Saudi Gazette report

DAVOS — Minister of Investment Eng. Khalid Al-Falih said that Saudi Arabia would build three electric car plants in the near future.

Addressing the World Economic Forum here on Wednesday, the minister stated that Saudi Arabia has taken the first steps to launch a plant to assemble 150,000 electric cars in the Kingdom within two years.

In reference to the plant of the Lucid Company that manufactures electric cars, which is being established at King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) in the western coastal city of Rabigh, he said the Kingdom would have the first international plant of Lucid in which the Saudi Public Investment Fund owns a majority stake. The electric vehicle giant’s first international plant at KAEC targets manufacturing of 150,000 vehicles per year.

Al-Falih said that the Kingdom seeks to attract $175 billion in foreign investments annually, up from the current investments worth $20 billion.

“We attracted foreign direct investments worth $20 billion, which is four times than what it was when the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 was launched, as everything is growing, and most of the investments I talked about are in new sectors such as technology and tourism. We are the world’s largest investor in green hydrogen,” he said.

The minister stressed that the Kingdom’s economic growth enhanced competitiveness in the region.

“Foreign direct investment is a major catalyst for overall investments and contributes to attracting technology, expertise and partners, and its percentage was less than one percent of GDP and we are on our way to 5.7 percent and we reached 2.3 percent of GDP,” he said.

Al-Falih stressed that the Kingdom is proceeding with its plan and has advanced in many indicators related to the Kingdom’s Vision 2030.

“The size of the gross domestic product (GDP) has exceeded $1trillion and is moving in the direction of $1.6 and 1.8 trillion, to make the Kingdom one of the 15 largest economies in the world.

“We have launched the national strategy for national investment that brought together all the players and provided all the opportunities and inputs that lead us to a diversified economy while unleashing new sectors,” he added.