Future Investment Initiative: Saudi signs deals worth $50 bn despite withdrawals
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia signed deals worth $50 billion on Tuesday, showing it can still attract investment at a conference boycotted by Western politicians and global business chiefs.
The Saudi cabinet, after a meeting headed by King Salman on the same day, promised to hold to account those who where responsible for journalist Jamal Khashoggi’s death and those who “failed in their duties” in the case that has provoked an international furore and strained ties between Riyadh and the West.
Earlier, Energy Minister Khalid al Falih assured the investment conference that the world’s top crude exporter was passing through a “crisis of a sort” but would power ahead with economic reforms.
The chief executive of Saudi Aramco said the government remained committed to a partial flotation of the oil giant but that the timing would depend on market conditions and other factors.
Hundreds of bankers and company executives joined officials at a palatial Riyadh hotel for the Future Investment Initiative. But while last year’s inaugural conference drew the global business elite, this year’s event has been marred by the withdrawal of more than two dozen high-level speakers. SAUDI ‘WORTH SUPPORTING’ Russia sent a large delegation led by Direct Investment Fund head Kirill Dmitriev. He said journalist’s killing needed to be investigated and the culprits punished, but that the Saudi drive for economic and social reform could not be ignored.
“Saudi Arabia’s reforms are important and they are worth supporting,” he said.
Saudi Arabia signed 25 deals worth $50 billion on Tuesday in the oil, gas, industries and infrastructure sectors with firms such as Trafigura, Total, Hyundai, Norinco, Schlumberger, Halliburton and Baker Hughes.
Saudi Aramco said it signed 15 memoranda of understanding worth $34 billion.
Total Chief Executive Patrick Pouyanné, a panelist on Tuesday, said the French oil and gas producer would announce a retail network in the kingdom with Saudi Aramco.
The managing director of the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, the main backer of the event, said the country was becoming more transparent and that the Saudi Public Investment Fund continued to develop new industries under economic reforms launched by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Yasir al Rumayyan said the fund has invested in 50 or 60 firms via Softbank Group’s Vision Fund and would bring most of those businesses to the kingdom. PIF has committed to invest $45 billion in Vision Fund.
Many Western banks and other companies, fearful of losing business such as fees from arranging deals for Saudi Arabia’s $250 billion wealth fund, sent lower-level executives even as their top people stayed away.
Top executives of Asian firms have been hesitant to pull out, so the participation of Chinese and Japanese institutions may help Riyadh claim the three-day conference as a success. For these reasons, the Western boycott may have little long-term impact on Saudi economic prospects.
The event is being held at the Ritzcarlton in Riyadh, where scores of officials were detained in a crackdown on corruption soon after last year’s conference ended, unnerving investors.