Saudi Arabia's Minister of Finance Mohammedbin Abdullah Al-Jadaan has stressed that the Kingdom seeks to be an immuneeconomy to global and local challenges, through improving all sectors andcaring for digital transformation in the government sector, and takingsubstantial structural reform measures.
This came in the minister's speech in asession entitled "How the Middle East became an international investmentpowerhouse", hosting Dr. Naif Falah Al-Hajraf, Minister of Finance ofKuwait; Shaikh Salman bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, Minister of Finance and National Economyof Bahrain, within the Future Investment Initiative 2019, being held in Riyadh.
Minister Al-Jadaan said that when we talkabout the Kingdom, we also talk about the Gulf states and the extended effortsof reform processes, and to ensure coordination between all, noting that theKingdom is looking forward to structural reforms on the ground in the comingyears, where it has made significant progress in reform processes compared tocountries, especially in the indicators of competitiveness and the response ofthe government to changes, technologies and the private sector, as well asfocusing on some specific industries.
He pointed out that there is significantgrowth and diversification in the sectors of tourism, technology, sports,entertainment, and others in the Kingdom, in addition to the constructionsector shifting since 2014 from a negative point to a positive point by almost3%.
The Minister pointed out that the Kingdomis focusing on the non-oil product to contribute to the stability of growth anddevelopment, as well as targeting key performance indicators between the oiland non-oil Gross Domestic Product (GDP), in addition to focusing on oilproduction, commending the speech of Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz,Minister of Energy on the Kingdom's Vision and objectives in terms of addingmore value to reach other manufacturing industries.
He also said that foreign directinvestments have increased significantly in the Kingdom, noting that the numberof licenses for foreign investments has increased during the past nine years,and this is a significant growth, especially since many foreign investmentsrose by 3% in the private sector.
