National Investment Strategy supports Saudi economic diversification push: Al-Falih

Saudi Minister of Investment Khalid Al-Falih 

Saudi Minister of Investment Khalid Al-Falih said that he is grateful to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the launch of the National Investment Strategy (NIS).

Al-Falih affirmed that King Salman’s directives together with the Crown Prince’s monitoring reflect the Kingdom’s keenness to launch a full-fledged, integrated strategy to boost investments in all local economic sectors. The wise leadership also aims to empower the private sector, investors as well as local and international companies, and ease doing business in line with the best international practices.

The NIS launch underlines that the Kingdom will proceed with its plans for diversifying economic and income sources. It will also continue to localize knowledge and develop investments in start-up and promising sectors, such as the advanced industries, renewables, transport and logistic services, tourism, digital infrastructure, healthcare, biotechnology and green technology, Al-Falih added.

Further, the new strategy links a number of new initiatives to some outstanding ones, including the Shareek program and Programme HQ. This came as part of an integrated plan between the investment institutions and the government competent authorities to develop the qualitative investment opportunities and boost the Kingdom’s competitiveness locally and globally to guarantee a promising future for the coming generations.

Al-Falih indicated that the new strategy will bolster the Kingdom’s gross domestic product (GDP), provide qualitative job opportunities, improve human resources’ skills as well as expertise, and help the deployment of knowledge. It will further allow contributions of both entrepreneurs and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), in addition to making the best use of new investment opportunities.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched, on Oct. 12, the National Investment Strategy (NIS) – a key enabler of the Vision 2030 objectives, according to data compiled by Argaam.

The strategy seeks to raise net foreign direct investment to SAR 388 billion annually and boost local investment to SAR 1.7 trillion annually by 2030.