The Governor of Saudi Arabia General Investment Authority (SAGIA) Engineer Abdullatif Ahmad Al-Othman has confirmed that the total foreign direct investment balances in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia amounted to about $ 208 billion until the end of 2014, pointing to a rise in the Kingdom's general government spending to about $ 300 billion in 2014, associated with a huge economic activity and major investment opportunities. In his speech, entitled 'Saudi Economy and New Available Investment Opportunities in the Kingdom', at the meeting of Arab Chambers Union Council which is currently being held here, he said that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia enjoys unique political and economic stability and occupies fourth place worldwide in terms of macroeconomic strength, according to World Competitiveness (WEF)'s report, indicating that the Kingdom holds the third place in the world on taxes payment indicator, according to the World Bank's report on the easiness of doing business for 2014. SAGIA Governor also explained that investors in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia enjoy several incentives such as financing by Industrial Development Fund for industrial projects up to 50% of the project cost to be increased to 75% in the promising areas, with repayment period of 20 years, while the loan's amount reaches $ 240 million, before rising to $ 320 million in promising areas, indicating that these incentives are associated with a continuous development of regulations and legislation, facilitation of the procedures actively sought to remove obstacles facing investors, within the institutional actions to improve the investment's environment as well as the development of investment opportunities, so as to achieve an effective partnership between private and public sectors. Also, in his speech, Engineer Al-Othman said that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is developing a unified investment plan for the establishment of investment entities to achieve sustainable development, in cooperation between SAGIA and relevant government bodies, and this trend aims at preparing a unified plan to invest for each investment sector in which mechanisms and standards are set for enabling investment in an integrated manner to make these sectors of a global competitiveness and a tributary to the economy. Engineer Al-Othman pointed out that in the health care sector, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia spends about 20 billion riyals annually, whereas the spending on imports of medical devices, cosmetics and drugs represents about 41% of this amount, saying that the investment plan for health care prepared by the Ministry of Health in collaboration with SAGIA, has set more than 40 promising investment opportunities worth $ 71 billion, including the manufacturing of medical hardware and equipment, medicines and vaccines, and the establishment and management of hospitals, automated health care centers, laboratories, research, training institutes, e-health, finance and health insurance. He said: The investment plan in transport sector has been prepared by the Ministry of Transport in cooperation with the Authority resulted in as many as 36 promising investment opportunities so far with investments value of about $ 25 billion, including the manufacturing of buses and trains' carriages, spare parts, and providing technical and technological support services in the establishment of infrastructure as well as operation, maintenance and training, pointing out that these examples illustrate the size of lucrative investment opportunities for investors in a number of promising sectors, in addition to the known major opportunities in traditional sectors. Engineer Al-Othman stressed that the authority has made in the past period, a comprehensive review of the extent of contribution of foreign facilities licensed by SAGIA in the Saudi economy, and the formation of a technical committee to decide on the license applications, and the development of mechanism and criteria for the issuance of investment licenses, to accelerate and facilitate the granting, renewal and modifying licenses through a distinctive path for outstanding projects and at the same time addressing the licenses in violation of the regulations and the reduction of low-level investments, while maintaining the Kingdom's obligations in the Arab and international agreements. Moreover, SAGIA Governor welcomed investments by leading companies, especially from sisterly Arab countries which are contributing to the transferring of technology and the promotion of innovation, as well as job creation with the training and rehabilitation of male and female citizens of the nation to get benefit from them in the diversification of the national economy. He considered that the participants agree that the inter-Arab investments are less than expected and that would require from everyone to exert concerted efforts, and integral comprehensive procedures to strengthen the private sector in each country, activate the modified agreement on movement of capital among Arab states which was approved in Riyadh Summit 2013, which will enter into force soon after being ratified by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; Sultanate of Oman; the State of Palestine; the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and Kuwait. Engineer Abdullatif Al-Othman also indicated that this number of countries represents the minimum for the entry of the revised agreement into force, and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the first countries that has already approved and ratified the amended agreement, and it invites the rest of Arab League Member States to accelerate the ratification of the agreement, which will, God willing, contribute to the promotion of the investment environment in the Arab countries, with a positive impact on attracting more investment on the Member States and organizing the Settlement of Investment Disputes. In conclusion of his speech, SAGIA Governor praised the experiences of a number of leading Arab companies that began in recent years to launch distinguished investments in a number of Arab countries, confirming that their experiences are in need to be encouraged and supported for more development in order to be a catalyst for other companies to run the same experiment.
