On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia agreed to sign nine investment deals in metals and mining worth more than 35 million riyals, which is equivalent to $9.32 billion. The companies included in the deal include India Vedanta and China’s Zijin Group.
The deal’s announcement was helped during the World Investment Conference by the Global Supply Chain Resilience Initiative, a government program under the Saudi government’s National Investment Strategy in Riyadh.
The mining industry in the Kingdom is part of the 2030 vision plan to diversify the economy and cut down on fossil fuel reliance. With this, the government is seeking to attract a $100 billion foreign investment in a year under the 2030 plan.
A conference presentation showed that oil-to-metals conglomerate Vedanta will build copper facilities with a 7.5 billion riyals capital expenditure, including a smelter and refinery with 400,000 metric tons per annum (tpa) capacity and a 300,000 tpa copper rod plant.
The same presentation also predicted that the project would bring domestic self-sufficiency in copper production, contributing 70 billion riyals in economic growth.
