Given the Kingdom’s strategic focus on promoting foreign investment and creating an attractive environment for it, press reports indicate that the net foreign direct investment inflows into the Saudi economy during the first nine months of last year exceeded the full-year target set in the National Investment Strategy, estimated at 42 billion riyals, reaching approximately 65 billion riyals—an increase of 55.28%. It also exceeded the targets for the current year 2022, estimated at 61 billion riyals.

Rise in the value of total foreign investment

Total foreign direct investment in the Saudi economy rose by 8.03% by the end of the third quarter of 2021 on a year-over-year basis, with cumulative foreign direct investment reaching 971.82 billion riyals, compared to 899.64 billion riyals at the end of the same quarter of 2020.

Growth in Flows and Investment in the Third Quarter

In the same context, total foreign investment in Saudi Arabia (direct, portfolio, and other) rose by 19.881% year-over-year by the end of the third quarter of 2021, compared to its value at the end of the same quarter last year, reaching a total of 2.379 trillion riyals, compared to 1.984 trillion riyals at the end of the same quarter of 2020, while foreign direct investment inflows into the national economy during the third quarter of this year reached 6.57 billion, a 61.031% year-over-year increase, compared to 4.08 billion in the third quarter of 2020.