Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority

The Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) is the foreign investment license provider for the Kingdom.[1] It was created by the Saudi Government on 10 April 2000, as part of measures geared towards formalizing the process of economic liberalization. The government body awards investment licensing online and reports to the president of the Supreme Economic Council. SAGIA's headquarters are located in Riyadh, with three other business centers located in Saudi Arabia: Medina, Dammam and Jeddah. In order to facilitate investment, a larger network of business centers has been announced.[2] The centers provide a variety of services such as giving advises, providing information about the requirement to get license and the services acquired after getting the license. This is achieved as the centers have representatives from different governmental agencies including, the Ministry of Labor, the General Directorate of Passports and others.[3]

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA)
الهيئة العامة للإستثمار
Agency overview
JurisdictionSaudi Arabia
HeadquartersRiyadh
Agency executive
  • Khalid Al Faleh, Minister
Websitewww.sagia.gov.sa

History

Prior to 2000, Saudi Arabia had failed to attract significant foreign investments in its telecommunications, transportation, and power industries despite being the largest market in the Gulf. Foreign investors were deterred by several factors including incomplete economic data, restrictive visa policies for workers, and an extremely conservative cultural environment.[4]

Since 2016, the SAGIA holds a central position in the deployment of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030.[5]

Creation

Intending to liberalize the nation's trade and investment programs, diversify the economy, and join the World Trade Organization, the Saudi Arabian Council of Ministers initiated the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) in April 2000. Under the Council of Ministers Resolution No. 2 dated April 9, 2000, the Authority was created as a vehicle for investment in Saudi Arabia, with the purpose of sustaining economic growth and addressing investment affairs nationwide, including foreign investment.[6]

10 x 10 program

The objective of SAGIA's “10 x 10” program, which ran from 2005 to 2010, was to place Saudi Arabia among the world's top ten competitive investment destinations by 2010. SAGIA created the National Competitiveness Center (NCC) to compare the performance of Saudi Arabia's investment opportunities to more than 300 indicators of global competitiveness, assessed in such publications as the World Bank’s Doing Business report, the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report, and the IMD’s World Competitiveness Yearbook.[7] According to the World Bank Doing Business report, Saudi Arabia rose from number 67 in 2005 to number 16 in 2009.[8]

Economic Cities program

Launched in 2006, the Economic Cities program was designed to drive toward greater competitiveness, job creation, and economic diversification.

In developing economic cities, over a thousand of the world's free zones were surveyed. The sixty deemed most successful were studied to determine key success factors. The objectives of the Economic Cities were to promote regional development, achieve economic diversification, create jobs, and enhance competitiveness in Saudi Arabia. Four new cities were identified and thus developed: King Abdullah Economic City, Jazan Economic City, Prince Abdulaziz Bin Mousaed Economic City, and the Knowledge Economic City, Medina.

Foreign ownership

In October 2011, Pfizer signed an agreement with SAGIA to set up its first manufacturing plant in King Abdullah Economic City. In June 2016, SAGIA gave Pfizer 100% foreign ownership of its legal entity in Saudi Arabia.[9] In August 2017, SAGIA announced allowing 100 percent foreign ownership in the engineering business, after consultations.[10]

Activities

The SAGIA is responsible for three main functions: making improvements to increase the Kingdom's competitiveness as an investment destination; building upon the quality of service and value proposition offered to investors; and offering new investment opportunities to attract businesses and investors alike, to help advance Saudi Arabia's economic diversification agenda.[11] Since its creation in 2000, SAGIA also addresses internal obstacles such as women's rights in the workplace to tackle issues related to the investment climate.[4]

SAGIA acts as provider of all investment-related services in the Kingdom: Advisory services, business match-making, liaison and coordination across government departments, instant online licenses.[5] In 2009 the Kingdom was listed as 8th largest in the worldwide ranking of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) recipients.[12]

The SAGIA organizes the Global Competitiveness Forum is an annual program of activities held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.[13]

TAYSEER Program

In an aim to boost the private sectors’ involvement, SAGIA launched Tayseer program. The main aim of the program is to secure the business environment for private companies.[14] As improving the environment for business is one of the key objectives of Saudi 2030 Vision, the program aims at facilitating private sector's engagement in business and decision making.[15]

Governance

The Authority's board of directors comprises 14 directors from the Saudi private and public sectors. Prince Saud Bin Khalid Al-Faisal has been deputy governor of SAGIA since December 2010. Governors of SAGIA served four-year terms, as follows:

  • 2000-2004: Abdullah bin Faisal bin Turki Al Saud[16]
  • March 2004-May 2012: Amr Al Dabbagh
  • May 2012-April 2017: Abdullatif bin Ahmed Al Othman
  • Since April 2017: Ibrahim bin Abdul Rahman Alomar

See also

References
  1. Allam, Abeer (30 March 2014). "Saudi red tape frustrates foreign investment". Financial Times. Retrieved 3 December 2016.
  2. "Invest Saudi". UAE Ministry of Economy. Retrieved 3 December 2016.
  3. "Investors Services". Invest Saudi. Retrieved 18 February 2019.
  4. Khalid Al-Yahya, First Arab Regional Forum on Innovations in Governance, Harvard.edu, November 2006
  5. Saudi Arabia Beyond Oil, Wko.at, 13 December 2016
  6. The Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority Board Resolution No. (2/74), Sagia.gov.sa
  7. NCC (National Competitveness Center)Overview
  8. Oxford Business Group, On top of the world, The Report: Saudi Arabia on Books.google.com, 2008
  9. Success stories: Pfizer, Sagia.gov.sa
  10. Frank Kane, Saudi Arabia to allow 100% foreign ownership of engineering firms, Arabnews.com, 9 August 2017
  11. Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA), Weforum.com
  12. Omar G. Aziz, Foreign Direct Investment in Arab Economies, Uws.edu.au, 2015
  13. About GCF
  14. "Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority launches TAYSEER to stimulate investing climate". Arab News. 12 November 2017. Retrieved 9 April 2019.
  15. "Reforms & Achievements - Why Saudi Arabia". Invest Saudi. Retrieved 9 April 2019.
  16. "Who's Who: The House of Saud: Prince Abdullah bin Faisal bin Turki Al-Saud". PBS. Retrieved 7 June 2012.
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