(Corrects to take away misguided reference to Oman as certainly one of nations concerned within the 2017-2021 boycott of Qatar)
By Andrew Mills
DOHA (Reuters) -When Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman buckled himself right into a Bentley SUV with Qatar’s emir on the wheel, it was a second of camaraderie that adopted years of prickly relations – and an opportunity for his host to indicate off Doha’s gleaming new buildings.
Prince Mohammed’s go to to the tiny neighbouring Gulf state in 2021 not solely helped bury a bitter political grudge that had rumbled on for 3 years, it additionally ignited an increase in Qatar-Saudi enterprise ties that has gathered tempo ever since.
His SUV tour of the Qatari capital took in a brand new 10-lane expressway, a futuristic metro and a 90,000-seat World Cup stadium radiant in gold-coloured cladding – precisely the form of mega initiatives the Saudi prince is in a rush to construct again residence.
Native information experiences of the leaders’ automobile trip made no point out of MbS’s response to the sights. However a subsequent burst of recent enterprise between Qatari and Saudi corporations — from railways, to weapons and even a challenge to carry snow to the Saudi desert — recommend his go to helped encourage a turning level in ties.
The Qatari and Saudi authorities media places of work didn’t reply to requests for remark about rising relations between the 2 nations.
When the 2022 World Cup concluded, ending a decade-long development growth in Qatar, Qatari corporations seized the possibility to supply the dominion the know-how and capability that they had honed within the lead-up to the world’s largest sporting occasion.
The transfer generated at the least $10 billion in contracts and cemented a partnership between Qatar’s Sheikh Tamim bin Hamed Al Thani and Prince Mohammed, often known as MbS, a growth applauded by Western allies eager to shore up stability in an unstable area, 4 enterprise executives, three analysts and two diplomats mentioned.
The dimensions of Saudi contracts received by Qatari contractors because the boycott has not been beforehand reported and reveals Qatar corporations are intently concerned in finishing Saudi so-called giga initiatives, huge ventures which might be central to bold 2030 targets to diversify the Saudi financial system away from oil.
The alliance is in stark distinction to a rift that began in 2017 when Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt choked off Qatar’s financial system with a boycott, accusing it of backing terrorists. Qatar denied the fees and the rift was led to a collection of conciliatory strikes in 2021.
“There may be a lot work (in Saudi Arabia), I feel all the businesses within the Center East will go,” mentioned Saif-ur-Rehman Khan, managing director and proprietor of Redco Worldwide, a Qatari development firm.
Redco’s Khan mentioned the MbS go to was essential as a result of it prompted a joint Saudi-Qatar committee charged with restoring ties to establish Qatari corporations well-placed to contribute to Saudi initiatives.
Two years on, a December 2023 assembly of the Saudi-Qatari coordination committee was held in a “spirit of friendship, brotherhood and mutual belief” and sought to carry a “renaissance for the 2 nations”, in keeping with a joint assertion.
Redco is now targeted on precast concrete and concrete crops that are actually concerned in NEOM, the multi-billion greenback Saudi flagship challenge, an enormous financial zone the scale of Belgium.
‘START RIGHT AWAY’
For 4 many years, Redco made billions by focusing solely on Qatari initiatives. However the firm’s focus has shifted to Saudi Arabia in an enormous manner: its first two contracts within the kingdom are price $3 billion, and it has moved nearly all of its staff – greater than 8,000 – and far of its heavy tools stock from Qatar to an industrial zone on the Pink Coastline, Khan mentioned.
MbS’s 2021 go to prompted Saudi authorities to ask Qatar’s high development corporations to bid for work, Khan mentioned. As Redco’s work on World Cup initiatives wrapped up, Khan travelled to NEOM and put collectively a proposal.
“They welcomed us and made it straightforward to bid,” he mentioned, including that Neom waived a customary requirement for bidders to place down a ten% bond as a result of Redco had no banking facility within the kingdom.
Some NEOM initiatives are delayed however Redco has pushed forward.
Over six months, Redco constructed a 1.5 km lengthy precast concrete manufacturing unit, the world’s largest, and now’s at work on tunnels for an underground railway and infrastructure hall and culverts for a 147 km (91 mile) lengthy pipeline to provide water to make snow at Trojena, Saudi Arabia’s first ski hill.
“They needed us to start out straight away, with no mobilization interval. And we did,” Khan mentioned.
NEOM’s media workplace didn’t remark when contacted by Reuters.
The neighbours are additionally rising aligned diplomatically.
Saudi Arabia, for instance, helps Qatar’s efforts to mediate between Israel and Hamas over the conflict in Gaza.
Doha has prevented discord with Riyadh by dialling again some facets of its international coverage, like withdrawing opposition to Saudi efforts to welcome Syria again to the Arab League and taking a backseat on peace negotiations in Yemen and Sudan.
FROM FLYING IN COWS TO PROJECTS WORTH $7 BLN
Qatar and Saudi Arabia are additionally exploring methods to make weapons and different defence gadgets collectively, with Barzan Holdings, a defence firm part-owned by Qatar’s defence ministry, agreeing in February to work with SAMI, its Saudi counterpart.
“If we didn’t have the political blessing from either side, we might not have this chance to work collectively,” mentioned Barzan CEO Abdullah Al-Khater.
Riyadh goals to spend half its arms funds domestically, which represents “one thing large” for Barzan, he mentioned.
“Stronger financial ties bind the pursuits of Qatar and Saudi Arabia nearer collectively in ways in which overcome the problems of the current previous and underpin the speedy enchancment within the political relationship,” mentioned Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, Gulf skilled and fellow at Rice College’s Baker Institute.
For Qatar, a high liquefied exporter, it’s a probability to strengthen ties with probably the most highly effective Arab nation, and within the course of attempt to diversify its financial system.
In an instance of a reversal of fortunes, entrepreneurs Moutaz and Ramez Al-Khayyat had side-stepped the Saudi-led boycott of Qatar by flying-in 4,000 milk cows to ease a essential meals scarcity within the desert nation.
Riyadh had closed the border, choking off Qatar’s foremost meals and dairy provide path to attempt to carry Qatar to heel.
The Syrian-Qatari brothers, who did no enterprise with Saudi Arabia in the course of the Gulf rift, now have $7 billion price of development initiatives within the pipeline inside the dominion, Moutaz Al-Khayyat advised Reuters.
They’re hoping to double that quantity, he added.
“The door is now open.”
Al-Khayyat, chairman of Energy Worldwide Holding, a bunch of greater than 40 corporations, now shrugs off the Saudi-led boycott altogether: “It was a small interval. An incident,” he mentioned.