Saudi Arabia is gearing up for its National Day celebrations with more than 12 million discounted products being offered by commercial establishments and online stores, while private and non-profit sector employees will receive an official holiday on September 23.

The Ministry of Commerce said the discounted products cover a wide range of consumer goods. The ministry has issued more than 3,500 discount licenses to commercial establishments and online stores, with each license allowing businesses to offer discounts across all their branches and points of sale, a Saudi Gazette report said.

Read more: Saudi taxis can now take passengers to Bahrain: Here’s what changes

Consumers can check the legality and validity of discounts by scanning the barcode of the unified electronic code displayed on a discount license using a mobile phone camera. The scan provides details including the type and percentage of the discount, its duration and information about the establishment.

September 23 holiday confirmed

The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development separately announced that Wednesday, Rabi al-Thani 12, 1448 AH, corresponding to September 23, 2026, will be an official National Day holiday for employees in the private and non-profit sectors.

In a statement on its official X account, the ministry said the decision is based on Article 24 of the Executive Regulations of the Labour Law and stressed that employers must follow the mechanism stipulated in the second paragraph of the article.

The ministry also said it continues to inspect establishments and stores across the kingdom to ensure compliance with discount regulations and requirements.

Saudi National Day is celebrated annually on September 23 to commemorate the unification of the kingdom by its founder, King Abdulaziz, in 1932.

The electricity sector’s scoreboard counts connections. By that count, 53 per cent of Sub-Saharan Africa has access to electricity, and more than 560 million people still live without it.

Both numbers are true, and both are misleading, because a connection is not access. A clinic that is wired to the grid but loses power during a vaccine delivery is not electrified in any sense that matters. A school that plans lessons around the hours the lights work is not electrified. A factory that keeps diesel generators running beside a grid connection is paying twice for electricity and receiving it once. When we count these as success, we declare progress that people cannot feel.

This matters now because Africa has earned a moment it cannot afford to waste. The IMF estimates the region grew 4.5 per cent in 2025, the fastest pace in a decade, with 10 economies above 6 per cent, and Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Uganda among the fastest-growing in the world.

That growth was hard-won through reform, and it is now colliding with rising imported costs: fuel, fertiliser, shipping. The IMF warns that a 20 per cent rise in international food prices could push more than 20 million people in the region into moderate or severe food insecurity. Irrigation, refrigeration, milling, and cold storage all stand between food prices and family tables, and every one of them runs on power that must not fail. Reliability is not a technical footnote to Africa’s growth story. It is economic policy.

The uncomfortable truth sits with the energy industry itself. Much of the power Africa needs already exists on paper. It sits in installed capacity that never reaches a socket. At KenGen’s Masinga hydro plant in Kenya, ageing control systems had cut effective output from 40 MW to around 26 MW. No new dam was needed. Modernising the controls restored the plant to its full 40 MW, returning low-cost renewable baseload to the national grid.

In Lagos, Ikeja Electric, one of Nigeria’s largest distribution company, has reduced grid system downtime by roughly 33 per cent through a phased digitisation of its network. At RCL Foods’ Pongola sugar mill in South Africa, replacing a 30-year-old control system cut seasonal blackouts from around 40 to 3 and lifted throughput by 20 per cent. In each case, the megawatts existed. Intelligence released them. Before we debate the next 100 GW of generation, we should ask how much of the current fleet is actually delivered.

The same logic is building Africa’s next infrastructure, not just repairing its last. In Nairobi, IX Africa is delivering East Africa’s first AI-ready hyperscale data centre: 22.5 MW live within a 42 MW design, with a 53 MW expansion planned, running on a Kenyan grid that is roughly 92 per cent renewable, with critical switchgear manufactured locally in Kenya. A digital economy asset of global standard, powered largely by renewables, built with African manufacturing.

This is not a continent waiting for inherited models. It is a continent engineering its own, and where national grids will take years to reach the last mile, microgrids and digitally managed distributed generation are already delivering dependable power that can grow with the communities that run on it.

Capital will decide how quickly this changes. In 2025, 48 African countries endorsed the Dar es Salaam Declaration behind Mission 300, the drive to connect 300 million people by 2030. The mission deserves unqualified support and a clear principle: investment must reward power that is delivered, not connections that are declared.

A mission measured in wiring alone would announce victory while clinics, schools, and factories still plan their days around failure. Much of this capital will be allocated from our region, as Gulf sovereign and private investors deepen their commitments to Africa’s infrastructure and digital economy. For them, the enduring opportunity is not connection. It is reliability: engineered, measured, and guaranteed.

Schneider Electric does not enter this conversation as an observer. As an energy technology partner, we electrify, automate, and digitalise the systems this continent runs on, and our Access to Energy programme has helped provide clean and reliable electricity to more than 60 million people since 2009 and trained over 1 million in energy management, a large share of them across Africa, because technology only lasts where local capability grows with it.

This September in Abu Dhabi, our Innovation Summit Middle East and Africa will put African utilities, developers, and engineers in the same room as the technology and the capital. The question on the table should not be whether universal access is a pipe dream. It should be whether we are honest enough to measure what access really means. Africa’s energy future will be judged in hours of dependable power. Let us start counting them.

• Walid Sheta is the President for Middle East and Africa at Schneider Electric.

Saudi Arabia has announced the discovery of an estimated 110 million tonnes of uranium-bearing ore in the Madinah region, marking a significant milestone in the kingdom’s efforts to develop its mining sector and support its long-term civilian nuclear energy ambitions, Reuters reported.

The announcement was made by Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman during the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) General Conference in Vienna. According to the minister, the identified mineralised material contains uranium concentrations alongside rare earth elements and is among the most significant mineral resource discoveries currently under development globally.

The discovery comes as Saudi Arabia accelerates plans to diversify its economy under Vision 2030 by expanding its mining industry and establishing a domestic civilian nuclear power programme. The kingdom has been seeking to develop nuclear energy to meet rising electricity demand, reduce domestic oil consumption for power generation and support its net-zero objectives while creating a new industrial value chain.

Officials said the uranium-bearing deposits could provide a domestic source of nuclear fuel, reducing reliance on imported raw materials if commercial extraction proves viable. The announcement follows years of geological exploration conducted across the kingdom to identify strategic mineral resources, including uranium, rare earth elements, lithium and other critical minerals required for advanced technologies and the global energy transition.

Saudi Arabia has allowed licensed taxis to transport passengers to Bahrain, opening a new cross-border service under rules issued by the Transport General Authority (TGA).

The new regulation took effect on September 6, Okaz newspaper reported.

In a circular addressed to investors in the taxi sector, the authority said Saudi carriers providing the service must comply with executive regulations governing taxi and passenger transport activities, as well as relevant international agreements.

Read more: Dubai just built its first air taxi station — here’s what we know

The circular outlined several conditions for operators seeking to provide the service. These include holding a valid operating license and offering the service through licensed taxi and passenger transport brokers.

Operators must also submit a passenger loading manifest using the form approved by the authority, verify the identities of drivers and passengers, and ensure all required travel documents are in order.

Restrictions on return trips

The authority also requires operators to integrate with the systems of relevant government bodies, including the Shomoos security system, and adhere to the approved fare.

Saudi taxis will not be permitted to pick up passengers on the return journey until further notice. The regulation also prohibits taxis from transporting passengers within Bahrain.

The move establishes a regulated framework for cross-border taxi travel between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain while setting specific requirements for operators and passengers.

Dubai Holding Real Estate and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) have partnered to introduce new off-plan home financing solutions aimed at making property purchases more accessible for buyers across selected residential developments.

The strategic partnership will initially cover Nakheel’s Palm Jebel Ali, Meraas’ The Acres and Nad Al Sheba Gardens, allowing eligible buyers to secure home financing after paying 50 per cent of a property’s value to the developer, regardless of the stage of construction.

The companies said the initiative is designed to provide buyers with greater certainty over future payment obligations while creating a smoother transition from purchase to handover.

Under the partnership, eligible customers will benefit from financing pre-approvals valid for up to 18 months, fixed interest rates starting from 3.49 per cent per annum for three years, waived processing and property valuation fees, digital onboarding and access to dedicated ADCB Mortgage Centres for end-to-end support.

Beyond the three flagship developments, ADCB’s off-plan financing solutions will also be available for buyers purchasing homes in other Nakheel, Meraas and Dubai Properties communities once prescribed construction milestones have been achieved.

The collaboration is expected to enhance financing accessibility across Dubai Holding Real Estate’s portfolio while supporting demand in Dubai’s off-plan residential market.