Foreign direct investment (FDI) into Saudi Arabia fell by almost 60% in 2022, the first annual drop in five years and the second largest drop in more than 15 years, according to new data.
Total inward investment into the kingdom in 2022 was $7.9 billion, according to data released by the Saudi Central Bank (Sama) in late February. It was the second highest annual figure since 2016.
Much of the 60% year-on-year decline in investment stems from a $12.4 billion deal in 2021 in which Saudi Aramco sold a large minority stake in its Aramco Oil Pipelines Company subsidiary. That pushed 2021’s figure to the highest in more than a decade ($19.3 billion) recorded in 2021.
Still, as Forbes notes, “even the 2021 figure was far below the FDI levels seen in the first decade of the century. In 2008, total foreign investment into the country had been $39.5 billion and it remained at an elevated level of $36.5 billion the following year and $29.2 billion the year after that.”
Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 has set a goal of increasing FDI’s contribution to GDP to 5.7% by 2030, and authorities have set an ambitious target of attracting $100 billion in annual FDI by 2030 as part of the Kingdom’s recently launched National Investment Strategy.
Last year, authorities launched a new inward investment agency, the Saudi Investment Promotion Authority, to try and attract more foreign capital.
