3.5 billion dollars in Saudi deals with the private sector

Saudi Arabia announced the conclusion of 6 partnership agreements with the private sector in the Kingdom in the past two months, amounting to 3.5 billion riyals.

The CEO of the National Center for Privatization and Public Private Partnership in Saudi Arabia, Turki Al-Hugail, said that the kingdom plans to sign at least 23 other agreements by 2022.

Al-Hogail, who oversees the privatization process, added: "It is better for the process to take longer to ensure that it is done correctly.

He continued, saying: We are preparing for many deals, whether in the process, or in other projects to come, and we want to ensure that the process is done correctly.

Under these public-private partnership agreements, private sector investors build infrastructure projects, and they are paid to manage them for a period of time before their ownership is transferred to the state.

There are more than 23 of those deals planned in the water sector by 2022, between more than 40 public-private partnership agreements and upcoming privatization processes.

Al-Hogail did not name foreign or local investors in the deals or provide numbers about their shares, but among the participants are companies from France, Spain, China, Japan, the United States and Scandinavia, in addition to Egypt and the Emirates.

The Kingdom’s government aims to attract investments in all fields from education to sports, and it is the cornerstone of its efforts to reduce dependence on oil revenues.

And Riyadh set a target earlier to achieve revenues, other than government oil revenues, by about 35 to 40 billion riyals (approximately $ 10 billion) of the privatization program by 2020.

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