NUMBER ONE: Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud. (Getty Images)

Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed has topped the annual Arabian Business Power list for the fifth year running.

The chairman of Kingdom Holding retains his top ranking despite one of his toughest years ever.

With more than 40 investments in 10 sectors, he has been hit hard by the global economic crisis but his impact worldwide cannot be underestimated.

As the highest-profile businessman in the Middle East, foreign markets hang on his every word. Despite taking a hit, he also managed to top the Arabian Business Rich List in December with a fortune totalling more than $17bn.

This year, he has led the way as Saudi Arabia knocked the UAE off the top of the list for the number of entrants from a single country.

The 2009 list features 17 entries from Saudi Arabia, 16 from Lebanon, 13 from Egypt and 11 from the UAE.

Comments (3)

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Please!!
Posted by Abdullah, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on 6 October 2009 at 03:17 UAE time

I'm Saudi, and I don't think Fayez Al Maliki should make any list here. No disrespect, but he's no where near any influencial status, he's not the best saudi actor, he's not very popular. he's the subject of jokes. it's just that MBC and Rotana keeps enforcing him and other nobodys in our Ramadan after breakfast time! he's not the director, he's not the guy behind this (Prince Al-Waleed)...I'm not sure i'd be interested in reading your lists again if the #10 is a nobody!

Need to Know the List
Posted by umar farooq, Lahore, Pakistan on 24 July 2009 at 09:41 UAE time

Must be quite inetersting to know the Power 100

Very interesting
Posted by Sami, Beirut, Lebanon on 22 May 2009 at 19:08 UAE time

I can't deny that I'm a bit surprised with the list... Also surprised that many names are very new to me... But that's a good thing, for then I can search and find out who they are (tried it on some, and it's amazing what people have been achieving)...

But 2 quick remarks:
- Couldn't but be proud to be Lebanese, seeing that 17 names out of the hundred came out of our small country, which is war torn and has one of the lowest populations... I'm just wondering if all our Middle East finds peace, how much can we all achieve!
- One has to still admit that the ratio of men to women is quite high... Although some women made the list, but it's clear that we still live in a society that doesn't give women all the potential to realise themselves...

Great work and I have some more searching to do :)

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