Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), the kingdom sovereign wealth fund plans to invest up to SR1 trillion ($266 billion) in new projects by 2025, reported its top official.
It has been instrumental in creating more than 400,000 direct and indirect job opportunities since 2017 until the end of the second quarter of 2021, stated PIF Governor Yasir Al Rumayyan, while addressing the Saudi Budget Forum in capital Riyadh on 13 December.
Saudi Arabia is expected to post its first budget surplus in nearly a decade next year, as it plans to restrict public spending despite a surge in oil prices that helped to refill state coffers hammered by the coronavirus pandemic.
After an expected fiscal deficit of 2.7 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) this year, Saudi Arabia estimates it will achieve a surplus of SR90 billion or 2.5 per cent of GDP, in 2022 - its first surplus since it went into a deficit after oil prices crashed in 2014.
Al Rumayyan said PIF aims to increase the volume of assets under management from SR1.8 trillion currently to SR4 trillion.
"The fund continues to achieve its goals for 2025, which are to pump SR1 trillion into new projects, and the volume of assets under management to reach SR4 trillion," he stated.
The goals also include contributing to raise the non-oil gross domestic product (GDP) to SR1.2 trillion cumulatively, and to increase the contribution of the fund and its subsidiaries in local content to reach 60 per cent, in addition to creating direct and indirect jobs in the local market, he added.
Al Rumayyan said that PIF’s strategy focused on 13 local strategic sectors based on an assessment of the local perspective. "A total of 47 companies have been established since 2016 in many strategic sectors," he added.
A group of companies affiliated with PIF had signed development contracts worth more than SR13 billion, he stated, adding that this represents more than 70 per cent of the value of the contracts of the Red Sea Development Company, which were awarded to Saudi companies.
He pointed out that Roshan Company, which is affiliated with the Fund, signed strategic partnerships with a group of Saudi companies to develop its first district in Riyadh.
The King Abdullah Financial District Company also signed contracts worth SR10 billion to complete the work and activate the centre while Qiddiya Company signed contracts worth SR5.5 billion, and that includes the initial infrastructure works and the development of the first entertainment destinations, he added.
