The CEO of Saudi Arabian Military Industries (SAMI) recently gave an interview with DefenseNews.com about how the organization works within Vision 2030 to develop the Kingdom’s future defense industry.
Localizing Saudi Arabia’s military industry is a key part of the Kingdom’s ambitious social and economic reform plans. “SAMI itself is acting as a kind of active holding company,” CEO Andreas Schwer said, “a single umbrella organization to lead its efforts in defense development and expertise.”
“We will operate through four business divisions. Each of the business divisions will be composed of a set of business units. A business unit is a joint venture with a foreign partner, but it would also integrate the existing assets in the kingdom into this umbrella environment; assets which are already joint ventures today but also nationally owned assets, which will be allocated to the various business divisions,” Schwer said.
Created in May 2017, SAMI is backed by the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF). The PIF plans to use its support for SAMI to ultimately create 40,000 jobs and contribute 14 billion riyals ($3.7 billion) to the Saudi economy by 2030.
Andreas Schwer was the former head of combat systems at Germany’s Rheinmetall AG.
