29/11/2015 05:54 AST
The Saudi-Russian Investment Forum, co-organized by Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) in collaboration with the Council of Saudi Chambers and the Saudi-Russian Joint Council, has taken a number of measures mutually beneficial to the two countries.
SAGIA Gov. Abdullatif Al-Othman and Russian Minister of Energy Alexander Novak jointly inaugurated the forum.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, Al-Othman said the motto of the Saudi joint committee, the business forum and the exhibition held on the sidelines is: Enhancing of friendship, building of partnerships and investing of opportunities. He called the event a turning point in the history of relations between the two countries.
He said the Saudi Russian Joint Committee, which is committed to promote cooperation in the commercial, economic, scientific and technological fields between the two countries, has reached rapprochement on almost all areas of discussion over the last three days.
The governments of Saudi Arabia and Russia are poised to initial the legal base for such relations, which, Al-Othman said, are currently less than desired levels.
Casting light on the Kingdom's economic situation, Al-Othman said the GDP of his country, also a G-20 member, has doubled from $328 billion in 2005 to nearly $752 billion in 2014, scoring a record growth rate of 129 percent.
He noted that the state debt has, at the same time, been reduced to less than two percent of the GDP in 2014, putting the Kingdom among the world's low-rated indebted states in terms of GDP.
Quoting a recent WEF report, Al-Othman drew the attention to the five-fold surge of the overall direct foreign investment (FDI) assets in the Kingdom over nine years to reach about $200 billion in 2014, making the economy the world's fourth in terms of economic strength.
He welcomed investments of major Russian companies that are supposed to transfer technology, enhance innovation and provide training for Saudi nationals, particularly in less-developed regions where a package of incentives has been prepared to remove obstacles that might face investors, as is the case in any country of the world.
Al-Othman noted that SAGIA has launched a new investment window for foreign companies from which licenses would come out in no more than three days.
He said the government expenditure in the Kingdom has soared from $92 billion in 2005 to nearly $300 billion in 2014.
A unified investment plan, including all investment sectors in which the mechanisms and standards to lessen imports and enable such sectors to become more internationally competitive and a strong economic tributary, is under way.
Al-Othman cited that the health plan by the Ministry of Health has drawn more than 40 promising investment opportunities worth $71 billion, and the transport sector has projected 36 promising investment opportunities worth $25 billion.
He said that the size of foreign investments in the Kingdom amounted to $220 billion, a rate of between $10 billion to $15 billion annually.
“Despite that, foreign investments were focusing on energy, petrochemicals, building and construction fields; we are planning to enter new investment ventures in the fields of health, transport, tourism, and information technology,” Al-Othman said.
He added that SAGIA recently launched Invest in Saudi, a comprehensive introductory website, including the unified investment plan, noting that the plan has voiced more than 100 investment opportunities in 18 sectors worth about $344 billion aiming to attract the purchasing power into projects worth more than $500 billion in the coming 10 years.
For his part, the Russian minister considered the resumption of meetings of the Saudi-Russian Joint Committee as a sign for the two sides' determination to further enhance relations between the two countries, saying that high-level exchange of visits between the two countries
Arab News
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