SAGIA governor opens Global Innovation Summit

RABIGH - Governor of the Saudi Arabia General Investment Authority (SAGIA) Eng. Abdullatif Bin Ahmed Al-Othman opened here Sunday the Global Innovation Summit and the 2015 annual meeting of the Global Federation of Competitiveness Councils (GFCC). The Global Innovation Summit and the GFCC annual meeting is a three-day interactive program of panels, discussions, workshops, and presentations by global thought leaders, corporate leaders, senior government officials and heads of premier research and academic institutions. The event will address a number of important topics related to investment, development, and innovation infrastructure-physical, virtual and social-and its impact on a nation’s competitiveness. Opening the event, Al-Othman spoke about the measures Saudi Arabia has taken to increase its competitiveness. He said “since our accession to the WTO in 2005, increasing our competitiveness to attract a new generation of investments to diversify the economy has truly become a national effort. Today’s summit will provide us with further insight into what next steps can be taken to catapult Saudi Arabia to the next level.” He further said much has been done in the past five years to improve, in particular to increase the ease of doing business, but that “important decisions and announcements - many in developing infrastructure - will be made soon to further signal to the global business community that Saudi Arabia is open for business.” GFCC President Deborah Wince-Smith joined Al-Othman at the opening. Commenting on the event, Smith said “I am very excited to co-host the Global Federation of Competitiveness Council’s 6th Annual Meeting and Innovation Summit in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia at King Abdullah Economic City, one of the world's largest infrastructure projects to create a new cluster of innovation and learning.”