By Abdul Rahman Al-Misbahi

Okaz/Saudi Gazette

JEDDAH – Saudi higher authorities have directed all the Vision 2030 Realization Program Committees to submit an action plan within 90 days to the Strategic Committee at the Council of Economic and Development Affairs (CEDA) to activate the role of the private sector as an investor and a financing element in implementing its initiatives.

The action plan shall contain mechanisms to deal with preparing feasibility studies, as well as the financial model, financing capacity, advantages and incentives, and consultancy model and the time required for this.

This comes after the ministry of commerce and investment and the ministry of finance submitted proposals to CEDA in this regard. According to CEDA directive, priority will be given to the most important and high-impact initiatives, with the committees coordinating with the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA), the National Center for Privatization, the National Center for Public Debt Management and the Office of Strategic Management and the Center to Achieve Spending Efficiency.

SAGIA will oversee the committees carrying out the tasks entrusted to them, following the adoption of the action plan, which will be submitted to the CEDA Strategic Committee. A committee will be constituted in SAGIA, headed by minister of commerce and investment and chairman of the board of directors of SAGIA, with SAGIA governor and representatives of a number of bodies as members.

These bodies include the National Center for Public Debt Management, Public Investment Fund, Statistics Authority, Export Development Authority, National Center for Privatization, Saudi Center for International Strategic Partnerships, Capital Market Authority, Local Content and Government Procurement Authority and Saudi Aramco in addition to the CEOs of the Vision Realization Program Committees, and the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul).

This committee will be responsible for unifying and coordinating the efforts of marketing and attracting investments, and clarifying the roles and responsibilities of the relevant authorities through the distribution of tasks assigned to each side. The chairman of the committee shall appoint a deputy from the representatives of government agencies.

The committee shall establish the mechanisms for the implementation of its work and the governance of its meetings. It will submit a quarterly report to CEDA president about its activities, achievements, major challenges and solutions.

SAGIA’s logo “Invest in Saudi Arabia” will become a uniform national identity for marketing and attracting investments to Saudi Arabia. All ministries and other government agencies shall adopt this identity in all their works related with attracting and marketing investment opportunities, and work on the preparation of relevant content and marketing messages.

SAGIA will establish a comprehensive portal for all investment opportunities in the Kingdom and it shall engage with developing and supervising them. As for the ministries and government agencies, they should continuously provide SAGIA with the feedback with regard to the investment opportunities pertaining to them, and the data required to be filled out for each investment opportunity, including information and basic indicators, advantages and incentives, in preparation for submission to the portal.