, in Tokyo, Japan, February 20, 2026. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Japan's Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama speaks on the day Japan's Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi delivers her policy speech in the parliament, in Tokyo, Japan, February 20, 2026. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo

Japan and South Korea expressed concern on Saturday about the rapid declines in their currencies, saying they were ready to act against excessive foreign-exchange volatility.

Finance Ministers Satsuki Katayama of Japan and Koo Yun-cheol of South Korea "expressed serious concern over the recent sharp depreciation of the Korean won and the Japanese yen," they said in a statement after their annual meeting in Tokyo.

The yen and won have slid as mounting tensions from the US-Israeli war on Iran have driven the dollar higher ⁠on safe-haven demand and ⁠battered the currencies of countries heavily reliant on imported oil.

"Furthermore, they reaffirmed that they will closely monitor foreign exchange markets and continue to take appropriate actions against excessive volatility and disorderly movements in exchange rates," the statement said.

The yen touched its lowest in 20 ⁠months on Friday and is near the line of 160.00 to the dollar that many in the market think might prompt Japan to intervene to support the currency. The won breached a psychological barrier of 1,500 per dollar this month for the first time since March 2009.

Tokyo and Seoul shared the view that significant volatility had emerged in financial markets, including foreign exchange, Katayama told a press conference after the meeting.

"The Japanese government ⁠is ⁠fully prepared to respond at any time, bearing in mind the impact that currency moves may have on people's livelihoods amid surging oil prices, and I believe both sides share that understanding," she said.

Katayama regularly says Japan is ready to act regarding yen moves, although some policymakers privately say that intervening to prop up the yen now could prove futile, as the flood of dollar demand will only intensify if the war persists.