Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) approved its five-year strategy of investment and job creation on Sunday, as part of its economic transformation.

The fund will invest $266bln in the local economy in the next five years through 13 strategic sectors. In addition, it will double its asset volume by more than 4 trillion riyals by 2025 to reach 7.5 trillion riyals by 2030.

PIF also aims to invest 2 trillion riyals in new projects from 2026 to 2030 for a cumulative 3 trillion riyals investment in new projects over the next 10 years, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said in a video on the sovereign wealth fund’s website.

It will also create 1.8 million direct and indirect new jobs in the next five years “as an engine for economic diversification and job creation.”

PIF will continue to work with the private sector and uncover investment opportunities. “We aim to increase local content in PIF projects and its portfolio companies to 60 percent in the next five years,” Prince Mohammed said speaking in Arabic.

The PIF, which was reconstituted in 2015 with the crown price as the chair, aims to become one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds by 2030 with assets exceeding 7.5 trillion riyals.

Currently, according to the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute which tracks public asset owners, PIF is the ninth largest fund in the world with nearly $350 billion in assets.

Prince Mohammed said the fund and its portfolio companies aim to contribute 1.2 trillion riyals to non-oil GDP by 2025-end, according to the strategy document.

The PIF aims to become one of the world’s largest sovereign wealth funds by 2030 as its assets will exceed 7.5 trillion riyals.

He said over the past years the PIF has made significant investments to achieve strategic targets doubling its assets to approximately to SAR 1.5 trillion by end 2020.

The Crown Prince said the plan would act as a roadmap for the next five years and would help the kingdom achieve its Vision 2030.

“During the past few years, the PIF has reached huge economic and investment achievements,” the Crown Prince said in comments reported by Bloomberg.

(Reporting by Brinda Darasha; editing by Seban Scaria)

brinda.darasha@refinitiv.com

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