Tech billionaires to dominate GCC soon, says global wealth tracker Hurun

The profile of billionaires in the GCC region is fast changing, with ‘new economy’-backed billionaires set to replace the traditional petro-dollar rich in the region, according to global wealth tracking firm Hurun.

A surging influx of immigrant entrepreneurs looking to build global tech companies from the region and the rising trend of traditionally wealthy natives investing in new economy startups are driving the change.

“As per our estimate, GCC as a region has the most number of billionaires in the world – there should be at least 1,000 billionaires in the region. If I look at the known billionaires in Hurun Global Rich List – which does not include the royal families – except for Mohammed Al Amoudi, there is not a single oil and gas entrepreneur billionaire from the region that Hurun is aware of. But If I take into account the unknowns, yes wealth creation [in the region] is dominated by oil and gas.

“The trend is of course changing now,” Anas Rahman Junaid, founder and managing director of Hurun Middle East and its chief research officer, told Arabian Business in an exclusive interview.

Significantly, Hurun’s assessment reconfirms the growing perception of the success of the policy shifts being pursued by countries such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia to move away from the oil-based economies to non-oil, tech-based economies.

“I foresee wealth creation from two sources – immigrant entrepreneurs who build amazing companies from GCC and ship to the rest of the world and investors whose wealth has derived from traditional sources to invest into new economy startups,” Junaid said.

The Hurun top regional executive was highly appreciative of the bold and consistent policy shifts initiated by countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia to diversify their economies.

“[Some] of the governments in the region have pioneered many initiatives to accelerate innovation. Be it Saudi’s NEOM or UAE’s golden visa programme, there are steps towards attracting the attention of the ‘smartest brains’ in the world,” Junaid said.

He said the UAE’s focus to invite Web 3.0 startups including NFT and crypto to the region was also commendable.

Junaid said the initiative on granting of golden visas by the UAE was another masterstroke in attracting global investments and high calibre tech talent to the country.

“A good number of next generation entrepreneurs from the Hurun global rich lists have taken golden visa residency. Even from India’s context, quite a few Indian millionaires and billionaires have availed golden visas,” he said.

He said on a best-case basis, if these entrepreneurs set up their offices in the country or region, it would scale innovation in GCC.

“At a bare minimum, this will have a material impact on the Middle East consumption story such as real estate,” he said.

Junaid, however, said Hurun does not have the data on the total number of billionaires in the GCC region currently.

“We will do an estimate next year,” said the regional head of Hurun, widely recognised globally for its comprehensive evaluation of the wealthiest individuals across the world.

He, however, added that as per Hurun Global Rich List, GCC is home to 30 known self-made billionaires and another 950 plus unknown billionaires who have either inherited wealth or as part of the royal family.

Junaid also pointed out the rich mineral resources in the region helping the countries to quickly emerge as global leaders in alternative sources of wealth.

“For instance, the rich endowment of natural assets in Saudi Arabia – and not all of them hydrocarbon-based – could fuel new industries and sustain existing ones as carbon emissions fall toward zero.

“Its reserves of phosphates, copper and gold are world-class, but have been under-exploited thanks to the way crude crowds out everything else,” Junaid said.

He said Saudi Arabia’s solar potential was also among the richest in the world, giving the country the chance to be as central to a future green-hydrogen sector as it was to the past century’s petroleum trade.

According to Capgemini Research Institute’s World Wealth Report 2021, the population of high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) in the Middle East region grew by 6.8 percent to 800,000, while their wealth soared by 10.7 percent to $3.2 trillion in 2020.

*The Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf, also known as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), is a regional, intergovernmental, political, and economic union comprising Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The council’s main headquarters is located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.