JEDDAH, 9 October 2005 — The governor of Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority, Amr Al-Dabbagh, concluded a tour of the US where he met with policy and decision makers, high-level executives and attended economic and investment related forums. SAGIA’s goal is to promote the inward flow of investments into four sectors: Energy, transportation, knowledge-based industries and information and communication technology. The governor’s meetings covered a wide-range of industries reflecting SAGIA’s areas of interest.
Focusing on the Kingdom’s critical areas of development, SAGIA has concentrated on fostering educational initiatives and building capacity by attracting quality institutions to establish bases in Saudi Arabia. With a significant 40 percent population of young adults, education and employment is a key issue. To further this program, Al-Dabbagh held meetings with seven institutions interested in the country’s educational offering. “The meetings were for paving the way for the possibility of these institutions opening up branches here,” said a source at SAGIA.
During his tour that included Washington D.C., New York and Chicago, the governor held one-on-one meetings with high-level corporate teams of over ten companies such as Boeing, the world’s leading aerospace company. He also sat with the management team of Guardian Industries, which is considering adding another Float Glass plant “very soon” to its existing one in Jubail industrial city that was commissioned 15 years ago. Another important meeting was with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), the largest US futures exchange.
Some of the governor’s strategic meetings were with leading inward investment agencies in the US to establish a healthy bilateral flow of investment and mutual relationship for the country’s benefit. He met with the head of inward investment for Chicago, the center of one of the largest trading areas in the world. The World Trade Center hosted the governor’s meeting with the Chicago inward investment director where 20 leaders from the economic and business sector were present. Chicago is said to be the number one city in high-technology employment with a regional high-tech output of $35 billion and over 7100 companies. Al-Dabbagh also held discussions with over 20 representatives at a meeting hosted by ExxonMobile and the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington DC.
Al-Dabbagh also attended the first annual Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) meeting in New York. The objective and topics of the forum shed light on economic issues and investment obstacles existing globally. CGI is a project of the William J. Clinton Foundation, initiated by the former US president.
Saudi Arabia’s push for a pro-business environment and cooperative stance among singular sister agencies has paid off as a recent international investment report indicates. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, issued its annual report, known as Doing Business in 2006, on the competitiveness of countries worldwide in attracting investments. The report evaluates the environment of commercial transactions in 155 countries. Saudi Arabia bested all Arab countries and was ranked 1st in the Arab World and 38 globally followed by Kuwait, which was ranked 2nd in the Arab World and 47th internationally. Oman followed suit as 3rd in rank of Arab-wide and 51st globally. As for the remaining Arab countries, results were as follows: Tunisia 58th, UAE 69th, Jordan 74th, Yemen 90th, Lebanon 95th, Morocco 102nd, Iraq 114th, Syria 121st, West Bank and Gaza Strip 125th, Mauritania 127th, Algeria 128th, Egypt 141st and Sudan 151st. Saudi Arabia’s ranking also exceeded many countries like France, Italy and Portugal.
The report ranked countries based on the average rankings of ten processes: starting a business, dealing with licenses, hiring and firing, registering property, getting credit, protecting investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and closing a business. Last year the Kingdom’s ranking was 67th among 135 measured countries. This 29 notch leap in rank by the IFC is a significant international merit of the Saudi government’s efforts in creating a pro-business environment.
“This elevation in rank is a remarkable achievement for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and an encouraging factor for all investment-related governmental agencies,” said Al-Dabbagh. “However, while this leap in global investment faith is encouraging, we do not view it as our target as there is still room for improvement and development. We will assess the report’s content, including positive factors to be enhanced or negative factors to be addressed, as important criteria to establish gradual and continual improvements in the investment environment. Our ambition is to see the Kingdom ranked among the top 10 competitive countries by 2010,” concluded the governor.