A total of 24 international companies such as PepsiCo, Schlumberger, Deloitte, PWC, Tim Hortons, Bechtel, Bosch and Boston Scientific have signed agreements with the Saudi authorities to set up their regional offices in capital Riyadh, reported SPA.

 

The deals were inked by the CEOs of these companies in the presence of Minister of Investment Engineer Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al Falih and CEO of the Royal Commission for Riyadh City Fahd bin Abdulmohsen Al Rasheed.

 

This step reflects the importance and confidence in the Saudi market regionally and globally, stated the report.

 

The efforts to attract regional offices of international companies come in line with the Riyadh strategy, which aims to double the size of  its economy and achieve major leaps in generating jobs, improving the quality of life, and attracting and expanding investments to elevate the Saudi capital to the ten largest city economies in the world by 2030.

 

The headquarters attraction programme aims to increase the percentage of the local content, reduce any economic leakage, and develop new sectors, in addition to creating tens of thousands of new quality jobs for the best qualified people, stated the report.

 

Attracting regional headquarters is not an end, but rather one of the economic growth potentials that Riyadh aspires to achieve.

 

Saudi Arabia is currently working on many systemic amendments with the aim of developing an investment environment that incubates global investments, stated the report.

 

The kingdom will work to provide many incentives and advantages that raise its competitiveness regionally and globally, to attract these headquarters and give them sufficient time to move and operate without affecting their business. 

 

The incentives offered will be limited to regional headquarters only, excluding their operations outside the regional headquarters, said the SPA report, citing the Royal Commission for Riyadh City.

 

The Commission will work with these companies on programs and initiatives to qualify young Saudi leaders to work in these headquarters, as attracting regional headquarters will result in more than 35,000 jobs for young men and women in the Kingdom, in addition that each job created at the regional headquarters produces two or three jobs approximately.

 

It is expected that the establishment of regional headquarters by these global multinational groups in Riyadh will contribute around SR61 to SR70 billion ($16.2 billion to $18.6 billion) to the national economy by 2030 through salaries, operating and capital expenditures of these companies, resulting in a growth in the local content across many important sectors.