The 8th Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference opened on Tuesday in Saudi Arabia's capital Riyadh.
Dubbed "Davos in the Desert," the FII conference is the largest international investment and innovation forum in the Middle East, attracting many political and business leaders every year.
This year's theme, "Infinite Horizons: Investing Today, Shaping Tomorrow," highlights the event's focus on advancing impactful solutions in areas such as global connectivity, mining, artificial intelligence, health technology, sports, the circular economy, and more.
This year's FII has over 7,000 participants and 600 speakers from diverse sectors, with investors from China and Saudi Arabia actively seeking greater cooperation opportunities.
"Next year marks the 35th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Saudi Arabia. Economic and trade cooperation form an important foundation for our comprehensive strategic partnership, and I am delighted to see more and more Chinese companies coming here. Today, I attended the Future Investment Initiative conference and I was pleased to see many Chinese participants. A friend just informed me that among the more than 5,000 attendees at this event, over 700 are from China. This also shows that our Chinese companies are paying more and more attention to the Saudi market," said Chang Hua, ambassador of China to Saudi Arabia.
For Saudi investors, it is also a valuable opportunity to strengthen ties with Chinese partners and expand collaboration on projects like the futuristic mega-city, NEOM.
"With Chinese, we have a number of partnership and infrastructure projects. I'm not at the liberty of announcing the projects, but, you know, it's well-known between us and between them, and we will announce it in the near future. It's a great partnership to develop very complex projects that will take the capabilities of both NEOM as well as our Chinese partners to the next level," said Manar Al Moneef, chief of the Investment Office of NEOM.
An adit tunnel project of Saudi Arabia's futuristic city NEOM, built by China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC), was completed and delivered in May, which signifies the end of the first project undertaken by a Chinese enterprise in NEOM.
Located at the southern tip of the Gulf of Aqaba and covering an area of 26,500 square km, NEOM represents Saudi Arabia's vision for building an avant-garde future city featuring "a new model for sustainable living, working and prospering."
The city is part of Saudi Vision 2030 initiated to foster a diversified economy. Currently, multiple Chinese enterprises are participating in the building of NEOM City.
Future Investment Initiative conference opens in Saudi Arabia
Future Investment Initiative conference opens in Saudi Arabia
