United States Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin affirmed that the Kingdom Vision 2030 is a transformational opportunity for the recovery and development of the Saudi economy, adding that this vision is an important plan and a great opportunity for the Saudi economy and market. Mnuchin was speaking at the Future Investment Initiative 2019 Forum here on the topic of how capital markets can develop throughout the next decade. His comments come following the upgrade of the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) to emerging market indexes early this year, seeing billions of dollars of investment flow into the Kingdom. Sarah Al-Suhaimi, chairperson of the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul), moderated the discussion on Wednesday. During a session titled "Global Capital Markets" on the sidelines of 3rd edition of FII here, the US Treasury Secretary said that the Kingdom is on a right direction and there will be a wonderful opportunity to develop its economy due to regulations and laws of the Saudi government, which will contribute to the development of its markets. Global growth is slowing and has modestly impacted the United States, Mnuchin said, adding the US economy remained strong with good capital inflows. "There is no question that the global economy is slowing down and that has had some modest drag on the US economy," he said. Mnuchin also said Europe needed to do more on the fiscal and regulatory side to maintain growth. Mnuchin later told Reuters in an interview here that it will take time for Chinese purchases of US agricultural goods to "scale up" to the $40 billion to $50 billion annual level touted by President Donald Trump if the two sides can seal a "Phase 1" trade deal. Mnuchin said, the $40 billion to $50 billion target is "a lot," but is based on "very specific discussions" of product purchase commitments by China. "This is built on a bottom-up basis of both what we think we can deliver and what they think they need," Mnuchin said. "It's a one-year target, but obviously it's going to take some time to scale up." Mnuchin also said that the Trump administration is keeping a list of Turkish sanctions targets ready if needed, but so far is pleased with the ceasefire in Syria that caused prior sanctions to be lifted. Mnuchin said that the list of additional targets was developed for Vice President Mike Pence to take to Ankara to negotiate the cease-fire. He added that had the talks not been successful, the financial sanctions would have been imposed. "The answer is, we still have that list. I have no reason to expect that we'll need to use them," Mnuchin said. "I think we are pleased with the way that this is working." — SPA/Reuters
