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A comment on End of the Line? Saudi Arabia to scale back plans for desert megacity. Parent comment

Re:End of the Line? Saudi Arabia to scale back plans for des... by JumpCrisscross on Thursday April 11, 2024 @04:33AM (#39999788)
> I don't know if oligarchy is the correct word, its more like a union of 7 mini-monarchies

Fair enough. And as you describe, it's more a diarchy of Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Nevertheless, structurally different from the absolute monarchies around them.

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Re:End of the Line? Saudi Arabia to scale back plans for des... by alephnerd on Thursday April 11, 2024 @05:53AM (#40000360)
It's basically just Abu Dhabi now, because they bailed out Dubai's housing sector on multiple occasion - in 2009 [0], 2019 [1], 2020 [2], and (down the grapevine) I've heard they might be providing an additional bailout to Dubai soon.

Furthermore, Saudi has started requiring companies that are operating in Saudi to operate a Saudi office, and won't give tenders to those who are managing the relationship remotely from Dubai now, so companies have started moving staff to Riyadh.

> Nevertheless, structurally different from the absolute monarchies around them

MbS is trying to remake KSA into an Abu Dhabi 2.0, as MbZ was his mentor

[0] - https://www.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/12/14/dubai.10.billion.bai...

[1] - https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN1PU1LI/

[2] - https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN22R23G/

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