Saudi Arabia Mining Industry News

Industry and Mineral Resources Minister Issues Decisions to Allocating 54 Mining Reserve Sites in the Kingdom 

The Minister of Industry and Mineral Resources, Bandar bin Ibrahim Al-Khorayef has issued 7 decisions related to the largest allocation process for mining reserve sites in the Kingdom, including 54 sites with an area of approximately 4000 km2, in light of the aspirations of the leadership to develop the mining sector within the Kingdom’s Vision 2030.  

These sites are distributed in the regions of Riyadh, Makkah, Madinah, Asir, Hail and Najran, where 12 sites were allocated to gold ore, 12 sites for copper ore, 9 sites for rare earth elements, 7 sites for silver ore, 5 sites for zinc ore, 3 sites for lead ore, two sites for iron ore, two sites for quartz ore, one site for tin ore and one site for molybdenum ore. 

 By identifying these mining sites in various regions of the Kingdom, the Ministry could achieve a number of goals, including providing the attractive investment environment, providing the data needed by the private sector in this field, and offering opportunities for local and international companies to invest in the utilization of mineral resources.
The Saudi Geological Survey plans to start detailed exploration of the aforementioned mining reservoirs and conduct many detailed studies on it and then make modeling for them and calculate the mineralized sources for each reservoir and site to be presented later as investment opportunities. 

Cross-government investment promotion campaigns saw significant success in 2019, with 1,131 new international companies setting up operations throughout the year, compared to 736 companies in 2018 .  Strong growth in number of international companies demonstrates that the Kingdom is driving forward on its path to achieve the goals set out in Saudi Vision 2030, as skills transfer becomes localized and private sector development creates job opportunities 

 The Kingdom’s growing foreign investment landscape is underpinned by sweeping economic and social reforms made throughout 2019, aimed at improving Saudi Arabia’s business climate and attracting new investments. The impact of these reforms is being recognized on a global scale: Saudi Arabia was ranked the world’s top improver and reformer by the World Bank, climbing 30 places in the World Bank’s Doing Business 2020 report. 

Saudi Arabia is one of the most populous and wealthiest nations in the Middle East, the heart of the Islamic and Arab world.  Located at the convergence of Europe, Asia, and Africa, the Kingdom is a natural bridge connecting people and goods around the world, representing a crucial logistic hub for both global trade routes and for business expansions.

The Saudi economy has experienced an annual average growth rate of 4% over the past seven years, supported by a pro-business environment that quickly moves the investors to the heart of the Arabic market.

The Kingdom is fully committed developing the investment environment: tremendous efforts in advancing the business ecosystem have been already made, and new measures aimed at making it easier to do business are already planned.