Investment to bring Italian ‘know-how’ to Saudi Arabia: Finance minister

LONDON: Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan says the Kingdom is ready to invest in Italy to bring capital and “know-how” to both countries’ economies.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, he met with his Italian counterpart Giancarlo Giorgetti along with a number of investors.

Al-Jadaan told Italian daily Corriere della Sera that Saudi Arabia has “an excellent relationship with Italy” and “personally, I have a very good relationship with Minister Giorgetti. We are looking for new opportunities to cooperate and will continue to work together.”

Al-Jadaan was keen to talk up the role of Italian investment in the Kingdom, saying: “There are Italian companies that are carrying out important projects in Saudi Arabia — we have just awarded a very large order to an Italian group to create a series of infrastructures for the Asian Winter Games, which will be held in the NEOM mountains.”

He was referring to a contract worth $4.7 billion awarded to Webuild to create three dams, an artificial lake, and a structure on which hotels and residences for 3,600 people will be constructed, as part of NEOM’s ambitious Trojena mountain and ski resort plan.

Al-Jadaan said Saudi Arabia is looking to invest “directly” in Italy’s tech and industrial sectors with a dual objective: “To enter the capital of Italian companies, but also to bring the know-how of your companies to Saudi Arabia, so that they invest and work on projects in our country.”

In September 2023, Saudi Arabia purchased a 9.9 percent stake in Telefonica, one of Europe’s largest communications firms, for $2.1 billion.

“The technological spectrum we are interested in is really very broad, from artificial intelligence to telecommunications,” Al-Jadaan said.

“But let’s also look at other applications that Italy has. I can’t be more specific, because our minister of technology takes care of it.”