Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) said on Wednesday it had signed a new memorandum of understanding worth $3 billion with Italy's state export credit agency SACE, as the sovereign wealth fund works to boost finances to fund the kingdom's giga-projects.

"The MoU focuses on providing financing support for cooperation between Italian companies in the private sector and PIF and its portfolio companies", PIF said in a statement.

Italy in January signed agreements worth around $10 billion with Saudi Arabia as part of a strengthened strategic partnership, including SACE loan guarantees worth $3 billion for Saudi Arabia's NEOM, a Red Sea urban and industrial development that is due to house roughly nine million people.

NEOM is central to the kingdom's economic diversification plan dubbed Vision 2030 and aiming to create new sources of growth beyond oil. However, with oil prices tapering off, the kingdom has scaled back some lofty ambitions to prioritise completing elements essential to hosting global sporting events over the next decade as rising costs weigh, sources told Reuters in November.

 

(Reporting by Jana Choukeir and Federico Maccioni, Editing by Jane Merriman, Kirsten Donovan)