The French Economic Attaché in the Kingdom, Philippe Gassmann, welcomed the Kingdom's decision to open the way for foreign companies in the retail and wholesale sectors to invest in the Kingdom, adding that there are companies that will come soon to assess the economic situation in order to study the possibility of establishing investment projects after the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz announced the historic decision to open investment to foreign companies with a 100% ownership ratio.
During a press conference held yesterday at the headquarters of the French Embassy in Riyadh to announce the launch of the second Saudi-French Business Opportunities Forum next October in the Kingdom, organized by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Gassmann announced that French companies will look for new partners to enhance their investments with businessmen in order to achieve common interests between the two countries.
French companies will look for new partners to enhance their investments with businessmen in order to achieve common interests between the two countries.
For his part, President of the Saudi-French Business Council Dr. Mohammed bin Laden said that the intensive preparations that are taking place in the corridors of the concerned authorities to hold the largest Saudi-French economic gathering concerned with economic, investment and trade affairs between the two countries, “the second Saudi-French Business Opportunities Forum, will witness many investment opportunities between the two countries, present joint projects and introduce the investment environment.”
<The latest statistics indicate that the volume of trade exchange between the Kingdom and France reached more than ten billion euros in 2014, and the volume of Saudi exports to France amounted to about three billion euros. Saudi-French relations enjoy an economic partnership and it is known that France is a major economic partner of the Kingdom, as it ranked ninth among the top ten exporters to the Kingdom in 2014, and ranked 15th among the countries importing from the Kingdom, and about 82 French companies working in the Kingdom employing 30,000 people with a localization rate of 36%, and these companies invested more than 15 billion dollars in the Kingdom, thus ranking France third among the largest foreign investors in the Kingdom, while the latest statistics indicate that the trade exchange between the Kingdom and France amounted to more than ten billion euros in 2014. while the value of Saudi investment in France amounted to 829 million euros, and Saudi direct investment in France is equivalent to 3% of the value of Saudi foreign direct investment in the world, and 30% of the foreign direct investment of the GCC countries in France, and in April 2013 the General Investment Authority granted new licenses to a number of French companies to establish investment projects in the Kingdom in various sectors and fields.
