Riyadh — Mubasher: Saudi Arabia’s investment principles will play a key role in the kingdom’s plans to lure further foreign investment, the deputy governor for marketing and communication of the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) said.
The seven investment principles, unveiled by the GCC nation last month, have ensured equality between Saudi and non-Saudi investors, along with protecting investment within the kingdom’s laws, Khaled Tash told Arabian Business.
The principles also provide sustainability and transparency in addressing investor complaints and guarantee equal investment incentives and non-discriminative criteria for eligibility, he added.
Tash noted that they also would ensure the implementation of appropriate social and environmental regulations, facilitate access procedures for foreign workers and their families, and safeguard knowledge transfer.
“It’s something new. We always had the rules and regulations, but what the investment principles are trying to achieve is make sure there is an overarching kind of guidance on the economic reforms and on the regulations,” he stated.
The new investment principles have been set up to “provide the guidance by which all government entities need to ensure that their rules, regulations and processes adhere to them,” he added.
The official underlined that each of the seven principles is already benchmarked to a global best practice, or a standard that the kingdom has agreed with the international financial institutions, including the World Bank and the World Economic Forum (WEF).
Over the course of the previous year, Saudi Arabia posted a 127% surge in foreign direct investment (FDI), the deputy governor of SAGIA said.
He highlighted that Saudi Arabia also saw a 99% increase in new investor licence requests and a 100% jump in requests to increase investments from current investors.
