'Davos in the desert' finds no mention of ongoing conflict in West Asia

Saudi Arabia, its Gulf neighbours seek to reassure investors that it's safe to do business amid turmoil in West Asia

By Ismaeel Naar

 

When senior Saudi officials took the podium this week at the kingdom’s glitzy annual investment forum, the three-day Future Investment Initiative (FII), there was barely a mention of the war unsettling the West Asia for more than a year now. 

Instead, at the forum nicknamed ‘Davos in the Desert,’ Gulf leaders sought to reassure the gathered foreign investors and policymakers that the conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon will not threaten business as usual with the region’s economic powerhouses.

While the Gulf has so far been spared direct involvement in the hostilities, there are fears that a further escalation could seriously impede the region’s plans to diversify its economies. The Gulf states worry that they cannot thrive in a region marked by persistent conflict, especially one that threatens to engulf Iran — the state backing many of the groups now fighting Israel. 

Khalid Al-Falih, the Saudi investment minister, only obliquely referred to the war when he addressed the conference on Tuesday, mentioning human suffering and disruptions to shipping in the Red Sea. But “the tailwinds are much stronger than the headwinds,” he said of the Gulf’s economic prospects. 

Saudi Arabia, under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has loosened the country’s tight social and cultural strictures. 

And a few years before the latest war broke out with the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, the UAE normalised relations with Israel — a move that many saw as motivated, at least in part, by the desire to remove obstacles from the path toward economic development in the Gulf. 

Saudi Arabia appeared to be on course to do the same in the period leading up to the outbreak of war, but the hostilities halted that progress, at least for now. 

The Gulf nations realise that they cannot pursue their ambitious national development plans without the West, which in turn recognises them, particularly Saudi Arabia, as key partners, despite qualms about their human rights records. Biden paid a visit there in 2022, a tacit concession that Saudi Arabia is too important to shun. 

©2024 The New York Times News Service