Saudi Arabia cancels next week’s ‘Davos in the Desert’ conference after series of Houthi attacks

By Matt Egan, CNN

(CNN) — In a major setback for the kingdom’s economic ambitions, Saudi Arabia has canceled a major conference scheduled for next week in Riyadh amid a wave of attacks by Iran-backed Houthi militants.

Known as “Davos in the Desert,” the Future Investment Initiative will now take place on an undisclosed date in 2027, according to a statement from the conference shared via email with CNN’s Becky Anderson.

Normally, the annual event showcases Saudi Arabia’s financial muscle and growing role on the world stage. Wall Street leaders including JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon and BlackRock boss Larry Fink were all scheduled to speak at next week’s event. However, the FII decided to cancel the October 26-29 conference in the wake of a series of Houthi attacks on the Saudi capital, including a deadly missile strike earlier this month on Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport. The decision comes after a series of Houthi missile and drone attacks on Saudi airports, energy infrastructure and other strategic sites, prompting a number of countries to issue travel warnings.
Saudi Arabia and Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis have exchanged near-daily missile, drone and air strikes in recent week, with the conflict escalating sharply.

Some boards of directors may have balked at sending their CEOs into Saudi Arabia in the midst of the deadly battle with the Houthis.

“This decision has been taken to ensure that our milestone tenth edition delivers the full scale, quality and impact that our partners, members, speakers and delegates expect,” the FII Institute, which runs the conference, said in the statement.

Organizers said the new dates in 2027 for the event “will be communicated very soon” and all registrations and partnerships “remain valid.”

The cancellation of this year’s event is a blow to Saudi Arabia’s efforts to diversify the oil-rich country’s economy away from oil and natural gas.

The deteriorating security situation undermines decades of effort to attract Western capital to the Middle East and may herald a period of investment uncertainty that would be detrimental to the whole region.

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