Riyadh:
Saudi Arabia seeks to attract foreign investment of more than $one hundred billion annually beneath a National Investment Strategy announced Monday as component of efforts to diversify the oil-dependent economy.
The approach is anticipated to raise annual foreign direct investment flows to 388 billion riyals ($103 billion) and boost annual domestic investment to 1.7 trillion riyals by 2030, the Saudi Press Agency mentioned soon after Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, launched the initiative.
SPA mentioned it will be “a key enabler” of his Vision 2030 program, announced in 2016 to diversify the economy of the world’s largest oil exporter.
“Today, the kingdom embarks on a new investment era to empower Saudi and international private-sector investors with more and better opportunities,” SPA quoted Prince Mohammed as saying.
He added that “the NIS will draw up comprehensive investment plans for sectors, including manufacturing, renewable energy, transport and logistics, tourism, digital infrastructure, and health care,” SPA mentioned.
Among its measures the approach is to establish specific financial zones with competitive regulations and incentives, transfer strategic provide chains to the kingdom, and create new financing options for the private sector to market capital formation, according to SPA.
The Arab world’s biggest economy is attempting to shed its reputation as an ultraconservative nation with difficult administrative procedures and obsolete regulations.
Since becoming de facto leader in 2017, Prince Mohammed has introduced sweeping financial and social adjustments, like permitting girls to drive, the reopening of cinemas, and permitting mixed-gender music concerts and other entertainment alternatives.
But simultaneously, the prince launched a sweeping crackdown on dissent and no cost speech, arresting girls activists, clerics and journalists as properly as royal family members.
Measures such as these announced Monday have currently been taken by other Gulf nations, especially the United Arab Emirates.
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