SAUDI ARABIA: Global business leaders and policy makers meet in Riyadh at the annual Global Competitiveness Forum

Record ID: 189306

  • Title: SAUDI ARABIA: Global business leaders and policy makers meet in Riyadh at the annual Global Competitiveness Forum
  • Date: 20th January 2014
  • Summary: RIYADH, SAUDI ARABIA (JANUARY 19, 2014) (REUTERS) WIDE OF GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS FORUM 2014 (GCF 2014 ) VARIOUS OF LOGO OF THE FORUM IN ARABIC AND ENGLISH
  • Embargoed: 4th February 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Saudi Arabia
  • Country: Saudi Arabia
  • Topics: Business,General,Economy,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAB04CLW9OURO2ACD9IW1PHX5T4
  • Story Text: Global business leaders and international political leaders are gathering in Riyadh for the 7th Annual Global Competitiveness Forum (GCF).
    A two day event which takes place from 19-20 January.
    This year's forum focused on the theme, "Building Competitive Partnerships", which included the investment in strategic alliances to enable businesses to gain a competitive advantage through access to partners' resources, technologies, and capital, essentially building a solid workforce to deliver a prosperous economic future.
    "We are seeing a sustainable developmental period in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that requires a methodology to deal with this to take advantage of the capabilities of our economy and achieve the aspirations of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," Abdulatif al-Othman, Governor of Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA), told the attendants.
    The forum discussed various forms of investment opportunities in the oil rich Kingdom, highlighting the success stories as well as addressing the global and regional trends in business competitiveness.
    This year's forum highlights Saudi Arabia as one of the fastest growing economies within the G20, and the third fastest growing in the world between 2009-2012 behind China and India.
    "The Kingdom Occupies the 19th stage on the list of largest economies in the world as the Kingdom's economy is the largest in the region, and the Kingdom has plenty of energy resources, where it owns about 25% of the reserves of the world's oil and has vast potential of solar energy and wind energy," said Muhammad al-Jasser, Saudi Minister of Economy and Planning.
    "The Kingdom has pumped massive investments in infrastructure, and still, where it is estimated that the volume of investments in progress about 2 trillion riyals in the infrastructure construction sectors in the highways and railway, metro lines, ports, and other economic cities," al-Jasser added.
    The forum was a meeting opportunity for local and international business people, said an attendant at the event.
    "This is a global event that takes place in Riyadh inviting local business men and international businessmen, those who want to see what Saudi Arabia stands for and what it can do. And Saudi Arabia is open for business ready to do what it has been doing but more forcefully and with a lot of optimism," Dr. John Sfakianakis, chief investment strategist at Masic Investment Company, told Reuters.
    Saudi Arabia is also the Arab world's biggest stock market and, by some measures, the world's last sizeable market that has not opened to international capital flows. Hopes of the market opening to direct foreign investment has prompted international banks to beef up their presence in the kingdom.
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