Sustainability, education, healthcare, artificial intelligence (AI), and robotics are expected to become the recipients of significant investment in Saudi Arabia.
Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Governor of the country’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), Chairman of the Future Investment Initiative (FII) Institute, and Chairman of Saudi Aramco’s Board of Directors has discussed the fund’s priorities during a speech at the FII PRIORITY summit in Miami, US.
According to Al-Rumayyan, FII has already invested in several companies operating in these sectors and established partnerships with research, academic and consulting institutions to support these goals.
The initiative will also seek to expand its global presence by organising events in Brazil and Kenya to enhance links and investment opportunities with markets in Latin America and Africa and discuss issues such as environmental protection and the transition towards renewable energy.
Discussing the PIF’s strategy, Ak-Rumayyan stressed that more than 70% of its investments are local and directed towards the Kingdom’s economy, while the public share of international investments has declined to less than 25%.
“The fund invests between $40 billion to $50 billion annually and this will continue until 2025, and we look at our investments in the Kingdom with regard to their impact on the gross domestic product, job creation, and local content increase, and we are looking forward to increase local revenues generated from investments as per the framework to create sustainable impact on the Saudi economy and realize the targets of the Saudi Vision 2030,” he said.
On the fund’s international investments, Al-Rumyyan said that their value continues to rise in terms of volume despite a decline in their percentage compared to local investments.
He stressed that investments in the U.S. market amount to 40% of the fund’s total international investments in the form of investments or purchases, which amounted to more than $100 billion between 2017 and the end of 2023.
The PIF governor stressed that Saudi Arabia is well positioned to be a major global hub for AI and related industries, explaining that it has many competitive advantages to achieve this goal, including its leadership in clean energy resources, political will, funding capabilities, and human competencies.
The Aramco chairman also discussed the priority that the company gives to sustainability issues, saying that Aramco and the PIF are interested in blue hydrogen.
He added that the Kingdom aims to provide 15% of blue hydrogen production globally and it pays special attention to green hydrogen while having clean energy resources that contribute to hydrogen production.