Saudi Arabia opens doors to French investment, says investment minister

The Saudi-French Investment Roundtable began on Monday in Paris, with Saudi officials reaffirming the Kingdom’s openness to international investors and its ambition to attract more French investment and strengthen economic relations between the two countries.

Speaking at the event, Minister of Investment Fahd Al-Saif said Saudi Arabia is open to all investors and expressed the Kingdom’s eagerness to attract new French investments. He noted that Saudi Arabia has already drawn hundreds of French companies, with the oil and gas sector among the main beneficiaries of closer Saudi-French ties.

Al-Saif highlighted that the Saudi financial market is among the fastest-growing, coinciding with the Ministry of Finance’s signing of a joint statement with Bpifrance to provide a $5 billion credit line.

France ranks as the fourth-largest source of foreign direct investment in Saudi Arabia, with a total of €16.3 billion in 2024. Manufacturing accounts for around 60% of French FDI stock in the Kingdom.

French companies continue to expand their presence in Saudi Arabia across sectors such as industry, energy, transport, and construction, while also entering new fields including artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure, culture, and mining.

Bilateral trade between Saudi Arabia and France was reported as reaching €10.1 billion in 2025, with annual growth of 7.2%. (Editor’s note: 2025 is a future date; this figure may reflect a projection or a typographical error in the original source.) The French business footprint in the Kingdom includes 651 investment licenses across 18 sectors.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund invested approximately €7.36 billion in France between 2017 and 2024, reflecting the two-way nature of investment relations.