RIYADH, 22 November 2002 — A meeting of the Supreme Economic Council. presided over by Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard , will be held here next week for reviewing the negative list for foreign investors.
This was disclosed to Arab News by Fehaid Alshareef, deputy governor of the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA), who said the SEC will decide which sectors could be taken off the negative list for overseas investors.
Currently, telecommunictions, insurance, oil exploration, security, retail and wholesale distribution, education, land and sea transport are among 19 sectors declared offlimit for foreign investors.
The deputy governor said that between April 2000 and Nov. 5 this year SAGIA had licensed a total of 1,535 projects valued at SR46.209 billion.
Of these, 672 were industrial projects, 860 non-industrial and three agricultural projects.
Some of the major projects include construction of 3,000 schools on BOT basis (SR13 billion) and an SR 8 billion desalination plant and an SR4 billion petrochemical project licensed this year.
