The Saudi government has approved 652 contracts valued at SR40 billion ($10.67 billion) during the first four months of 2010, said Dr. Ibrahim Al-Assaf, Minister of Finance, at the opening of the two-day Euromoney Saudi Arabia Conference here Tuesday. Saudi government continues to implement its investment program in an effort to stimulate growth and create additional job opportunities for Saudi citizens. The investment spending in the 2010 budget is up 16 percent from 2009, he said. Spending priorities are determined and expenditures are allocated and distributed to the various areas, including infrastructure projects, based on priority, development plans within government's spending ceiling set according to projected revenues, the minister added. He said the Euromoney Saudi Arabia Conference is taking place amid signs of a global economic recovery. “The appropriate economic policies pursued by the Saudi government in past years, and as we have underscored on previous occasions, the effects of global crisis on the Saudi economy have been limited,” he said. The minister said international financial institutions and observers of developments in the international financial crisis have praised Saudi policies and policy outcomes. Dr. Muhammad Al-Jasser, Governor, Saudi Arabia Monetary Agency (SAMA), who spoke on “Challenges for Monetary Policy and Financial Regulation” in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, said micro-prudential regulation need to be augmented with macro-prudential measure to protect financial institutions from systemic risks. He said crises might not be avoided but they could be fewer and milder through better regulation. “In Saudi Arabia, our banking sector is the least leveraged in the GCC,” Al
