Ministry of Investment launches new service to establish, do business from outside Saudi Arabia

Logo of the Ministry of Investment

Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Investment launched a new service to establish and start doing business from outside the Kingdom, in partnership with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Commerce.

This aims to enable companies and investors to issue investment licenses quickly and easily, in accordance with the international best practices, Saudi Press Agency reported.  

This step contributes to strengthening the reforms implemented by the Kingdom regarding the practice of business in Saudi Arabia for investors and companies. It comes also as a result of integration and partnership between government agencies to address the challenges facing investors. In addition, the move contributes to raising the Kingdom’s investment environment competitiveness regionally and globally, thereby enhancing its position as a preferred investment destination for easy start-up.  

The new service, which was launched in a number of embassies in the Kingdom, will bring radical changes in investor journey, facilitate the establishment and startup of foreign companies’ business, and overcome the obstacles they faced in the past.  

This includes, for example, the difficulties facing corporate officials to arrive in person in Saudi Arabia to register the establishment contracts with the multiplicity of required documents. The procedures also include referrals to many government agencies for approval as the data was not previously linked between the Ministry of Investment, Ministry of Commerce, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  

The new investor journey requires only three steps to authenticate the agency and attest the establishment contracts rather than the previous 10 steps.  

The ministry indicated that it is about to launch a wide marketing campaign in several languages to deliver the new service to the largest possible category of investors and foreign companies to enable them to benefit from it.