MIAMI: The chairman of Saudi Aramco and governor of the Kingdom’s Public Investment Fund gave assurances at the Future Investment Initiative’s Priority Summit that the current Middle East wars have not impacted the country’s vision for growth and engagement.
“The Saudi microeconomic and physical position remains strong, stable and resilient, and PIF’s portfolio is well diversified and structurally resilient,” Yasir Al-Rumayyan told an audience of nearly 2,000.
“We’re a long-term, patient investor. We measure our returns not in quarters but in decades. And PIF remains committed to its investments around the world.”
Al-Rumayyan said PIF was launched in 1971 to strengthen Saudi Arabia’s “nation building” and reinforce the economy.
That growth has continued through today, with an announcement of the next five-year strategy to be made in the coming weeks, he added.
“We built the foundation for many of these investments initially, and under the previous strategy we wanted to do most of the investments by ourselves. It’s all equity,” Al-Rumayyan said.
“Now we’re looking in a greater way how to invite people to come and work with us. And I’m not talking only about domestic investors, local investors … I’m talking about international investors.”
PIF has already seen major asset managers such as BlackRock and Franklin Templeton establishing new funds and invest in the Saudi economy, he said.
“The main thing that we tried to achieve is how to bring Saudi to the world, how different investors around the world will know who PIF is, and what Saudi and what investments in Saudi could feel or look like. Now we’re in a stage where we want to bring the whole world to come and invest in Saudi,” he said, adding that the strategy has been very successful.
“For the past 10 years or so, we built the foundation for these investments for the right environment, the right ecosystems for people to come and invest with us.
“And there could be different parts of investments. It doesn’t have to be all in the form of JVs (joint ventures) or an actual investment into our companies, but to come and work with us and the investments that we’re (already) in.”
Al-Rumayyan said investments are expanding from urban development and real estate projects to creation of data centers, pharmaceutical sectors and renewable energy.
He added that PIF is undertaking a new growth strategy to attract new investors, citing as an example the “stunning developments” of Red Sea Global, which describes itself as “a vertically integrated real estate developer with a diverse portfolio across tourism, residential, experiences, infrastructure, transport, healthcare, and services.”
Saudi Arabia is also “very well-positioned” to maximize the advantages of artificial intelligence, Al-Rumayyan said.
“AI isn’t a race … We have to think about it … and put the right foundation,” he added. “We have the accessibility of procurement … We have the energy to ignite it, which is something very important to put (in) all of these data centers. On top of that, we have the right ecosystem for it, the right regulations, the right treatment from the government to the users of AI.”
AI is not the “end product,” Al-Rumayyan said. “The end product is what our companies are doing, how our companies can cut costs and be more efficient, delivering on their promises faster than expected. That’s how we’d like to get to work with AI as a major tool.”
He added: “We’ve invited most of the partners from the US, the Microsofts, the Googles, the Oracles, all of them to come and work with us, and they did.
“And I think the progress in Saudi Arabia is one of the best, even globally when it comes to the uses of AI.”
Saudi Aramco has used AI to bring down the cost of drilling by about 20 percent, and has improved delivery of their end products by about 30 percent, he said.
Al-Rumayyan described FII summits as the “greatest platforms or venues for people to do actual networking.”
PIF investments in the US are credited with fueling American business growth, creating opportunities, jobs, and contributing $205 billion to gross domestic product.
