RIYADH: Saudi Arabia is witnessing a spur in private sector companies entering the Kingdom’s mining sector, indicating strong growth in the mineral exploration industry, according to a top official.
In an exclusive interview with Arab News on the sidelines of the Future Minerals Forum in Riyadh, on Jan. 12, Suliman Al-Mazroua, CEO of Saudi Arabia’s National Industrial Development and Logistics Program, said that the long-term strategic plans of the Kingdom in the mining sector have started showing positive results.
“More importantly, the appetite of the private sector to join the mining industry — that is what matters to us. We see a lot of newcomers joining the mining sector. It shows the appetite and the real opportunity they are seeing in this sector. Mining has never been as popular as it is now,” said Al-Mazroua.
He added: “For us to achieve our goals, we must have long-term plans. And this is definitely what Vision 2030 has done for us. With long-term plans, we are achieving our targets.”
The CEO pointed out that events like Future Minerals Forum are reshaping the mining sector in Saudi Arabia, as “it helps attract more private companies to enter the Kingdom and operate in the mineral exploration industry.”
Expressing his excitement about the development of the forum from its first version last year, Al-Mazroua said the event is seeing almost double on everything. "Double on number of deals around the private sector, and double the number of attendees. More than 130 countries contributed to this forum, more than 200 speakers, and more than 13,000 attendees,” he said.
Al-Mazroua further pointed out that 27 memorandums of understanding had been signed so far during the forum, adding: “This number could be even more upon the completion of the event.”
He went on and said that NIDLP has launched more than 50 initiatives just for mining, while the total number of combined initiatives in mining, industry, logistics, and energy stands at 300.
“We are just at the beginning of mining potential in Saudi Arabia, and we will be seeing more to come. We have started seeing the results already; the best two years. We are seeing the number of licenses compared to the full ten years is almost the same. So, what we have done in two years is equal to ten years of historical data,” he added.
Al-Mazroua noted that the Kingdom’s Mining Partnership Council will help the government to get feedback from mining companies, and it will help achieve the highest potential results from the private sector.
“Vision 2030 is all about continuous feedback and continuous enhancement. Having this council with the private sector is to ensure that we have a feedback process to the government to keep improving the process, improving the ease of doing the mining in Saudi, improving how to integrate mining with the logistic industry and energy, and making sure that we achieve the highest potential possible,” he noted.
Al-Mazroua added: “We will be inviting members from the private sector on a monthly basis to review with them what we are doing and how we can improve our performance.”
On the third and final day of the event, during a panel discussion, Al-Mazroua said that bringing different sectors under one umbrella is crucial for the development of the mining industry in Saudi Arabia.
“Integration is the key to the development of the mining sector. We have a program in NIDLP, where the main job is to integrate the four sectors; mining, industry, logistics and energy,” said Al-Mazroua.
