Saudi PIF aims to invest $266bn in new initiatives by 2025; Governor

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, Public Investment Fund’s (PIF) Governor Mr. Yasir Al-Rumayyan has stated that the PIF intends to invest up to $266 billion (SR1 trillion) in the new initiatives by the year 2025.

“The PIF 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,” the governor said.

Addressing the Saudi Budget Forum, Mr. Al-Rumayyan noted that 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 rise in oil prices that helped to refill state coffers hammered by the pandemic.

Saudi Arabia expects a fiscal surplus of $23 billion (SR90 billion), or 2.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), in 2022, following a fiscal deficit of 2.7 percent of GDP this year. This will be the first surplus since the country went into a deficit after oil prices crashed in 2014.

“PIF aims to increase the volume of assets under management from $479 billion (SR1.8 trillion) currently to $1.0 trillion (SR4 trillion). The fund continues to achieve its goals for the year 2025, which are to pump $266 billion (SR1 trillion) into new projects, and the volume of assets under management to reach $1.0 trillion (SR4 trillion). The goals also include contributing to raise the non-oil gross domestic product (GDP) to $319 billion (SR1.2 trillion) cumulatively, and to increase the contribution of the fund and its subsidiaries in local content to reach 60 percent, in addition to creating direct and indirect jobs in the local market.”

According to Mr. Al-Rumayyan, PIF’s strategy was based on an assessment of the local perspective and centered on 13 local priority sectors. The PIF governor further added that 47 companies have been established since 2016 in many strategic sectors.

Mr. Al-Rumayyan remarked that “a group of companies affiliated with the Fund signed development contracts worth more than $3 billion (SR13 billion), and this represents more than 70 percent of the value of the contracts of the Red Sea Development Company, which were awarded to Saudi companies.”

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