JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA – Saudi Crown Prince, Prime Minister and Chairman of the Council for Economic and Development Affairs Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz announced Sunday the launch of the Global Supply Chain Resilience Initiative (GSCRI).
The GSCRI aims to make Saudi Arabia a location of choice for leading global industrial companies looking to drive competitive advantage and improve business resilience.
As the Crown Prince mentions the GSCRI will provide a great opportunity to achieve common successes.
Along with other development initiatives launched in recent years, GSCRI will help enable investors, from all sectors, to benefit from the Kingdom’s resources, capabilities and support and develop these value chains.
It will also build successful investments, which will give greater flexibility to economies, businesses and consumers around the world.
It will ensure the provision and sustainability of supply chain access to all parts of the world effectively.
The GSCRI will bring the Kingdom closer to achieving its Vision 2030 aspirations to be a top 15 global economy by 2030.
The GSCRI is one of the initiatives of Saudi Arabia’s National Investment Strategy, launched in October 2021 to accelerate efforts to make the Kingdom a global investment powerhouse.
The initiative aims to enable global investors make optimal use of the Kingdom’s natural resources and untapped potential and form strong relationships with regional and global markets.
The GSCRI aims to make the Kingdom an optimal investment environment for all investors in supply chains, through several steps which include identifying, developing investment opportunities and presenting them to investors.
It also includes establishing a number of special economic zones in the near future through which an attractive environment can be created for investors, in addition to attracting the regional headquarters of international companies to the Kingdom.
The Kingdom is also working to implement regulatory and procedural reforms in various aspects to improve investment environment and increasing its attractiveness and competitiveness.
The pandemic, trade disputes and the geopolitical landscape have broken or weakened global supply chains, driving up commodity prices and disrupting production and distribution.
The GSCRI will leverage the Kingdom’s resources, infrastructure and location to bring greater resilience to economies and companies across Europe, the Americas and Asia, while further enhancing Saudi Arabia’s position in the global economy.
The strategy of continuous enhancement of the investment environment will be coupled with attractive opportunities and a unique incentives budget, including US$2.6 billion (SAR 10 billion) in financial and non-financial incentives.
This aims to attract US$10.6 billion (SAR 40 billion) of quality, industrial and service investments in global supply chains to the Kingdom within the launching phase.
Saudi Arabia offers a strong value proposition to investors across several key dimensions.
It provides a resilient economy which is the largest in the Middle East and the fastest growing in the G20, a strategic location at the heart of three continents and a source of key raw materials for manufacturing.
Saudi Arabia also offers access to oil, gas, electricity, renewable energy and human resources at competitive costs.
The Kingdom offers a robust logistics infrastructure across industrial cities, airports and ports, with ambitious expansion plans underway as part of the National Transport and Logistics Strategy.
The country’s digital infrastructure has witnessed significant progress with widespread high-speed internet coverage and 5G now available to nearly 80 percent of the population.
The Kingdom’s workforce is young, educated and ambitious, with Saudis under the age of 30 accounting for about 60 percent of the population.
The Kingdom has launched many ambitious plans and programs including some which have already started being implemented.
The aim of these programs are achieving sustainability, protecting the environment and confronting climate change.
These plans include major initiatives such as “Green Saudi Arabia” and “Green Middle-East” initiatives and the program to diversify the energy mix used in generating electricity, so that the proportion of renewable energy in electric power production will be 50 percent by 2030.
They also include the development of Blue and Green hydrogen production, to make Saudi Arabia the largest producer and exporter of this product, as well as pioneering steps in the development and application of carbon capture technologies.
These support the National Initiative for Global Supply Chains, attract green investment opportunities such as manufacturing green metals using green hydrogen, manufacturing hydrogen production devices by electrolysis, advanced industries in recycling and others.