The King Abdullah financial district is seen illuminated at night in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 
 
 The King Abdullah financial district is seen illuminated at night in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 
 
 The King Abdullah financial district is seen illuminated at night in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Close 
 
 Saudi Arabia will shift its weekend to Friday and Saturday starting next week, taking the biggest Arab economy a step closer to opening its $400 billion stock market to foreign investors. 
 
 Ministries and monetary agencies will adopt the new weekend from June 29, aligning Saudi Arabia with other Gulf Cooperation Council countries, according to a royal decree yesterday. The decision was taken based on “the economic position of the kingdom and its international and regional obligations,” it said. The weekend moves from Thursday and Friday. 
 
 “Investors can read between the lines and see this as another step towards opening up the market,” Fadi Al Said, senior fund manager at ING Investment Management in Dubai, said by phone yesterday. “It’s not official, but this is one of the things Saudi needed to do to open the markets for foreign investors.” 
 
 Deutsche Bank AG and HSBC Holdings Plc are among banks that have predicted the kingdom’s stock exchange, the largest in the region with a market value bigger than those in Turkey and Ireland combined, may open to foreigners as early as next year amid rising demand for assets. Such a move may attract as much as as $30 billion of inflows, John Burbank, founder of $3.7 billion San Francisco-based hedge fund Passport Capital LLC, said in February. 
 
 Global Businesses 
 
 Non-resident foreign investors can currently only participate through share-swap transactions and exchange-traded funds. 
 
 The weekend switch “will help us in the global business world,” Mutlaq al-Morished, chief financial officer for Saudi Basic Industries Corp. (SABIC), the world’s biggest petrochemicals company by market value, said in response to e-mailed questions. “We had only three days left to do business. If you add in the time zones, like with U.S., we found ourselves with limited hours to do business in the week.” 
 
 The Tadawul All-Share Index (SASEIDX) declined 0.8 percent to 7,500.69 today, trimming this year’s advance to 10 percent. That compares with a surge of 39 percent for Dubai’s index and a drop of 16 percent for the MSCI Emerging Markets Index. 
 
 Morgan Stanley 
 
 Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse Group AG are among global banks have set up offices in Riyadh as a hub for brokers covering the GCC region in anticipation the market will open up. MSCI Inc., whose gauges are tracked by investors managing about $7 trillion, last year resumed Saudi coverage and said it would consider including the nation in frontier or emerging-market indexes if it allows foreigners direct access. 
 
 MSCI this month upgraded the United Arab Emirates, the second-biggest Arab economy, and Qatar to emerging-market status. The index provider’s decision “puts additional pressure on Saudi Arabia to accelerate its qualified investor program and we now believe this is likely over summer,” Emad Mostaque, a London-based strategist at Noah Capital Markets EMEA Ltd., said June 12. 
 
 “Opening up to foreigners is mostly about regulation,” Tariq Qaqish, head of asset management at Dubai-based Al Mal Capital PSC, said by phone yesterday, adding that changing regulation in the country can take years. Still, the weekend shift “is definitely a step forward,” he said. 
 
 Lost Opportunities 
 
 The changes to the working week will “lead to greater convergence with global markets,” Saudi Capital Market Chairman Mohammad Al-Sheikh, who’s based in Riyadh, said in a statement yesterday. 
 
 The kingdom has taken other steps in recent months. Al-Sheikh, a World Bank executive representing Saudi Arabia, was appointed as chairman of the CMA in February. In April the CMA announced a plan to issue credit ratings for local companies, and in May issued a resolution to adopt a stock price fluctuation limit of 10 percent for shares on their first trading day. The same month it proposed new procedures for companies with losses at or exceeding 50 percent of their capital. 
 
 The Saudi weekend switch will “put an end to negative effects and lost economic opportunities” from having different working days than regional and international institutions, the Saudi Press Agency said, citing the royal decree. Weekend changes for schools and educational institutions will start in the next academic year. 
 
 To contact the reporters on this story: Samuel Potter in Dubai at spotter33@bloomberg.net; Glen Carey in Riyadh at gcarey8@bloomberg.net 
 
 To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claudia Maedler at cmaedler@bloomberg.net ||||| In this photo released by Saudi Press Agency, SPA, Saudi Minister of Commerce and Investment Majid al-Qasabi talks to the audience at the opening of Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh,... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this photo released by Saudi Press Agency, SPA, Saudi Minister of Commerce and Investment Majid al-Qasabi talks to the audience at the opening of Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2017. Saudi Arabia has opened a major investment conference aimed at... (Associated Press) 
 
 RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia's powerful crown prince on Tuesday announced plans to build a futuristic city run entirely on alternative sources of energy and said the ultraconservative kingdom must return to "moderate Islam." 
 
 The $500 billion "Neom" project , envisioned as a hub for technological innovation, will be funded by the kingdom's sovereign wealth fund, which the prince oversees, as well as the Saudi government and a range of private and international investors. 
 
 "This place is not for conventional people or conventional companies," Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told an audience of investors from around the world gathered in the capital, Riyadh, on Tuesday. "This will be a place for the dreamers of the world." 
 
 It's the latest surprise move by Saudi Arabia, a country that for decades was characterized by slow, cautious reforms, bureaucratic red tape and promises that fell short of target. The kingdom was forced to spring into action nearly three years ago after global energy prices fell by more than half, threatening to deplete Saudi foreign reserves and spending power by 2020. 
 
 Now, the kingdom is on a mission to build the world's largest sovereign wealth fund to invest in projects like Neom. The aim is diversify revenue away from oil exports and create more jobs under a plan spearheaded by the crown prince known as Vision 2030 . 
 
 No reform, however, was more disruptive to the old order than last month's decision to lift the ban on women driving next summer. Saudi Arabia is also expected to bring back cinemas soon as it opens the ultraconservative country to more entertainment. 
 
 Prince Mohammed defended these reforms at the conference on Tuesday, saying "we were not like this in the past." 
 
 "We want to go back to what we were: Moderate Islam," the prince said during his rare public appearance. The heir to the throne said the kingdom will work to defeat extremist ideas and ensure that young Saudis live in harmony with the rest of the world. 
 
 He was speaking on a panel that included business titans Stephen Schwarzman of U.S. private equity firm Blackstone and Masayoshi Son of Japan's technology conglomerate SoftBank. 
 
 As panelist after panelist lavished praise on the 32-year-old prince for his "passion," ''vision" and "enthusiasm," he interjected, saying: "I'm one of 20 million people. I am nothing without them." 
 
 For many middle and lower-income Saudi families, the prince's reform blueprint is long overdue. 
 
 Most Saudis hold jobs with the government, where wages for many can average just a few hundred dollars a month. Still, the public sector wage bill eats up about half of the government's total expenditure. As part of Vision 2030, the government plans to trim the public sector workforce by about 20 percent while ensuring there are enough jobs in the private sector to keep up with demand. 
 
 Over the next decade, an estimated 5 million young Saudis will enter the workforce, creating an urgent need for rapid job creation. 
 
 Projects like Neom are focused on creating some of those jobs. The independent economic zone in the northwestern region of the country, near Egypt and Jordan, sits on 26,500 square kilometers (10,230 square miles) of untouched land along the Red Sea. 
 
 The crown prince envisions it as a hub for innovation, where scientists would develop new technologies and investors would make healthy returns. It's a place, he said, where drones, driverless cars and robotics might all work together to ensure there's no traffic, for example. 
 
 Prince Mohammed chose to unveil the project at the Future Investment Initiative conference being organized by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund. 
 
 The kingdom plans to transform the fund into the world's largest by listing less than 5 percent of state-owned oil giant Aramco on the Saudi stock exchange and an international exchange, and transferring ownership of Aramco to the Public Investment Fund, also known as PIF. 
 
 Saudi Arabia says this could put some $2 trillion under PIF's control— double that of Norway's sovereign wealth fund, which is currently the world's largest. 
 
 Speaking to Bloomberg TV on the sidelines of the conference, PIF Managing Director Yasir al-Rumayyan said the fund currently manages about $230 billion in assets. 
 
 Recently, reports emerged that Saudi Arabia was considering holding off on the international portion of the Aramco IPO in favor of a private offering from a key investor like China. Saudi officials, however, insist Aramco is on track for listings as early as next year. 
 
 Al-Rumayyan, who is also on the board of Aramco, addressed those concerns at the forum in Riyadh, saying: "Everything is on track, 2018 is our target." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Batrawy reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
– A notable change for working Saudi Arabians: The weekend will now come a day later. Its people had enjoyed a Thursday-Friday weekend, but Oman's recent switch to Friday-Saturday made Saudi Arabia the odd man out among the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council. The change to a Friday weekend start, described by Reuters as a "surprise," is effective this week, per an order issued yesterday by King Abdullah. Businesses are pleased: "It will increase interface with the rest of the world," says a former oil exec, and a Riyadh-based strategist notes that the move puts an end to "having just three working days aligned with the rest of the world." Bloomberg sees something more behind the shift: the Saudi stock market. "It’s not official, but this is one of the things [Saudi Arabia] needed to do to open the markets for foreign investors," says a Dubai fund manager. Bloomberg reports that Deutsche Bank and HSBC have previously predicted that foreign investors could be given direct access to the country's $400 billion stock market as early as 2014.