Minister of Finance Mohammed bin Abdullah Al-Jadaan has stressed that the Kingdom seeks to be an immune economy to global and local challenges, through improving all sectors and caring for digital transformation in the government sector, and taking substantial structural reform measures. This came in the minister's speech in a session entitled "How the Middle East became an international investment powerhouse", hosting Dr. Naif Falah Al-Hajraf, Minister of Finance of Kuwait; Shaikh Salman bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, Minister of Finance and National Economy of Bahrain, within the Future Investment Initiative 2019, being held in Riyadh. Minister Al-Jadaan said that when we talk about the Kingdom, we also talk about the Gulf states and the extended efforts of reform processes, and to ensure coordination between all, noting that the Kingdom is looking forward to structural reforms on the ground in the coming years, where it has made significant progress in reform processes compared to countries, especially in the indicators of competitiveness and the response of the government to changes, technologies and the private sector, as well as focusing on some specific industries. He pointed out that there is significant growth and diversification in the sectors of tourism, technology, sports, entertainment, and others in the Kingdom, in addition to the construction sector shifting since 2014 from a negative point to a positive point by almost 3%. The Minister pointed out that the Kingdom is focusing on the non-oil product to contribute to the stability of growth and development, as well as targeting key performance indicators between the oil and non-oil Gross Domestic Product (GDP), in addition to focusing on oil production, commending the speech of Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Minister of Energy on the Kingdom's Vision and objectives in terms of adding more value to reach other manufacturing industries. He also said that foreign direct investments have increased significantly in the Kingdom, noting that the number of licenses for foreign investments has increased during the past nine years, and this is a significant growth, especially since many foreign investments rose by 3% in the private sector.
