‘Most important’ French delegation visiting Kingdom for major forum

A delegation from France that will visit Saudi Arabia ahead of the second Saudi-French Business Opportunities Forum on Monday will be the “most important” to have ever visited the Kingdom, according to the French Embassy’s Head of the Economic Department, Philippe Gassmann. He said the delegation, comprising over 300 participants, would aim to foster long-term relationships with their Saudi counterparts at the two-day event and look for opportunities to set up investments in the Kingdom and vice versa.

Gassmann said, “French blue chip companies already know Saudi Arabia very well thanks to their long-lasting presence in the Kingdom. Nevertheless, many SMEs will discover the country for the first time. We believe that Saudi Arabia is a tremendous market where you can foster long-term relationships. We also count on the warm welcome of Saudis to help us convince our visiting companies that the Kingdom offers not only profits but a friendly environment to do business.”

He added that Saudi Arabia has been a long-standing target for French investors, making France the Kingdom’s third biggest investor with a foreign direct investment stock of $15 billion. However, the French delegates were also keen to boost investments from Saudi businessmen in their country.

Gassmann said, “In France, Saudi investments are focused on luxury hotels, real estate and agriculture. We hope to welcome more Saudi investments in every layer of our economy and balance them with our investments in the Kingdom. Indeed, the stock of Saudi foreign direct investments in France is still quite low, under $1 billion, and this figure could be raised, especially in the ‘French Tech’, our fruitful cluster of start-ups.”

He believed there were many promising fields of investment in Saudi Arabia such as healthcare, agriculture and ICT, and it was hoped the forum would act as a “springboard” to develop partnerships in those fields.

He said, “We already have a strong presence in various sectors such as finance, petrochemicals, energy, water and services. Our companies employ over 30,000 people in the Kingdom with a Saudization (job localization) rate of 36 percent. Therefore, we fully comply with the Nitaqat program (to facilitate Saudization) and none of our companies have fallen below the green level (indicating whether companies have met their job localization targets or not). As a matter of fact, our companies are committed not only to create jobs, but to develop the skills of their staff.”

Gassmann said he hoped the forum would improve on the successes of the first forum, held in Paris in April 2013 with the participation of 600 delegates from both countries.

“We expect to do better for this second session in Riyadh, with more participants and more signings,” he said. “Besides, we hope to benefit from a better press coverage thanks to the presence of numerous high officials from both countries.”

The Saudi-French Business Opportunities Forum is to be held in the presence of HE Manuel Valls, Prime Minister of France. The forum's website, www.saudifrenchforum.com, has registered a high demand from those who want to attend the events and workshops that will be held with the participation of an elite group of senior government officials and experts, economists, investors, businessmen and senior business leaders, researchers and academics from both countries.

The forum has a series of objectives that it aims to meet, particularly creating opportunities for mutual foreign direct investment in major industries and identifying new investment opportunities in the Saudi and French markets.

It also has the goal of acting as an enabler for new sustainable trade and industry projects and encouraging medium to large companies from both the Saudi and French markets to establish business relationships. It will develop effective recommendations and initiatives to help facilitate strategic business alliances between organizations in the two markets.

Finally, the forum aims to help develop a knowledge-based society.

It will also discuss ways to implement recommendations from the Paris-based meetings that were held by the joint Saudi-French Committee and headed by the Saudi Ministry of Commerce and Industry in October 2014.

The Minister of Commerce and Industry Dr. Tawfiq Al-Rabiah signed a cooperation agreement in the industrial sector with the French Ministry of Economy and Finance during a recent visit to France.

The agreement includes cooperation in the development of industrial exports from the two countries, increasing the volume of trade and exchange of commercial and industrial information available to the two sides, as well as providing expertise with regard to industrial policy and innovation to contribute to the support and increase of the competitiveness of small, medium and emerging enterprises.

It also sets out the policies of industrial clusters that will form the basis of cooperation between the two sides for the promotion and development of a knowledge-based economy, facilitates cooperation on organizing exhibitions and conferences earmarked for the marketing of industrial products from both countries, and includes all other means aimed at promoting commercial, industrial and investment relations between the two countries.