Saudi Arabia is planning to attract $3 trillion of investment into the country’s economy over the next nine years as part of the National Investment Strategy (NIS) to drive economic growth and sustainable development. The Public Investment Fund including other global and local firms will play the most valuable role. The investment minister recently remarked.
In his address during Riyadh Future Minerals Forum on 13th January 2022, Investment Minister Khalid Al Falih said, “The kingdom is striving to be ‘the most investor-friendly destination and increase the participation of the private sector to ‘our large and growing economy, to 65 per cent.”
To promote investment contribution to the GDP, the Kingdom is planning for a global best in class investment law to attract more domestic and foreign investors for doing business in Saudi Arabia. The new law shall address the needs of both local and foreign investors. “It will be a global best-in-class law, it will be enacted this year, sooner than later,” the Minister highlighted.
Commenting on the crucial role the international investors play to support the country’s economic growth by establishing their business setup in Saudi Arabia, Mr Al Falih emphasized, “not only bring in the capital but bring in that know-how and best practices which benefit Saudi partners and the economy.”
To complement Saudi Vision 2030, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the largest economy in the Arab world is steadily diversifying from an oil-based to the non-oil economy and is developing projects across key priority sectors including real estate, petrochemicals, manufacturing, transport and hospitality to drive investment and enhance demand and employment generation.
His Royal Highness Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman noted last year that the Public Investment Fund is making huge investments infusing billions of dollars into the country’s economy to drive growth. USD 40 billion fund injection has been planned yearly during 2021 and 2022, HRH Crown Prince highlighted.
The Investment Minister added, “The kingdom will be – in terms of its regulatory system and judicial system – one of the best places to do business. We are already good by the way international investors and domestic investors have been finding investing in the kingdom to be stable, predictable and secure, but we are not happy with being very good and we want to be the best. And we believe that our regulations and reforms are taking us in that direction.”
The Kingdom witnessed higher FDI flow into its economy in recent times as also revealed by the issuance of new foreign investor license data registering the highest number of 478 new licenses during the first quarter of the previous year since 2005.
The NIS includes many initiatives including the expansion of the country’s railway network and plans to increase it with 8000 Kms of the new track thus tripling the sizing of the existing network. The investment minister informed.
“New rail will criss-cross the Kingdom and add to the network we already have,” Khalid Al-Falih told the Future Minerals Forum in Riyadh.
There is approximately 3,650 km of track on the Saudi rail network presently and it also plans to build more internal railway networks to jump-start its investment in the infrastructure sector, highlighted the Minister.
To realize Saudi Vision 2030 several socio-economic structural reforms have been rolled out in the Kingdom and approval of new privatisation and agriculture laws including a new mining law in January 2021 feature amongst them.
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