The future of projects and project finance in Saudi Arabia are a main focus of the forthcoming eighth Euromoney Saudi Arabia Conference, taking place in Riyadh from May 7-8.

Saudi Aramco recently secured $ 5 billion in loans for its new Sadara chemical plant mega-project in Jubail. A neighboring refinery raised $8.5 billion in debt, including Saudi Arabia’s first sukuk for a new facility. Sukuk are on the rise as an investment tool.

The Kingdom is boosting its refinery capacity and chemical production facilities to meet domestic fuel demand.

Saudi Arabia’s top ministers will gather at this year’s Euromoney Conference to address the challenges facing future projects and project financing, while the Kingdom aims to diversify its economy and reduce its dependence on crude exports

Richard Banks, director for Euromoney Conferences, said: “At this year’s Euromoney Saudi Arabia Conference, delegates will have the chance to hear some of the Kingdom's leading decision makers discuss projects and project financing at a time when the European financial crisis is creating opportunities for an expansion of the sukuk market by regional lenders and export credit agencies are playing a bigger role in funding Middle Eastern projects. The project financing landscape in the Kingdom is changing rapidly, and we are here to ring those changes. We’ll consider the pipeline of upcoming transactions, and the role to be played by export credit agencies and Saudi financiers now that many global banks have stepped back from the projects market,” Banks said.

The conference will also examine legal structures for financing and the role that public/private partnership projects are expected to play in the development of the Kingdom’s infrastructure.

The Euromoney Saudi Arabia Conference is being held in partnership with the Ministry of Finance and constitutes a vital, vibrant networking platform for key figures from both the public and private sectors such as lead sponsors Aseer, BNP Paribas, Gulf International Bank, HSBC and NCB.