Saudi Arabia’s $925 billion sovereign wealth fund will focus investments on the country’s economy across six key themes under a new five-year strategy, deploying more money domestically in its latest effort to diversify its reliance on oil, the fund’s governor said.
“Local investment should be 80% and we aim for international investment to be 20%,” down from a high of 30%, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund Governor Yasir Al-Rumayyan told Saudi-based Al Arabiya Business on Wednesday.
Saudi officials, in recent months, have also signalled the fund would step away from costly so-called giga-projects with unclear or limited financial returns, and shift to focusing on generating revenues to drive the economy’s transformation.
The pivot has taken on a new urgency as the Iran war pressures oil exports, following years of lower oil prices and growing budget deficits in the kingdom.
Rumayyan confirmed for the first time that a glitzy 100-mile steel and glass structure known as The Line, part of the NEOM Red Sea giga-project, was no longer a priority, though he denied any projects had been cancelled.
“There are directives to NEOM to reprioritise. Everyone thinks The Line is NEOM, but The Line is one project in NEOM,” he said.
“Is it necessary to have The Line by 2030? I think no. It’s good to have, but not a must-have,” he said.
His comments followed the approval of the PIF’s 2026-2030 strategy by its board, chaired by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
Asked whether the 5-year plan approved on Wednesday could entail a scaling back of international investments, Rumayyan said PIF wanted the dollar-figure to increase but its percentage of total investments to decrease.
Saudi Arabia notably committed to $1 trillion in investments in the U.S. last year, though that was seen as a pledge across its economy and not just from PIF.
Six key ecosystems
The five-year plan groups industries across six so-called ecosystems that the fund will prioritize.
They are tourism, travel, and entertainment; urban development and livability; advanced manufacturing and innovation; industrials and logistics; clean energy, water, and renewables infrastructure; and NEOM.
Two additional investment portfolios include strategic investments to maximize financial returns and financial investments to manage PIF’s direct and indirect investments in global markets, SPA said.
Reuters
