Aurelia Butler

RIYADH (Reuters) -Saudi Arabia is strengthening its commitment to a plan designed to wean the economy off oil, its finance minister said on Wednesday, during a business event at which deals were signed to support the country’s economic transformation.Mohammed Al Jadaan was addressing the second day of the Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference in Riyadh, which is hosting top global business, technology and financial leaders.”Overall, I think we are very, very excited and happy with what we have achieved in the Saudi ‘Vision 2030’, but we are not complacent. We are doubling down, making sure that we do the right thing,” the finance minister said.Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is overseeing Saudi Arabia’s ambitious economic overhaul, known as “Vision 2030”, which aims to boost non-oil growth, expand the private sector, and create jobs and new industries.The plan, driven by the $925 billion PIF sovereign wealth fund, involves massive infrastructure projects, including building entirely new urban and industrial areas, such as a futuristic desert city called NEOM.The fund, which made its mark on the global stage with high-profile deals, such as investments in Uber (NYSE:UBER) and Japanese conglomerate SoftBank (TYO:9984), now plans to reduce the share of its overseas investments by about a third as it focuses on domestic projects, its governor told the FII on Tuesday.Foreign direct investment (FDI), which had stalled in recent years, is key for driving the transformation. The government has a target to attract $100 billion in FDI by 2030, equivalent to almost 6% of its GDP. FDI is on an upward trend, but midway through Vision 2030, FDI numbers indicate that the Kingdom could struggle to meet the objective for the turn of the decade.Despite diversification efforts, oil is still a mainstay of the Saudi economy and amid lower oil prices and production, government earnings have fallen and the Kingdom has begun a spending review, under which some Vision 2030 projects will be delayed or scaled back, and others prioritised.The high-profile annual FII event is an opportunity for Riyadh to draw in foreign funds and investment into the country.In one deal signed during the conference, PIF will be an anchor investor in a new $2 billion Middle East-focused private equity fund from Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management (TSX:BAM), which it plans to use for investments in sectors such as industrials, technology and healthcare.At least half of the capital will be invested in Saudi Arabia and international companies that are looking to expand in the Kingdom, the two companies said in a joint statement on Wednesday.Jerry Inzerillo, CEO of Diriyah, a $64 billion “giga-project” located at a UNESCO World Heritage site outside the capital Riyadh, told the audience at FII that the project was “on time and on budget” and that its value and assets could rise to “well over” $100 billion by 2030.”We are having a great FII because we closed so many deals here,” Inzerillo added. Jadaan told the audience on Wednesday investors were confident in the kingdom’s plans. “I really did not come here for Saudi Vision promises. I came here for what Saudi Vision delivered,” Jadaan quoted a “prominent” investor attending the event as telling him. More

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Money and sex are obvious taboo topics in the American workplace. But here is one you might not have thought of: Grief.If you ever lost someone close to you – a partner, a parent, a child – and returned to the office, you know how awkward things can get.Just ask Deborah Kearns. The writer from Aurora, Colorado, lost a sister-in-law to pancreatic cancer a couple of years ago, and had helped take care of her in the months before she passed.Kearns did get some unpaid time off, but her employer was unprepared to deal with most of the bereavement process.”Companies are reluctant to have these open conversations,” says Kearns, who also lost her mother-in-law recently. “Think about all the elements that go into sudden loss: Care in their last days, funerals, settling final affairs. It can take months.”Ironically, that represents an opportunity for employers – in terms of talent attraction, retention, productivity and loyalty.In the New York Life Foundation’s latest “State of Grief Report,” 76% of people said bereavement benefits were important when deciding on a new job.Meanwhile, 85% said they would be proud to work at an employer that was grief-supportive, and 71% were interested in taking grief support training to help colleagues through a loss.Here are ways to help employees during the most traumatic moments in their lives.OFFER BEREAVEMENT LEAVEEmployees have no federal protections ensuring them the right to take leave from work to cope with a loss, says Rebecca Soffer, author of “The Modern Loss Handbook”.”First and foremost, employers can offer clear bereavement leave policies that would ideally include at least five paid days off,” Soffer says. “Bonus points for being able to take those days in a non-consecutive way, and whenever the employee feels they need them the most.”Life insurer New York Life has gone further, changing its policy to allow up to 15 days’ paid bereavement leave, which can be taken as needed over a six-month period.BE FLEXIBLEA good manager will recognize the challenges of working while grieving and dial back expectations until the employee is feeling more like themselves again.That might mean reducing workload on a temporary basis or adjusting deadlines. It might mean more remote work or delaying performance reviews.”People need to be offered the time and flexibility to figure out where they’re going to live, transfer bank accounts or car titles, deal with medical bills that are suddenly their responsibility and find additional childcare support,” Soffer says. “All of this takes time and headspace to do.”OFFER HELP PROACTIVELY Average burial costs in the U.S. range between $5,000-$10,000, says Heather Nesle, president of the New York Life Foundation. People often raid their retirement savings to cover the tab.Add in factors like losing a partner’s income or accrued medical debt, and it can all feel financially overwhelming just when people are least emotionally equipped to handle it.To help, companies can chip in directly: New York Life’s emergency assistance fund, for instance, now includes death of a loved one as a qualifying event, providing grant money for funerals.Companies can also steer employees to more financial help, such as explaining how to apply for Social Security survivor benefits.To hunt for help by zip code, check out this resource guide here. Specialist firms like Empathy can also help people navigate what can be a complicated and confusing process.EXPAND DEFINITIONSMost bereavement policies apply to the loss of immediate family members. But what if it involves someone who falls outside of that definition? A longtime pet, for instance, or a best friend?If a company is truly empathetic about loss, it should let you decide what a “loved one” truly means. If employees feel truly supported in their darkest hour, that will pay off for everyone.”We all go through loss in our lives, and the more we talk about it, the less stigmatized it becomes,” Kearns says. “It’s okay to be not okay.” More

OTTAWA – Canada’s home ownership crisis is likely to worsen over the next few years as proposed project sales languish at historically low levels, stalling the funding needed for construction, half a dozen economists and realtors told Reuters.The sale of these proposed projects, comprising an array of one- or two-bedroom condominiums in major hubs like Toronto, is commonly called pre-construction sales, and a bulk of these properties are usually bought by investors to rent out. Many Canadians have been priced out of home ownership since interest rates started rising two years ago, and even with falling rates and relaxed mortgage rules more recently non-investor buyers have struggled.”If you think moms and dads with strollers are lining up at condo projects to buy 500 square foot condominiums, they are not,” said John Pasalis, president of Realosophy Realty, a Toronto-based real estate brokerage.There is no official data on pre-construction sales and it is largely sourced by realtors and economists from market transactions.Until now, investors had fueled a construction boom in major cities. But economists and realtors said they were largely staying away from the market for a host of reasons: high mortgage costs, lower prospect of capital appreciation, slower increases in rent and looming uncertainty in the housing market over how much interest rates will fall and if government measures will help. Once a threshold of between 50% and 70% of a property is sold, a lender agrees to fund builders to start construction. Canada’s home ownership crisis is one of the primary factors that has tanked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s approval ratings. Trudeau’s Liberal party introduced a raft of measures in its efforts to fix the crisis but it has failed to encourage builders to build more homes, government data showed.A drop in pre-sales indicates the start of construction of projects will fall in the coming months, crimping supply over the years desperately needed to absorb a rising demand, said Robert Hogue, housing economist at RBC.”We are not going to balance the market for ownership in the next four or five years,” he said, adding this could exacerbate the ongoing demand-supply mismatch responsible for the housing crisis in Canada. Earlier this month, the government changed one of its rules on mortgage payments, allowing first-time buyers or people purchasing a newly built home to take loans with 30-year amortizations, instead of 25 years.But critics say it might not encourage builders to start construction as investors would still stay away from the market as the cheapest mortgage rate – a five-year fixed rate – may not change much despite four rounds of rate cuts. Besides that, increasing supply in the market, especially in the Toronto region, dampened investors’ hopes of future capital appreciation.Despite a government push to keep population growth in check by clamping down on immigration, Hogue said the growth rate will still be too strong and demand will continue.According to federal housing agency CMHC’s Housing Supply Report from last month where it cites an independent study, new condominium sales were down more than half in the first six months of 2024 than in the same period a year ago.Aled ab Iorwerth, deputy chief economist at CMHC, who co-authored the report said there are many developers who need money to start planned condo projects. “Building these large condominium structures is quite difficult these days,” he said. More

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