Crown Prince launches National Industrial Strategy

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched today, Oct. 18, the National Industrial Strategy, after it was approved by the Saudi Cabinet today.

The strategy aims to reach an industrial economy that would attract more investments, to help diversify economy, as well as boost the GDP and non-oil exports, in line with Saudi Vision 2030 goals. 

The Crown Prince said the Kingdom has all capabilities to reach a competitive and sustainable industrial economy, including ambitious young talents, a distinguished geographic location, rich natural resources, as well as leading national industrial companies. 

Through this strategy, Saudi Arabia aims to lead the industrial regional integration of value chains, and benefit from strengths in the local economy, he added. 

The strategy focuses on 12 sub-sectors to diversify the industrial economy in the Kingdom, while identifying more than 800 investment opportunities worth SAR 1 trillion, to start a new chapter of sustainable growth for the sector. This, accordingly, will help achieve strong economic returns for the Kingdom by 2030, such as increasing the industrial GDP three times and doubling the value of industrial exports to reach SAR 557 billion.

Further, the new strategy aims to bring the total value of additional investments in the sector to SAR 1.3 trillion. It also seeks to increase high-tech product exports by nearly six times and offer tens of thousands of high-value, quality jobs. 

The industrial sector is one of the pillars of Vision 2030, as the National Industrial Development and Logistics Program (NIDLP) was launched and an independent ministry was established to focus on the sector. In addition, other programs and entities were launched, which resulted in increasing the number of industrial facilities by more than 50% to reach 10,640 in 2022, compared with 7,206 before the launch of Vision 2030.

The strategy will drive growth in the industrial sector, leading the number of factories to reach 36,000 by 2035.

Through the strategy, the Kingdom seeks to empower the private sector, increase the flexibility and competitiveness of the industrial sector, in addition to achieving industrial flexibility, which guarantees the availability of important commodities to ensure the welfare of citizens. This also aims to ensure the continuity of economic activity and regional industrial integration of value chains, as well as to benefit from the strengths in the Saudi economy and achieve global leadership in a set of selected commodities, through investment in promising new technologies.

To achieve these ambitious national goals, a governance model for the industrial sector was developed through the formation of the Supreme Committee for Industry, headed by Crown Prince, to supervise the development of the sector. This also includes the formation of the Industrial Council with the participation of the private sector, to ensure the participation of industrial investors in decision-making and policy development.