Hitachi innovation forum explores business opportunities

Hitachi, Ltd. hosted the "Hitachi Social Innovation Forum," a Hitachi Group general exhibition, recently in Riyadh, which was aimed at expanding business in Saudi Arabia and other countries in the MENA.
The forum included exhibits and seminars held jointly by Hitachi and MEED, a media organization covering the MENA. Through this event, the group endeavored to deepen ties with local companies and customers and increase business in this part of the world by introducing Hitachi’s joint venture activities with local companies in industrial fields, along with Hitachi’s advanced, cutting-edge technologies in fields including industrial and IT solutions, energy, mobility, health care, and water treatment.
The MENA region is expected to demonstrate dramatic growth in the future, particularly given the positioning of Arab countries, which have the richest reserves of natural resources in the world and countries such as Iraq and Libya, where reconstruction demand is seen to be increasing.
Saudi Arabia in particular has continued to demonstrate stable economic growth based on income from natural resources, and is investing efforts in the growth of industries other than oil. In its ninth, five-year plan, covering the years from 2010 to 2014, the Saudi government laid out new policies involving large-scale investments in social infrastructures, focusing mainly on the implementation and maintenance of power supply networks and facilities in the water and telecommunications fields.
Furthermore, in order to strengthen the electric power infrastructure, the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy, an organization established in 2010 under the direct guidance of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, has set a goal of establishing 16 nuclear reactors (18 GW) and introducing power generating facilities using solar and wind power and other forms of renewable energy on a scale of 54 GW by the year 2032.