Faisal Bin Tarad, the Saudi Ambassador to India, has said that the Saudi and Indian governments are planning to set up a mutual fund with capital of between $500 million and $750 million for private sector joint investments. “The Saudi government will provide two thirds of the fund, and India a third,” Tarad said. The fund is expected to be operational within a year once all the legal aspects related to its signing have been finalized. Tarad also revealed that contracts worth over SR1 billion had been signed with Indian companies to provide pilgrim buses. “Saudi Arabia is beginning to take more interest in India,” Tarad said. “There are real opportunities for economic cooperation, although Indian investors have been more active than their Saudi counterparts, investing $2.5 billion, a figure far higher than that for Saudi investments in India.” He described investment opportunities as particularly evident in “energy production, road building and technology”, and revealed a ministerial visit planned for later this year. “A large Saudi trade delegation headed by Minister of Trade and Industry Abdullah Zainal will visit India in August to look at investment opportunities for Saudi businessmen,” he said. He noted increased business opportunities with the continued growth of India's economy, which, he said, had not fallen below 7.2 percent over the past ten years, even during the world economic crisis, adding that trade exchange between the two countries had increased ten-fold over the years due to the Kingdom's oil exports, the Delhi Declaration, and the strategic partnership between the two countries. “India used to import 25 percent of its energy needs from the Kingdom, and that rose to 35 percent following the recent visit of the Indian prime minister to the Kingdom,” he added. Indian exports to the Kingdom, meanwhile, have gone up from $1 billion to $4.5 billion over the last 10 years, while Saudi Arabian exports reached $25 billion, said Tarad. The ambassador also spoke of the technology valleys projects in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam which were recently approved by the Cabinet, and building cooperation with the main Chambers of Commerce in India. “We are at the moment coming close to opening a trade attaché to serve investment between the two countries, and Saudi universities have begun signing memorandums of understanding with universities and centers working in technology in India, which will be a catalyst for other universities to benefit from scientific research in India,” he said.
