SAGIA reveals plans for Saudi Arabia to host FDI summit

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia is working closely with the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) to host the first ever global FDI Summit in Riyadh in October 2020.

“The summit will discuss the challenges on global FDI and feature Saudi Arabia as a case study,” said Khaled A. Tash, deputy governor of marketing and communications at the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA), in an interview.

“A declining FDI trend globally is not in the interest of anyone, so we want to address these challenges, we want to discuss the solutions and want to come out with a set of recommendations that come out from Riyadh during the G20, this is our perspective on how we can help the global FDI trends to reflect from a negative to a positive one,” said Tash.

He was speaking on the sidelines of the Retail Leaders Circle (RLC) MENA Summit 2020 in Riyadh earlier this week.

“One of the commitments in Saudi Vision 2030 is a flourishing retail sector, because retail is one of the biggest job creation engines, so that’s a very important priority for the Kingdom,” he said.

Saudi Arabia was the most improved country in the world for doing business, the World Bank said in its report in October 2019.

The Kingdom leapt 30 places in the annual survey of business efficiency in 190 countries, and was the top reforming country, the highest ranking since the bank launched its “Doing Business” survey 20 years ago.

The Kingdom now ranks 62nd in the world, ahead of many larger economies such as India.

“Last but not least, we are becoming much more effective and aggressive in our marketing and promotional efforts,” he said.

“So two years ago we launched ‘Invest Saudi’ as a brand not only by the SAGIA but all the government entities working as one team to promote Saudi Arabia internationally as a platform to reach out to investors.”