Saudi MoI eases procedures for foreign business investors

Those establishing and starting a business from outside the kingdom, in partnership with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Commerce, will be issued investment licences quickly and easily as per international best practices, an SPA report said.

 

The new step contributes to strengthening the kingdom’s reforms and comes as a result of integration and partnership between government agencies to address the challenges facing investors and contributes to raising the competitiveness of the kingdom’s investment environment regionally and globally. This enhances the kingdom’s position as an attractive investment destination providing ease of starting businesses.

 

Under the new service, new investors will only need to do three steps to authenticate the agency and attestation of the establishment contract, starting with visiting the website of the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs and applying for “adding a request for attestation of a contract” at the kingdom’s missions abroad.

 

The second step requires the investors to visit the electronic services portal on the MoI website where they can apply for the licence issuance, while the final step requires the investor to visit the Ministry of Commerce website to authenticate the establishment contract of the business and issue the commercial register.

 

MoI confirmed that the new service, which was inaugurated in a number of the kingdom's embassies, will bring about fundamental changes in the investor's journey, facilitate the establishment and start of foreign companies' businesses, and overcome the obstacles they faced in the past, including, for example, the need for companies to visit the kingdom to document incorporation contracts with the multiplicity of documents that must be submitted and redundancy of requests, and visits to various government agencies for verification, which used to be attributed to the lack of electronic connectivity between MoI and the Ministries of Trade and Foreign Affairs.

 

The ministry added that there will be a broad marketing campaign in several languages to ensure that the largest possible segment of foreign investors and companies can benefit from the new service.