Updating of national industrial strategy in final stage, govt approval soon: Alkhorayef

Logo of Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources

Saudi Arabia is currently in the final stages of updating the national industrial strategy, which the government will approve soon, CNBC Arabia reported, citing Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Bandar Alkhorayef.

On the sidelines of the Future Investment Initiative (FII), Alkhorayef stated that this strategy will focus on the Kingdom's capacity in terms of natural resources and geographical location, especially concerning supply chains.

The Kingdom has a clear plan with nationalization moving on more than one track. The tracks are divided into urgent, medium-term and long-term tracks.

The urgent track focuses on industries related to food, military and health security, as well as strengthening local capabilities.

Saudi Arabia has plans and initiatives for each of these industries, he said, citing an example that the health sector plans to localize a group of medicines, vaccines, and medical devices.

He stressed that the Kingdom is open to the world and has the capabilities to invest. However, it is aware that investment needs technical expertise, experiences, and partners in different regions of the world.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia aims to have a large foreign investment in the mining sector, as it is on the verge of developing this sector and activating investment in it. Accordingly, the experiences of countries will benefit the Kingdom in this sector.

Investments will be a mixture of local and overseas, he pointed out.

Alkhorayef said that the volume of industrial investments reached SAR 23 billion in 2020 and the number of new factories reached about 900. The number of factories that began actual production reached 550.