Saudi Arabia to open investment office in India

Image credit: PIB

Saudi Arabia’s Investment Minister Khalid Al-Falih announced that the government is looking into setting up an investment office in India.

Al-Falih was speaking at the India-Saudi Investment Forum in New Delhi on Monday as Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman concluded his state visit.

“I will commit today that we will open an office in India for investment facilitation,” said Al-Falih.

The Saudi minister said that the government will send a delegation to India to look into opening such an office.

He stated, “Within the next few weeks, I commit that we will send a strong delegation to GIFT City in Gujarat to look at where we should set up an office for our ministry of investment, whether it should be Mumbai, Delhi or in GIFT City itself.”

Saudi Arabia-India trade ties

He spoke about the recently announced trade corridor which proposes to link the Indian subcontinent to Europe through the Middle East. The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor was announced on the first day of the G20 summit which was held in New Delhi on September 9 and 10.

Al-Falih noted the new economic corridor will significantly benefit all parties involved.

“I want to congratulate the prime minister (Narendra Modi), the crown prince (Mohammed bin Salman), and other global leaders launching the economic corridor; this is going to be a historic moment,” said Al-Falih.

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The minister said that the trade and economic relationship between Saudi Arabia and India have witnessed robust growth over the past few years, thanks to the economic diversification efforts in the kingdom.

Trade ties between Saudi Arabia and India are growing at a robust rate, with Indian exports to Saudi Arabia hitting $10.7bn in 2022, up 85 per cent from $5.6bn in 2018.

Meanwhile, Saudi exports to India between 2018 and 2022 have grown by 114 per cent.

“This engagement has been ongoing for thousands of years. But certainly, in recent times, there has been an accelerated engagement between our two countries, both at the government and private levels,” said Al-Falih.