Future Investment Initiative 2019 Kicks Off in Riyadh with World Leaders, Top Officials, CEOs and Experts in Attendance

The third edition of the October 29-31 Future Investment Initiative (FII) kicked off on Tuesday in the Saudi capital Riyadh, with thousands of delegates from around the world scheduled to attend over its three-day course, including world leaders and top officials, leading investors and global experts.

FII is held under the patronage of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, and the attendance of HRH Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, the Crown​ Prince, Deputy Prime Minister, Chairman of the Council of Economic and Development Affairs and Chairman of the Public Investment Fund​(PIF), Saudi Arabia’s main investment arm.

Taking place at the Ritz Carlton and the King Abdul A​ziz Conference Center, Riyadh, FII is hosted by PIF, one of the world’s leading sovereign wealth funds. FII again brings together decision    ma​kers, leading in​​vestors and global experts to explore future economic trends and opportunities, shed light on the future of industries, and discuss how investment can continue to drive overall global prosperity and development, according to the FII’s official website.

“Welcome to Riyadh; welcome to Future Investment Initiative 2019,” H.E. Yasir O. Al-Rumayyan, Governor of the Public Investment Fund​(PIF), said in his opening remarks. Al-Rumayyan said FII is now among the world’s largest annual gatherings, noting that attendance this year is more than double the inaugural FII in 2017.

According to the official FII website, this year’s three-day event will draw more than 6,000 participants from more than 30 countries, compared with 3,500 participants from 88 countries at FII 2 in 2018. This year’s participants include nearly 300 speakers from 30 countries.

“The next three days will see over 6,000 people from around the world attend – a record high,” FII said on its official Twitter account.

Key world figures attending or expected to attend later this week include Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, White House advisor Jared Kushner,  Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, along with the CEOs of leading global banks and financial institutions.

Nearly 60 percent of representatives came from North America and Europe, while 34 percent are from Asia and the Middle East, according to the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

In his opening remarks, Al-Rumayyan said that FII began with a simple idea - to bring diverse leaders together to change the status quo.

“In 2017 it was mainly the US, Europe and the Middle East Now you come from China, India, Americas, Japan, Russia, Africa. All united in a spirit of collaboration.

“Until now FII has been an annual conference. Now it’s becoming an institute as well. It will be a place of continuous collaboration. A thought leadership platform and a global knowledge hub”.

Al-Rumayyan said that the initiative will be a place for continued cooperation and a center of global thought in line with the Kingdom's Vision 2030.

He said FII this year will be attended by the world's best minds, entrepreneurs and investors.

FII is organized around the overall theme of ‘what is next for global business?’ and will focus on three key pillars: sustainable future, technology for good to help everyone, and the development of societies, he added in remarks carried by SPA.

 

‘THE FUTURE STARTS HERE’

​​​​​​​In a special address on the first day of FII, His Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan said:

“Investors from around the world come to this lively forum to explore the future of the global economy. They come here to debate the best investments for the future, investments that would bring them obviously the highest returns. And I can not claim to be a business expert, but I can point you in the right direction, and the future starts here.”

King Abdullah said youth account for 70 percent of the Middle East region’s population, adding: “Their innovation knows no bounds, their energy knows no limits and their potential is so full of promise. You can find them all across the Arab world, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Gulf.

"And here in Saudi Arabia you will find an eager youth cohort, ready to play their part but incentivized by a leadership that speaks their language. Indeed our Arab youth are our most important resource and the key to the future of this region and this world and they are waiting for you.”

“We in the region recognize the need to nurture our youth’s talents and harness their energies and we must enable them through quality education, and empower them towards success. My country strongly believes in this.”

King Abdullah added: “I invite you to take a look at what Jordan and this region have to offer… With your vital resources and our precious human capital there is no limit to what we can achieve. Our young people are awaiting your push to take flight towards a future of hope, a future of prosperity, and a future we can all share. This is a business opportunity you can not miss.”

HRH Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met with the visiting Jordanian monarch on the sidelines of the Future Investment Initiative 2019, SPA reported.

In a Q&A panel moderated by Stephen A. Schwarzman, Chairman, CEO, & Co-Founder, The Blackstone Group, White House Advisor Jared Kushner responded to a question about what has been accomplished since US President Donald Trump first foreign trip,  to Saudi Arabia, in 2017 with the aim of reinvigorating US ties with the Middle East region:

“I think that this forum is actually a good example of some of the progress that is being made in the Middle East. There is so much talk .. about the problems that the Middle East has, the problems that they’ve had, but there is not enough focus on what the potential and what the great opportunity is for the future of the Middle East.

“When the President decided to do that trip, the focus was at the time we were coming off of a previous administration, we saw Iran being emboldened, we saw ISIS had a major caliphate in the middle of the Middle East, we saw that the spreading of extremism and the ideology and the financing of terrorism was a major problem and we wanted to get focused on how do we turn the future and how do we roll these things back. And I think we have made progress on all those fronts; and I didn’t mention all of the problems.

“But seeing the discussions that are happening here and really what the future of the Middle East can be really has to start with investment, it has to start with opportunity, it has to start with people working together and trying to find a way to create more jobs, more opportunities, that people can see a path for a brighter future so that some of the distracting and more disruptive things that people have focused on in the past, will not be the pathway that the future generation  takes.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said there were five major trends that were the keys to future prosperity: the impact of technology, the importance of infrastructure, the revolution in human resources, care for the environment and business-friendly governance.

"FII is not confined merely to discussing the economy of Saudi Arabia, but to understanding emerging trends in the world and discovering new avenues for the welfare of humanity," Modi added.

‘THE POWER OF SOVEREIGN WEALTH FUNDS’

At the opening of FII, PIF’s Al-Rumayyan was joined by several prominent speakers on the first panel, entitled: The next decade: How will a new era of economic ambition shape the global economy?

In the first part of the panel, expressing view from the United States and Europe, were Ray Dalio, Founder, Co-Chairman and Co-Chief Investment Officer, Bridgewater Associates, from the United States; Noel Quinn, Group Chief Executive, HSBC Holdings plc, from the United Kingdom​​​​​​​​; Stephen A. Schwarzman, Chairman, CEO, & Co-Founder, The Blackstone Group L.P.; and John Waldron, President & COO, The Goldman Sachs Group, both from the United States.

Part 2 of the panel, the view from the Middle East and Asia, saw Al-Rumayyan joined by H.E. Khaldoon Al Mubarak, CEO & Managing Director, Mubadala Investment Company, UAE; Mukesh Ambani, Chairman & Managing Director, Reliance Industries Limited, India; and Kirill Dmitriev, CEO, Russia Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Russia.

Khaldoon Al Mubarak of Mubadala said: “We have been seeing heightened uncertainty for the past 15 years and the future is more of the same. That’s the reality of the world we live in.”

But he said that sovereign wealth funds take a long-term view while publicly-listed companies face pressure from shareholders for good yield, so sovereign wealth funds can manage uncertainty with more comfort.

 

RDIF CEO Kirill Dmitriev, meanwhile, spoke about the power of sovereign wealth funds.

“.. And I have some solution and my solution is the power of sovereign wealth funds. <…> they can plan for a longer horizon, they have lots of capital to deploy."

"…We have 70 companies in our portfolio, that is about 8% of the whole GDP of Russia. So when we partner with Khaldoon or when we partner with Yasir, we can open them window into 8% of Russian GDP right away."

“So my solution for the future is actually the power of the sovereign wealth funds to do transformation ..” he added.

-Ends-

© Press Release 2019