RIYADH: As many as 80 new factories in Saudi Arabia started operations in February, with total investments accumulating to SR4.3 billion ($1.1 billion), according to the Ministry of Industry and Mineral Resources.
It marks a 51 percent decline compared to 164 factories that started operation in January.
The February launch include 30 in the non-metallic minerals industry, 12 in the food business, eight in the formed minerals sector, five in the rubber and plastics trade and four in the production of chemicals.
The Kingdom acquired 86.2 percent of the total factories that started production, followed by foreign firms with 11.2 percent and joint ventures with 2.5 percent.
During the same month, the ministry issued up to 85 industrial licenses, a 31 percent drop compared to the 124 issued in January.
Out of the 85 licenses, domestic plants held 82.3 percent of the issuance, followed by foreigners at 12.9 percent and joint investment at 4.7 percent.
The volume of investments in new licenses amounted to SR1.9 billion. Moreover, small enterprises were in the lead as they acquired most of the licenses at 85.8 percent, followed by medium enterprises at 11.7 percent and ultra-small ones at 2.3 percent.
The new industrial licenses were distributed among nine administrative regions, topped by Riyadh with 37 factories, followed by Eastern Province with 21 factories, Makkah Al-Mukarramah with eight factories, Madinah and Qassim with five factories each, Asir with four factories, Al-Jouf with three factories, and one factory for Tabuk and Hail.
The new ministry also issued 18 licenses for manufacturing shaped metal products other than equipment and machinery, 14 licenses for food production and 10 for making rubber and plastic products.
Last month, the Deputy Minister of Industry and Mineral resources Osama bin Abdulaziz Al-Zamil announced that the number of factories in Saudi Arabia has increased by 50 percent since the launch of Vision 2030 in 2016.
His comments come after figures released last year showed there are more than 10,000 industrial facilities in the Kingdom, with 1,023 factories starting operations in 2022 alone.
During the first day of the annual Saudi Industrial Renaissance Forum at the Kingdom’s Al-Yamamah University, Al-Zamil affirmed reliance on the industrial and mining sectors as economic tributaries.
