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Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources and Chairman of National Industrial Development Centre (NIDC), Bandar bin Ibrahim Al-Khorayef, announced 50 investment opportunities worth 96 billion Saudi riyals ($26 billion) in the machinery and equipment sector through the Invest Saudi platform.
A press statement issued by the Ministry on Tuesday said these projects support National Industry Strategy (NIS), which aims to expand the Kingdom's industrial base, reduce machine and equipment imports by up to 50 percent, increase exports of industrial products to regional and global markets and reduce reliance on imports for cast and forged products.
Al-Khorayef said these projects would contribute to establishing complete value chains from raw materials to finished products, adding that three projects for casting and forging, a core input for the machinery and equipment sector, were finalised during 2021-2022 with investments exceeding $1 billion.
In March 2022, Tuwaiq Casting & Forging, a joint venture of Doosan Heavy, Saudi Arabian Industrial Investments Company (Dussur) and Saudi Aramco Development Company broke ground for 60,000 tonnes/year capacity castings and forgings plant in the Kingdom representing a total investment of $834 million. The valves and pumps segment have attracted investments worth $119 million.
The Minister said NIDC worked with Schneider Electric over two years to establish a production line in the Kingdom for the company’s Altivar Modular Drives. The $2.6 million production line started operations at the end of 2022. He said the ministry is working with an investor to establish a plant to assemble industrial robots, which will support its Future Factories Programme, an initiative aimed at automating factory operations.
The ministry is also supporting existing companies in the machinery and equipment sector, Al-Khorayef emphasised, citing the support extended to Hitachi Energy to onboard the company’s gas-insulated switchgear products, manufactured at its Damman facility, to the government’s mandatory procurement list. A similar support was extended to TECO Middle East (TME) to get its electric motors approved with major national companies.
The Minister also stated that NIDC is working with Public Investment Fund (PIF) to develop 10 investment opportunities in the machinery and equipment sector with two opportunities in final evaluation stage.
(Writing by Majda Muhsen; Editing by Anoop Menon)
