RIYADH: Citing a global “reshaping” of economic ties, Canada’s Minister of AI and Digital Innovation Evan Solomon is moving to deepen partnerships with Saudi Arabia during his visit to the Kingdom this week.
“There’s a reshaping; the United States is openly recognizing that they are reshaping their economic relationships. And so, too, are we. So we’re deepening partnerships all over the world, including in this region, including with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” Solomon told Arab News.
“At the same time, we see the Kingdom as also moving from reliance to resilience; reliance on one commodity, the oil sector, and Vision 2030; here is a very much about diversifying economic development, and that means engaging with other countries like Canada,” he added.
“We are really excited to be here. First of all, in the Kingdom for a number of reasons; Canada and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia have had a long relationship. But in the last nine months we’ve had a transformational change where we’ve had much deeper economic engagement.”
During his visit, the minister held meetings with Abdullah Alswaha, minister of communications and information technology, or MCIT; Dr. Selwa Al-Hazzaa, founder of the startup SDM; and CEO of Humain Tareq Amin.
“We are meeting with private-sector groups and CEOs, where we’ll be meeting with the CEO of Humain. We’ll be meeting with Saudi Telecom. We will be meeting with the sovereign wealth fund, obviously the PIF (Public Investment Fund).”
Speaking about Saudi-Canadian economic cooperation, the minister said: “Cooperation on the business side is excellent, and we need to build it.”
Solomon detailed the numerous Canadian technology companies operating in the Kingdom, including Cohere and OpenText, which recently opened their Middle East headquarters in the King Abdullah Financial District.
More than 150 Canadian companies are currently active in the Kingdom, in sectors such as artificial intelligence, mining, creative economy, healthcare and defense.
Speaking about longstanding Saudi-Canadian ties, the minister highlighted Canada’s technology cooperation with Saudi Arabia, dating back 50 years, with companies such as Bell.
“And people don’t recognize what a deep relationship we’ve got to technology between our two countries,” he said.
“We’ve got great Canadian companies that are working here already ... and we are working toward a memorandum of understanding to build that framework.”
Asked what that framework entailed to further Saudi-Candian economic cooperations, the minister said: “In terms of the MoU that you mentioned, which we will be signing this week, and so we are working with the (MCIT) minister obviously on that, and we’ll make that announcement when it happens.”
Looking to the future, Solomon underlined that Canada would be launching an AI 2030 strategy, complementing their existing national strategy.
“Look, by 2030, I think you’re going to see a dynamic series of relationships across sectors. You’re going to see a lot of mining, critical minerals, LNG investment,” he said. “You’re going to see a lot of tech, whether it’s in telecom, but more in what AI can do for services.
“So you’ll see in healthcare some massive advantages in how AI functions in healthcare, you’ll see it in fintech. In other words, financial security. You’ll see a lot of that. I think you’ll see things in a series of businesses, whether it’s transport, whether it’s tech, mining, energy; all those sectors are growing.”
With multiple ministerial visits to Saudi Arabia, Canadian envoys are looking to further Saudi-Canadian cooperations.
During his visit to Riyadh in January, Canada’s Minister of International Trade Maninder Sidhu said that he believed cooperation would “speed up” under Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government.
