Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources Mr. Bandar Alkhorayef has announced that the kingdom is targeting to manufacture more than 300,000 cars annually by the year 2030.
The minister made this announcement during the ceremony of laying the foundation stone for the electric car plant of Lucid Motors at King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) in Rabigh. The KAEC plant aims to export more than 85 percent of its production, as per the statement.
The electric vehicle giant’s first international plant at KAEC targets the manufacturing of 150,000 vehicles per year. Lucid currently manufactures cars at a plant in Arizona and the KAEC plant would assemble its electric vehicles.
Bandar Alkhorayef Minister of Industry & Mineral Resources Saudi Arabia
“Lucid’s choice of Saudi Arabia as the headquarters of its first plant in the Middle East confirms the Kingdom’s competitiveness and its ability to exploit several advantages it enjoys. These advantages are the distinguished geographical location, and the ability to connect with many regional and global markets, in addition to good infrastructure and quality of services. The dossier of the automotive industry in the Kingdom is one of the important files that the national strategy for the industry has taken into account as it is one of the complex industries that contribute to the development of supply chains for many products. The Kingdom aims to manufacture cars to cover the local demand and export globally. The volume of spending on cars in the Kingdom during the year 2020 reached nearly $10 billion (SR40 billion) while the size of the Saudi market exceeds more than half a million cars annually, which represents 50 percent of the Gulf market.”
The minister noted that the Saudi Industrial Development Fund (SIDF) has provided financing for the construction of the Lucid plant, with a value of more than $1.3 billion (SR5 billion).
The establishment of a new manufacturing center for Lucid company in Saudi Arabia comes in line with the Kingdom’s directions aimed at diversifying the economic base, especially the development of the industrial sector, as per Mr. Alkhorayef.
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